Rogue Galaxy 60h02m12s

This morning at 2:00am I finished Rogue Galaxy. It was a big relief to finish it. The final boss battle was a very long and sometimes frustrating multi-part affair. I died once about twenty minutes into it because I didn't use healing items fast enough. A dumb mistake on my part that very nearly caused me to hurl the controller at the wall. It was about 1:00am but I didn't feel like I could sleep until I finished the damned thing, so I re-started. The whole thing ended up taking an hour and a half, although that included some long cutscenes.

The game didn't need to be so long if you ask me, since parts of dungeons were cut-and-pasted over and over in order to make the game longer, which often made them a chore to get through.

In summary, and sad to say, the game did not live up to my expectations (Level 5's last game was the excellent (and even longer, by the way) Dragon Quest VIII).

Although I don't regret the time I spent playing it, there's no way I would bother re-playing it. However, for JRPG fans it's definitely worth playing, with many enjoyable elements (for example the fast and fun real-time battle system, the high quality animation, and the character's Special Attacks, for example Kisala's Deadly Stench attack where she throws the smelly old sock - oh how I wish I could bring her in the next time my boss throws a tantrum).

Scientific?

I like eating sushi, and this morning when I went out for a walk I noticed a new sushi joint had opened up near Taylor's Square. It had an unusual name for a sushi joint: 'Scientific Sushi'.
While I would agree that sushi-making could be considered an artform, it seems a bit of a stretch to call it a science.

Top Ten Movies 2007

It's that time of year, so here's my Top Ten Movies of 2007:

Black Book - Paul Verhoeven rules, man.
The Brave One - So does Jodie Foster.
Control - How did they manage to reincarnate Ian Curtis for this?
Die Hard 4.0 - Bruce Willis proves that the coolest action heroes are over 40.
Eastern Promises - Team up David Cronenberg with Viggo Mortensen and you have a great movie. It's a scientific formula.
The Host - South Koreans make the best monster movie since Alien.
Pan's Labyrinth - I know there are people who don't like subtitles, but that would be no excuse to miss a movie as awesome as this one.
Ratatouille - If you tell somebody about this one, and they make a face and tell you they don't watch animated kiddie movies, stick their idiot head in the nearest toaster and loudly demand that they stop being such a boring old fart.
Tideland - It seemed that some critics felt that Terry Gilliam should have been drawn, quartered, tarred and feathered for this. Those critics are idiots. Read the book too. Mitch Cullen sent it to Gilliam asking for a blurb if he liked it. He liked it all right. He made a movie out of it.
Zodiac - Great movie about the serial killer. Hallelujah! David Fincher is back on track (following the excellent Se7en, he farted out the disappointing Panic Room).

It occurs to me that one of my handful of readers may be reading this, so I'd like to invite you to list your own top ten in the Comments field. (There's a list of 2007 movies here) Don't be shy now!

Bus Brats

It was a sunny day and I felt good. I got on the bus and instantly heard bellowing. It was coming from a bunch of teenage idiots who took up the rear half of the bus. Empty booze bottles clanked on the floor whenever the driver hit the brakes. One of the kids noisily hawked up a gob of snot and spat on the floor. A bottle bumped into my foot and I picked it up and threw it at the snotty kid. He yelped and blood spurted out of his face. I laughed at that, then one of them shouted, "You fuckin' cunt!" and lunged at me. I swung my arm and sent him flying into a pole, one of those poles on the bus that has the button you push when you want to get off. The kid hit the floor and groaned. I stepped on his stomach and his eyes almost popped out. The other kids looked like they didn't know what to do next. That it might not be such a good idea to come at me like their friend did. I said, "You idiots are making too much noise. It's annoying, so you'd better shut up or get off the bus."
They shut up. A couple of them went to check on their friends.

Wallander's Heard Enough

"Ordinary human beings," said Hansson in dismay. "Completely normal on the surface. Underneath, mentally ill beasts of prey. A man in France, the foreman of a coal depot, used to cut open the stomachs of his victims and stick his head inside to try to suffocate himself. That's one example."
- Hansson depresses Wallander even more than he already was in Sidetracked by Henning Mankell [1995]

Summertime, Wallander Style

'The summer landscape seemed a surreal backdrop to his thoughts. Two men are axed to death and scalped, he thought. A young girl walks into a rape field and sets herself on fire. And all around me it's summertime. Skane couldn't be more beautiful than this. There's a paradise hidden in every corner of this countryside. To find it, all you have to do is keep your eyes open. But you also might glimpse hearses on the roads.'

- Kurt Wallander from Sidetracked by Henning Mankell

Funny Catholic Joke

I was listening to my favourite radio show this morning (The Naked City on FBi) and Coffin Ed told this very funny joke:

The Pope dies and goes to heaven.
St Peter says, “So, is there anything you wanna see? Anything you missed out on in your life?”
The Pope says, “Yes! I would like to see the original version of the Bible!”
St Peter says, “OK. Come over here then, go in that little room. It’s in there!”
After a while the Pope shouts, “OH, MY GOD!”
St Peter runs in and asks what’s wrong.
The Pope says, “This word, ‘celebrate’! We thought it was ‘celibate’!”

You Will Never Get It Back

This morning I heard somebody on the radio say something idiotic. It's a line that I've heard and seen written many times. These retards always use it when talking about a movie, a book, a video game, a performance of some kind, whatever it is, that they ended up disliking. They will say this:

"That's four hours of my life I will never get back."

What a shame. It's regrettable, isn't it? But let's imagine that you could actually get that time back. Let's be honest. You would only waste it on something else. Your time isn't really that valuable anyway, let's face it. Get over yourself. And you only use that meaningless line because you heard some other idiot retard use it, right?

But what an idiotic thing to say, really. Oh, boo hoo! You will never get that time back!

Pass the tissues.
Let the healing process begin.

Teddy Muhammad

Have you heard about the latest outrage perpetrated against Islam? A primary school teacher in Khartoum (wherever that is) had the goddam nerve to name a teddy bear "Muhammad". Can you believe it? Luckily, a fellow teacher reported the atrocity and now this monstrous enemy of Islam faces swift and just punishment, possibly including forty lashes.

[I'll find a link to the story later. I gotta go to work, man.]

Later... Here is the link.

Suspicious Parcel!

Something out of the ordinary happened this morning at work. You may know that I work in a mailroom. Well, after having emptied the mailbag onto the desk, I noticed a large white envelope that seemed to have scribbles all over it, and three stamps placed haphazardly in the top right-hand corner. There are two big colour posters on the mailroom wall that show an example of a suspicious parcel. This envelope I was looking at matched at least two points on the checklist, for sure. The envelope looked like it had been addressed by a madman. Almost every word was misspelled and there were squiggles and arrows and other strange marks all over the place. The back of the envelope was similar. The return address was almost impossible to read, appearing to have been scribbled by somebody in the middle of a seizure. That was also surrounded by odd markings. Secondly, there were too many postage stamps. Excessive postage is another indicator of a suspicious parcel. OK, so another indicator is a bulky or rigid envelope, and guess what? That's right, this one was bulky. It felt like there were various strange objects inside. All this added up to one thing: this envelope must not be opened, but reported to supervisor! Supervisor arrived and I showed her. She agreed that it was suspicious and that there was no way in the world that she would open it, so the next step was to notify our Security Manager. He came in and inspected the envelope and confirmed our suspicions that this was a definite candidate for serious and careful attention. He raced off to summon the police.

Later in the morning I found out the result of the police visit. They decided it was very suspicious and x-rayed it three times! Yep, three times. The first time they thought they saw a wire. The Security Manager told me that at that moment, he felt a shiver, a shadow of impending doom. However, two subsequent x-rays must have negated the wire theory, and when the envelope was finally opened, it was found to be a request to be considered for a volunteer position, but also contained mysterious objects like feathers and doll parts.

But that's not all! This afternoon I received an email requesting my attendance at a debriefing on the incident next Monday morning between 1100 and 1130 hours. I've never been to a debriefing before, so I can't wait!

Bell's Milk Bar

How cool is this place? I wasn't even around in the '50s, but its pretty damn cool, if you ask me.

Oh well, another one to add to the 'Places To Visit Before I Die' list.

Douchebag Alert

Perhaps you have noticed that some people like to use the word "meh" in their writing. They use that idiotic word in an attempt to convey how unimpressed they are about whatever it is.
These people are douchebags.

Words of Wisdom

"Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes."
- Henry David Thoreau

(This was the quote from my desk calender for 17/18 November, and it's good advice! Also, Thoreau's Walden is one of my favourite books.)

Robert Shields, Wordy Diarist

I've been reading the obituaries in the newspaper for some years now, and once in a while it pays off big time. I found this one in 5 November's Sydney Morning Herald, but it's an edited version from 29 October's New York Times:

Robert Shields, Wordy Diarist, Dies at 89

Many of us have kept diaries in one form or another, but this man took it to a whole other level. 'He knocked out three million words in his best years, a million in slow ones.'

Also, here is a link to an interview with Robert Shields by David Isay from Sound Portraits.

Here's another link from the Kircher Society. The longest reader comment, down near the end, is from Shields's daughter Heidi.

Wasps

Does anything eat wasps?

Blogger Back?

Wow, Blogger seems to be working again. I wonder if anybody else found it impossible to log on for the past seven days.
Well, if it really is working again, time to party.

Bloody Cartoons

There's an excellent documentary (Bloody Cartoons [Denmark, 2007]) on SBS right now about the insane overreaction to those BLASPHEMOUS and VERY FUNNY cartoons poking fun at Islam and Muslim terrorist bombers that were published in a Danish newspaper.

What these idiots got so upset about was the depiction of Mohammad. According to them, Mohammad must not be depicted in an illustration or drawing, but that's bullshit because this restriction doesn't even appear anywhere in the Koran. A mufti on this programme admitted as much. And this mufti also had a lame argument against freedom of speech. He said that the idea of absolute freedom is wrong because you have to have rules, like road rules so cars don't smash into one another, or shipping rules so ships don't plow into one another. By this weak logic, we would have rules like you can't poke fun at any religion, if if some of its members blow themselves up in big crowds; you can't poke fun because these men follow a very special leader who doesn't have a sense of humour, and throws a tantrum if you poke fun at him, so you mustn't say anything to upset them, hell no! Just let these dudes go about their business of blowing themselves and others up, and try to be understanding, OK?

What I believe is that cartoonists have a duty to make fun of these people. If you are so humourless and sensitive about your stupid so-fragile belief system, you deserve to be ridiculed and humiliated until you come to your damned senses and get some perspective (you idiots).

Let me tell you something which I've never told anybody: Back when I was publishing my comix anthology Sick Puppy Comix, I printed an excellent and very funny comic strip by Neale Blanden which had Jesus Christ on a cross in an Australian suburban backyard - he was making a racket and the next door neighbour was mowing his lawn and yelled out for Jesus to shut up and keep it down, and Jesus replies, "But it REALLY HURTS!!" Even when I had my born-again 'freakout' and got way overzealous and humourless myself (which ended, eventually, thank God), I never once regretted publishing that comic strip. I knew Jesus Christ was big enough to stand some comix dude poking fun at it all, and I knew even Jesus himself would find amusing. So I believe if Mohammad was half the dude these Muslims make him out to be, he would find those Dutch cartoons hilarious, too. And if you disagree with that, I must point out that you don't know shit. Go out into the desert and think deeper about it.

Night Vision

The leaves are still now
A bright full moon shines through haze
A cat slinks below.

Friday and Monday, What's the Difference?

This morning while delivering the mail I heard one of the Marketing girls say something to another Marketing girl. It struck me as one of the most idiotic observations I have ever heard. But why don't you be the judge? Here's what she said:

"Oh, I keep getting confused about what day it is! I don't know if it's Friday or Monday. Maybe because they are so close together?"

I could be wrong, but it seems to me there's a GALAXY of difference between Friday and Monday. Close together? Yes, sort of. Only separated by the freaking weekend.

I Love Cigarettes :]

After six cans of beer, guess what! - it's time for a double bourbon and coke. And a smoke. I like to smoke cigarettes. Speaking of which, I hear that smoking is not only addictive (which is bullshit, by the way - they are simply so enjoyable they are impossible to resist!) but can kill you. My cigarette packs tell me that I am in real danger of getting lung cancer, having a stroke, a heart attack, and that nicotine can damage my baby. I'm not even pregnant so what the fuck do they know? I also hear that my smoking can harm others. OK, so if I'm smoking and I believe all that bullshit about it being so bad for my self, do they seriously think I'm going to be worried about what it does to others?
Haw! I'm killing myself laughing!

*stumbles off bent double in hysterics for a fag*

No Comment

Just so you know, it really doesn't bother me that I hardly ever get any comments here. It's because everybody else is busy with their MySpace page, where they have half a million 'friends' because they only had to press a button; or they have one of those useless and boring FaceBook pages (I know they are useless and boring because I investigated it - FaceBook is only good if you went to university and were in Theatre Sports, or the 'Glee Club', whatever that is), meanwhile the rest have LiveJournals, but those people are either dudes obsessed with discussing their latest butt plug acquisition, or chicks creating homoerotic fan art based on Japanese anime and video games.

Patel Fizzed

Some readers may recall the time I mentioned reading Stephen Donaldson's 'Thomas Covenant' books, and how he loved to write stuff like:

"Don't touch me!" he ejaculated.

"Leave me alone!" he ejaculated.

"Get your hands off of me!" he ejaculated.

Well, right now I am reading an excellent and very funny book called Slow Death by Stewart Home. What I like about it is the way Home does sort of the same thing, only completely different:

'What?' Patel fizzed.

'Nonsense!' Campbell yodelled.

'Hi,' Don squeaked.

'We can't possibly do that!' Rolf popped.

'Sure thing boss,' Hodges yapped before hanging up.

'I suppose things just got out of hand,' Career orated.

'Before you go,' Brewster stage-whispered...

"Forget it,' Career rejoined congenially as she sat down.

'Nah,' Martin caterwauled.

'The easiest way to make money from art,' Eliot honked, 'is to work on the administrative side...'

'Are you telling me I can't make a fortune as an artist?' the skinhead clacked.

'Let's just fuck,' Rebel determined.

'Just do it,' Maria gabbled.

'I want him!' Good undulated, pointing at Donald.

'Anyway,' Karen oscillated...

'Thank you officer,' Ross smarmed.

'Nevertheless,' McDonald mooed...

'Oh, that's easy,' Peter frothed.

Oktober!

Hey, Oktoberfest!
This, the month to hit the suds.
Drinking from big jugs.

Freaking Hot Sydney Day

Life on Mercury
What a day like this feels like.
No hope for Snowman.

Buddha Belly

I just read that Yukio Mishima once remarked that a fat belly was a sign of spiritual sloth. Why then do Buddha statues and figurines have such big, fat bellies? Hello.

Small Folk

The Small Folk were in a lush green countryside. A man went to introduce himself to them. A girl accompanied him. They heard folk-ish, atmospheric music playing nearby. These Small Folk, their faces were never seen distinctly, only black, as in silhouette. They slowly arrived. They were strange, silent, seemed gentle although it struck the girl that they could be a danger in numbers. They had some kind of mysterious power.

A red dog came with them and the girl smelled the dog, a very doggy smell, but not unpleasant.

The Small Folk had been scaring people, or getting up to some kind of mischief, that's why the man went to meet with them. They were silent the whole time, and they kept moving around.

Soon they gradually melted back into the trees. The girl was overwhelmed by powerful feelings of wonder and sadness.

Eternal Sonata 1

Chopin on deathbed
Hears Eternal Sonata
With monster battles.

Slow Bloom

Afternoon is slow
Flowers bloom in plastic tube
Horizontal life.

After a Spring Shower

Raindrops drip from leaves.
Drinking beer on balcony
After spring shower.

House Fly

Buzzing of house fly.
Heard while lying down reading.
First of the season.

Rejecting Islam

I was just listening to a program on Radio Netherlands' 'The State We're In' about the German group The Central Council of Ex-Muslims. This was an interesting program since I only recently learned that Muslims who renounce their faith risk execution. In fact, Islamic Sharia law states that a sane male apostate must be executed, while a female apostate may be executed or imprisoned (see also Apostasy in Islam).

Sex With Daughters

A fundamentalist church pastor had sex with two of his teenage daughters for nearly ten years to educate them on how to be good wives, a South Australian court has heard. The 54-year-old man, who cannot be named, has been jailed for 8 1/2 years after pleading guilty to incest and unlawful sexual intercourse. - AAP
- from Sydney Morning Herald 31 August 2007

Opinion: These girls should consider themselves lucky they were not born into a Muslim family - let's say in Somalia, or Saudi Arabia - because, although bad enough they were used for the sexual gratification of daddy dearest, these indignities would have been shortly followed by the arrival of the girls' brothers to pass judgment upon them, to wit: these shameless FEMALE nymphomaniacs used their shapely-yet-demonic FEMININE wiles to seduce and confuse the COMPLETELY INNOCENT old patriarch into believing they were a couple of hot sluts, begging for a porking from Papa. The girls would then be summarily slaughtered, and praise Allah and his Prophet for their infinite wisdom!

9/11 Big Muslim Party Day

September 11, 2001. That was the day muslim retards hi-jacked and flew jets into two enormous New York City buildings. The good news was that they eliminated their worthless idiot retard selves from this world; the bad news was that in the process they caused the deaths of thousands of innocent people.
Until recently I believed that it was only a minority of muslim retards that hated non-muslims and wanted them dead. Now I know that this is the core of their 'religion'. The truth is that muslim retards are instructed by their 'infallible' leader to offer infidels (non-muslims) islam, and if they refuse, they must agree to pay extra tax money to these retards. If they refuse to pay extra tax money to these conquering retards, the muslim retards are instructed to fight the non-muslim infidels until death.

To all freedom-loving people on this day, I invite you to join me in telling those muslim retards to go fuck a camel :]

Geri's Birthday Haikus (Tideland Flavour)

Hey, it's your birthday.
Time to party with doll heads.
Wear some Fashion Jeans.

Birthdays are cRaZy.
Classique steals my fairy bread.
Doll heads misbehave.

Islamist Intimidation

What Should the Free World Do While Facing Islamist Intimidation?

A very good short essay by Robert Redeker, French writer and philosophy teacher who is currently in hiding, under police protection, as a result of death threats he received from an Islamist website.

Infidel II

There's another excellent passage in Infidel (see 'Infidel' post below) I'd like to share because it deals with - in a perfectly amusing way - the idea of Muslim women having to cover up, to not expose any skin or hair, for if men see a woman in revealing clothing they will be driven into an uncontrollable sexual frenzy (which of course is the woman's fault), and if this happens on a large scale, in a city for instance, the result will be fitna, or total chaos, anarchy.

This part of the book is where Ayaan Hirsi Ali has travelled to Holland - she is supposed to be on her way to Canada to join her new husband in an arranged marriage that was forced on her and that she wants no part of. At this point she has realised that her only chance for a life of freedom is to stay in Europe. She is staying at a refugee processing centre sharing a bungalow with Ethiopian girls.

Growing up in Nairobi, everyone knew about Ethiopians: they seemed to have sex whenever they felt like it. There was a house of young Ethiopian refugees down the road from us, and people used to say they went at it like goats, all the time. The Ethiopians would insult the Somalis in return, saying Somalis don't know how to enjoy sex and are all frustrated, that's why they're always fighting people. This kind of caricature very much informed how we felt about Christians, because Somalis and Ethiopians have always been at each other's throats, since time began.

"Why should I uncover my naked skin?" I asked Mina. "Don't you have any shame? What are you hoping to achieve walking around undressed? Don't you know how it affects men?"

"I wear these skirts because I like having pretty legs," said Mina. "They won't be pretty for long, and I want to enjoy them." She shook one at me and said, "If anyone else enjoys them, so much the better."

I couldn't believe it. I said, "This is precisely the opposite of what I have been brought up to believe." And all of them, because all the girls had gathered around by now, chimed in, "But why? Why are all you Muslims so difficult?"

"But if men see women dressed like you are now, with your arms bare and everything naked, then they will become confused and sexually tempted," I told them. "They will be blinded by desire."

The girls began laughing, and Mina said, "I don't think it's really like that. And you know, if they get tempted, that's not such a big deal."

By then I was wailing, because I could see what was coming, but I said, "But they won't be able to work, and the buses will crash, and there will be a state of total fitna!"

"So why is there not a state of total chaos everywhere around us, here, in Europe?" Mina asked.

It was true. All I had to do was use my eyes. Europe worked perfectly, every bus and clock of it. Not the first tremor of chaos was detectible. "I don't know," I said helplessly. ""It must be because these are not really men."

"Oh? They are not really men, these big strong blond Dutch workers?" By this time the Ethiopian girls were almost weeping with laughter at the bumpkin that I was. They thought it was such Muslim bullshit. We Muslims were always boasting about something or other, but our whole culture was sexually frustrated. And who on earth did I think I was to personally wreak fitna on the world? They were friendly, because they knew it wasn't my fault I felt this way, but they really let me have it.

I got up and put on my headscarf, and stood at the doorway of the bungalow. A group of Bosnian asylum seekers lived a little farther on, and they were talking in the sun. These woman were supposed to be Muslim, but they were really almost naked, wearing short shorts and T-shirts with not even a bra, so you could see their nipples. Men worked nearby, or sat and talked to them quite normally, apparently not even noticing them. I stared at them for a long time, thinking, Could there be some truth to what the Ethiopian girls had said?

Lucky! Lucky!

I just checked my email and guess what? I can expect a visit from the 'big dik fairy'.

I'm going to bed early tonight!

Let's Do Mail Art!

Okay look, this is the absolute coolest blog I have seen in a v. long time. Mail art! I posted something at a red mailbox this afternoon and somebody had written DO MAIL ART! YES TERRY! WILL DO MAIL ART! or something like that, I didn't have my fone so I couldn't take a foto, but got home and Googled it and Wiki'd 'mail art' and found this and have been looking at it jaw on keyboard for the last twenty minutes. It is so WONDERFUL. Does anybody wanna do this? I have an IRRESISTIBLE URGE to artify an envelope and mail it to somebody, domestically or overseas. Or you can start and I will send one back to you. Mail art me at:

Stratu
PO Box 93
Paddington NSW 2021
Australia

Do it! Do it!

Liver Battle

8:54pm Saturday night.
Beer and beer nuts.
Iron Chef returned tonight.
Already seen it.
Worst episode ever:
Liver Battle.

Infidel

Right now I'm reading a book called Infidel, the memoir of Ayaan Hirsi Ali. I became aware of her when Theo van Gogh was shot and stabbed to death in 2004. Theo (great grandson of the brother of Vincent van Gogh) was a filmmaker and with Ayaan Hirsi Ali made a short film criticising the (inherently Islam-sanctioned) abuse of Muslim women.

Muslims (and Islam) often get a bad rap these days, and they complain about the unfairness of it all, but is it surprising when we learn about this stuff?

Ali grew up in Somalia, an exclusively Islamic African nation. I had heard of the practice of female circumcision, and it sounded cruel and barbaric. In her book Ali describes the procedure (called 'excision' here). She knows about it because it was done to her. Her father and mother were against the practice, but her grandmother wanted it done, so she waited until Mother and Father were both out of the house on a trip and organised it herself. In this operation, the clitoris is snipped off, the labia sliced off then sewn together, leaving only a small hole for urinating. Many girls die from infection. If they don't die, they experience at least a week of excruciating pain while the scar tissue forms. Later, when the girl grows up and is married (usually an arranged marriage, often to a man many years older than herself), on the wedding night the bride and groom go into the bedroom with all the family waiting outside. The man must push his penis through the scar tissue, but sometimes he can't do it so the bride has to be taken to hospital to have it done surgically. But if the man manages it, he grabs the bloody sheet and races outside to display it to the families impatiently waiting outside, and receives loud applause, the womenfolk ululating triumphantly.

There are many other examples throughout the book of alarming cruelty and inhumanity.

Example:

It was horrible. Everyone in that camp called themselves Muslims and yet nobody helped these women in the name of Allah. Everyone was praying - even the woman in that hut had been praying - but no one showed compassion.

Example:

Most unmarried Somali girls who got pregnant committed suicide. I knew of one girl in Mogadishu who poured a can of gasoline over herself in the living room, with everyone there, and burned herself alive. Of course, if she hadn't done this, her father and brothers would probably have killed her anyway.

These are ostensibly religious, devout people. I would say they are no such thing. Rather call them 'savages', their concept of Allah, or God, completely perverse and corrupt, even 'demonic', 'evil'. They are cowardly, morally bankrupt, theologically retarded, emotionally cockroach-like, and, ultimately, an abomination and blot on the face of humanity.

For shame!

P.S. I urge you to read this important book.

My Mother Is Cool

I was talking to my mother on the phone last night and the subject of those Chaser boys came up. They managed to get past two security checkpoints in the APEC red zone yesterday. They had a black limo, four dudes dressed as CIA dudes running alongside the car, and inside one of them was dressed up as Osama bin Laden. They were waved through two security checkpoints without being stopped to show ID.
All the police and security forces have been saying how serious it was, and not funny, that because of the snipers all over the city, one of the Chaser boys could have been shot dead.
My mother said, "On the news they are saying that it wasn't funny, but I think it was funny!"
It was funny, and I have the coolest mother :]

Late Night Discovery

Tonight I was surprised to find how well beer went with licorice.

Helicopter With Sniper

It's APEC week here in Sydney and many world leaders have arrived to discuss the pressing issues of the times. The skies over the city are almost constantly buzzing with the sound of helicopter rotors.
This afternoon in the office we heard one of these helicopters get louder and louder until it sounded like it was going to land on the roof.
I went outside to have a look. L and D were there looking up at it. I speculated that it was a SWAT team or something, and asked D what was the name of the special forces we had here, and he said SAS. He pointed at something sticking out of the side door and said it was a gun. I said it was a sniper gun for sure. On the news last night they revealed that many of the city's tallest buildings have snipers on the roof.
The helicopter hovered there for a long time and we all wondered what they were doing. D said that he heard Bush was visiting the Maritime Museum and they had probably got that museum confused with ours, and that seemed like a good guess when the helicopter finally moved off in the direction of the Maritime Museum.
It was exciting, transforming an otherwise uneventful afternoon.

Blurry Horror Stratu

December 2006, Gold Coast, Queensland.
(sent to me by Brother Mikel.)

Was That You, Candybar?

ES. James, was that you who said "Whee!" in my comments field the other day, or a different Simon? If it was you, did you get the Murakami book and the other stuff? I figured that you moved somewhere else and that my stuff was being gratefully received by a complete stranger (or more like thrown in the trash with a cranky "WTF?")
Anyway, whatever, and all that jazz. But if you or anybody feels an urge to write, you can email me at sstratu [at] gmail [dot] com (the Lycos account has been consigned to the pit).

Little-Known TV Fact

When TVs first appeared, it was not uncommon for people to sit directly in front of them day and night to make sure they [the 'TV people'] did not disappear.
-from Stratu's 'Research Notes' vol. XXIII

J-B8

Ronald

Today while I was delivering the mail on Level Four I bumped into Ronald. He blocked my way and before I could protest he said, "My ultimate weapon is the China cannon attached to my groin."

He always says things like that, trying to impress everybody. But it rarely works. When I didn't look amazed and impressed at his ridiculous declaration, he walked away kicking the carpet.

My job is a low-pressure job mostly, which is great because it allows plenty of time for idle thought. As I was about to head down the ramp to Level Three it occurred to me that if this place was an anime, then ideally the characters would be composed of girls reading books, girls with glasses, robotic maids, and sisters. Mostly it would be great fun and stimulating on many levels, but then something bad would happen, like one of the robotic maids would corner me and say, "You executed the mission. Then all I have to do is execute you." Then I would have to run fast, and try hard not to trip over.

It wouldn't all be bad, like I said. Mostly it would be wonderful and fascinating. I would pass by the doorman on the way out, and he would talk about his friend Oscar.

"He had no income, so he stopped his hunger by eating mushrooms which were growing on his underpants in the closet."

I tell him that this is a perfect example of the ingenuity of man, and that it sounds like something from a magical bedtime story.

The doorman gets a sad look, he looks at his shiny black shoes, and says that it wasn't really so perfect or wonderful after all, because the angel who lived on his house scared him because she beat him to death without notice.

"That's typical," I say. "Plus, every time the hero wins, the trio is punished by the pig-like creature."

That was life, I guess. You had to take the rough with the smooth.

Uh oh. Ronald was up ahead again. The ramp was narrow and I halfway down it, so no way of avoiding him. Oh well. When I got near him he put a foot on the small wheels at the front of the mail trolley and looked at me with intensity. Here we go again.

"When I fell down the stairs with my classmate, my body was replaced with her."

"What does that mean?" I said.

Ronald brushed something invisible off his shoulder and twitched.

"Let's decide the supremacy over the earth by the blows of robots."

"OK. That sounds like a good idea," I said.

He wasn't such a bad guy, Ronald. At least he didn't come out with the kind of idiotic, broken record type stuff a lot of other people around here come up with.

His foot was still on the tiny wheels, now moving back and forth a fraction each time. I put the lock on to stop it. Just for fun.

"The wrong use of the magic equipment often embarrasses the girl in the bathroom when she is taking a bath."

Ronald was beginning to make sense.

I nodded, then Ronald nodded.

"When I fell in love with her, I thought that the girl was my stepsister. I bet if I had known she was my real sister, I would not have fallen in love with her."

That made sense, too. I started smiling.

Ronald kept nodding, and started smiling too.

Lunar Eclipse II

Moon and Earth and Sun.
Late Winter nightside eclipse.
Moon gets a bloodbath.

Lunar Eclipse I

Moon and Earth and Sun.
A short time locked in a line.
Bathes the Moon in red.

Man's Inhumanity To Man (cont'd.)

"They try to do their best to destroy me mentally to stop my hunger strike. They come to clean the cell in the middle of the night and make strange noises just outside my cell door. This is all in the name of 'checking up on me' and 'making sure I am all right'. I swear I have never seen such a devilish way of thinking as they seem to have. Sometimes I really stop to wonder whether they are human beings."

- Shaker Aamer from his diary, July 2005 during hunger strike at Camp Echo, Guantanamo Bay. [Bad Men : Guantanamo Bay and the Secret Prisons by Clive Stafford Smith]

Here Comes

I am reading a very good book at the moment by David Morrell (he's the dude who wrote First Blood, thus creating the iconic Rambo character), the book is called Lessons From A Lifetime Of Writing. Anyway, I read this very funny part last night. He mentioned what he called the worst-written classic American novel, Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser. Its theme is pessimistic determinism, which apparently means that the environment and fate are conspired to destroy us, or something, and that the prose is "awful". This is my favourite example:

"Here comes the moths."

THHE2v

The Hills Have Eyes 2.
The good guys are so stupid.
You'll root for mutants.

THHE2iv

The Hills Have Eyes 2.
Makes you laugh when you should scream.
You'll want a refund.

THHE2iii

The Hills Have Eyes 2.
You want to see idiots?
Go see this movie.

THHE2ii

The Hills Have Eyes 2.
This is what you call horror?
I call it dumb shit.

THHE2i

The Hills Have Eyes 2.
National Guard got no hope.
Mutants are smarter.

Tideland H2

Classique, Fashion Jeans,
Magic Curl and Cut 'n' Style.
You got a party.

Stapler, Not A Cherry Blossom

Stapler in your head.
In no uncertain terms, see?
I would assume so.

Newsflash

[Language warning! I use some swear words below, but only because I felt the situation demanded it.]

Note: Elaborate on this after work:
Anybody who uses these tired old turds fucking gets it:
They will say something like, "I told him in no uncertain terms."
Then, they will say something like, "I would assume so."
[Die, cunt.]

Later, at home...

I know some of you are still checking in here once in a while. Konichiwa!

What that earlier thing was about - I overheard one of the people I work with say, "And I told him in no uncertain times.. blah blah.." She starts a sentence with that idiotic old turd about two times a week. Almost every poor jerk she talks to must have been told in no uncertain terms. Every time I hear it I want to throw my friggin stapler at her head and shout, "Change the fuckin' record, willya?!"

In no goddam fuckin'uncertain friggin' terms, DUDE. I WOULD ASSUME SO!

My Lunch

Beef tortellini:
Bacon, mushrooms, garlic sauce.
What I had for lunch.

Plan For After Work

Off to the movies.
Gonna see Black Snake Moan.
Gonna eat choc top.

Geri Likes Rock Festivals

Splendour in the Grass.
Have fun, Geri, and rock out.
Say hi to Muscles.

Insect Hibernation

This Sydney winter.
Not one insect to be heard.
Deafening silence.

The Number 23

Number 23.
A fascinating number.
Terrible movie.

Ingmar Bergman

Ingmar Bergman dead.
I never saw his movies.
But now I want to.

Sickly child Ingmar.
Hit and humiliated.
By his priest father.

When They Cry

Higurashi = cicada.
Their mournful cry in the night.
A strange new feeling.

RElentless Terror

Resident Evil.
Spanish monks turned living dead.
Fear and dread close in.

Sydney Winter

Freaking cold winter.
Geri, let's build a snowman.
My nose just fell off.

Old School

Got a MySpace page?
How 'bout a fancy FaceBook?
M3 h4rdc0r3 bl0993r.

She Reads

See her on the bus.
She's always reading a book.
Others fade away.

Killer

RE4 Revisited

Those zombies attack.
My arsenal is awesome.
I bring the bloodbath.

Old At Four

Watching Blade Runner.
Replicants live just four years.
Must live fast die young.

Lucky Day

Friday the thirteenth.
Stay away from Crystal Lake.
Be nice to black cats.

Fruity File Salad

Bright colour stickers.
Making files looks like child's play.
Almost fruit time.

Autumn Night Bus

On the bus.
Cool autumn air thru window.
Tangled iPod wires of fellow passengers.

Magazine Cover Of The Year

Is it too early to call? No.

[Thanks to Kotaku]

Poisonous, Acid-Shooting Spiders

Meth Addicts Demand Government Address Nation's Growing Spider Menace

AbsolutE Terror

I love this picture!

[For the record: I have no affiliation with Absolut Vodka. I believe in responsible consumption of alcohol [blatant lie]. If after viewing this image you develop an irresistible compulsion to drink vodka, go for it!]

Gamrz Tataly Rulz!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

no this is about the WORST PS2 games of all time theres a fine line betawen games that suck and games that you dont like its like compereig an apple to a bana some will hate the apple and others will like the bana or the other way around its not to say that the apple sucks or the bana sucks . worst PS2 game of all time DMC2 i finshed it and it was boring and dull driver3 played the dmao kind of like it but i was exspecting better looking gameplay the getaway 2 it was rushed had inporvments but the story was bad i complted it thegetaway 1 had a good story it was hard but fun a lot said they hated it and that it sucked but it didnt most of thos users weret able to beat the game . spider man 2 i had high hops for it after the 1st one but it just looked bad i played it finshed it it got a bit boring along the way to short it sucked but its mainly due to high sores that made me hate it now a lot of users like FF games i like the storys in them and the looks but find the games boring and dont like playing them i suck at playing them but there not bad games you see theres heeps of users that come in and say a game sucked when it was becze they werent able to beat it or it was boring to long when yet it got a high sore XIII was a good game they said in a prviw that it was a cartroon and they intened it to be that way cz they wanted a comic style if you dont like comics then dont buy it get some thing else i got it cz i liked the ida of a comic i beat the game .so as you can see it comes down to do thes games suck ? a lot of them dont so plz think do they suck or is it just you ? now what is it you guys dont like about GOD OF WAR and XIII do you suck at playing them ? are they boring plz explin in detail ? one thing is for srue tho the MILT PLAYER in XIII dos suck but the game it slfe is good