The best things in life ain't free

I've had 'The best things in life are free' rammed down my throat by cheesy idealists all my life, and I've believed it up until recently.
I define 'free' as something that comes without cost. I think that is a fair enough definition.
I think the said 'cheesy idealists' mean to imply that shit like air is free, and even I have to admit air is pretty fuckin good, I mean I use it on a daily basis, so I'll give them that much. Air kicks ass.
I'd consider that the only exception though. Everything else that is free is probably bad for you. I'll give some examples:

Mainstream media/free tv news. I don't know what its like in the rest of the world, but here in Australia the news segments are basically poorly written and full of sensationalism. They hype up stories about nothing to the extreme, so that you feel compelled to watch, and then sit there and soak up the advertising during the breaks. The advertising revenue pays the journos, and the machine feeds itself, making more crappy poorly researched articles with keywords as 'affecting ordinary australians' and 'convicted child molester' or whatever public heartstring is relevant at the time.

The free magazines you get when you take the train: here in Sydney we have MX, which I read twice. Basically MX portrays itself as a news magazine, but its just a few articles cut and pasted off the internet and printed amongst a swaggering of advertisements. Again, its only the most controversial articles that make it, and 90% of the time there is no truth, research or fact checking involved.
Reading MX will actually make you stupider. Fact.

Public drinking fountains? People piss in those. I'd rather drink from my four dollar bottle than get some kind of UTI in my mouth thanks.

Actually there is very little out there that is truly free come to think of it. Linux operating system is free, but requires such an investment of time and inconvenience (I have been using linux for 4 years. My current machine is Linux, and if the wireless drops out it requires rebooting, the screen settings refuse to remember and I get dropped to 600*800 each time despite me manually changing the config file, I have to run KDE desktop due to a mysterious black screen issue on gnome desktop... tons of issues.) so thus warrants it to not be free.

Oh, and I'm moving off Linux back to Mac next week. I think I'll be a happier person because of it.

Immigration

I have mixed emotions about the Sri Lankans that are currently stuck in Indonesia.
Firstly I will state that one of my best mates is Sri Lankan, and I think they are great people, so read this in context please.
I'm a little confused firstly. If they are truely fleeing from something nasty, then wouldn't any place apart from where they came from be great? I mean, they are in Indonesia now, but they refuse to get off at Indonesia, saying that they want to go to Australia.
I don't know about you, but if my family was under threat from war or famine, I'd be sailing to the nearest place that had no war or famine. I'd love Indonesia.
I think the core of the problem is the people smugglers. They have evidently promised these poor souls that Australia is a land of milk and honey, where people will wait on you hand and foot, you will never have to work, and you will be able to live a decadent lifestyle of your wildest dreams.
Its how the people smugglers manage to convince them a boat ride is worth their entire life savings, house, and everything else they may own.

I can only imaging that is why we have problems with integration of some immigrants here. Instead the life of luxury they expect, they find that typical life in Australia (well, at least in Sydney) means working 45+ hours a week for barely enough money to cover the rent for the shoebox you live in. If only they knew, they might choose paradise in Indonesia instead...

I do feel for them though, they are just pawns in this game. Of course they don't want to go back to Sri Lanka, they have nothing left there, all was sold to pay the smugglers.

Alive and Breathing

Life's not easy. If it was, everyone would be doing it.
(pic: Hubble deep field. i.e. the universe as it was 10 billion years ago)
No matter where you look, so long as you aren't staring at the world through rose colored lenses you see despair, hate, greed, and poverty. I don't claim to have a solution to everything, hell there's that much context and interconnectedness today that there is no way we can commit to any sort of change without everybody, every single living person, making a change themselves.

If we want to feed the poor in Uganda, we need to stop eating so much ourselves, so that global food prices can relax.

I don't mean to claim that life is getting harder for us, in fact its the opposite. 340 years ago, there were millions of people dying of bubonic plague. In 1918 over 50 million people died from a H1N1 strain of the flu known as 'Spanish Flu'.
Thanks to today's modern medicine we hardly see such panic, except from the media.

Through Medieval times violence, murder and war were a way of life. Although people think that crime is worst today, it pales in comparison to even 20 years ago thanks to the technology and research available to today's police force.

The point is, no matter how bad we think things are today, they have been a lot worse.

It almost seems that a lot of the grief, especially in westernised culture, is somewhat self inflicted. Depression, drug addiction, and biker gangs are all mostly the result of too time and nothing constructive, or seemingly worthwhile to do.

People look to a lot of different things in life in the pursuit of an answer, be it addiction, stamp collecting, motorcycles, violence, we are all looking for the same thing. An answer, a minute of clarity, even just a sign.

In the murky depths of my soulless existence, when thinking of what will become of the dust on my bones, I like to remember that for this brief moment in time, the 60 odd years I have, that I was here, and alive and breathing.

Its all I can ever ask for.

Times change

Whats depressing is that as I get older, more and more of the people I used to know seem to give up on life, from bad decisions, from lack of heart, from broken dreams.
To me, the worst thing that can possibly happen to oneself is to endure complacency, for it is when one stops striving to be better, that one begins to die. When you give up trying to make your life better, you allow your life to get worse.

I know that these next five years will see myself grow even further from my friends, the ones that have decided to buy large cheap homes in not-so-great suburbs so that they can have the illusion of wealth they so strive for, the ones that decide to stay in bad jobs when the only thing holding them back from pursuing something better is their ingrained fear of rejection, the ones whom think they are too old to make something of their lives so they just give up.

Maybe its just me, maybe I'm just foolhardy, maybe I'm the one who should 'settle down'.
Nah fuck that.
I don't claim to know everything about life, but I know this much:
The only thing you leave behind are your children.
Life's over before you really begin to enjoy it.
Happiness lies in the endless pursuit of perfection.

I'll keep listening to myself until I stop making sense

Addiction

We are addictive by nature.
Its pretty easy to find something you are addicted to in your life, be it physically or psychologically.
Cigarettes and heroin can give us a physical dependency.
Whats also dangerous is that other substances, like marijuana and coffee can be psychologically addictive, as the user is addicted to the way it makes them feel.
I was a heavy pot smoker for a good 5 years of my life, and it was quite hard to kick. I never had any severe withdrawal symptoms, but after being stoned for so long, it becomes your normal state, and literally I was smoking at one point just to feel normal.

Its not only substances that can be addictive. I've seen it often enough where people are addicted to a feeling, an emotion.
Sometimes its being in love, where someone will let themselves fall for the completely wrong person, based on an allusion of what the person is like. Destructive relationship ensues, and then repeats as the addict loves to feel in love.
Depression can be addictive. Its not unusual to indulge in melancholy, as sometimes just to feel something, anything, can be better than feeling nothing at all.

Anger is an interesting one. So prevalent in our society it is, and the cause of all our wars, our murders, and most of our pain.
A common psychological misconception is that if we don't release our anger, that it will come out in other ways (e.g. 'Me Myself and Irene').
The truth is, releasing anger, be it hitting a punchbag, yelling at a subordinate, or killing a hundred people in a game of counterstrike, makes you feel good.
When you do something that feels good, you want to repeat it .
Its what we are.
Addictive.
When we feel that release of anger, and the rush we get, its addictive, and we crave more, so we become prone to getting angry a lot more.
If you learn to control your anger, it fades to nothing. You can focus more on other tasks that are more important in life.
As I've found.

Survival of the Fittest

Its a well known, but not often disclosed fact that a lot of the world is stupid.
Anyone whom has done any work in any customer service based field is aware of this. I'm not saying you need a degree, or other forms of higher education to avoid this classification, I'm talking about basic common sense, which as the old adage goes, isn't so common.

I remember a lot of times whilst working in IT support, despite being calm and helpful, there were some people to which logic does not apply, they who think that yelling and making a big deal is a valid way of getting what they want, that their needs trump the needs of others, and that their time is more precious than yours.

I blame it on self esteem. There's been all of this talk over the past 10-20 years about self esteem, that kids must have high self esteem to be successful in life, that kids whom have self esteem already are successful, I'm sure you have heard it.

The problem with this is in the cause and effect relationship: Its assumed that
:: Kids that have high self esteem are successful, hence high self esteem leads to success.

Whereas, I think its more of the case as in
:: Kids that work hard at sport and their studies and become good at what they do, are happy with themselves, have high self esteem, and then are successful in life.

What society has pushed into our children is that you must have high self esteem to be successful in life, not good grades or sporting prowess.
Hence now we get a sea of people, whom have no obvious skills, be it sporting or academic or otherwise, whom have this inflated sense of self worth and esteem, based on nothing.

These lads and lasses are quite the picture, and I'd guarantee you know one. they are typically moody, think quite highly of themselves, don't seem to be good at anything, love talking about themselves, cannot take the tiniest bit of criticism (as they have no real talent, critique of them brings their whole card castle self esteem crashing down), won't try new things out of fear of being bad at it at it and actually showing the world they suck, and are generally, douchebags.

Which brings me to the initial argument.

I used to hate capitalism, and used to think that money was better distributed to the common hardworking man. Until I worked 2 years in technical support for an ISP.

It was then I discovered the 'douche' as described above, and was disturbed at how high a proportion of society they make up.
Not willing to sacrifice my quality of life to have to put up with these people, I can come to only one conclusion: rip them off. Rip them off blind. Let them get away with their insulting, ignorant and otherwise unhuman ways, and rip them off, overcharge, undersell, do whatever you can. We all know they aren't smart enough to realise. Use their money and skills to better exist. That way they can continue with their inflated sense of ego and I can afford to live somewhere they aren't.

Its simply natures way: Survival of the fittest. The weak feed the strong.
Man I hated tech support.

Life as a Machine

Given enough computational power, the domain of problems for which a machine can process approaches that of our own. For example, say we have a computer that runs software that evaluates what other computers are used for. Increase the power of the machine by ten, then we can use the computer to evaluate what purpose the other machines are for, and how they could be made more efficient. Increasing the scope of the problem domain to include the computer itself, it can then begin to question what it's own purpose is.
I've been given this example, "the ability to question our own existence", as the justification of a soul by a few people.

I'm not much of a person to believe in the eternal soul, maybe inversely its because I've lived a thousand lives and I'm tired of not seeing any change, maybe it just seems irrational. Maybe its my version of hell to continue living beyond death, either which way I see no evidence of any kind of eternal soul living within us.

You can break all human emotion down into logical constituents. All emotion is a result of evolution and learned behavior, mostly from when we were more primitive animals. Fear? You feel your heart race, your body tense, adrenaline courses through you, its a conditioned response to enable your body to perform and run/jump/fight in times of danger. Love, well without any sense of love we wouldn't procreate, and then hence we wouldn't exist. I fuck, therefore I am.

I guess my point is, that the ultimate human form is one devoid of all out primitive emotions (isn't that what we are trying to do anyway? When we tell our children to stop misbehaving and 'grow up'? When we frown upon celebrities acting out childishly? As to why we cannot just punch the boss in the face when he threatens us with dismissal?) and we find ourselves as purely logical beings, where every input produces an exact output, regardless of what we are 'feeling'. Where we do things because it makes sense, not because of an underlying, semi-controlled primitive urge.

I can only dream of such a world... but for some I guess it could be a nightmare.

The ultimate human state is that of a machine. Devoid of emotion, and logical.

Some will argue about the soul, the spirit, whatever you could call it. Every human has a inbuilt fear of death, and it is mirrored in many ways, through trying to stay beautiful, to religion, belief in heaven, belief in the eternal soul. I don't have that.

It may appear my life is lacking because of the lack of belief. I like to think the opposite: that because I am not blinded by these, because I am not holding out for an eternal soul, that I want to do all my living while I am alive, I should hope to be able to make as much of that as possible before I sleep the last time. I will breathe, sleep, dream, walk and think as much as I can.

A moment of clarity is worth a lifetime of lies.

Adrenaline

Another day in the life as me, another walk through the lost souls, the public transport, empty nameless faces, all chasing some sort of dream.
I wonder if they aren't so far disconnected, if somehow they are chasing the same thing, albeit differently.
When the body is under duress, it produces stress hormones, such as noradrenaline and cortisol. Noradrenaline binds to the same Adrenergic receptors as adrenaline, producing a similar, albeit somewhat psychoactive effect.
That is, the busy executive whom is juggling a large deal, or under pressure from his superior, may in fact be simulating a similar rush to what I get when hitting a hill on the snowboard, or surfing.
For me, its stronger than any coffee, better than most drugs, a clean, mind clearing high that I will always chase, be it on a motorcycle at 200, eyeballing someone who could very obviously kick my ass, saying something in public that could cause a reaction, skateboarding a bowl.
The businessman traveling on the 9:00am train to Wynyard is most likely as sleepy eyed from the lack of a rush as I am, dead to the world unless his eyes are dilated, heart pumping, and head filled with white noise between the thoughts.

We are just slightly different people chasing the same old dame.

Time

Quantum physics tells us that time, like all other dimensions, can be quantised. There is a minimum unit of time, as there is a minimum unit of distance, of matter, and it is these impossibly small increments of time that make up the continuum we experience.
At any given moment, in any ordinary day, there are literally billions of these time segments flying by. An analogy is those cartoons you see that work by flicking through the cartoon book, and on each page there is a picture of a dog or similar, and each subsequent picture is changed slightly, but if you flick the pages quickly the dog looks like its running.
In between these moments, what happens?. Nothing can exist without time. If we lose a spatial dimension, there still exists a perfectly valid two dimensional world with time, albeit devoid of life and matter as we know it. Time justifies not only our insignificant existence, but that of the dimensions that support the universe.
So in between these moments, what I suspect, is that for one tiny, almost inconceivable amount of time, there is perfect silence, perfect still, for the tiniest amount of time, before the universe turns the page and everything has moved ever so slightly, like in the cartoon dog analogy.For that period of time, the whole state of the universe is remembered, all matter is halted, all dimensions are paused, all photons stop, all vibration ceases, to then carry on again when the quantum time pause resumes.
Its these moments I live for.

Happiness in the pursuit of perfection

I watch a lot of people as they go. I enjoy picking up on other peoples habits, their inconsistencies, their faults. Its what makes us 'human'. It gives me material so I can act the better person myself, instead of the cold machine like socially unacceptable personality I actually have.
Most of the time its unavoidable, for some reason the paranoia that haunted my childhood has flowed into my adult life as a constant awareness of my surroundings. No matter where I go, I'm constantly listening, touching, smelling and looking 360 degrees, absorbing every facet of whats near. It can be quite intimidating sometimes, places with great crowds and excitement I tend to avoid as it becomes somewhat overwhelming for the senses.
Its great when it all works though. The only thing that makes us feel alive is the ability to sense our environment, ask any blind or deaf person. To have all of ones senses constantly in overdrive, its... like one is more than alive, intrinsically assimilated with the surroundings, with inputs flooding in a lunatic calm. Its like you are the only thing that matters. That everyone else is simply going through the motions. That you are the only one truly alive and breathing. That you are freed from this vile coat of skin that is to be human.

I'll argue to anyone that to be alive simply means to be human. Being alive transcends humanity, or any concept that we may have. Being alive is a supreme mathematical state, a chaotic superposition of billions of microstates into one macro: Breathing. Beating. Alive.

Violently Apathetic

Oh thats just nasty, the Jakarta bombings. I wonder if the bombers have any idea what their actions do around the world, especially knowing that so many more people will now frown upon Islam.
I know Christians that are living in regret of things that people from their religion did hundreds of years ago, I can only imagine what your average Muslim must be going through about now.
Also related, this is why Australia must take necessary steps to ensure that people whom try to come into this country via Indonesia actually are refugees. If these people are smart enough to get into the Ritz with all its security, bring in appx 200kg of explosive, they are definitely smart enough to get into this country on dodgy paperwork. If I really was a refugee, and I'd made it to Australia, I would have no problem waiting even 6 months in camps in order to get my perm residence visa. How long would you wait to join this great country of ours?

If we find those responsible for training those smart but weak minds that did these bombings, I'm not in favour of a violent demise for the, Lets just forget about them. As in lets lock them up somewhere, and just forget about them, open the door in a years time and collect their bones kind of forget.

Nice People

One the train today, there was a young lady who was so kind to speak loud enough such that all in the carriage could hear her. One thing she said got me thinking:
"You should stay away from him, there's a reason he has no friends. He's not a good person".

I mean, what is a 'good' person? As I've grown old before my time I've realised some traits that I used to think as good now just piss me off. Traits such as:

'Easy Going': Can quite often be a synonym for 'lazy' or 'doesn't care' or 'runs when the shit hits the fan'.
'He's a real nice guy': he's an absolute pushover, doesn't aggravate anybody with a differing opinion.
'He's so quiet spoken': Too scared to make a change or say what needs to be said.
'He's so laid back': Unemployed.
'Nothing gets to him': Nothing gets to him, not education, not poverty, not the destruction of the environment...

There are enough problems in the world as it is, and as far as I am concerned unless you are part of the solution you are part of the problem. The road to hell is paved with apathy. Those that don't care, or are easy going are not good people.

I have no friends but thats more due to the fact that after 30 the amount of guys that are physically able to spearfish surf and skate drops off quite remarkably... Oh yeah and because I'm an egocentric asshole with a god complex. Hahha

The day in review

Finally, after five full days of near total incapacitation from swine flu, and a couple of false recoveries, I went to work and managed to do a full days coding.
I also managed to pick up some more work coding at another place. Going to be pretty busy for the next few months.

Anyway - the day in review:
Jamie Neal found after 11 days out in the bush: This goes to show how long the human body can survive in the bush if it is prepared, and if it has a calm, rational mind. The Blue Mountains is a beautiful but rough place, so many have died up there. Its a relief to finally hear this guy come out alive, especially after so many of us had given up.

Indian Hacker grounds RAAF site: some Indian kid (presumably) removed the front page of an external facing RAAF site for public information (basically about as hard as taking down my blog and putting a penis picture up instead), put up a page insisting on the cessation of violence against Indian Students,and spelled 'pwned' as 'pawned'. I don't understand this, why hack the RAAF? They're not Lebanese. Maybe its a big hoax.

Honestly, not much is really happening in Sydney right now. Stockmarket is up, I'm over the flu, tomorrows Friday, it doesn't get much better than that. Hence the picture of jesus riding the dinosaur highlighting creationisms arguments against evolution.
Ps anybody else have a problem with the new Ice Age film being called 'dawn of the dinosaurs'? I'm pretty sure that the Mammoth came a long time after the T-Rex....
Have a good day people

Top 10 reasons to get swine flu

Holy crap this bug is bad. Just when you think you are over it, it comes and facepalms you back to the couch.
I started feeling whoozy on saturday afternoon, then was couchridden sat night, immobile on sunday with fever, then sun night took a handful of pills but the combination of fever/chills kept me awake to 4am, monday was a massive headache and more fever, and today just the headache. Hopefully I can get back to work tomorrow.
But like anything, the time at home and mild delerium that I experienced with the fever has its benefits:
10. Having the house to myself for four days means that I've turned walking around in my undies into a way of life, despite the best efforts of my neighbors.
9. My giant fly problem has been sated by the giant spiders which have arrived.
8. My facebook profile now has a black nigerian female bushwarrior as the profile picture, of which for some reason I find absolutely hilarious.
7. My incomprehensible emails that I have been sending to people under the influence of delerium have lost me even more friends.
6. Toasted cheese sandwiches for lunch.
5. I'm caught up on whats been happening with Oprah, which is basically fuck all apart from her pimping out her other franchises from the comfort of her primary franchise.
4. My friends now give me spesh treatment as some kind of sicko thanks to having three bugs over three weeks (two colds and a flu).
3. I've taken three days off the coding job in Delphi (I mean, what was I thinking taking this job up? Delphi? cmoooonnnn...!!)
2. I've had time to comment insightfully on over 150 youtube videos with brash and intellectual commentaries like ' NOO UR A FAG' and 'LOL U SUK I CULD DO SO MUCH BETA BUT UR A LOOSER LOL LOL' etc.
1. I've got a six pack now, having not eaten almost anything for four days I'm really starting to get that 'concentration camp chic' body thing happening.

The Recruiting Industry

OK this is something that bugs me MASSIVELY.
I remember a time where there was no recruiting industry, things were a lot simpler, if you wanted a job you applied to a company directly, spoke to the boss directly, and away you went.
Nowadays, its hard to find a job at all without going through an agency.

The worst thing is, a lot of these jobs simply don't exist, its just the recruitment company trying to build up its 'people on their books' in case they actually find a client with work.

Its particularly frustrating for people to be dragged out of their way to go an attend an interview with an agency, to then be interviewed by an 19 year old high school dropout as to whether they are suitable for the position, and then be told 'sorry that position has been filled by someone else (bullshit - there was no position to start with), would you like us to keep your records in case a similar position comes up?'.

I just had a look at seek.com.au at the java programmer jobs available at the moment, and 90% of the positions on the first page are through agencies, and have the same old tricks:

1. They don't list a wage, either because the job they are advertising doesn't exist, or pays so little that if you saw the rate you wouldn't apply.

2. A lot of them list 'must have high honors degree' which doesn't make sense, and even if I assume they mean Distinction or High Distinction, do they mean at Usyd or at UWS, because a High Distinction at UWS is around the equivalent of a credit average at Usyd.

3. A lot of them are poorly worded, suggesting that they have been typed out by an unqualified 19 year old high school dropout. eg :

"The roles will require highly skilled technologist's who can leverage their skills in delivering high quality systems within agreed timeframes."

Why qualify the term 'technologist'? Why does the 'who' belong to the technologist? Does anyone proof read their shit before they post?

Thankfully for both my current jobs I was able to apply direct to the employer. I wish Uni would teach a small course on the dangers of recruiting agencies and their penchant to be unneeded middlemen. They bring down wages with their 'satisfy the client' remuneration policies, ruin morale by getting people to apply for positions that don't exist and then get rejected, and are nothing but an un-needed leech on the job market that are providing a service that is simply unnecessary.

Worse than used Car Salesmen and Lawyers IMHO.

Back from the dead

Man are there some nasty bugs out there at the moment. I just seem to be getting over a real bad one, spent most of the day with severe headaches, massive fever, basically totally immobile, and I was seeing spiders and shit. All my bones hurt its that nasty. Don't think I'll be goin to work tomorrows.

On a lighter note Triple J played the top 100 songs of all time today, and I have to say I'm pretty proud of the country at the final 10:

1. Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana
2. Killing in the Name by Rage Against the Machine
3. Hallelujah, by Jeff Buckley
4. Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Division
5. Paranoid Android by Radiohead
6. Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen
7. Last Goodbye by Jeff Buckley
8. Under The Bridge by Red Hot Chili Peppers
9. Everlong by Foo Fighters
10. Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin

There isn't one dud there. Maybe gen Y isn't as fucked as I think they are if thats the final lot. I'm surprised at so much Jeff Buckley in there, I thought nobody listened to him but me....

Melbourne Survey of the Homeless

Why I hate fat people

I was running about a minute late for my train today, and as always when trying to get to the right platform I got stuck behind this fat lady who was busy holding up other people and eating her packet of chips.
Fat people piss me off badly. I'm talking those that are intentionally fat, not the actual1% of the population that actually have a disorder of which they can't avoid. Go to Somalia and see how many people there are fat cause they have a 'glandular condition'.


The reasons why fat people piss me off are:
1. They are inherently lazy. You don't get fat by working out, or looking after yourself, or by worrying about anything, and this reflects in their personality. They will take shortcuts with their work, their friends, and their family, as its too much trouble, as is eating healthy or walking to the shops.

2. The claim that they are 'beautiful on the inside'. Fuckin bullshit. You know who are beautiful on the inside? Those that save lives, be it a 'Medicens Sans Frontiers' doctor, firefighter, police officer, whoever is putting their neck out there for whats left of humanity. And you know what? They are all thin from all the worry, work, and dedication to their cause so strong that they make the effort to eat healthy and look after themselves, so they can prolong their cause.

3. A fat person in Sydney means three starving kids in Somalia. By the laws of Supply and Demand we see that all resources including food are limited. By the fat person consuming twice their requirement (and ironically shitting most of the nutrient out due to excess), this artificially inflates the price (as the resource is limited) and hence helps make food unaffordable in third world countries. Think about it. If the 40% of Australia that was obese stopped eating so much shit, the demand for flour/beef/wheat would drop, the price would lower slightly, and then be more affordable to other countries.

4. They take up two seats on the train.

There was a reason why the fat were reserved a special place in Dante's hell.

Monday in Review

Riot in Xinjian - about 140 people killed. Muslim uprising and peaceful protest turns violent, Chinese troops kill appx 140 people. I know enough about data analysis to know that cause doesn't necessarily imply effect, but why the hell is it that whenever Muslim people protest there are always reports of bombs and shootings and chaos?

Driver run over after throwing cheese balls: The crazy bitch that ran over Eli Westlake did it because Eli threw some cheese balls up in the air, and they hit her car. She was high on "two bottles of wine, marijuana and had ingested four Valium tablets and an ecstasy pill".
Now THATS a night out. I'm a little reluctant to believe that the guy threw away food, judging by his photo it doesn't look like he EVER threw away food. To sum up the story: If you buy cheese balls at 4am and throw them everywhere some crazy bitch will run you over.

Jodi Gordon paid for female strippers in nightclub. I had to read this three times then check if Jodi was actually a chick, but shit yeah. I dunno what to add to that. FnA?

Cigarettes set to rise over $20 per pack: I hope this goes through. I saw some kid on the TV tonight who said he would keep smoking 'out of principle'. So wait, you don't have a job (given by the fact you were sitting on a park bench on a Monday afternoon), and you are using a product that unequivocally increases you risk of all cancers esp lung cancer, a product that will make you tired day in and day out due to your body constantly having to repair itself from the damage it causes, and you say you have principles? Don't make me laugh.

I don't get smokers. You know the product will slowly kill you, so why keep using it? If you want to die, just jump off a bridge somewhere. There are easier and more fun ways to die.

I think its a bit of a delusion the whole cigarette smoking thing. I think most ppl see themselves smoking and think they look uber cool like Michael Madsen in Reservoir dogs, or Angelina Jolie in Girl, Interrupted.
Truth is most people just look sick, diseased and trashy when they smoke. Its an image thing that doesn't work. Just go to any train station and see if you can find a hot girl that smokes.

I Don't get Twitter

I read an article today about Kyle and Jackie-O's (and by the way, she's NO Jackie O, if you know what I mean. The REAL Jackie O actually had class) bit twitter fiasco, and in that some research had concluded that somewhat 90% of the Twitter accounts that had signed up to follow them were generated by a computer. As in a computer was generating random accounts on twitter and signing them up to Kyle and Jackie to make them seem popular.

I don't get twitter. I've yet to see anything come out of twitter thats anything useful. I tried it before I bagged out on it, but honestly anything that can be condensed into 160 characters isn't worth saying, unless its "Help! Fire/Rape/etc". At first I though it was me, and that my life isn't very interesting, but then I noticed other people were posting rabid crap like " Brushing my teeth" and "going to the bookstore" and I was like 1. Who cares? 2. Its highlighting how dull you are 3. Isn't this an invasion of your own privacy?

It seems a bit strange that in this environment where online privacy is such a big thing, that you can sign up to your neighbors twitter account, wait for a update like:
"going to the store!!! Lol!! Going to buy shoes!!! Hubby is out && I've got his credit cd!! Lol!"
and just break into her house and pinch all her shit.

Maybe I'm just paranoid... maybe I'm just an asshole... maybe I hate my neighbors.. I dunno.

Yes twitter seems to be a very one-sided communication in a world full of people where self promotion of their ego, and their own importance seems to be the main use of the internet. You could argue that this blog is nothing more than that, you are probably right, but I'd like to think of it as casting off some of the negativity that consumes me on a daily basis into the world of the public domain so that other people can see it, realise how ugly it can be, and not follow the path I have. But I'm digressing.

Despite all my flaws, my ego isn't big enough, and never will be, for twitter. Besides, none of my 30 year old with-kid mates whom have given up on life as we know it mates want to hear about me pulling of that sick rail grind at the park on a wednesday morning. Oh, the life of a programmer....

Kyle and Jackie O? It wouldn't surprise me that someone generated a 'bot to sign accounts up to them, given their fading popularity and the fact Sydney is realising that they stand for everything we hate about our city.
Kyle and his fat, arrogant, obnoxious no talent ass paying out on those that are obviously better than him (i.e. everybody else) and the vacuous, soul-less but pretty Jackie O.

I could replace you both with a bot.