Give me liberty or give me... ?

Add to the long list of people who need to shut the fuck up: Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence in the US. God knows what power that title actually gives him in what spook agency but his principal role seems to be letting the American people know they're utterly fucked.

You know that freedom and liberty idea that so many Americans are so fond of? I think it's time to face facts and file that under "not so much". Most rational people expect their government to have all sorts of spy operations in place. Most of us manage to sleep at night by convincing ourselves it's for our protection and as we're clearly not criminals or terrorist, nobody's spying on us.

That tissue-thin layer of self-delusion tends to get torn apart pretty thoroughly when a government official actually comes out and says "Oh yeah, we're totally spying on everyone. All the time."

In a speech he gave in October, Kerr said Americans shouldn't be fighting to protect their anonymity - they should be "changing their definition of privacy". You see, in this brave new world, privacy doesn't actually mean privacy. It means accepting the fact that the government is going to have full access to every tiny detail of your life any time they want. It means being innocent and law abiding doesn't mean "not under surveillance". But we should all take a deep breath and relax because you can trust the government not to do the wrong thing.

It isn't as if it's easy to find examples of the Bush administration unjustly smearing their opponents (even those within their own party). Incidently, a Google search for "Bush administration smear opponent" returns 579,000 results. Nothing to worry about there.

In the good old days of the Cold War and the McCarthy era, a sizeable proportion of people being spied on actually belonged to the Communist Party (or at least went to meetings hoping to score with those hot politically active chicks). Not any more. Ever had a phone call with someone outside the USA? That's all they need to spy on you now.

Actually, I should correct that last alarmist statement. They won't spy on you for a call where the other party is outside the US. They'll spy on you if they have a reasonable suspicion that one end of the conversation is outside the US. And of course we're talking about eminently reasonable people here. What could possibly go wrong with allowing that sort of power without the usual checks and balances?

And this Kerr character is either frighteningly stupid or simply enjoys insulting the intelligence of everyone else. One of his primary justifications for unlimited government intrusion into innocent people's lives is the way some people use social networking sites like FaceBook and MySpace. Yes, this is what passes for logic with these twisted freaks. Some people give out personal information online and so everyone should give up all rights to privacy.

I keep wanting to avoid hyperbole and gratuitous references to rape but that's what keeps popping into my head. This sounds like the classic drunken moron's defence for date rape. "Hey, the bitch let me buy her dinner and all those drinks. Then she came back to my place. She knew what was coming next, you can't expect me to listen when she says 'NO' after all that."

But this prick really got me angry when he said "Protecting anonymity isn't a fight that can be won... (stop struggling, bitch!)... Our job now is to engage in a productive debate." Oh yeah, that old chestnut. Don't get angry. Just because the government is violently raping your basic rights and expecting you to say "thank you" afterwards. Whatever you do, don't get angry. Be reasonable.

Do you know why Mr Angry exists? Because it's impossible for Mr Angry not to exist in today's world. Every piece of shit in every country in the world who wants to screw over other people is always quick to say anger is wrong. You need to be reasonable. You need to be productive when you respond. You know what?

FUCK THAT SHIT!

Here's the big secret they want to keep from you: It's OK to be angry. In fact, fuck that too. It isn't OK. It's the appropriate response. It's fucking required. I'm more than reasonable when somebody presents a reasonable proposal. When they're unreasonable I'll resist. And when they want to lie, cheat, steal and destroy the basic rights of innocent people and tell me I'm not allowed to be angry in response?

I. Get. Fucking. FURIOUS!


http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ8YKfAV3TM

Blazing heat and flies - it must be summer in Australia

So after months of planning, it's now less than two weeks to go until the As One gathering for YouTube users here in Melbourne. And right on cue Melbourne has delivered a reminder that it might be a hot day. We're in the middle of a three day stretch of mid to high 30s temperature-wise (that Celsius! 90-100 Fahrenheit for those not good at conversion).

I thought it was my duty to provide a reminder to those planning on attending to take our warnings about the sun seriously. And while I was doing a location shoot it became obvious what else I had to warn people about: the fucking flies! Federation Square is right next to the Yarra river where the bastard things are probably breeding. I didn't have repellent and they wouldn't let up swarming all over me.

Although I didn't catch it on camera I actually inhaled one of the fucking things! I HATE it when that happens! I made quite a scene, doubled over, hacking and coughing, trying to get a fucking fly out of my throat. The little shit was actually still alive when I spat it out!

Mind you, today's temperature is no indicator of what it will be like on December 1st. Or even tomorrow for that matter. Melbourne is notorious for sudden weather changes. For fans of Kiwi band Crowded House, their song "Four Seasons in One Day" is about Melbourne. The gathering day could be stormy, just as hot as today, even hotter or pleasant and mild. Or some combination of all of those.

People think the talk of rapid changes to the weather here is exaggerated here but it isn't. The record for weirdest day I have experienced here was summer last year. It was really hot, more than 38 Celsius (close enough to 100 Fahrenheit) when a storm front moved in late in the afternoon. This would normally cool things down a bit but the temperature dropped 15 degrees Fahrenheit in an hour. The maximum the next day was 20 degrees lower than the maximum on this day.

So yeah, Melbourne is not a city that rewards you for planning an outdoor event a long time in advance. If there's torrential rain on the day of the gathering the crowd will probably punch me out.


http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=kS9JrN34VWo

My addiction

I think it's time I came clean. I have a serious problem with addiction. I've tried to give up but I haven't been able to kick it.

I can't stop baiting morons on YouTube. I know I should be a better human about it but they're soooooo stupid and it's sooooo easy to rip on them. I've been having a funny experience over the last few days on YouTube since they featured one of my videos on the Australian home page.

It's actually the video I posted earlier in the week where I expressed my amusement at the proposal to crush cars belonging to hoons. Now that it's being exposed to a larger audience all the sad acts who define themselves according to their penis-compensating cars are coming out of the woodwork.

And so I taunt them. I keep saying to myself "just one more, then I'll quit". And then I've done it twenty times without realising it. Ah well, I'm planning to set up a support group for fellow sufferers, Maybe I'll find the cure one day.


http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=j_RoSj34TU4

An angry train encounter

I've been going to jon interviews this week which involves the joys of public transport (parking is far too much of a hassle in the city to drive in). We're getting our first hot days of summer and I seem to keep lucking in to getting on trams, trains and/or buses with non-functioning air conditioning. Plus, in Melbourne the public transport is usually absurdly crowded.

Maybe they aren't broken. Maybe it's a deliberate plot. It could be that the government is conducting large-scale experiments to see how the populace will respond to being crushed into a small space while being subjected to high heat and humidity.

If that's the case, you can suspend the experiments now. The results are in. People in that situation get pissed off.

Coming home yesterday I found myself stuck on the tram from hell. Literally, judging from the internal temperature. My mood had gotten progressively worse until it reached the point where I was planning the order in which I would kill people when I finally snapped. Hmmm, he looks easy... she'd be a pushover... I bet his head would pop right off... oooh, he looks tough, I'd better throw some frail bodies between me and him...

I was just about ready to put my plan into action when the tram passed a train station. I took a punt that a train would be less hellish and jumped ship. This turned out to be a good choice - the train was considerably less crowded.

There were a few seats empty in the vestibule of the train but somebody had a bike leaned up against them. These are the type of seat that flip up if nobody is sitting in them so they were flush with the wall, which doubtless seemed like a good thing to the bike owner. I thought I might actually sit in one of the seats that were designed with humans in mind rather than bikes. It seemed like a reasonable plan but it led to the exchange detailed in the following video:


http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=vz843V94gV4

Crushing Hoons

Hoon is a fun word. I don't know if it used anywhere else in the world but in Australia it's used to describe hooligans. Trouble-makers. Loud mouths. Idiots. It's often used specifically to describe morons who drive like they're trying to over-compensate for their tiny penises and get involved in illegal street racing.

Because going after these dorks is a sure-fire vote winner ("law and order" never goes out of style) politicians are always proposing new laws to punish these miscreants. Each new edict tends to get promoted as an "anti-hoon" law which has a nice ring to it.

In the news at the moment is a proposal by the NSW government to actually crush the cars of hoons convicted of illegal street racing. I know there are similar laws around the world but I like the twist they're adding to this one. They aren't simply crushing the cars into cubes. They're actually using them for crash tests. And the bit I really like is that they're planning to video the crushing and put the videos online.

That's a good start but I have an idea for taking it one step further...


http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=jzYtFaU6h_w

Wireless Routers Suck!

Some days I'm not all that angry. These days I either don't make a post or video or I end up doing something that isn't all that angry. Yesterday was one of those days. Not all that angry. Not much motivation to do anything angry on the internet.

And then I tried to set up a wireless router...


http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=2VRJYov12c0

Yahoo's spam filter sucks!

I'm getting so pissed off with how useless Yahoo's spam filter is. Oh, and I won't even consider adding an exclamation mark every time I write Yahoo - fucking wankers. I have both Gmail and Yahoo email accounts and the difference between their spam filters is staggering.

Gmail hardly lets any spam through but every day I have to wade through spam in my Yahoo inbox. And it isn't even cleverly designed spam. It is absolutely bog-standard Nigerian 419 scams and messages telling me I've won the Irish lottery. And even when I mark something as spam an identical message gets through later in the day.

And the clueless feebs at Yahoo wonder why Google is kicking their arse from one end of the internet to the other. This is the absolute basics of spam management and Yahoo is failing miserably.

On a slightly related note, I had a funny experience with what I guess I could call phone spam. I've published the number for the angry phone far and wide (0403 069 148) and received a few interesting calls. Yesterday I received one from a chap saying he was calling from Ghana. He was apparently feeling hard done by and was assured I was a generous and caring person. He then proceeded to recite one of the standard spam scripts that Yahoo is so useless at blocking.

I said straight away that I knew the call was a scam and I wasn't going to give him any money or any of my personal details. But he was not easily dissuaded and wanted to keep telling me about how I was the only one who could help him with his desperate plight. At first I thought I'd see how long I could keep him on the line and so cost him money but I soon realised from the low sound quality he was calling via voice over IP. So no chance of sending him broke.

I really wish I had a camera running and was able to record the whole thing because there was quite a comical element to it. My African phone spammer had managed to call just after I had put some dye in my hair. Because of this, I couldn't put the phone right up to my ear or it would have been covered in dye. This, of course, mad it hard to hear him. Plus he had a really thick accent.

So he's doggedly ploughing through his script and I keep interjecting with "Dude, I can't hear you. Or understand you. And I wouldn't give you any money if I could." All the while holding the phone daintily away from my ear to avoid colouring it purple.

Sad to say, it was the highlight of my day.

Back in the job market

I'm testing the waters in the job market again. I won't be starting another contract until at least December but I'll probably need to start lining up interviews soon. I checked the main job website and the market looks healthy. It seems as though about 60 contract positions for my line of work are being advertised each week.

I say "seems to be" because although that's the number that pops up when I search, it isn't strictly accurate. Some of them are being re-advertised so they aren't all new. Some are being advertised by more than one agency so the numbers are a bit deceptive. And then there's the morons who advertise permanent roles under the contract listings.

This really bugs me. When I've questioned agencies about this in the past they've said they wanted to reach the widest range of candidates possible. Yeah, including the ones who aren't even slightly interested. That makes sense. I decided to call one of the agencies and share my displeasure with them:


http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=KV0DYbD64wA

When private and public meet

I had a funny experience today. The upcoming YouTube gathering coincides with the Melbourne World AIDS Day Concert hosted by the Burnet Institute. Both events will be at Federation Square on November 1st. Given the global nature of YouTube and the global nature of World AIDS Day seem like a perfect fit, I'm working with the people at the Burnet Institute to do some cross-promotion with YouTube.

At a big meeting today it was my job to explain to the various attendees what the As One YouTube gathering actually was. When I described the promotion that had been happening on YouTube, the guy next to me said "Yeah I saw a video about that done by AngryAussie."

The fact that he referred to me in the third person while I was sitting right next to him threw me for a moment. Then I realised. He had no idea I was AngryAussie. When I explained that I was AngryAussie his reaction was amusing to say the least.

About a dozen expressions flickered across his face. What? What are you talking about? You're crazy. Oh, wait a minute. Yeah, maybe. No, but... Do I look like a dork for not recognising him?

It's nice to know that my "disguise" actually works. Apparently I come across differently when I'm not wearing a mask and ranting. Who knew?

My brain won't switch off

So at about 2.30am I realised I wasn't going to sleep and I should stop wasting time in bed. I'd be much better served getting up and wasting time on the computer. My brain was going over and over details about the As One gathering for YouTubers in Melbourne. I kept thinking of all the things I still have to organise.

I'm lying in the dark ticking off videos I want to make, people I need to call, information I have to publicise and on top of it all I'm still planning for my trip to LA next week.

Well, at least I have one less thing to worry about now. In the middle of wasting time skipping through YouTube videos (welcome to YouTube, Oprah!) I got an email from my NY contact saying the producer had changed plans. Now they want to shift the interview from LA back to NY and do it in December or January rather than next week.

With any change to a plan there are positives and negatives. The single biggest positive to this change is that I don't lose a week of preparation time just before the As One gathering. I'm sure my partner in crime, SeanBedlam, will be greatly relieved (although he's been nothing but supportive about me going for this interview). Now I can concentrate on one thing at a time. I'm thinking of all positives and negatives of this change:

POSITIVE: More time for me to prepare

NEGATIVE: More time for me to freak out

POSITIVE: I get to go to New York! For the first time!

NEGATIVE: I don't get to see the people I would have seen in LA

I'm sure there's more than that but it's 4am here now and my brain isn't functioning as well as I thought it was. When I started writing this I imagined I had a really long +/- list. Hmmm, there is the possible complication that I was planning to start a new job in December or January. Oh god, and NY is going to be freezing in Dec/Jan isn't it?

Ah well, life is an adventure. I knew I was asking for trouble when I made that "May you live in interesting times" video a few weeks back.

How to speak Oz - Lesson one

With the Melbourne As One gathering for YouTubers fast approaching (December 1st for those who need reminding) I find myself with a lot to do. I'm answering questions, still hopeful of securing some sponsorship, organising events for the days and working with the Burnet Institute who are running the World AIDS Day Concert which is also on at Federation Square on the same day.

But I need to do more. Now that several people from overseas have confirmed the will be coming I have realised I need to help them. With the local language. Many of them assume they will be OK because they think they speak English. Sadly, some will find they only speak American which is not the same thing at all.

Teaching these people to speak Australian (or Strine as it is know to academics) will not be an easy task. But I am not daunted. I will start with the basics and work up from there. Todays lesson covers two things visitors absolutely must know:


http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=-vjoVZcBsOo

Think ahead

As part of my preparation for going to be interviewed in LA, I've been working with a director to practice responding to questions. I've mentioned the director before, his name is Adrian Calear. I went to college with him and these days he's a respected director in the Melbourne comedy scene. My thinking is, chances like this don't come along very often so I really don't want to fuck this one up. If I do well in this, who knows what other doors might open.

One of the things Adrian has been teaching me is how to structure my responses. Start with something concise that can fit into ten seconds but be thinking two sentences ahead in case the interviewer asks you to elaborate. While the skills I've been learning will be directly useful beyond this TV interview (I have to start going to job interviews again soon) there's a lot of areas where it would be indirectly useful too.

This was actually brought into focus for me as I was driving home. There are a significant number of drivers on Melbourne roads who are only alive because they haven't run into another driver (literally) who's as stupid as them. These are morons who seem incapable of reacting to what's directly in front of them. Hoping that they learn the ability to plan for what's ahead is a long shot to say the least.

You end up stuck behind these cretins when they slam on the brakes as they reach a green light because they suddenly remember they wanted to turn at this intersection. They come out of side streets without slowing down and just maybe think about looking for oncoming traffic after they've already cut you off. These are the people that I use to justify my car-mounted machine guns.

The biggest concern with these morons is that their idiocy is life threatening when they get behind the wheel. But sometimes they're just plain fucking annoying. The particular brand of genius I was subjected to on this drive was when there were two turning lanes at an intersection they get in the wrong one.

I'm talking about the sort of intersection where there are two lanes for turning right. If you're going straight once you turn the corner it doesn't matter which lane you're in. But if you're going to turn left STRAIGHT AFTER the intersection, then common sense dictates you get in the left lane. Sadly, common sense doesn't seem to be one of the core requisites for getting a driver's license. Because there are far too many morons who clearly think "hey, I'm in the wrong lane, but what could possibly go wrong with sailing across a few lanes of traffic without indicating? Because after all, my convenience far outweighs little things like the safety of other people."

I wouldn't have believed I could have morons inflict this on me three times in one drive but that's what happened. I guess they were very excited at this weeks' meeting of "Morons United" when the chief moron explained this brand new way to fuck people up.

Worse still, these idiots cop an attitude when you dare point out their stupidity. It drives me crazy when they flail their arms about pulling "what's your problem" faces. You're my fucking problem, dickhead. Well, I'll fix them with my new invention: chainsaws mounted on extendable arms at the front of my car. Let them stare at the bloody stumps where their flailing arms used to be until they get the message.

Stalkers take note

I received confirmation of my travel plans for going to LA next week. I'm flying in to LA on Monday November 12th and doing the shooting for the TV show on the 13th. They've got me staying at a place called the Montrose Suite Hotel in West Hollywood. I had a look at their website and it looks pretty good.

If anyone is in the LA area and wants to get together, I'll probably be in the mood to party a bit on the night of Tuesday the 13th. Assuming the shooting goes well, that is. If I screw it up completely I'll be in the mood to get so drunk I forget it all. So youknow, either way could make for a good time.

It runs in the family

People often ask me if my angry behaviour has any effect on my kids. Allow me to present Exhibit A:


http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=eWxIRd7FHo8

Pointless Interview questions

The job market is a fun place. Well, it's fun for me at the moment, mostly because I'm in no rush to start another contract. This makes me very relaxed during interviews which tends to result in me coming across better. It also frees me up to decide I don't want a particular job. I'm not desperate for money so I'm content to wait for the right opportunity rather than grab the first thing that comes along.

It also gives me a bit of freedom in my responses when I think the interviewer is asking stupid questions. I don't want to burn any bridges so I'm not actually rude. I never actually come out and say I think the interviewer is asking stupid questions but it's fairly easy to turn things around so they are in the position of justifying why they're asking questions that are so, well... stupid.

For instance, there was the putz I had to see this week who thought he was being really clever. It seems as though someone gave him the book of Microsoft interview questions and he was eager to show off his new "knowledge". This style of interviewing gives you abstract questions that have no relationship whatsoever to the work you'll be doing. Or to the real world.

Proponents say they're trying to see how creatively you can think. Normal humans say it's a waste of time. In my case, the interview went a little like this:

Annoying Recruiter: How would you move Mount Fuji 1/2 a kilometre to the South?

ME: Why would I do that?

AR: Uhhhh, it's a project you've been assigned.

ME: As part of my work I've been asked to move Mount Fuji?

AR: Yes, so how would you do it?

ME: How could that possibly benefit the business?

AR: What?

ME: As an analyst, my first reaction is the project would be prohibitively expensive and take forever to complete. The first thing I'd want is to see a business case that showed how this would benefit the business.

AR: But how would you do it?

ME: That isn't the important question. What you need to be asking is why would you do it?

AR: I just want to know how you'd do it.

ME: But if you can't tell me why it should be done, that tells me there's a problem. As an analyst, I wouldn't be doing my job if I let the project go forward without answering that question.

AR: I'm trying to get an idea of how you'd approach the problem.

ME: I'm telling you how I'd approach it: I'd try to find out why someone wanted to do this. Seriously, even suggesting such an outlandish project tells me that things are seriously out of whack.

AR: No, this isn't a real work project. I gave you an unusual example to see how you'd approach a problem that you wouldn't face in your day to day work.

ME: So what you're saying is the way you're planning to work out if I'd be any good at this job by asking me questions that have nothing to do with the job and could never be of any value to the job?

AR: Uhh, yes.

ME: It never occurred to you to ask me questions related to actual issues I'm likely to face in this job?

AR: Well, this is a creative exercise.

ME: So you're sticking with the plan that finding out how I deal with something useless is more valuable than finding out how I'd deal with something that actually matters to the business?

AR: Well that isn't really the point...

ME: Is it hard to get your job? (extended silence) Wait I've got a better question: If I took this job, would I ever have to see you again? Because I gotta tell you, that would have a pretty big influence on my decision.

I'd like to point out I'm not a cruel man. It was never my intention to reduce the interviewer to tears. But I think with the right therapy, he'll come through this a stronger person.

Why do I blog?

So, the inimitable Funky Brown Chick has asked me "why do I blog?" This is a multi-answer question for me. The most obvious answer is in the "Why am I doing this" section of this blog. I describe the blog as therapy - if I vent my anger here I theorised I would be less angry in day to day life.

While that's obviously tongue in cheek, there's an element of truth to it. My girlfriend for one will vouch for the fact my moods generally have been better since I started blogging. I'm a big believer in the benefits of catharsis. Venting anger in a way that doesn't physically harm someone is a lot healthier than letting it build up until you burst a blood vessel in your brain or go on a shooting rampage.

It's more accurate to say that I wanted a creative outlet. I've always been a pretty good writer and I'm a firm believer that writing is a skill like any other - the more you do it, the better you'll get. So I was actually quite methodical when setting up the blog. I had been working on some material for doing some standup comedy and decided I might get more feedback on what's actually funny by writing a blog. I could test out material here and use the most popular bits in a routine.

Standup is hard. And it doesn't provide a very rapid feedback loop. You get the instant feedback (or lack thereof) from a live audience but if some material doesn't go over all that well you can't really come back the next day and try some new material. With a blog I could try whatever I wanted, see the audience response and try some more the next day.

I made a couple of choices before I even started. First, I was going to do it anonymously. I'm a contractor and the IT community in Melbourne is too small, too conservative and too gossipy to take a huge risk career-wise. So I decided to invent a persona. Honestly, Mr Angry isn't me. He's a mouthpiece for a few things I want to say but more often he's a character who says things I never would myself.

The other decision was to be disciplined and regular with the writing. The name "Angry 354 Days a Year" is not a coincidence. I decided up front to set myself the target of writing at least one post every day for a year. Which I actually managed (just). There were a few close calls but some new content went up every day for the first year.

Since reaching that milestone I've relaxed a little. Now occasionally a day or two will pass without me posting and I won't freak out. Oh and I abandoned the idea of doing standup as well. Too hard. Too 20th century. YouTube killed that idea for me. Only the biggest name standup comedians in the world get a bigger audience than even a fringe player like me can get on YouTube.

Which brings me to the last big reason why I blog. I want to make a career of this. I've been a bit vague on exactly which direction this will take as I enjoy both the writing and the performance side of what I've been doing. But there have been a few positive developments in the last year. I've made a few thousand dollars doing videos for The Fizz on DirecTV (which has paid for camera upgrades and my broadband).

And then there was the New York possibility I mentioned a month or so ago. A journalist with one of the US broadcast networks had approached me about being interviewed for a segment on an upcoming show. For what felt like the longest time it continued to dangle as a possibility with no definite answer one way or the other. Now I finally have an answer. Sadly, I won't be going to New York.

I'm going to LA! Yes, Mr Angry is going to Hollywood. In two weeks. I fly in on the 14th of November (unless something changes). So if you're from the LA area, let me know. I definitely want to catch up with as many people as possible while I'm there. As you can see in this video, I was quite excited by the news:


http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=AgZFUKdkdQY

Help me promote the Melbourne YouTube gathering

So I mentioned previously that I'd been to the YouTube party in Sydney and had a great time. Now I'm in full swing organising the gathering for YouTube users in Melbourne (known colloquially as AusOne) which will be in Federation Square on December 1st.

One thing I don't think I mentioned about the Sydney gathering was I stole a bunch of YouTube shirts. And they're all too small for me. So I'm giving them away. After asking for suggestions on YouTube for what people should do to win a t-shirt, the best suggestion was that they should go to people who do the best promotion for the gathering.

So, if you feel like helping me out, come up with some creative ideas to get the word out. Here's me showing off the t-shirts:


http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=HknLWGb4l2Q

If you're interested, let me warn you: the shirts are really petite sizes. I actually tried on the XL one and I could barely get my arms through the sleeves. And let's not even get started on how my gut hung out.

I have a slightly significant post planned in response to a question Funky Brown Chick left me on voicemail (call 0403069148 in Australia, 61403069148 if you're overseas). She asked me why I blog. A fair question. And since she asked, I've received some major news that makes for a really good answer.

But I'm too damn tired to write it now.

A Halloween Message

OK, I got a question. How fucking stupid are people? Because I had to deal with some real idiots today.

To give a bit of background: Halloween isn't a big thing in Australia. If you went around trick or treating people would think you're a freak (which, come to think of it, would be kind of appropriate for Halloween). But there's a American food store in a nearby suburb (I think they cater to homesick American expats) that runs a daytime trick or treat event for kids.

The idea is you show up on the Saturday closest to Halloween (which was today) and you go from shop to shop getting lollies. My kids think it's awesome. And this year I decided to dress up with them. So I'm walking down the street wearing my zombie mask, crazy wig and bloodstained, tattered clothing and I'm getting some damn weird looks.

It looked like people were actually scared of me. Because I looked a zombie. In a Halloween event. A really well-publicised Halloween event. With dozens of other people wandering around in costumes. In the middle of the fucking day. And it isn't as if I was lunging around deliberately trying to scare people.

Well... there was this one kid. Little bastard wouldn't stop staring at me. So every time his mother wasn't looking I lunged towards him with my tongue hanging out making gutteral noises. A little harsh perhaps, but I don't take shit from three-year-olds.

Anyway, the whole point of me going out in public dressed as a zombie was so I could make the following video without people staring at me. But they did anyway.


http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=ItuvX5ZIAkU

I am the new god of YouTube

Well, maybe not. But at least the featured one of my videos on the new YouTube Australia page. And my scary visage has been prominently featured on the global YouTube page for a couple of days now.

A little while ago, myself and a few other Australian YouTubers were asked to do a promotional video for the launch of YouTube Australia. This was what the "party" on Tuesday was about - it was considerably more a media launch than a party but I met a few cool people anyway so that's OK. The individual videos were spliced together into a promotional video which was featured on the various YouTube home pages.

And the thumbnail that everybody sees is a closeup of me. Which should be more than enough to put anyone off Australia. They even used my tag line in the video description. YouTube Oz, people!


http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=mLTuXXcd-58

The funny thing is I think they fucked up the editing. They did a pretty logo that I think was meant to be the thumbnail but they timed it wrong and ended up with me instead. More proof that I'm god's chosen one. Another funny thing is the comments. A fascinating collection of stupidity and self-loathing. If you want to lose all faith in humanity follow this link to read them.

The main thing is I had fun. I kept my camera switched off when drunk but here's some stuff I shot while sober:


http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=RgpOLdQ3xh0

I'm almost recovered from the trip and the late nights now. Back to the angry.

Australian Federal Election - Arrogance and Lies

Consider this my application for a job with the Australian Labor Party. I love doing something this partisan because someone always blows a blood vessel because they can't tolerate the idea that you'd take a position that contradicts theirs. It'll be fun to see a few people humiliate themselves with idiotic comments.

For those who don't know Australian politics, here's the background to this video. The first one pictured is John Howard, current Australian Prime Minister. The second one is his deputy, Peter Costello. Howard has been PM for more than 10 years and he made a deal with his deputy to retire and hand over power. Then he broke that deal.

In their public spat, Howard was called a liar for not keeping his word and Costello was called arrogant for not waiting. The rest kind of wrote itself.

I did it in the stereotype election campaign ad style - slow zoom on photos with dramatic music. So what do you think - do I have a future as a political lobbyist?


http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=ROvkvBB1Ea4

Call the Angry Phone - 61 403 069 148

I'm a very lazy man. And yet I got suckered into 4 hours of yard work today. As a result I'm suffering physical exhaustion and pain the likes if which is quite alien to me.

So here's a video I did before I got totally knackered from hacking through six months of weed growth.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMN894oM_fI

And that really a number you can call me on. I got it mainly for the YouTube gathering. So I could give out a contact number but, you know, ignore it if I wanted to. I have no idea if anyone actually wants to call me or not but it's a pre-paid phone so it doesn't cost me anything. If you do happen to call me it's fairly likely you'll get voicemail. Which I may use in a video for my own purposes. Don't say you weren't warned.

Best fucking quotes - the annotated version

In my original draft of yesterday's post, I included an explanation for most of the quotes I chose. I decided to run them unadorned because I thought maybe people might want to copy the quotes into emails and I thought I'd make that easy. So today I bring you the annotated version along with a video version.

I nust love my swearing.

“Fuck is my chisel.” - Irish comedian Tommy Tiernan explaining to an American audience why he needs to swear.
I thought this was the perfect starting point: swearing isn't necessarily gratuitous - sometimes it's weilded with the precision of a tool.

“I say we grease this rat-fuck son of a bitch right now.” - Hudson (Bill Paxton) in Aliens
It was hard to pick just one of Hudson's lines but this one did it for me. Who hasn't felt this way about some yuppie prick who's screwed them?

“You had best unfuck yourself and start shitting me Tiffany cufflinks or I will definitely fuck you up!” - Gunnery Sergeant Hartman (Lee Ermey) in Full Metal Jacket
The whole post was nearly Lee Ermey quotes from Full Metal jacket. Swearing was invented for this man.

“Was it legal? FUCK legal! Not nice? FUCK nice! The nation says I’m not nice? FUCK THE NATION!” - Roy Cohn (Al Pacino) in Angels in America
In this quote the character was talking about why he wanted Ethel Rosenberg to get the death sentence. I thought it was (besides being a fine bout of swearing) a poignant reminder of some of the excesses of the current US administration.

“Your mother sucks cocks in hell!” - Regan (Linda Blair) in The Exorcist
She was such a cute little girl but she swore a blue streak when she got going.

“Life does not start and stop at your convenience, you miserable piece of shit.” - Walter Sobchak (John Goodman) in The Big Lebowski
The Big Lebowski is another movie that offered dozens of good swearing quotes but I liked the philosophy behind this one.

“Shut that cunt’s mouth or I’ll come over there and fuckstart her head.” - Mr Parker (Ryan Phillipe) in The Way of the Gun
Besides the sheer brutality of this quote I liked it for that fact that before this movie Ryan Phillipe had been a rosy-cheeked teen heart-throb.

“Fuck me? Fuck you! Fuck you and this whole city and everyone in it!” - Monty Brogan (Ed Norton) in 25th Hour
This is part of a long diatribe where the character says "fuck you" to pretty much everyone in New York. It's an awesome soliloquy.

“Fucking Eric Schmidt is a fucking pussy. I’m going to fucking bury that guy, I have done it before and I will do it again. I’m going to fucking kill Google.” - Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft
In case anyone doesn't believe this one, here's the source: http://battellemedia.com/archives/001835.php

“You have a look in your eye like you haven’t been fucked in a year.” - Tony Montana (Al Pacino) in Scarface
Tony Montana is another one who provided dozens of quality swearing quotes - I liked this one because it was relatively subtle.

“(if you work in advertising or marketing) You are fucked and you are fucking us. Kill yourself, it’s the only way to save your fucking soul. Kill yourself” - Bill Hicks
This part of Hicks' routine is hilarious - it goes on for a while and he keeps repeating "there's no joke here - just kill yourself."

“I’ll send you a love letter straight from my heart, fucker. Do you know what a love letter is? It’s a bullet from a fuckin’ gun, fucker. If you receive a love letter from me, you are fucked forever. Do you understand, fuck? I’ll send ya straight to hell, fucker!” - Frank Boothe (Dennis Hopper) in Blue Velvet
I once saw a TV modified version of this movie where they replaced the work "fuck" with "freak". It made Frank's speeches very weird.

“Your mother sucks big fuckin’ elephant dicks, you got that?” - Joey LaMotta (Joe Pesci) in Raging Bull
When Joe Pesci swears, you believe he means it.

“So I say live and let live… Anyone who can’t go along with that, take him outside and shoot the motherfucker.” - George Carlin
From the man who built a whole routine around the swear words you can't say on TV.

“Things are fucked up at the North Pole. Mrs Claus caught me fucking her sister, now I’m out on my ass.” - Willie (Billie Bob Thornton) in Bad Santa
There's something about an alcoholic Santa who swears continuously and indulges in anal sex in shopping mall change room on his breaks that appeals to me.

“Bitch was so fine I’d suck her daddy’s dick.” - Richard Pryor
I used this one as it was one of the few times Pryor opened his mouth and didn't say "fuck".

“We will fuck him. Do you hear me? We will fuck him. We will ruin him. Like no-one has ever fucked him!” - Karl Rove, senior advisor to George W Bush
Again, in case anyone doesn't believe this one, here's the source: http://www.ronsuskind.com/newsite/articles/archives/000032.html

“What’s the big deal? It doesn’t hurt anybody. Fuck, fuckity, fuck-fuck-fuck!” - Eric Cartman in South Park Bigger, Longer and Uncut
What better way to round things off? Swearing really doesn't hurt anyone. Fuck anyone who says different.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNac1MUz64E

Best Swearing Quotes Ever

"Life is a four letter word" - Lenny Bruce

Even Lenny Bruce, the master of profanity, knew how to be subtle. But sometimes subtlety simply doesn't cut it...

"Fuck is my chisel." - Irish comedian Tommy Tiernan explaining to an American audience why he needs to swear.

"I say we grease this rat-fuck son of a bitch right now." - Hudson (Bill Paxton) in Aliens

"You had best unfuck yourself and start shitting me Tiffany cufflinks or I will definitely fuck you up!" - Gunnery Sergeant Hartman (Lee Ermey) in Full Metal Jacket

"Was it legal? FUCK legal! Not nice? FUCK nice! The nation says I'm not nice? FUCK THE NATION!" - Roy Cohn (Al Pacino) in Angels in America

"Your mother sucks cocks in hell!" - Regan (Linda Blair) in The Exorcist

"Life does not start and stop at your convenience, you miserable piece of shit." - Walter Sobchak (John Goodman) in The Big Lebowski

"Shut that cunt's mouth or I'll come over there and fuckstart her head." - Mr Parker (Ryan Phillipe) in The Way of the Gun

"Fuck me? Fuck you! Fuck you and this whole city and everyone in it!" - Monty Brogan (Ed Norton) in 25th Hour

"Fucking Eric Schmidt is a fucking pussy. I'm going to fucking bury that guy, I have done it before and I will do it again. I'm going to fucking kill Google." - Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft

"You have a look in your eye like you haven't been fucked in a year." - Tony Montana (Al Pacino) in Scarface

"(if you work in advertising or marketing) You are fucked and you are fucking us. Kill yourself, it's the only way to save your fucking soul. Kill yourself" - Bill Hicks

"I'll send you a love letter straight from my heart, fucker. Do you know what a love letter is? It's a bullet from a fuckin' gun, fucker. If you receive a love letter from me, you are fucked forever. Do you understand, fuck? I'll send ya straight to hell, fucker!" - Frank Boothe (Dennis Hopper) in Blue Velvet

"Your mother sucks big fuckin' elephant dicks, you got that?" - Joey LaMotta (Joe Pesci) in Raging Bull

"So I say live and let live... Anyone who can't go along with that, take him outside and shoot the motherfucker." - George Carlin

"Things are fucked up at the North Pole. Mrs Claus caught me fucking her sister, now I'm out on my ass." - Willie (Billie Bob Thornton) in Bad Santa

"Bitch was so fine I'd suck her daddy's dick." - Richard Pryor

"We will fuck him. Do you hear me? We will fuck him. We will ruin him. Like no-one has ever fucked him!" - Karl Rove, senior advisor to George W Bush

"What's the big deal? It doesn't hurt anybody. Fuck, fuckity, fuck-fuck-fuck!" - Eric Cartman in South Park Bigger, Longer and Uncut

Quality swearing compiled for you at http://angryaussie.wordpress.com

Hating Haters

Did I mention I was in a mood? One of my subscribers on YouTube egged me on by asking me to make a video speaking out against haters. I don't need much prodding to attack this target. I've gotten so used to haters that I don't think about them much any more. It's almost a Zen experience when you realise how truly meaningless they are.

But it's still fun to have a go at them. Plus I like giving people tips on how to deal with them. Knowledge is power, after all. The one thing I want to do is encourage people to be angry at the pointlessness of haters. A common (and stupid) ploy haters use is to say hating them makes you a hater. No it doesn't, it makes you a human. This can take extreme forms like when nazis claim that standing up against their racism makes you intolerant. You're intolerant of intolerance, geddit?

Fuckwads.

So, all in the name of empowerment (and catharsis) here I go:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmpc07aF11g

I'm in a mood

And when I'm in a mood I like to vent. A little while ago I posted a collection of "intellectual" insults under the title "When insults had class". I saw the collection on a mailing list for graduates of my old college but versions of it have been circulating for years. It really struck a chord with me when I saw it - I have been subjected to a barrage of brain-dead insults over the past 18 months so remembering that there have actually been people in the past who have taken time to craft a well-thought out articulate insult, well, that makes me nostalgic.

It seems I wasn't the only one who felt that way. Despite the fact that post was nothing more than a widely circulated list of quotes, it was the second most popular thing I've posted here. Right after the one about pooping your pants. So I have the measure of the internet - it's all about insults and poop. Which plays to my strengths.

While I was greatly enamoured of the classy insults (they're a great change from "you suck!") there really are some people who don't deserve that much effort. The world in general and the internet in particular is riddled with people who just need to be told to fuck off. I got going on this train of thought the other day when some moron swanned through and left an absurdly stupid comment about me not being funny. I'm more than OK with someone doesn't like my approach but it helps if they express this in a less than moronic way.

Plus, this moron made the mistake of saying "no offence, but..." then following up with something incredibly offensive. By all means, say something offensive to me but if you value your safety don't preface it around me with "no offense, but..." That sort of fucked up behaviour will earn you a smack upside your head if I get my way. If you're going to be offensive, commit to it.

It's like some of the morons I have to put up with on YouTube. The most pathetic idiots crop up on my anti-racist and anti-nazi videos. It's bad enough that the world has so many people who are pathetic enough to self-identify as a nazi but even these dicks can't seem to commit to an insult. You'd think if you were confessing to jacking off to mental images of Hitler in the nude you'd have the force of will to give a wholehearted insult. But a bizarre number of these dweebs punctuate their pathetic attempts at insults (usually some variation of "jew" or "fag") with "LOL" or something equally insipid.

Seriously, are these guys the new stormtroopers of the white race or giggling teenage girls?

So anyway, I've been feeling motivated. Motivated to find the best way to tell someone to fuck off. To that end, I've been searching for quotes that feature graphic swearing. I've spent a couple of days picking them up from all over the place (which should shut up the fucking morons who went on about me "stealing" the other list - it's kind of necessary with quotes for them to have been published somewhere else before).

Most of them are movie quotes although there are a few corkers from real world people. Because some of the real world ones are controversial to say the least I've made sure to source all of them. Of course the sources might be lying but I can't really control that. Speaking of movie quotes, I have a question on a matter of style. Say I was quoting the Tony Montana character in Scarface played by Al Pacino. Should the quote read:

"Say hello to my little friend." - Tony Montana (Al Pacino) in Scarface

or

"Say hello to my little friend." - Al Pacino (as Tony Montana) in Scarface

Oh, and I know that the quote is technically from the writer, not the actor who reads it but don't get pedantic. I'll be posting this collection in the next day or so, if you have some favourite swearing quotes of your own, feel free to lob them my way in the meantime.

May you live in interesting times

There is a proverb that goes "May you live in interesting times". Many people say this is actually more of a curse than a proverb. The idea is that "interesting" means trouble. Well, the blogging bot from the future has an opinion on that.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYadfGVWdx8

So these interesting times will definitely be challenging. But I side with the blogging bot from the future. This is an adventure. Maybe even a revolution. And I'm all for creating the future - right here, right now.

I swear it wasn't me

I rarely do posts that are simply links to stories but I thought it was important in this case. Given the number of times I've threatened murderous retribution on spammers, I thought it was important to point out that I didn't do this.

I've heard that decent humans don't celebrate the death of another human no matter how much they despised them. So I won't celebrate this. But I won't shed tears, either. And as the story mentions he isn't the first Russian spammer to be murdered - those interested in cathartic reading can check out some details here.

As for me, I'm busy getting witness statements swearing that I haven't left the country recently.

One job I won't be doing

I've mentioned a few times I'm leaving my current job soon. I don't know what my next job will be but I've come to the realisation that there are some jobs I can't do. It may surprise you to learn this, but there are some jobs that aren't suited to people prone to explosive outbursts of anger.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1voBEeVv_6k

So yeah, I figure that I'll never be a starship captain. And not only because Star Trek is fictional and I need a factual job. It seems every crew from every series are a bunch of whiners. I don't think I'd even be able to limit myself to a phaser set to stun. I'd be handing out photon torpedo suppositories. And I'd tell the really annoying ones I was beaming them down to a planet to explore than make sure I missed by a few million kilometres and beamed them into the heart of a sun.

Although it would make for some great TV.

The truth about science video

Yesterday's post was essentially my script for a YouTube video. I wanted to do a response to a video done by one of my favourite YouTubers who goes by the user name of JustA11en. In his video, Allen asked why so many anti-religion, pro-science people on YouTube were so aggressive and hateful.

Allen is a politically conservative christian from the southern USA. He's also a damn decent individual. Open-minded, thoughtful, intelligent and always willing to listen. He's also usually quite engaging and charming and quite often incredibly funny. No, I don't want to have his babies.

I haven't made any secret of my politics on this blog - it's fair to say that I'm the polar opposite of Allen politically. Long time readers with good memories might remember that in the early days of this blog I went looking for some right-wing blogs that were also intelligent, even-handed and thoughtful.

I came up dry.

It seemed all the right wing bloggers I could find were loud-mouthed, ignorant, braying, hateful jackasses. Yes, I know many left wing bloggers are too. As a result I tend to not spend much time on overtly political blogs.

As an aside, if anyone thinks they know of some intelligent right wing blogs that don't spend all their time spraying hate and bile, feel free to tell me about them.

Anyway, this is one of the reasons I like Allen. He's conservative and I disagree with him on just about every substantive political issue. But I respect him. I respect his very human way of relating his views while rarely going for cheap shots. I'm quite a fan of cheap shots myself so I don't mind that he indulges himself occasionally.

YouTube is renowned as a cesspool of the worst, most hateful behaviour on the internet. And that's saying something. So the fact that this is where I found the first conservative commentator that I could respect is mildly ironic. It restores my faith in human nature somewhat that in the midst of the most juvenile morons on the planet I can find someone I disagree with, yet still respect.

Here's the video version of yesterday's post where I respond to Allen (warning: it's about 10 minutes long):


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-geOb6yqZFo

The truth about science

Science is built on faith. I mean that in both the good sense and the bad sense.

For me, "faith" in the good sense means scientists believe in their results and those who choose to believe in science trust that people smarter than us are doing their best to come up with objectively verifiable data. The best scientists realise that there is unlikely to ever be a universal "truth" but through diligent work they add a few more pieces to the puzzle.

While I think it's insane for a scientist not to have faith in their work and believe in their results, history shows us that many of the most dearly held scientific "truths" will end up being modified or completely invalidated by subsequent discoveries.

From a Joe Public point of view, it simply isn't possible to have a deep understanding of how scientists come to their conclusions. These people spend years (usually their whole lives) specialising in their fields. Reading a 1,000 page book might give good insights into the science behind the latest theories and/or discoveries but you won't understand it in the same way as the scientists doing the work. Anyone who says they do really understand it is either in 0.0001% of the population or they're a wanker. Do the math and you'll see what I think of people like this.

So basically by definition, if we say we believe in scientific principles we believe that based on faith. This isn't intrinsically a bad thing, like most faith it depends how you apply that faith that counts. Personally, I apply it along the lines of "I believe the majority of scientists are acting in good faith; I believe their greater goal is to expand knowledge, not prove they're better than everyone else; I believe the experiments conducted to verify important theories were rigorous, repeatable and peer-reviewed; I believe the best scientists are always asking questions because the currently believed answers might be wrong."

So that's my version of science=faith in a good way. Then there are, of course, those who express their faith in science in what I see as a bad way. I find it mildly amusing when people who claim to be pro-science and anti-religion aggressively attack religion in the name of defending science. Now, I understand the value of an angry outburst but when supporters of science want to argue that following a religion makes you stupid by definition then they're falling into the same trap of zealotry.

I am all for aggressively fighting for the separation of science and religion. The idea that creationism should be taught alongside evolution to "teach the controversy" is utter bullshit. That goes double for creationism's lying scumbag cousin "intelligent design" - I mean, fuck me, just admit you're creationists. It all boils down to "magic man in the sky done it" which, frankly, doesn't cut it as a scientific theory.

You shouldn't "teach the controversy" in science classes because there is NO scientific controversy regarding evolution versus creationism. There is plenty of controversy within the details of evolution but that isn't the same thing. If evidence ever comes to light that displays fatal flaws in evolutionary theory I'm quite confident that the unmitigated bullshit that is creationism isn't going to magically become any less of a fairy story.

I actually understand the impulse to scientific zealotry. If you dedicate your life to learning about the natural world in what you see as an objective way and find yourself having to defend your views against people coming from a completely illogical position, well... Why not simply call them fuckwits and be done with it?

My personal belief is that fundamentalists of any religious stripe tend to be utter morons. Maybe they're not morons in the literal sense of being unintelligent (although a hell of a lot of them most definitely are) but they sure seem keen on crushing knowledge that challenges their "magic man in the sky done it" view of the cosmos. But there is not a straight line of logic between "fundamentalists who try to undermine science are fuckwits" and "anyone who believe in god is an idiot." It can be comforting to think so but it simply isn't true.

Likewise, many supporters of science over religion are loud mouthed idiots who should sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up. I've had the amusing experience (more than once) of having supporters of science saying that it isn't possible to be stupid and support science over religion because you need to be intelligent to have a skeptical mind. This is a seductive line of reasoning but I think it has two major flaws.

First, as soon as someone tries to support a position with circular logic (it is what it is because it is what it is) I get suspicious. Second, it presupposes that the people who believe in science actually understand what it is they are supporting. It isn't possible to understand current scientific thinking on evolution (for example) in any meaningful way without years of study. So the scientists dumb it down for us poor schmucks so we have an inkling of what they're going on about.

It all comes back to belief in science being a leap of faith. I happen to believe it's an intelligent leap of faith that respects the logical and rigorous application of scientific inquiry. I also believe that far too much religious teaching discourages and even punishes critical thought. But a lot of demonstrably stupid people champion science over religion. To pretend otherwise is to ignore a huge body of evidence.

My personal favourite is when you refer to scientific zealots and you get someone jumping all over you ranting about how there is no such thing as a scientific zealot. Show me a scientific zealot, they demand! Uh, you got a mirror handy there, champ? Actually, the level of narcissism on display with people who feel compelled to trumpet their intellectual superiority leads me to suspect they have many, many mirrors on hand. But actual self-reflection and introspection aren't their strong points.

Interestingly, I've found you get the same response if you pick on zealous supporters of Israel, Apple and/or Agile software development methodology.

So the fact that I think science (as opposed to religion) is the way to discover the truth doesn't change the fact that I've made that decision based on faith. I also believe science thrives on the questioning of it's conclusions - an area where religious beliefs (or at least religious institutions) tend to not hold up so well. But I also think scientific zealots can be more deluded than religious zealots. At least religious zealots tend to admit what they are.

Ways you can tell I'm leaving my job #4

I tend to forget some of the social niceties because I'm not going to have to face these people for much longer. You know how you usually suppress your annoyance when you're at work? Well, there was this one little incident the other day...

I hate stupid people

I used think that my problem was people. Everywhere I go, always with the people! People getting all up in my face. People messing with my shit. Life would be much more bearable without the people.

Then I saw the flaw in this theory. Some of my best friends are people. I do a fair approximation of being a people myself. I realised it wasn't all people who were the problem. It's the stupid people. And I think I know how they manage to be such a problem: we're too nice to them.

Darwinism tells us these stupid motherfuckers should be dead. But we do our best to keep them safe. We protect them. I tell you, not actively punishing stupidity is the same thing as rewarding stupidity. It's time to put a stop to this shit.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYn_9KUG1fs

So yeah, that's my first step. Remove all the warning labels. Most of these stupid bastards will be dead within the first twelve months.

Finally a Democratic sex scandal!

I don't know about you, but after the astonishing parade of Republican sexual misadventures over the past year or so I'd been starting to think the Democrats were off their game. But finally someone's put the Democrats back in the sexual spotlight.

Matthew Barrett, a young Democratic state representative in Ohio was giving some high school kids a civics lecture when he decided to branch out and make it an anatomy lecture. You see, what he apparently didn't know is that Windows PCs can be set to automatically display images on a USB drive as a slideshow when such a drive is inserted.

That's the sort of thing you really should know if your going to store nude photos on the same drive as your PowerPoint presentation on how a bill becomes law. So the high school kids saw a more lively slideshow than they were expecting when an image of a topless woman appeared onscreen.

I wouldn't even be joking about this if he had traumatised the kids with something appalling like goatse, but it's nothing they can't find in a mass circulation tabloid. Still, a politician showing school kids a nude picture is a pretty big fuck-up. And he's using the classic "I have no idea how that got there - somebody gave this drive to me" defence. Yeah, and Larry Craig has a "wide stance".

Actually, I really hope the guy is lying. If he really didn't know about the porn then he's an idiot and almost criminally negligent. Here's a tip for ANYONE giving computer based presentations to kids: check first and MAKE SURE there is no porn on the same drive as your presentation. This is not something you want to leave to chance.

I wonder what Republican will be the first to trumpet this as an example of the moral laxity of Democrats? I think it's almost inevitable that somebody will and to be honest, that makes me sick. There are few things I hate more than a hypocrite. One thing I hate more is a hypocrite who uses their public office to persecute people for sexual preferences that they themselves share but won't admit to.

Why the fuck can conservatives not simply admit that sexual differences like homosexuality are normal? To cling to the insane notion that homosexuality (for instance) is abnormal and/or a sin against god is (a) to villify a huge section of the population and (b) to ignore a massive presence in their own ranks.

If you follow this link you'll find a site detailing an astonishing compendium of conservative misdeeds. To be fair, the site is shamelessly partisan, sometimes to an absurd degree. To repeat the claims of crazy people and strippers who say they've had sex with President Bush is pretty ordinary. I'm not saying Bush categorically hasn't had sex with strippers and crazy people but given people's propensity to vilify public figures, I'd give him the benefit of the doubt.

And speaking of Presidents, why the fuck can conservatives not leave the whole Clinton/Lewinsky thing alone? So he let an adult female who wanted to suck his dick actually suck his dick. Deal with it. Personally, I think he was wrong to do it. Regardless of the consensual nature of the episode, it was still an abuse of power. Plus, it was an appalling insult to his wife. And yes, I think it cheapened the office of the President.

Also, if you read the details, it shows he has some really creepy issues with power and control. And feel free to call me conservative but I think people actually have the right to expect that their leaders don't exploit their position to score booty.

Mind you, this isn't quite as serious a breach of trust as lying to the public so you plunge the country into an illegal war, squandering untold thousands of lives and billions of dollars, eviscerating what had been a thriving economy and crushing what the population sees as their basic (i.e. consitutional) rights.

But hey, never forget: Clinton had his dick sucked.

I already hated spammers, but this guy...

I really hate spammers. The types who are running botnets are scum. I don't have to worry about that too much on this blog, thanks to the magic of Akismet. But then there's YouTube. It's all but overrun with spam. I can't work out why the company (Google) that has a product with one of the best spam filters (Gmail) also has a product with one of the most fucked (YouTube).

The deluge of anonymous spam on YT really pisses me off, it feels like I have to deal with as many spam as I do legitimate comments. Usually these take the form of comments on videos but occasionally they spill over into YT's "email" message system. I got one last night that made me just about blow a fuse. Seriously. Even by my standards I was fucking pissed off.

The message proclaimed the wonderful news that YT meetup gifts were now available. Now, as I have made clear here, I am one of the people organising the YT meetups in Australia. So to receive a spam exhorting me to buy some really shitty t-shirts to "promote" the gatherings pissed me off mightily. The blatantly misleading nature of the spam (which many people have received) makes it sounds like this is official apparel.

Lines like "T-shirts for the YT Meetup Dec. 1 in Melbourne OZ are now available" are deliberately designed to sound official while giving the scum-sucking weasel wiggle room to say "I never explicitly claimed they were official t-shirts." I know this is actually a small example of exactly how depraved people can be in the pursuit of money but still... this motherfucker is doing it to me! He's trying to profit from my work while contributing nothing in return. So I retaliated in the only way I could:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQdItaml2Ms

This piece of shit had better hope I never find him.

Ways you can tell I'm leaving my job #3

I'm more likely to tell people what I think of them.

You may not believe this but at work I am generally of a sunny disposition (I've mentioned before that I'm a whistler). But there's always some jerk who thinks it's their job to pass judgement on others. They are fools because this is, of course, my job.

So I'm having a conversation with a cow-orker today when, for no reason I can fathom, he says:

"You're in a way better mood than usual. What's up with that?"

Personally, I thought I was in my normal mood. Maybe this fuckwit is the type who's so terrified of running out of things to say he'll fill momentary silences with anything, no matter how mindless, rather than shutting the fuck up for five seconds. Maybe he suffers from such extreme self-loathing he couldn't work out why I wasn't punching him in the face. Like his mother does.

Usually, I'd ignore mindless shit like this but, hey, I'm leaving. So I said:

"Well, talking to you is bringing down my mood by the second so I should be where you expect real soon."

Surprisingly enough, the conversation sort of died after that.

Walking tours of Melbourne

One of the things we want to do with the upcoming As One gathering in Melbourne is make it something more than standing around and saying hello. From all accounts (from those who have attended other gatherings) this is actually a fun thing to do and if that's all we manage to get happening in Sydney then it will be a success.

But for Melbourne we're planning to "take it to the next level" as they say. I'm not sure exactly who "they" are in this context but I'm sure somebody says that. To that end, we're in the midst of planning a range of activities for the day. When considering the nature of the likely attendees (people with video cameras) and the fact many of them may not know Melbourne very well we decided showing off some of the more hidden, yet visually interesting, parts of Melbourne would be a good idea.

So we will be offering some walking tours to show off some Melbourne secrets. Fortunately, as this video shows, there are many interesting things only a short walk from our gathering point.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuSAqOR9_dQ

Thank Christ football season is over

I'm really not into sport. Not even enough to spend much time saying how much I hate it. Mostly because I don't actually hate it. It doesn't have that big an influence on my life, it's more a case of... meh.

Not being into sport renders you instantly weird in Australia. And by weird I mean "obviously a poofter." Add that to the fact I don't drink beer, I speak more eloquently than average and I enjoy the company of women... well... There was only one conclusion to be drawn in the sort of places where I grew up. The fact that my best friend at school turned out to actually be gay is a source of some mirth to me considering the number of fights I got into declaring "We are NOT gay!"

Which is all slightly divergent from where I intended to go.

The two major football codes in Australia (Rugby League and Australian Rules) both finished their seasons over the weekend. Both are nominally national codes but Rugby League is big in New South Wales and Queensland while Australian Rules is big in Victoria (where I currently reside), South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania.

The disturbing news for me is that both Grand Finals were won by Melbourne teams. This means the self-congratulatory braying is going to continue for a while longer even though the games are mercifully finished.

Australian Rules football is treated like a religion in Melbourne, so not being interested in it is not widely held to be an acceptable option. When someone asks what team you support, you're expected to answer with a team name, not "Who gives a fuck?" If there's one upside to people's obsessions with the football finals, it's being able to mess with their heads.

Today, every second person has been asking me "how did you go on the weekend?" In case you are not familiar with sporting fan vernacular, they are not actually asking me how I was on the weekend. They are asking me if I supported the winning teams. Because apparently they all have some hybrid of symbiosis with and ownership of a bunch of sportsmen they've never fucking met.

I've been enjoying myself by responding with a blank look, then, after a pause, saying "Was there a football game on the weekend?" Cognitive dissonance is a funny thing to watch in action.

Ways you can tell I'm leaving my job #2

I do stuff like this:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z9duBDB3iU

OK, to tell the truth, that was a joke, I didn't really print that out at work. I cunningly chose a white background to save money and had it printed at one of those all night copy centres. It was quite a reasonable price.

As One Sydney YouTube Gathering November 24th

Well, when we announced the As One Melbourne gathering for YouTube users, viewers, afficianados and people who just wanted to look at the freakshow, a common reaction was "Why not in Sydney." Simple really, we don't live in Sydney. This sort of thing is hard enough to organise where you live. Trying to set something up in a city 900km away is bloody impossible.

So we put the call out: does anyone in Sydney want to step up and organise a gathering? And Sydney came through!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6k4Hd1oCas

Me, I'm doing a road trip. The East coast may not survive.

Unnecessary instructions

I believe I've made my views known before regarding people with OCD-like tendencies about cleanliness. The short version is: they're freaks. The slightly longer version is you can be arguably correct about a topic (e.g. many surfaces are covered in germs) and still be a weirdo freak about it.

I bring this up because someone at work has seen fit to put up a sign in the toilets about washing your hands. To call the instructions "a little elaborate" is on par with calling the ocean "a little bit wet". I could understand having detailed hand-washing instructions at a "special needs" school but do adults really need six illustrations to show them how to do it?

I think I know who put the sign there. I suspect it's the guy who not only obsessively washes his hands (I usually see him doing it about eight times a day) but who actually wears gloves all day so his skin doesn't touch any surfaces. Besides having six illustrations showing you how to complete such onerous tasks as put water on your hands, the sign also has these suggestions of when to wash your hands:

Before eating
I know this one gets mentioned pretty widely but I honestly never do this unless my hands are actually dirty. And by dirty I mean "have dirt on them" rather than being covered in untold legions of invisible microbes. I wash my hands before preparing food but not before eating it.

After going to the toilet. Some people wash their hands both before and after.
Yes. Those people are called freaks.

After touching dirt or any other substance.
What the fuck does this even mean? Isn't everything a "substance"? When I see Mr OCD washing his hands continually it leads me to believe he takes this quite literally.

After coming into contact with any surface that might have germs.
Ha! That's open slather for the OCD crew! EVERYTHING has germs on it, just ask them. And yes, you could test swabs from pretty much any non-sterile environment and they would reveal germs. But so fucking what? Humanity has survived for millennia without bathing everything in antiseptic. Besides which, there are studies suggesting that this explosion of anti-bacterial cleansing is doing nothing more than breeding super bugs.

I'm tempted to let things run their course and eventually have the anti-germ nazis killed by their own obsessions. But the bastards are taking us with them. I say, purely in the name of self-preservation, we kill all the clean freaks.

It's us or them.

Fun ways to break a drought

Things are looking pretty shit in Australia, drought-wise. We're supposed to get most of our rain in Spring (which is now). It didn't happen at all last year and it's looking disturbingly like it isn't going to happen this year. Most of the country has been facing drought conditions for more than 10 years now making it the worst drought on record. With no Spring rain things would move way beyond critical.

Right now it seems the most moisture on farmlands is coming from farmers cutting their wrists. The current dire situation has made it clear sitting around waiting for it to rain is not a viable solution. It would be nice if some action had been taken BEFORE things got critical but some people apparently need to be kicked in the balls repeatedly until they get the point. Steps like essentially re-routing rivers, desalination plants and the politically unpalatable option of water recycling are underway now.

People's reaction to recycled water confounds me. They let their psychological problems with the concept (we're essentially taking about treated sewage) trump the fact that they'll have no fucking water without it. The water treatment facilities used in recycling mean the water they produce is as clean as, as safe as and tastes the same as water that comes straight from a reservoir. I can't help thinking that people who can't get past the mental image of this being poopy water deserve to die of thirst.

So there are a few ideas being followed to at least alleviate drought conditions. But after reading a story about China's efforts to deal with their own drought problems, I think Australia is on the wrong track. Sure, China is building massive reservoirs and following other traditional approaches. But they're also firing Big Fucking Guns. They have been aggressively pursuing cloud seeding for years by (among other things) firing artillery shells into clouds.

For any female readers who don't get why this is so cool, it's a guy thing. Big guns that make loud bangs are cool. I suspect being a farmer in an impoverished, drought stricken rural area of China is pretty damn hard. But hey, they're being given rocket launchers and anti-aircraft guns to fire into the sky.

I think the Chinese authorities are on a huge winner here. First, it might actually work. Second, even if it doesn't work, the farmers will be having so much fun firing the big guns they won't mind so much. Actually, maybe too much fun. I can imagine a situation where after a lot of rain someone from the Party comes to check on the crops and find nothing was ever planted. When the Party official confronts the farmer he gets a blank look and the farmer says:

"I'm a what now? A farmer? Oh wow, sorry, I totally spaced on the whole farming thing. Firing this Big Fucking Gun is so cool I forgot I was meant to be doing anything else."

Ways you can tell I'm leaving my current job #1

In a meeting discussing some technical issues about database integration one cow-orker said to another cow-orker:

"You're trying to force things into the back end."

I couldn't resist and responded:

"That's what your mum said," and burst out laughing.

Memo to a filthy beast

I'm really glad nobody at work reads my blog. Even if I managed to avoid getting fired for it, nobody would talk to me for fear of appearing in a blog post. If my blog was circulated around work, I'd particularly like it to reach a particular individual whose identity I don't know. I'll explain in the form of an office memo.

MEMO TO: The filthy fucking beast who had a shit explosion in the middle toilet cubicle

FROM: All the decent humans in this workplace

RE: Well, the "TO" line pretty much says it all

BODY:
Hello. You disgusting fucking animal. So it seems you have a case of explosive diarrhoea. I don't hold this against you. We've all had unhappy visits to Arse Explosion Town. But why in the hell would you not clean up after yourself?

I'm not saying you have to clean every skid mark off the bowl every time. But is it too much to ask that you don't leave liquefied shit sprayed all over the place? It is simply impossible that you did not realise this had happened. I am not a forensic specialist but the spectacular spray patterns speak to a particularly forceful bowel eruption. There's no way you didn't feel it.

It is among the less pleasant experiences a human can suffer to walk into a toilet cubicle and be confronted with such a mess. It's bad enough when this shit happens in a public toilet but at work? We're supposed to be professionals. We're supposed to be adults. We're supposed to be fucking human ferchrissake! Last I looked there were no shit-slinging howler monkeys employed here.

I'm guessing that you saw the unholy fecal fresco you created and thought "That's gross, I'm not going near that." Poor, sensitive you. How the fuck do you think I felt when it confronted me? The level of contempt this action displays for your co-workers leads me to suspect you're the same prick that stole my piece of chocolate cake out of the fridge.

I can almost see how that played out too. You saw it and wondered whose it was. You may have even asked a few people if it was theirs. When nobody claimed it you decided you would eat it. Because you didn't know who owned it. Well you knew fucking well you didn't own the fucking cake didn't you, you thieving fucking bastard!

Anyway, in summary: you're a disgusting vile animal. I hope you stay anonymous because I'm not sure I could resist punching you in the face if I knew who you were. Oh, and I cleaned you mess up. You know how? There was a scrubbing brush, right there in the cubicle. You might try learning how to use one someday.

World Record Group LiveBlogging - Decmber 1st

So another brainwave from SeanBedlam for the Melbourne As One YouTube gathering is aiming for a world record for the largest number of people liveblogging from the same event. There is some finetuning to be done, like defining how to measure the record. I've never heard of anyone claiming this record before so I think we have a bit of leeway.

My biggest concern is not with the record but with Sean's insistence on referring to video blogging as vlogging. Attentive long-term readers/video viewers will know that I prefer the term yologging for reasons that are to obvious to require repeating here. Although I will explain it in the following video.

A bit of background for the video. The key organisers of the Melbourne As One gathering are Sean, Adrian Calear and me. We decided to record some of our planning sessions for posterity. Because the future will want to see our genius at work. The framing and sound in this video are kind of crap but I think it's worth watching. And even though we play up to the camera occasionally, none of this is scripted.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_n22nsciKo

You see the sort of disrespect I have to put up with?

Australian YouTube Gathering - As One Melbourne December 1st

So I can finally go public with my other big news. Along with notorious YouTuber SeanBedlam (AKA Sean Burke) and my good friend Adrian Calear, I have been involved in organising the first big YouTube gathering in Australia. We are having a gathering in Melbourne on Saturday, December 1st.

Our original plan (and the one I still want to happen) was to have a gathering in Sydney on the previous weekend. This was mainly so we could have a road trip between the two gatherings. The problem has been that we couldn't find someone on the ground in Sydney to commit to organise things. But it isn't too late! Anyone who lives in Sydney who fancies themselves as an organiser should contact us and we'll do everything we can to support an event in Sydney.

The gathering in Melbourne will be at Federation Square, right next to Flinders Street Station in the city. This is going to be far more than a bunch of people gathering in the same place to meet each other (although that alone would be good). We're partnering with the people who run Fed Square and the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI - which is right in Fed Square) to make it a great event. There are some fantastic facilities at Federation Square and ACMI and I'm looking forward to showing some of them off in the lead-up.

It looks like the launch has gone off with a bang on YouTube with one of the highest profile Australians on YouTube, Blunty3000, putting up a video celebrating us finally having a gathering in Australia.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3W0PqWdrQA

Cory Williams (AKA MR Safety of SMP Films) will also be helping promote the event. Cory ran the first successful large scale YouTube gatherings in Hollywood and San Francisco under the banner "As One". The San Francisco As One gathering in particular has been described by attendees as "life changing". So with Cory's help (and hopefully the whole YouTube community's help) As One Melbourne will be even better. Cosmos changing maybe.

Anyway, here's my launch video:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMtrE6Us0Lk

And here's Cory's As One videos from Hollywood:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqN-3A9_QwA

And San Francisco:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEvoy_owET8

Give me straight answer!

In case you thought I'd gone all soft from getting such good news about the New York deal:

I CAN'T FUCKING STAND IT WHEN PEOPLE WON'T GIVE A STRAIGHT ANSWER!

The same shit happens in personal relationships and work relationships. You ask a straight question and you don't get a straight answer. Or you ask a simple yes/no question and get a vague answer that isn't yes or no. Or you ask an open question and the person answers with a yes or no that doesn't make any sense. Sometimes it seems clear the person is doing it deliberately to be evasive. Sometimes they don't seem to realise they're doing it. And sometimes they do it because they don't give a shit about you.

Politicians are, of course, past masters at this. That's because most of them are pathological liars who are scared to commit to anything. They're driven by polls rather than any actual commitment to an ideal. And I'm NOT talking about politicians who change their minds. I get so angry when somebody who's actually willing to think about an issue is called a "flip-flopper".

Yeah, being willing to consider that circumstances can change is a serious fucking character flaw. The idiocy of associating intelligence and open-mindedness with weakness was best summed up by Steven Colbert when he ripped George W Bush apart at the 2006 Whitehouse Correspondent's Dinner. His description of W:

"The greatest thing about this man is he's steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday, that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday. Events can change, this man's beliefs never will."

That sums him up perfectly. That sort of attitude isn't resolute and clear. It's fucking stupid.

I actually wandered a bit of the topic there. What got me in this mood was a little "issue" at work recently. Part of my job is defining the requirements for the project we're working on. I don't agree with the attitude some people have about requirements being carved in stone, but once they get signed off you need a pretty clear reason to change them.

Changing requirements doesn't necessarily mean a project is in trouble. In fact it's often a positive sign - people are thinking and finding ways to improve things. But when someone won't give straight answers about their motivations it drives me fucking crazy. Here's a little discussion that happened at work recently. I've broken it up into what "he" said, what I said and in brackets what I was saying in my head.

HE SAID: We need the integration function between the systems to bring across these extra fields

I SAID: Where did this requirement come from?
(Hey, I did this one, what are you trying to pin on me?)

HE: There are some fields that will be needed in this report that the integration

I: What are you basing that on?
(Seriously, what the fuck are you up to?)

HE: We don't want to have to add these fields manually, that's too much extra work.

I: But why is this coming up now? Everyone involved agreed we had everything we needed covered.
(Don't fuck with me over this, I'm not in the mood.)

HE: Looking at this report, I see some fields that are missing.

I: But what was the source of this requirement?
(Why won't you answer the question I'm asking?)

HE: There are these fields...

I: What conversation with what person triggered this? What makes you bring this up now? I went over these requirements in fine detail with everyone involved and what you are saying was never mentioned as a requirement.
(I mean it, six fucking meetings with 20 fucking people. Don't try and make it look like I'm not doing my job.)

HE: We're going to need to add these fields...

I: Shut the fuck up! You're making this shit up! I'm not taking your crap, I'm out of here.
(Maybe we should schedule another meeting with all the stakeholders to work out what's really required.)

The moral of this story is: Don't have conversations in your head while you're talking to someone because you might get them confused.