Two Years on YouTube

In the deep dark past of June 9th, 2006 I posted my first video to YouTube. I even posted it to my blog on the same day. The really long time readers of this blog (and you johnny-come-latelys better believe there are people who stuck with me for 2+ years) will remember that I only started posting to YouTube because I could embed the videos here.
I still had intentions of pursuing standup back then. The blog writing was helping me work out ideas I thought would work and my initial plan for YouTube was to use the videos as a sort of dry run performance getting ready for potential live performances. Then, not long after I started making videos, YouTube started to seriously take off with the mainstream meaning that even a schmuck like me could get viewed lots of times.
Actually, my timing kinda sucked. If I'd started only a month or two earlier I would have been one of the real pioneers. In all probability this would have gotten me featured on the global front page (if for no other reason than they didn't have as much to choose from back then) which has turned out to be the ticket to YouTube fame. But hey, two years of hard slog to get 1/100th the attention of those talentless hacks on the "most subscribed" list isn't all bad.
I'm not bitter.
In fact, I learned early on that the only way to stay sane was to be inwardly focused rather than looking at how people arguably less "deserving" (whatever that means) than me were getting all the attention. It's actually pretty decent life advice: if you aren't getting some intrinsic internal reward from what you're doing, it won't take much for you to get bitter and frustrated and wanting to give up. This probably explains why so many people hate their jobs.
One of the most common questions I was asked in the first year as I started to gain some dedicated fans was "would you give this up if you don't get famous?" They were seeing what I was seeing. Huge amounts of attention was being given to people who were mediocre at best. I was working hard to produce far more videos that were, by and large, much more entertaining than what was being produced by the YouTube stars.
SIDE NOTE: I gave up false modesty a long time ago. I am firmly of the opinion that 95% of what I produce is better than 95% of what YouTube celebrities produce. There are without doubt some people on YouTube who are better than me. Some of them are much better. But holy shit some talentless fuckwads get a lot of attention. And a lot more who had potential lose their shit when they get their attention. It's kind of sad seeing them frozen in terror like a kangaroo staring into the lights of an oncoming truck.
At the time I always answered that YouTube "fame" wasn't my driving goal and I was focused on doing things for myself and I'd keep going as long as it was fun. There were some days I was stating this with a tad more conviction than I was really feeling. I did occasionally slide towards "fuck this" feelings. But I'm still at it two years later so it appears I wasn't lying. Woohoo, go me!
I was in two minds as to what to do regarding this anniversary. One thought was to pretty much ignore it. The second (obviously) was to mark it somehow. After a bit of thought on the matter I thought I'd muse a little on what I've learned in the last two years. I am quite frequently asked for advice on how to succeed on YouTube (despite the fact any rational person would consider me a tiny speck on the YouTube radar) so I thought I'd try and condense what I have learned over the last two years into one convenient package. Which will promptly be ignored five minutes from now by some moron who can't be bothered to check if I've answered their inane bloody questions before.
The first and most important piece of advice I can give is you HAVE to be doing it for yourself. I've basically said it already in this piece but it's worth repeating. If the videos (or blog posts) you're producing don't provide you with some value in and of themselves to you, then you are destined for heartache and pain. Even if you attain that difficult to define "online fame".
A corollary to that is you can't keep any audience happy all the time so the driving force behind the work has to be you. As is obvious to anyone who reads this blog or watches my YouTube videos, I interact with my audience. I respond to comments. I collaborate with people. I often approach topics suggested by viewers. But I do NOT do whatever my audience wants. There are two main reasons for this:
1. People are dumb as shit and don't know what they want. This is of course a joke but like most jokes it is based on truth. If people really knew how to produce quality entertainment they'd be doing it themselves.
2. Audiences aren't singular entities with uniform tastes. Ask 5 people what to do and you'll get 6 mutually exclusive conflicting responses. And if you do what someone wants they'll end up saying they don't like it.
My second piece of advice for someone wanting to succeed on YouTube is to take a good hard look at yourself and what you're doing/plan to do and give an honest answer to the question: "Do you deserve to succeed?" What are you doing that is so compelling? And pointing out a YouTube "star" that you think is shit is a cop-out. Stop being jealous of what you don't have (a battle I'm constantly fighting myself) and make a case for yourself.
There's a disturbing sense of entitlement I see in the attitudes of many people who upload videos to YouTube. Over and over I see people put out shit and then complain "why don't people subscribe to me?" It's quite freaky to me to see people who see success as an entitlement rather than something you work for. I'm continually surprised at how much weight people place on my rather modest levels of success. Then they ask how they can be as successful as me. How about you start with two years of hard fucking work?
My third piece of advice is be prepared for disappointment. Even if you're very good, that's no guarantee for success. If you're the type who's easily discouraged by setbacks then trying to get noticed on YouTube will crush your spirit. Into tiny little pieces. And the shattered remains of your soul will be eviscerated by the dreaded haters.
OK, this is all sort of abstract. And depressing. Can't I give some specific tips? And be a bit less bloody negative? I'll give it a go.
The number one way to advance yourself is to interact. It's no good you being a genius if people don't know you exist. So interact with people who are already known. Comment on other videos frequently. In a meaningful way. Don't leave crap like "LOL" and think that's interacting. If you don't know how to do that then you're probably a lost cause.
And, of course, YouTube is a video hosting site so interact via video. Do response videos (although this is a far less useful tactic than it used to be - the signal to noise ration has gotten very bad). Collaborate with other YouTubers to make group videos. Although don't expect Smosh (the most subscribed people on YouTube) to agree to do things with you. What the fuck do Smosh owe you? It's this sense of entitlement thing again. I'm continually amazed at how many people seem to be personally offended when high profile people won't do them favours or respond to their messages. For fuck's sake, are you too stupid to realise how many of these messages they get a day?
Making videos on hot topics also tends to get more views than average (whatever your average level is.) Again, have something to say. Don't make a video on a given topic solely because it's the buzz du jour. Sure, someone might click on it because of the topic but if you do is say "Britney Spears' vagina... woah," they're not going to click on any other video of yours.
A lot of people (and I mean a LOT) have taken the path of deliberately manufacturing some form of controversy to attract attention. What passes for a mental process with these people seems to go "I have no talent or imagination myself. I could always do something supportive of someone who gets more attention than me but they have a lot of fans already so I wouldn't stand out much. I know, I'll attack them! That will make all their fans angry and I'll get lots of attention."
I have spent quite a bit of time pondering how fucked someone's life actually has to be to invite the hatred of random strangers. It seems like the classic loser bully who is acting out after a life of being neglected by their parents. Bad attention is better than no attention.
While this approach most definitely has worked in garnering a number of people quite a bit of attention but what the fuck do you do with that sort of attention? "OK, now I'm widely known as a jealous, talentless piece of shit who uses up all his time attacking people who actually have some talent. Time to parlay this reputation for being spiteful pond scum into a career!" Outside of a job with Fox News, what's that gonna get you?
Actually, one more thing about the "haters". They really suck at what they do. I've made a point of never responding to them and, indeed, never attacking another YouTuber by name. And they're fucking lucky. I would have eviscerated them. You'd think if they were going to make it their life's work to harrass people they'd actually be good at it. But by and large they've been utterly pathetic ranters. There were days when I thought I'd be doing them a favour by ripping them apart, you know, showing them how it's done. But we all know I'm more mature than that.
So that's essentially what I've learned about succeeding on YouTube in my two years:
Do it for yourself first, pandering to an audience will drive you crazy
Do something that's actually worth being known for
Be in it for the long haul
Interact with other people via comments
Interact with other people via videos (responses, collaborations)
Make videos about hot topics
Be positive in your interactions with other YouTubers!
Or not. I still don't know why people ask me for advice. Go ask Smosh. I hear they always answer messages.

Random Costume Moments

I've noticed "the kids" today like to say "random" a lot, even to things that really aren't very random. I know my kids tend to like the really weird random things on YouTube like "Stick figures on Crack". This video should appeal to that demographic. I took my kids to a play centre called Taskworks that provide, among other things, some neat dress up costumes.

Normal adults leave this stuff to the kids. Me on the other hand, I set myself the task to do some random video in each of the themed dress up zones. The random demographic should like this video:

[youtube=http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=K7ljQDVYTcQ]

Ed Norton and old people

When I wrote my recent post about old people pissing me off at the cinema I had intended for it to be a script for a video. As it was, it ended up being two videos. Mostly because in the first one I got off track musing on what a badass Ed Norton is.

[youtube=http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=0xIVb_-FAL4]

But I did eventually remember that I meant to rant about how much old people piss me off:

[youtube=http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=jRpCWvo7UdU]

First contact with lost Amazon tribe

You know that tribe in the Amazon that was recently discovered? Well I've got an exclusive for you! Here's their first words to the outside world:

[youtube=http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=LWxtOzHO3lU]

The Angry Moron Hunter

I have decided that it is not possible to set a lower limit for stupidity. No matter how sure I am that I've seen the stupidest behaviour imaginable, there always some moron who's all too eager to do something even more stupid.

Recently, I've been venting on some pet hates in my "Shut the fuck up" series of videos and blog posts. These are not subtle. I make it abundantly clear that this isn't a debate. I am just telling people who piss me off to shut the fuck up. Anyone with the faintest shred of intelligence would know that it's utterly pointless to take exception to what I say in these cases. Because I clearly don't give a shit.

Isn't it lucky for me that the world is full of people without the faintest shred of intelligence?

It is literally impossible to be too obvious for these people. Their heads are so far up their collective arses that they are incapable of understanding how stupid they make themselves look. I made this video to try and explain it from my perspective.

[youtube=http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=bE1x5Xp8Azs]

And yes, quite a few morons came out and made complete dicks out of themselves with their comments in response to this video on YouTube. How the fuck do these people even remember how to breathe?

Old people at the cinema

Sometimes I am very impressed with my own self control. Impressed because I usually repress my frequent urges to fuck people up in a way they desperately deserve. Most recently this happened when I attended the cinema on Saturday night to see "The Painted Veil" (plot summary: cuckolded husband gets revenge on his adulterous wife by forcing her to accompany him into the middle of a cholera outbreak in rural China. Great date movie.)
This particular cinema leans more towards art house fare rather than mainstream blockbusters. It's also in a pretty affluent suburb. As such, its clientele is disproportionately dominated by rich old people. Two things about these people bug me. One is that they frequently have loud conversations that make it clear they really don't like poor people (like me, for instance). Two is that they move REALLY FUCKING SLOWLY!
There is a flight of stairs at the entry and I had the bad luck to be directly behind a group of six old people. They walked in a clump taking up the whole stairway so I was forced to walk at about 1/10th of my preferred speed behind them. All the while considering screaming out "Why the fuck won't you people move to the fucking side and walk in single fucking file? You're always complaining how young people are rude. Do you know why they're rude? They're following your fucking example!"
As annoying as they were, I figured I could survive being stuck behind them on the stairs. They were indeed slow, old and pompously rich but it would only be a minute or two until I could get past them. Finally they reached at the top of the stairs. And they fucking stopped! There was a wide open foyer right in front of them. Did they walk into this open space and then pause to consider their options? No they did not! They stopped at the head of the stairs completely blocking the way with a wall of old people-ness.
I almost called them an immovable wall but I could have moved them real fucking easy. I was seriously considering grabbing them by their pearl necklaces and fox skin shoulder wraps and hurling them back down behind me. My near-psychic girlfriend (who knows me very well) kept a firm grip on me and so the spillage of pensioner blood was averted.
But I'm glad I didn't dress up for the night. These people are so uptight, the sight of me in a collarless shirt was probably almost as confronting to them as if I had actually screamed at them to get the fuck out of my way. These little revenges make life worthwhile sometimes.

Relaxing at the Aquarium

If you're in need of some relaxation then these videos I shot at Melbourne Aquarium might help. The first is some general shots set to music:

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=yDVdL5mdLvA

This one features the ever popular shark feeding. And freakishly large stingrays. Enjoy!

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=xG0U6xVDO-8

Messing with people's heads for dummies

I was doing a bit of online research today for work (in the brief moment when I got sick of looking for porn) and I saw a banner ad that I thought was funny. Proudly atop the home page for a corporate IT news site was an ad for "Securing network infrastructure for dummies". Now I know the "for dummies" books are a massive worldwide success and I'm just jealous that I'm not making millions telling people they're stupid (I'm stuck doing it for fun rather than wealth). But seriously, who buys these books?

And, more importantly, what do they do with them after they buy them?

I suspect any professional (or aspiring professional) who buys these books hides them better than they do their porn. Imagine seeing "Securing network infrastructure for dummies" on the desk of someone actually responsible for securing a network. How secure would you feel?

I started imagining what would be the most disturbing "for dummies" to see in someone's possession. Then I thought, why make stuff up? Go right to the source! Early front runners for most disturbing were "Cosmetic surgery for dummies" and "Forensics for dummies". Then I thought, you're hardly going to cheer someone up by giving them "Depression for dummies" or "Grieving for dummies". And I wasn't a fan of "Living longer for dummies" or "Sex for dummies". I want them to die quickly without procreating.

But then an evil plot started to form in my mind. Working in IT, a common complaint is that management don't actually understand technology. The footsoldiers of IT are frequently resentful about having to answer to people who don't have a clue about what's actually required to get the work done. So how much fun would it be to conduct interviews for programmers while surrounded by "for dummies" books.

And I'm not talking about one or two. I'm talking about filling bookcases with 'em. Put them behind you when you're interviewing so the interviewee is constantly distracted by their garish yellow and black spines. Have all the titles related to the technology field you work in and watch a look of terror slowly spread across the interviewee's face as they realise the horror they would be facing if they worked for you.

Along with all the titles about programming languages and hardware, throw in some frighteningly basic ones like "The internet for dummies". And really throw them for a curve by throwing in some left-field titles they won't miss, like "Breastfeeding for dummies" and "The historical Jesus for dummies". I think that interview would give you a good indication of how the candidate copes with unexpected situations.

Microsoft DRM - because fuck you is why

I'm not a big fan of the way big companies approach issues of copyright. Which is to say, fuck those guys! As a creator of original content the principles of copyright are important to me. I'd like to find some way to make money from what I do. I get angry when someone flat out steals my work and makes money from it (which has happened multiple times).
So why don't I like the actions of the big entertainment companies and their bought-and-paid-for political institutions around the world? Put simply, because their actions are nothing to do with protecting and enriching artists and everything to do with increasing their controls over consumer behaviour for their own enrichment.
Often when I say "fuck copyright" people will say that we need copyright so that artists can make a living. I agree. Sometimes people will go so far as to say some of the insane behaviour in the US like the introduction of the DMCA and the RIAA suing music fans are good things. I'm never sure if these people are naive or if they're fucking morons.
The big entertainment corporations do not give a shit about the artists who actually make them money. Selling the works produced by creative artists is a massive profit centre for these companies. Giving fair compensation to the artists is a cost centre. These companies are frequently guilty of breaching contracts with artists who make them rich simply because they can get away with it.
I'm not talking about them having some moral responsibility to make artists rich. I'm talking about them being legally responsible. They routinely breach contracts because they're the ones with the lawyers and the artists are the ones with nothing. They can fuck over an artist, use them up and dump them because there's always some other poor sucker eager to jump into their place.
And don't even get me started on the insanity of suing and criminalising customers. Again, this is supposed to benefit artists. So, given the hundreds of millions of dollars these companies have made from lawsuits that fuck over consumers, how much money have artists received? None, apparently. It's getting to the point where some significant artists are considering suing. If the Rolling fucking Stones can't catch a break, what chance do you and I have?
The thing that has gotten me pissed off about this all over again is news that Microsoft have decided to fuck over their customers to an extent that is in no way required by law in an attempt to suck up to big media companies. Some of the provisions of the DMCA and other laws proposed around the world are outrageous. But this act of bastardry is not even a requirement, despite the weasel talk coming out of Microsoft.
What sort of moron breaks functionality their customers want for no reason? Especially when there are alternatives available? It's as if they want to push consumers to free alternatives that aren't encumbered with this bullshit. Actually, I'd like to think this is all because of some deep cover free software mole buried deep inside Redmond.
"Hahahahaha" the free software mole cackles diabolically. "The fools have put in restrictions that will drive more and more users away from Micro$haft products." (Free software proponents can't resist calling Microsoft "Micro$haft".) "They are sowing the seeds of their own destruction without realising it!"
I would have a lot more respect for a company that was being duped by a double agent than I would for a company that purposely anally raped their customers this way. Sadly, I strongly suspect it's the latter.
With this in mind, I visited the good folks at Despair.com to produce the following motivational poster



I think that says it all.

25 years jail for creating The Backstreet Boys and N*Synch

Every now and then the justice system works even if it takes a long time. I was very glad to see one of the most heinous criminals of the late 20th century finally go to jail. If only we hadn't been put through so much suffering already. Nothing will heal the scars but this brings a sense of closure.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=0JO7-ipDiZ4

Atheist bigots - shut the fuck up!

People who think the simple fact they profess to be atheists makes them automatically smarter than anyone who believes in god can shut the fuck up any time now. I'm not sure what pisses me off most about this attitude - the innate arrogance, the internal logical contradiction or the ignoring of objectively observable reality.
I've made no secret of the fact that I think religious fundamentalists are morons. I've been very clear that I think people who want to place their religious beliefs on an equal footing on science are evil and enemies of humanity. None of that means there aren't atheists who are utter fuckwits. I can't stand people who push the line "I think believing in god is stupid, I don't believe in god, therefore I'm smarter than anyone who believes in god."
My response is: shut the fuck up you egotistical, self-deluding simpleton.
Because this type of bigot reflexively accuses me of being a religious fundamentalist I'll waste a little time explaining what my beliefs are. (I call this a waste of time because it's no easier to reach atheist bigots than it is to reach any other sort of bigot. Who else but a religious nut would challenge their sacred belief is the superiority of atheism?) My take on the question "Does god exist?" is that it's irrelevant.
The idea that any "supreme being" could possibly give a shit what us insignificant insects get up to is laughable. And the idea that said deity would punish us for eternity for not bowing down and offering out lifelong obeisance is fucking ridiculous. Those are human behaviours. Any being with those sorts of failings is a long way from supreme.
And I wholeheartedly reject every religion on the planet. No matter how humble and selfless the beliefs of any individual may be, religious institutions exist solely to exert power over other people. Fuck that. Besides which, all religions are working on the assumption that at least 95% of the planet is wrong (when it comes down to it, intra-religion sects hate each other more than they do outsiders). Why not go with the odds and assume 100% of them are wrong?
So if I reject religion, why am I telling hardcore atheists to shut the fuck up? Maybe you consider yourself a follower of science and rational, objective reason. Good for you. That doesn't make you innately more intelligent than ANYONE. Atheism is a belief system the same as any religion. You can't prove that god doesn't exist any more than anyone can prove god does exist. You believe that your rational thought system is right and religious belief is wrong. But by itself, that isn't a measure of intelligence.
Sure, you can point to insane bastards who reject conclusive science like evolution in favour of their literal interpretation of religious texts. Being able to point out complete freaks doesn't define you as a genius. In fact, an arrogant belief in one's superiority is usually a sure sign of lack of intelligence. Intelligent people are actually the most likely to say "I don't know". Something religious fundamentalists and atheist bigots have in common is an unswerving beliefs in their rightness - there is something essentially wrong with anyone who disagrees with them.
When someone says "My fundamental non-religious beliefs make me automatically smarter than someone with fundamental religious beliefs" i say "Shut the fuck up!" The fact that someone who would say that is too stupid to see the inherent logical contradiction would be funny if it wasn't sad. Neither intelligence nor your worth as a human is measured solely on where you lie on the religion/atheism continuum. Unless the person doing the measuring is a fundamentalist zealot.
It really bugs me how atheist zealots argue they are more intelligent than religious believers in the face of objective evidence to the contrary. Saying that a belief in god makes you automatically stupid denies obvious things like the number of scientists and scholars who are religious. Not to mention the amount of scholarly work that has been done through the ages and continues to be done by religious groups.
Why are some atheists so scared to admit that they are following a deeply held belief rather than some objective relaity? What the hell is wrong with belief? When you can admit you hold beliefs rather than some indisputable truth you're saying that you're still open to questions. You're intelligent and objective enough to admit that there is always more to learn.
Of course you think your beliefs are right. By definition when you believe something you think you're right. And it makes sense to defend your beliefs passionately and point out what you think is wrong with contradictory views. But a sure sign of an ignorant, anti-intellectual fuckwit is someone who's convinced they have no more to learn and it's impossible they will ever be proved wrong.
I've learned from experience that there is a certain (small) subset of atheists who are incapable of making the concession they could be wrong. In this they are every bit as much a fundamentalist as the most backward religious freak. Pressing them on this point tends to make them freak out. But I don't give a fuck.
Atheist bigots need to shut the fuck up.

Self censorship

When does it become acceptable to write something that's funny at someone else's expense? By which I mean, when is it OK to ridicule an actual, real person? You know, those things that have actual feelings and lives that may be affected by public ridicule.
No matter how much we don't like someone, no matter how much we think they "deserve it", there is ultimately a person on the receiving end. Even if we don't think they're much of a person. So what's acceptable when we're dealing with another human?
Looking around, it seems attitudes range from "anything goes" (no matter how cruel, damaging or untrue it may be) to "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." I tend to be somewhere in the middle but get tipped more towards "anything goes" the more of a public figure someone is. I see it as a case of live by the sword... the more you make your living from being in the public eye the more you have to deal with the fact that the public eye can sometimes be cruel and unfair.
For me, that generally means politicians, movie stars and TV personalities are all fair game. In terms of ordinary people who find themselves in the public eye (usually for doing something stupid) I try not to be too cruel. And the one thing I always try to avoid is the internet lynch mob mentality. The people who indulge in internet vigilantism have a tendency to justify their action by saying their target has done something really bad. But I wonder how many of them would escape unscathed if their own life was subject to the same scrutiny.
The reason I'm musing on this topic is a news story that seems like perfect fodder for me. A pair of New Zealanders described as "experienced pilots" have put themselves out front for this year's Darwin Awards with their method of demise over the weekend. They were killed when they crashed a microlight plane they took for a joyride. In the middle of the night. While it was raining. And foggy. And there was lightning. To top it off, police believe the two had been drinking at a party before the flight (which could explain why they thought a midnight joyflight in shitty weather was a good idea).
Now, these guys seem to me to pretty much fit the definition of "asking for it". But at the same time, I'm sure there are people who are very sad they're dead and wouldn't appreciate the loss of their loved ones being made light of. I think I'll hold off saying anything too disparaging until there are more details confirmed (like whether or not they had definitely been drinking) but I suspect the nature of this story means these guys are going to be slammed around the world.
Of course at the back of my mind in all this is I'd really rather not have all my personal details used for online fodder. Quite a few people have a go at the fictional entity of Mr Angry already (many of whom seem to have no clue that this persona isn't actually me) so I'm always kind of expecting a wider public "outing". I'm not stupid enough to think that if I'm nice everyone will be nice to me but at the end of the day I'd rather be able to hold my head up regarding my own actions rather than worry too much about what someone might say about me.

Doy you have plans for the weekend?

If not, may I suggest waiting an hour and a half of your time on the following video? A little while ago I pointed out that I realised I was able to upload files to YouTube up to a gigabyte in size with no time limit on the video.

In order to exploit this, I asked people to submit questions to me on any subject at all and I'd answer them in a video. Well, by the time I got around to printing them out to make the video it was 25 pages worth of questions. This turned out to take 98 minutes for me to work my way through.

I certainly don't hold it against anyone who doesn't want to watch it. But quite a few people have told me they found it entertaining. Maybe you will too.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=-aofTUfaOx4

Because people are likely to ask, here are the details of the "stock footage" I used when I got bored of talking to the camera.

The first bit is some stuff I shot specifically for this video, a walk through the Melbourne CBD.

After that is a bunch of stuff I shot on St Kilda Beach (on different days) last summer.

Then there's some shots of Melbourne's lights, shot from Northcote Town Hall one night.

Then there's a really weird performance I saw next to Fed Square one day - people on bendy sticks.

Then there's a classic car show that I shot on another day at Fed Square.

Then I reposted some of my original graffiti and street art videos that I first posted about 18 months ago.

Then there's some more of me talking.

The second bit of stock footage starts with some raw footage from one of my video shoots. Now you know what my videos look like before I edit them.

After that is some more night-time stuff that I shot on a bridge that's over the Yarra River right next to the Melbourne CBD.

Then I reposted another old video, my Melbourne video postcard so you get to see a lot of the places near where I live including a view from the tallest building in Melbourne.

Then there's a video of me playing with a motion capture toy at ACMI.

The last bit is a planning session for last Year's gathering that has me, SeanBedlam and our friend/co-conspirator Adrian.

Dentistry is gross

I have no idea why someone would choose to be a dentist. Spend your day digging through people's gross, festering mouths seems like an appalling way to spend your time to me. Okay, I know why they do it - the money. But the are a metric shitload of ways to earn far more money that are far less gross.

Whenever someone wants to make fun about someone's choice of specialisation they always pick on proctologists. What sort of freak would choose to be an arse doctor? Well at least a proctologist expects an arse to be stinky. How many aspiring podiatrists really know how disgusting, fungus-y and diseased a foot can get? And how many student dentists are truly prepared for the vile and corpse-like stench that a human mouth can emit?

I state all this as a kind of apology to my dentist. I have a bit of an issue with gum disease which results in a fair bit of grossness mouth-wise. So when I go in for a serious cleaning (like this morning) it's a fairly arduous process that involves much scraping, gouging, anaesthetic and blood. The hygeinist's own words as she wiped my mouth at the end was I looked like something out of a horror movie.

An yes, I said I get anaesthetic when I'm having tartar scraped out of my gums. For anyone who thinks that makes me a wuss - you're absolutely right. I think there's a note on my file there that says "This bloke is a total nancy-boy, dose him up with massive amounts drugs to shut him up." I think that note is there because I asked them to do it.

I don't like pain.

And I have a major aversion to going to the dentist. This is the product of the childhood dentist I was subjected to. The guy was a fucking sadist. Or maybe just some random madman who claimed to be a dentist. I grew up in a small town where there people were easily fooled. When I needed filling this fucking bastard would drill without using any anaesthetic. No matter how much I screamed.

He would even do this shitty thing where he'd pretend the drill wasn't going to hurt. Like saying it was going to make the agonising pain not happen. When this cunning plain completely failed to work the fault was all placed on me. His evidence was that it wouldn't hurt was that he'd show how it shot a jet of water and say that was all it did. A jet of water! How could that hurt?

To which I desperately wanted to reply: "What about the sharp metal spinny bit that will soon be gouging holes in my non-numbed tooth? Why the fuck isn't your finger touching that? Let me hold the fucking drill for a while and go to work on you, motherfucker! Let's see if you still claim 'it's only water' after I've had my turn!"

But I was a kid and he was an authority figure. So the bastard put me through excruciating pain and scarred me mentally because there was nobody to stop him. Motherfucker. Once I was an adult I probably didn't go to the dentist for ten years. Which is not a good idea. When I finally went (triggered by a tooth essentially disintegrating) the dentist said the technical term for the condition of my teeth was "seriously fucked".

So after some root canal and extraction of the worst teeth things were a bit better. Incidentally, although everyone talks about root canal like it's the worst thing you can go through, it was a walk in the park compared to the shit I was put through as a kid. BECAUSE THEY GAVE ME DRUGS! The worst part was having to have my mouth open for so long.

Every dentist I've been to as an adult actually agrees that my childhood dentist was a bastard. And probably a sadist. And he clearly hated children. So I have discovered I wasn't insane. I have also discovered I much prefer female dentists. Because when they really get to work they usually have to push their boobies against you. Which is a great distraction from the horror of having your mouth ripped apart.

I like boobies.

Worst photo competition entrants

Let me just say there are some brave people out there. I mean, I'm an idiot - it's no surprise that I'd circulate a bad photo of myself. But quite a few hardy souls entered my competition to try to come up with a worse photo than mine. Here they are for your viewing pleasure. Let the parade of horror begin!

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

Feel free to cast a vote below!

If I can...

Today, I'm going to make you happier.

I bet you didn't realise that when you got out of bed this morning. I bet you didn't wake up thinking: "Wow, I hope AngryAussie improves the quality of my life today." If you did wake up thinking that, back the fuck off. I don't need that sort of pressure.

So how am I going to make you happier and improve the quality of your life? With this simple observation: if you mumble the words "if I can" it sounds a lot like you're saying "fuckin'." How easy is that?

What do you mean you don't feel happier? Don't your realise the applications of this? This bit of knowledge is useful in any number of situations. No matter who you're dealing with, this can come in handy. You boss, cow-orkers, family. Every now and then they all need to be told to fuck off but it rarely works out well for you if you do so.

But with this knowledge you can enjoy the catharsis of swearing at them. Without actually swearing at them! How good is that? If it still isn't clear to you, picture this scenario:

Your boss comes into your workspace and starts hassling you about some work. Besides the fact that this sucks generally, the hassling process is actually stopping you from doing the work. A double frustration. And the boss is either too stupid to realise this or is taking malicious pleasure in ravaging the pitiable remains of your soul this way. A triple frustration! Respond by saying (a little indistinctly):

"If I can get going then I'll be fine." Pause and then enunciate clearly: "If I can get going now I'll be able to meet the deadline."

What the boss is likely to hear is:

"Fuckin' get going, then I'll be fine." While you are paused, the boss will almost certainly stay silent. This is because s/he will almost certainly be stunned, thinking "Did this cubicle dwelling low-life really just tell me to fucking get going?" Before they recover from the shock, you follow up with the more clearly enunciated "If I can get..."

The boss wanders off thinking “Ohhhh, that’s what they said,” while you revel in your private joy. By the way, keep your revelling private. No doing the happy dance no matter how big a score it feels like you just made. The success of this ploy is totally dependent on you appearing innocent. Which brings me to safety tips.

Safety Tip 1: Don’t make it obvious. You should mumble “If I can...” in a fairly natural way. No sarcastic tone. No pulling faces. No smiling or laughing. It should seem as though you are unaware what it sounds like.

Safety Tip 2: The follow up should seem natural. Remember, you aren’t covering up for saying something bad, you’re continuing what seems like a normal conversation to you.

Safety Tip 3: Don’t overdo it. It’s unlikely you’d get away with doing this every day. Save it for when you really want to get up in someone’s face and get away with it.

So there’s a little something to brighten your day. I take immense pleasure in juvenile forms of subversion and I see no reason why you can’t as well. And don’t forget that although I used the work example, this trick has a wide range of applications. For example:

Mother: Clean your room.

You: If I can get out of the room for a minute, then I’ll do it.

- - -

Reporter: How do you respond to the allegations?

You: If I can take a minute to consider your question...

- - -

Anybody: George Bush just declared himself Emperor of the World!

Me: If I can... hell!

Seat-sniffing quokka-fiddler

It seems that open season has been declared on the Australian conservative leader Troy Buswell. I made a video recently celebrated the fact that he had been outed for sniffing the seat of a female staffer (which he apparently thought was hilarious and/or sexy).

This guy is actually the leader of the conservate party in Western Australia. You know you're in trouble when someone this pathetic is the best you've got.

It seems he's now been written off to such an extent that the media were willing to bait him with completely unsubstaniated rumours. For a day or so the media kept asking him about rumoured indiscretions with a quokka which is a small Australian marsupial, indigenous to an island off Western Australia.

He gave some fairly exasperated replies which would have been fairly funny to see, considering how pathetic his non-denial denials of the chair sniffing incident were, right up to the point he was forced to admit to it. My personal favourite was when he denied having done anything to cause offence to a quokka. Phew! At least hasn't been saying mean things about the quokka's mum!

I was a little disappointed to learn that the rumours didn't actually involve anything sexual (if he'd go chair sniffing, I'm sure he's not above quokka fiddling). I was even more disappointed to learn they had been made up by a blogger as a joke earlier in the year.

Still, now they've started having a go at him I say they should really cut loose. It's about time politics was fun.

"Mr Buswell, any truth to the rumour about you being caught sniffing bike seats in a convent?"

"Mr Buswell, what's this I hear about you asking schoolboys to give you wedgies?"

"So Troy... There are reports that a labrador and a 44 gallon drum of baby oil were selivered to your office. Care to explain?"

Who needs a life when you have 600 videos?

Yes, believe it or not, I have uploaded 600 videos to YouTube. Clearly, I should be ashamed of myself. But I'm not.

You can't handle the truth

Anyone who considers themselves to be part of the YouTube "community" (usually people who make videos and/or comment regularly as opposed to the majority of YouTube users who simply watch videos) tends to have a strong opinion regarding what videos get "featured" on the front page of YouTube. The summary of the most common opinion is essentially "That featured video is shit," and "Why don't I get featured?"

For those not familiar with how YouTube works, being featured is the main chance for reaching a large audience. There are the occasional breakout hits that reach millions of people without ever being featured but, by and large, being featured is seen by most people as the best way to make it big on YouTube.

Since YouTube opened up all of its regional pages in the last year, the game has changed a bit. When there was only one home page everyone was clamouring to be featured on it. The featured videos were almost universally English language and it was heavily dominated by North American videos (which made sense because this was also where most site users were from.)

Now with more than a dozen regional home pages it's considerably easier for people around the world to be featured in their region and at least raise their profile locally. But being featured on the global home page is still the golden ticket. For example, being featured on the Australian home page can deliver anywhere from a few thousand extra views to maybe a hundred thousand. Being featured globally will deliver anywhere from hundreds of thousands to millions of views.

I've found myself in the middle of a conversation with Australian YouTubers about what videos get featured on the Australian home page. Specifically, the conversation revolves around why some people don't get featured at all while some people are featured repeatedly. And I'm in the middle of it because although I've never been featured globally, I've been featured about half a dozen times since the local page launched last year.

Which brings me to the title of this post. Very few people seem able to cope when the honest answer to their question "Why haven't I been featured?" (or the more general "Why aren't I famous?") is "Because you aren't very good."

This is not universally true, of course. Many deserving, talented people never get the recognition they deserve and many talentless hacks get far more attention than their meagre offerings to the world warrant. But I find it surprising how many people are unable to face the fact that they simply aren't as talented as people they're jealous of.

As in life, the YouTube situation is not solely about jealousy. Not by a long shot. So long as YouTube persists in featuring cute fucking bunnies and kitties doing fuck-all, righteous indignation will fuel many dedicated community members. But I know from experience that it can be hard to find enough "feature-worthy" videos in a community as small as Australia.

A little while ago, I was invited to be the "guest editor" of the YouTube Australia home page which meant picking about 20 videos which the permanent editor would narrow down to 14 videos which would be featured. Fuck, that was hard! Admittedly I made it a little harder on myself than it needed to be by trying to limit the list to people that hadn't been featured before. In the end I did nominate two people who had been featured before but they weren't particularly well known and I really liked their videos.

But it did make it pretty clear to me why the Australian YouTube editor features some people more than once while not featuring others at all. It's bloody hard to find decent videos that don't contain copyrighted material, are of a decent technical standard and are unlikely to be a complete embarrassment to YouTube on a corporate level. I think the official limit on copyright material and unofficial limit on crudity are stupid but I understand why YouTube does it. I had to pass on one video I found particularly funny because the level of swearing was extreme even by my standards.

So I'm trying to gently nudge some people towards the understanding that maybe what they're doing isn't good enough to be featured. I'm reminded of the episode of Futurama that featured the Harlem Globetrotters. Bender was obsessed with being a Globetrotter but kept getting rejected. He pushed it to the point that the Globetrotter leader, Bubblegum Tate put him on the spot with words to the effect of:

"Look into your heart and ask yourself, are you funky enough to be a Globetrotter? Are you? No? Then deal with it."

Some people just have to learn to deal with the fact they aren't funky enough.

For those who are interested, here's a video of me discussing the videos I chose to be featured:

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=LjbJCGytl70

And here are the links to each video:

Gamer Tonight - Fighter Gamer
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=cz6VG3h...

Stressed? Try This
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=IYEqUql...

Mini documentary - Behind the scenes of a cinema
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=r6CqITj...

21 accents +1 maybe?
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=ObonHPh...

kungfucolin - take action
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=ocSr1lE...

Falling Up
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=JgM0B_b...

The Force and You
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=tGgidD5...

Rain
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=L4uWCpF...

Insane Chris
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=ot2_v2I...

Political Correctness
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=avGLOMx...

The Super Duper Nice Campaign
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=AKK2zf8...

How to successfully do a Tim Tam Slam
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=9MQZX1n...

Dave Bushell Live at Playground @ 303
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=h-Lxv1X...

Learning To Read Music 1
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=CsUdqGh...

I love it when politicians self-destruct

Everyone knows politics is a dirty business. But the dirtiest business is usually kept behind closed doors so politicians can continue with the public lie that they are deeply virtuous and not subject to the same failings as you and I. So I really love it when the facade collapses and politicians are shown to be as two-face, disloyal and spiteful as anyone.

We're getting a real sideshow in Australia this week, specifically in the state of Victoria where I reside. The conservative party (known as the Liberal Party, which I know is confusing to Americans) has been in opposition for ages here and I think they're starting to crack under the pressure. Too long in opposition makes political types crazy.

The current Liberal leader (they've churned through a few), Ted Baillieu, is seen as too much of a lefty by the staunchly conservative wing of his own party. He's even derided as "Red Ted" (yes, the Red Menace is alive and well for some). So some party members started up an anonymous blog dedicated to attacking him and undermining his leadership to the point he would be replaced.

All well and good. I fully support anonymous blogging. If you don't like your parliamentary leader, go to town white-anting him. But here's what you don't do. You don't run the blog from your work PC that has a fixed IP address. Guess what these morons did?

Yes, they wrote their attacks on their boss while at work. Work, in this case, was the state headquarters for the Liberal Party. As the saying goes, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. These clowns were net-savvy enough to start up an anonymous blog but too fucking stupid to know how easy it was to trace them if they ran the blog from work.

But sacking the two blamed for writing the blog was jut the start of the problems for the Liberal Party. The boil of discontent had been lanced and now the icky pus of revenge was spraying everywhere. The sacked opponents of the leader had some dirt on one of his supporters so they let fly with some payback.

One of the leader's supporter had called another party member a "greedy f---ing jew" in an email (I'm not being coy, the email actually said "f---ing" not fucking). Of course, once they made that public she had to resign. This article covers in loving detail how fucked up the Victorian Liberal party actually is. The stuff they say about their own party is astonishing. I expect politicians to say things like that about their opponents but about their own "team"?

My guess is the bloodletting isn't over yet. I for one can't wait for the next round of payback and counter-payback. I'm a big fan of politics as bloodsport.

Women don't work hard enough

Gender issues can be difficult for men to talk about with women. You could say it's a minefield but only if you're talking about a minefield that probably won't kill you but stands a really good chance of setting off an explosion at the level of your balls that will almost certainly shred them. As most men see some value in their balls, this is territory in which sensible men tread very carefully, if at all.

In Australia, studies have shown that on average, women earn about 15% less than men (which is to say, for every $1.00 a man earns, a woman will earn 85c). There are a lot of things that contribute to this, not all of which involve an evil plot by men to steal from hard working women. For a man to have a conversation with a woman about this is the equivalent of holding a grenade with the pin pulled. Staying alive depends on being fast enough to get the pin back in before the inevitable explosion.

Of course, with some men the intention is to lob a whole bunch of hand grenades and then laugh at the carnage. Somewhere between "You're so right, I wish I was a woman so that I had more empathy for all that is good in the world - I am so ashamed at being part of the phallocentric patriarchy," and "Shut up bitch and get me another beer," there is some rational territory for discussion. But it's a brave man who enters there.

This week there was a panel discussion on the topic of gender-based pay inequity at the National Press Club in Australia. Several prominent women including the federal Minister for the Status of Women were on the panel. As was one man, a social researcher (whatever that is) from the University of Melbourne, Professor Mark Wooden. I imagine the audience was heavily dominated by women as well.

(Side note: with a name like Wooden, do you think he's a really boring speaker?)

So where would the professor sit? Was he going to surrender his balls, focus on protecting them from shrapnel or swing them around in the breeze and see if there were any takers? Judge for yourself.

The summary of Professor Wooden's position is "women don't work hard enough". He said high achievers in all walks of life put in long hours of work and many women simply weren't willing to put in the same hours as men. One report described the response as "gasps from the mostly female audience." I bet. And there was probably the sound of sharpening knives as well. Not to mention a bit of walnutting* from the Prof.

Another panellist, federal minister Tanya Plibersek, (unsurprisingly) disagreed. She raised the extremely valid point that the notion of needing to work until all hours should be challenged. I personally think it's bullshit and refuse to do it. Which probably explains the fact I'm not CEO of anything. Along with the fact I never went to a private school. And I refuse to suck the boss' cock. And the crack addiction.

For the record, I don't think Professor Wooden is completely right. But he isn't completely wrong either. Only a tiny minority of the overall workforce rise through the ranks of management. If men are more prone to do stupid, life-destroying things to get there, is it any wonder they dominate the field? I don't think women (or any minority) are done any favours when they are given a benefit "just because they're a woman". But anyone who says there aren't situations where an equally or better qualified minority loses out to a white male whose sole advantage is being a white male is either deluding themselves or simply lying.

If he made his rather contentious statements just to stir up shit then he's a bit of a dick. But if his intention was to get people to face some unfortunate truths, then good on him. Maybe the reason some women don't get as far as some men is they just don't want it enough. I certainly know I don't want to give up my free time just to get more money in the bank.

He did seem to get a bit silly in the discussion. He was quoted as saying:

"The only way we can achieve this is if we have lots of role reversals, lots of men behaving like women and lots of women behaving like men."

"I don't think women in Australia want that, I don't think that women anywhere in the world want that."

I've never liked arguments that seem to be based on the idea that there's only one way for men to act and one way for women to act. And I'm not sure what qualifies Professor Wooden to say what women want. Speaking from experience, if you have one woman in your life it's hard enough to know what she's thinking, no matter how much time you spend with her. Speaking for all the women in the world is a little bit audacious.

But his "careful what you wish for" tone did remind me of my college days. There was certainly a very strong feminist culture there, right down to a hardcore group who fit right in with the "all men are rapists" stereotype.

A fellow alumnus, Sue Ann Post (self described as "Australia’s favourite six foot, lesbian, ex-Mormon, diabetic, comedian and writer") described them in a recent performance as feminazis. So there you go, Rush Limbaugh isn't the only person who uses that term.

Mind you, at the other end of the spectrum was an appalling boofhead culture that dominated the social scene which was basically run by rugby players. I enjoyed the company of most of the feminists but I fucking hated the rugby players.

Quite a few impressionable young women were cultivated into a reasonable approximation of man hating lesbians while they were there. The trouble is, a lot of them realised after college that they actually wanted to be with a man and even have a family with a man. And all that time spent man hating put them in a bad place. Most men really don't like being treated as if there's something intrinsically wrong with them simply because they're men.

And the ones who do knuckle under to this treatment are usually really bad in bed.

So ladies, when you look at inequality in pay rates and management positions, it's well worth asking yourself: "Is that what I really want?"

*WALNUTTING: To understand this term, you need to know two things. (1) What men's testicles look like and (2) The fact that, under certain circumstances, men's testicles will retract and appear to shrink. Men's balls look a bit like walnuts. Round and wrinkly. When it is cold or when a man feels threatened his balls will retract. Which makes them really look like walnuts. Hence, I wouldn't be surprised if Professor Wooden suffered some walnutting while making his speech to a group of women.

Bullshit graffiti laws

Good news! All the murderers, rapists, drug dealers, bank robbers and terrorist in Australia have been caught. Bad news! Now the cops have to go after someone else to justify their existence.

Or at least that where I think the insane new anti-graffiti laws in Melbourne came from. Follow this link for the horrifying details but here's the summary:

• $550 fine just for carrying a spray can
• $26,000 fine if convicted of graffiti vandalism
• 2 year jail term if convicted of graffiti vandalism

This is plain fucking stupid. The idea of criminalising non-violent offenders for the sake of appealing to conservative voters by appearing "tough on crime" is absolutely cretinous. Even if you think graffiti is vandalism and a crime rather than art, the severity of these penalties is way out of scale with the offence.

Last weekend we had a bit of a mini-gathering of YouTube users in Melbourne's Federation Square. While hanging out we shot a few round table vox pops on a range of topics, including these new graffiti laws. Some young lads who have a YouTube channel call TwoGuysOneChannel had a particularly good rant on the topic.

Coincidentally we were just across the road from one of Melbourne's best graffiti lanes so I thought I'd show off just how heinous these crimes are.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=SZb6IB1bq1g

Competition time! (Worst photo ever)

Way back when we had a gathering for YouTube people in Melbourne a certain photo was taken of me. We were having a party and there may have been alcohol involved and I may have consumed some of this hypothetical alcohol. Or a lot. It's hard to be sure - my memory of events is a little hazy.

I had always assumed that this photo (without a doubt the worst photo of me ever taken) could be used to blackmail me. So to head that off, I've decided to release the photo myself. And why not celebrate the horror of bad photography? So I'm running a competition as described in the following video. To win the one-of-a-kind Mr Angry apron see if you have a worse photo of yourself.

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

You have nothing to lose but your dignity.

Just call me Mr Poop-your-pants

A little while ago, on of my friends on YouTube, Cory Williams (AKA Mr Safety of SMP Films) did a video where he wondered if he was doomed to be known as "the Mean Kitty guy". Cory has done a huge amount of work creating online videos and is deservedly one of the top 20 most subscribed people of all time on YouTube.

But by far his most popular video on YouTube is a song he wrote when he acquired an unusually aggressive kitten. Because it was always fighting with him he named it Sparta and wrote a song called "Hey Little Sparta" AKA The Mean Kitty Song.

Prior to this video, Cory's most popular video had been seen well over a million times. The Mean Kitty Song exploded past that and had been viewed around six million times last time I looked. I'm sure Cory was as surprised by this as anyone. Now, whenever he makes a video featuring Sparta it's viewed hundreds of thousands of times within days. All good, but Cory was a little worried that this might ultimately be limiting and he would be forever doomed to be known as "Mean Kitty Guy".

Count your lucky stars.

Judging by the traffic to this blog, I'm likely to be known as "Mr Shit Your Pants". Far and away the most popular thing I've ever written on this blog was my rant about the diet pill "alli" that has the unfortunate effect of making users lose control of their bowels and shit orange oil.

I wrote it almost a year ago and at the time it was a big hit on Reddit and Digg, generating well over 100,000 hits in a matter of days. It appears the appeal of poop humour doesn't fade because somebody re-posted the link to Reddit last week which resulted in another 20,000+ hits. I didn't even know you could re-submit stuff to Reddit (note to self: mark diary for six months from now to submit it again. Muahahahahahah, more readers!)

As much as being known as "Funny Orange Oily Shit Guy" doesn't sound too great, it's better than not being known at all! Plus, it isn't really that bad. Longer term readers of this blog may remember that I almost went to the USA last year to be interviewed for a current affairs show on one of the big 3 broadcast networks. The journalist who found me actually discovered me thanks to the notoriety of that post.

And he didn't want to interview me about people shitting their pants! He was actually researching "anger" and decided because of the popularity of that post I might make a good interview subject. So I am apparently a world-renowned expert on anger.

Hey, Michelle Pfeiffer's first starring role was in "Grease 2" and that didn't hold her back. Poop jokes will always make people laugh but that doesn't mean I'm stuck telling them for the rest of my life!

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=KD4Qi3hro7U

The luckiest people in Australia

There is a "satirical news programme" in Australia known as The Chaser (technically, they have gone through a few names for different series - their latest was called "The Chaser's War on Everything" but let's keep things simple and call them The Chaser.) They specialise in doing public stunts designed to make someone look silly.

The closest approximation I can think of that would make sense for an international audience are the characters of Sascha Baron-Cohen (namely Ali G and Borat). They don't do character based comedy like Baron Cohen, they mostly do something very public and see what reaction they get. So maybe they're closer to Candid Camera than they are to Kazakhstan's finest.

Last year there was a big talk fest in Sydney known as APEC - the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation forum. This was attended mainly by leaders from the Asia/Pacific area (big surprise) but perhaps the highest profile guest was US President George W Bush. In these nervous times, security was particularly high. Supposedly. Much of Sydney went into total lockdown. Which really pissed off Sydneysiders.

The media were given a briefing that included a warning about how serious the whole affair was. People should not make the mistake of making light of proceedings or causing trouble. Pranks would not be tolerated. The Chaser team were looked at very sternly and pointedly during this lecture. There was an "exclusion zone" into which unauthorised persons were most definitely not allowed. Any protesters or pranksters who broke the exclusion zone would find themselves in a metric shitload of trouble.

And so the inevitable happened. The Chaser team set up a fake motorcade (flying Canadian flags for those who are interested) and drove into the exclusion zone. They got through two of the "security" checkpoints. When they were arrested it looked to me like they were seriously fucked. It didn't seem likely to me that the then in power Federal Government who were responsible for the event would take kindly to being made look like such fools.

Eleven people were arrested, two of them were stars and the others were faceless nobodies who I kind of felt sorry for. I figured the least they were going to get was being totally unable to fly internationally for the rest of their lives. And I suspected they weren't being paid enough to suffer that punishment. I would not have been surprised if some jail terms were handed out.

Anyway, I figure these are the luckiest people in Australia because today the charges were dropped. This link gives a few details and also has a link to a video of the actual prank. They got off on what could be described as a technicality. It wasn't found that breaching the exclusion zone wasn't breaking the law, it's more that it wasn't their fault they got into the exclusion zone.

At the time, I found it very hard to understand why they thought the prank was a good idea. After all, they drove into the middle of some very heavily armed men who were probably very nervous and were unlikely to spend a lot of time figuring out the difference between a prank and a terrorist threat.

Oh yeah, and one of the cast was dressed up in an Osama Bin Laden costume. A really shit Osama costume but there was no doubt who he was meant to be. This action looked like a death wish personified.

As it turns out, they had checked out the first checkpoint the day before and decided there was no way they would get through. And that's why the charges were dropped. Something was different when they actually pulled the prank which is why they got through. But the court decided it was never their intention to breach the exclusion zone and so they got off.

The big joke was to be that when they were refused entry, "Osama" would step out of his limo and say "Why can't I go in?" Hilarity would ensue. But some idiot waved them through. So they drove in. A different idiot waved them through the second checkpoint. They kept driving.

At some point The Chaser team themselves decided "this is a bad fucking situation." Who knows, maybe it was Osama himself who said "Stop driving me toward more guys with machine guns!" They turned their motorcade around and told the security forces something along the lines of "ummmm, fellahs... we really don't want to be here any more. Please don't shoot us."

How do you start a conversation like that?

It's hard to imagine pushing the envelope more than that. A representative has said that just because they got away with this they won't try anything even more outlandish.

Yeah, riiiiiight.

April 25th - ANZAC Day

April 25th is one of the most significant days of the year in Australia. It marks the day that the Australia and New Zealand Army Corp (along with other armed forces of the British Empire) landed on the beaches of Gallipoli on the Turkish peninsula.

A long, bloody, pointless and quite frankly disastrous campaign ensued the ended with a retreat. It was, like all of World War One, an horrific and senseless waste of life. And yet it was certainly a turning point in the establishment of an individual identity for Australia and for modern Turkey. Interestingly, there is quite a bit of closeness between Australia, New Zealand and Turkey over the commemoration of Gallipoli with shared respect for the sacrifices made and bravery shown on both sides. I don't know of any other major conflict where the opposing sides now identify so closely over the conflict.

Here's a video I made to mark this year's ANZAC Day.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=5hUcgvoC_NM

For anyone who wants to know more, this link leads to the official Australian government site. Also, here's a series of videos I made last year.

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

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=yHRqiF0jyRw

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=4pUtu3DTf7g

Religion vs. Science

I think I've discovered the secret of the long standing conflict between IT workers and management. Which is to say, one of my commenters (RobMoir) articulated it and I'm totally stealing his concept.

It comes down to the same mentality as religion vs. science.

A true believer in religion doesn't need proof, faith is enough for them. In fact, a lack of faith and a desire to see empirical truth is seen as a severe failing of character by the faithful. Conversely, a follower of science finds it difficult to conceive of how someone could simply not want to undertsand something. The very act of surrendering to a higher power rather continuing the quest for knowledge is incomprehensible to the follower of science.

And that's where the gap in managing IT projects seems to be. Managers all too often seem to operate on principle of religious faith rather than responding to any objective reality. The project plan becomes holy scripture. Or worse still, management exhorts the team to operate on faith alone. "If we all work together, we can meet the delivery date." Reality be damned.

A good IT worker treats a project more like science and asks pertinent questions. What exactly will happen? How will we make it happen? Who specifically has the skills to make it happen? What course of action will we follow when the unexpected inevitably happens?

Mind you, if you want to see an IT worker get religious, start up on their pet operating system / programming language / development methodology / technology platform and/or gaming system. There's nothing quite as fierce as a technology based holy war.

For an illustration I'll provide another slightly dramatised discussion based on a very real experience from my (thankfully distant) past. A bit of context first: I'm a Business Analyst (BA) but there are often two sorts of BAs. One is based with a business unit and represents their interests. This person usually writes a Business Requirements document. The other is an IT based BA who looks at things from a systems basis. This person is often called a Systems Analyst or Technical Analyst and writes a Functional Specification.

In my time, I have been both. Sometimes on the same job. In the following example, I was a Systems Analyst. The BA from the business group was presenting their requirements document and wanted us (the IT group) to sign off. This was the first time we has seen requirements from them. And quite frankly, they were shit. The best bits were ambiguous to the point of being useless and it was full of straight out errors.

The BA's starting point was that me signing off their document was a foregone conclusion. My starting point was that this was a review meeting. If the document didn't pass review it was going back for more work. When we reached the critical point of "No, I'm not signing off on this piece of shit you call a requirements document," the following discussion too place (translations provided for people who don't understand polite business speak).

BA: But this meeting was to get a sign off.
(Translation: It's inconceivable that you could doubt the Holy Scripture.)

ME: This meeting was to review the document, I can't sign it of in its current state.
(Translation: I need proof, not blind faith.)

BA: But the project plan says we have to have this signed off today!
(Translation: The Divine Word from on high tell me it is so - I dare not question.)

ME: Then you should have had review sessions before today so we could have given you the feedback you needed to have it ready for signoff.
(Translation: We sign off requirements when they're right. We don't sign off steaming piles of camel turn simply because an arbitrary date has been reached.)

BA: But to meet the schedule this has to be signed off today. We're delivering it on schedule but you have to sign it off.
(Translation: The schedule said I had to produce a document by today. I produced a document. What could possibly be wrong?)

ME: We can only sign off on the requirements when they're right, not when they schedule says they should be signed off.
(Translation: Was I not clear about the steaming camel turd?)

BA: Well, could you do a "conditional" signoff and we'll make a note of your issues?
(Translation: If you're stupid enough to put your name to this you'll never see me again - it's your problem from then on.)

ME: You've got my feedback, that's all that's coming out of this meeting. There's no way I can sign off on these requirements. Take the feedback to your manager and if he has any issues he can take it up with my manager because I'm under strict instructions to not sign off anything until it's ready to be signed off no matter what the schedule says.
(Translation: We're onto your little games. Now get the fuck out of my face or I'll jam that worthless document down your throat until you choke.)

Surprisingly enough, I did not extend my contract at that place. The job market was very strong at the time and life is far too short to put up with that sort of insanity-inducing dysfunction. Mind you, it did form the basis of my forthcoming thesis "Project Management Failure - an archetypal example of how to fuck things up completely."

A message to the crazy bastard on the bus

If I could say one thing to the guy I had to deal with on the bus it would be: "TAKE YOUR FUCKING MEDICATION!"

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=HiWV58cRLZI

Project management disasters

Over more than 10 years of contracting as an IT Business Analyst, I've learned there are two main reasons companies hire contractors. Either they're running some huge sprawling project and want to throw more bodies at it or they don't have the in house expertise for a particular project so they want to bring in an outsider who does.



Although the big, sprawling projects are a major source of employment, I really don't like working on them. The main reason for my dislike is that most of these massive projects are disasters. The company is trying to do too much with too little idea of how to do it. The classic nightmare for IT staff is to be stuck in a project that's date driven.



By "date driven" I mean that the only way the project is measured is by whether or not is it delivered by some totally arbitrary date. It's bad enough when you have to deal with a project manager who wants you to bow down before their Gantt chart as if it's Holy Scripture. But I have actually worked on multi-million dollar projects where all activity is driven by the fact that someone in senior management has said it should be done by a certain date.



There's nothing that fills a development team with horror quite so much as something along the lines of "the new financial system wil be in place before the end of the financial year." And when you ask how that date was arrived at you get little more than "that should be enough time." As an analyst I find that sort of crap particularly galling because people who think this is a good way to run a project usually get pissed off when I start actually doing my job.



They get pissed off because my job is to ask questions and arbitrarily set dates usually don't hold up well to questioning. Here's an approximation of fun conversations that happen on projects like this:



BOSS: The project has to be completed by the end of the year.



ME: What's actually involved?



B: A new CRM system has to be installed. It will replace thee old stand alone systems and make us more efficient.



M: But what's actually involved?



B: I just told you, we're implementing a new CRM system.



M: But what has to happen for that to be installed? You said it's replacing three existing systems, what happens to the data stored in those systems? There's no way we'll be lucky enough that the new system handles data exactly the same way. Can it be configured to handle existing data somehow or will that require programming changes? Or is that not even possible which means we'll have to convert the existing data to a usable format? Can we do that via an automated process or will it have to be done manually? And what about other systems that had interfaces to the systems being replaced? How many interfaces to the new system are required and how long will it take to develop all of them? And what about the users? Have you checked that the new system can actually meet all of their requirements? Are they going to have to change any existing processes in order to use the new system? Have you allowed enough time for training? And how does it affect external suppliers?



(At about this point I can see the boss is making a mental note that I'm a troublemaker. I can see it in his eyes.)



B: We don't know the answers to any of those questions but we've committed to meeting the delivery date. I'm sure if we all get on board and make a commitment as a team we can make it happen.



(At this point I'm making a mental note that the boss is a fucking moron. I hope he can't see it in my eyes.)



M: But you haven't even defined what "it" is. You made a commitment to deliver the project by a set date without even quantifying what work has to be performed. How can you possibly commit to a date when you don't even know what you have to do?



B: If we discover that the volume of work is too much for the existing team to handle then we'll add more people to the team.



M: Have you ever read "The Mythical Man Month"?



B: Never heard of it.



M: That doesn't surprise me.



The book "The Mythical Man Month" was written more than 30 years ago by a manager at IBM. The single most important point in the book can be summarised as "adding people to a project that is already behind schedule will make it later". The main reason for this is that the more people you add, the more convoluted lines of communication become until it gets to the point where communication takes more time than the work itself. There's also the fact that when a project becomes severely behind schedule resourcing usually isn't the main problem. An utter lack of direction from clueless management is usually the bigger issue.

Software development is one of the fastest changing industries in the world. But even after 30 years this book is regarded as one of the fundamental classics in the field. The author jokes that it is referred to as the software development "bible" because of the number of people who say they believe in it but don't follow its teachings in their day to day life.

I have often considered bringing it in to work to show particularly clueless managers. I think that maybe if I brought a really nice hard bound edition in, I might be able to beat them to death with it. And then I realise why I've never moved into management.

I like to be able to face myself in the mirror.

The meaning of life

Forty Two.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=-oibb9tMCPA

Douglas Adams knew the score.

Fuck Scientology!

I never got into this whole "Anonymous" is going to take down Scientology thing. I've always thought Scientology sucked - I did their "personality" test about 20 years ago and it was clear that they were evil, manipulative bastards. But I never really spent a lot of effort attacking them.

Until the fuckers decided to start advertising on YouTube. Just after I got partner status. Which means I get fucking Scientology ads next to my videos. Now *I* know the fact that an ad appears next to my video doesn't mean I endorse that product. But I know there are some people stupid enough to make that assumption.

Luckily, I don't give a shit about stupid people.

But I have to admit, seeing an ad for something as evil as Scientology next to my videos creeped me right out. Even I started to suspect I was endorsing Scientology. This would not stand. YouTube doesn't actually give partners the ability to block certain advertising - they just serve up whatever they feel like. I don't like feeling powerless. So I took action!

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=bfbYOAq2XIU

Just in case anyone thought I was gonna wuss out now I'm a partner.

Hey, I'm Famous!

Well, kind of. YouTube have decided to send out press releases about the launch of the Partner Program in Australia. They asked if I'd be OK with doing some media about the fact that I'm in the partner program and be a total attention whore I said "Sure!"

So I was actually mentioned in a few media outlets, was quoted in the Australian Gizmodo website and I might be doing some radio and TV interviews. Which actually gives me pause for thought. I just started a new job, I'm not sure I want them seeing what freaky things I do online.

Oh well.

This all coincides nicely with a video I did exploring the obsession some people have with being "famous".

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=aMirRkTf68Q

Technology worship is stupid

For those who haven't noticed, I'm a bit of a geek. I'm not so obsessed with being the first to have the latest and greatest tech toys as I once was but I do still love gadgets. I have a weakness for shiny things with blinkenlights.

So by most standards I qualify as a technophile. But it never ceases to amaze me how stupid people can get when they start waxing lyrical about what great positive changes better technology could make to all our lives. For instance, an article in Popular Mechanics titled "10 Genius Inventions We're Still Waiting For."

To their credit, this is not another "where's my jetpack and personal robot?" article. But I'm astonished at how shallow their thinking is, particularly when they describe these as "genius" inventions. Admittedly, not all of the ideas are stupid. But some of them are really fucking moronic.

1. Sonic Showers
First up is a pretty reasonable idea. Given access to water is rapidly approaching crisis point, even in developed countries, some way to get clean without using water is a good idea. And the technology required hardly seems impossible.

2. Augmented Reality
OK, now it's getting stupid. AR is described as some sort of headset that would filter the real world and block out "inappropriate" sights and sounds. Oh my fucking god. Who could possibly think this is a good idea? The article sells it as a way to block out billboards and maybe protect delicate young ears from profanity.

Fuck that. Did you hear me kids? FUCK THAT! The potential for abuse is simply mind boggling. From totalitarian governments, to greedy commercial interests, to absurdly over-protective parents to hackers with a warped sense of humour. Any society that implemented a device like this would implode within years.

Even if it was never used maliciously, technical issues could easily have catastrophic consequences. The Blue Screen of Death would become a very literal concept if you were wearing AR goggles while driving.

3. Life Simulator
OK, you know this one is fucked from the sound of its name. The idea is that you should plug every life question into a computer and have it make your decisions for you. This is so horribly fucked I hardly know where to begin. Let's start with the fact that "right and wrong" are relative concepts. One person's right is easily another person's wrong. And in any case, they definitely aren't binary. Life isn't so simple that you can break it down into yes/no moments.

And in any case, have your life's decisions dictated by a fucking computer program???? Again, the possibilities for abuse are almost endless. And even if nobody tried to manipulate you, the software would still be written by a *shudder* computer programmer. I'm sure none of us have ever met a computer programmer who makes poor life/social choices.

4. Acoustic Cloaking Shell
This one is quite seductive and, if done right, would have some good benefits. But it's still riddled with problems. So you live in a noisy area but your domicile is blissfully quiet thanks to your Acoustic Cloaking Shell. How much of a shock would it be when you opened your door to be blasted with 100+ decibels of noise? And I mean you could quite literally go into shock from the trauma. Plus there's the issue of not hearing someone outside yelling "You're house is on fire!"

5. Legged-Robot Everything
Legged robots may well the wave of the future and I definitely want my own Gundam suit (even if it's made by Toyota). But the direction writer takes this in is staggeringly stupid. Live in a 2 room house - 1 to store robot furniture and 1 to actually live in? Apparently all we need is mobile, automatically changing furniture to be happy. First, you'd be totally screwed when (not if) your robot furniture broke down. Second, move the furniture around all you like, I want more than one fucking room to live in.

6. Nontangling Cable
This one is a no-brainer. Definitely a great invention waiting to happen.

7. Insect Force Field
Another good one although I suspect it would take a true genius to overcome the hurdles with this one. Making the barrier non-audible to humans and animals, non-cancer causing, effective against all insects, non-interfering with other devices. It's a big ask. And I worry what would happen to a person who's never been bitten by an insect when they inevitably comes that they're without their force field.

8. Megatracking System
Oh fuck off. Micro-devices that track everything in the world? Does anyone need me to actually explain why this idea is horrendously bad? We have little enough privacy as it is without companies and governments being able to track every item we own.

9. Kid OnStar
Same as above. A tracking device for kids. Give the kids a mobile phone if you need to. Besides all the invasion of privacy issues, kids generally are more technologically savvy than adults. They'd find a way to screw with this system in no time flat.

10. Auto Memory
Excuse the fuck out of me if I'm too busy living my life to record every fucking detail of it. And then there's the insurmountable privacy problems: you've got the same problems of companies, governments and hackers fucking with your "memories". This is stupid techno-weenie fantasy jack-off material.

I've worked in technology long enough to know that many geeks are smarter than the people they have to answer to, sometimes by orders of magnitude. And a lot of people are frustrated by the fact that we seem to be led not by the smartest but the craftiest, most ruthless or best looking. Why don't geeks run the world?

This article is exhibit 1 in the case of why things are the way they are. If geeks ran the world, some pretty stupid shit would happen.

DISCLAIMER: Of course I know stupid shit happens now. Maybe a geek run world would be better. But it astonishes me how much techno-fetishists can be oblivious to the stupidity of their ideas.

The Devil's Playground

You know how some fundamentalist religious types think the Harry Potter books are encouraging devil worship? Well, they really wouldn't like the playground i took my kids to on the weekend.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=xq-A0n_C2gc

For those who don't know, the "Angry Aussie" theme in this video (and others) was done for me by the most awesome muso on YouTube, the one and only NSG!
http://au.youtube.com/nsgmusic
http://www.nsg-music.co.uk

If you like it, you can download the full MP3 from:
http://www.knivesforapro.com/angryaussie/

Mr Safety says: "Say NO to Crack!"

Crack is a terrible scourge in today's society. You might have thought a nice city from Melbourne wouldn't have a problem with crack but as this video plainly shows, crack is a problem here. This video was shot in the middle of the day in a crowded shopping mall. The crack abuser was oblivious to the crowds. That's how bad crack abuse can be.

Thank god someone as prominent as Mr Safety has stepped forward to speak out against this scourge.

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

Where were the police? That's what I want to know! Melbourne is the home of Fashion Week - the fashion police should have been on hand to tell this fool of a girl to pull her jeans the fuck up!

Dealing with online bigotry

Here's the final part of my little series on online bigotry. In this video I talk about ways to deal with it when you're on the receiving end of bigotry.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=rAviVXFBw94

To me, the single most important thing to remember when you're faced with these morons is that it's all about you. Don't waste time worrying about changing the hateful attitude of bigots - you can't change them and it isn't worth the time and effort you'd waste trying. Decide what works for you and go with that.

If you want to launch into them (like, ummmm... me) then go for it. If you want to ignore them, then do that. If you want to delete their comments and block them from making further comments that's your right. Don't listen to any bullshit about "free speech" or how you have to "debate" with them if you disagree with them.

If you take the trouble to create a blog, a website, a forum, a YouTube channel, you have the right to define how that works. If these worthless, hopeless, gutless losers don't like what you do, they can fuck off and do something of their own.

I'm not in favour of developing "codes of conduct" or anything similar. I think they're impossible to enforce in practice and more than a little lame conceptually. If people don't understand how to act like a decent human being then don't waste your time on them.

Mugabe demands vote recount in Zimbabwe

Did you hear the one about how Robert Mugabe is going to peacefully hand over power after losing an election? No, neither did I...

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=lShd3zeetAw

Some reading for those who are interested:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7332941.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/643737.stm

US invades Iran!

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=BmAd2wuccqo

Sorry to anyone who thought that headline was real. Actually, it's well known that the Bush Administration *is* actually making plans/excuses to attack Iran. Which would be fucking suicidal by the way.

But this isn't actually about the real situation of Bush, Cheney and the rest of those insane bastards wanting to plunge the world into hell with their completely fucked plans about Iran.

It's just some weird shit that was in my head. And I wanted to wear my new hat in a video.

Bigotry Online (part three)

I rambled so much when I was making my video about online bigotry that I filled up my memory card before I'd said everything I wanted to say. So I shot some more on another day. I even found another nice seaside location to shoot at.

In this part I talk about (among other things) my own first-hand experiences with racism when some stupid people seemed to think I was an Asian female.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=D3XuLK8R1Ak

There is one more part to this series of videos where I talk about strategies on how to deal with online bigotry. Stay tuned.

Happy Blog Birthday to me

Well, I've officially been a blogger for more than two years. The fact that I didn't do anything big to mark the actual day (which was about a week ago) is unfortunately a reminder that I have no been particularly focused on this blog of late.

The name of the blog, Angry 365 Days a Year, was a description of a challenge I set myself when I first started: write something angry at least once a day, every day, for a year. I actually achieved this, partly by driving myself crazy a few times in my desperation to maintain my average. Once the first year was over I relaxed a little, promising myself that I wouldn't get to worked up if I missed the occasional day.

Even so, for quite a while I was still averaging 25-30 posts a month. The turning point was when I took time off work to organise the YouTube gathering in Melbourne last year. I never realised how much I relied on the rhythm of a workday - 90% of my blog posts were written in my lunch hour. Without that pattern, I found it very hard to make the time to sit down and type a post.

Also, YouTube has been taking up more and more of my time. For some reason I find it easier to make videos than it is to write blog posts, even though making the videos takes longer. Thinking of the idea, shooting it, editing and rendering the video, then uploading it takes at least 2 or 3 hours. And that's not even factoring in the time I use up answering comments.

It took me almost 18 months to reach 1,000 subscribers on YouTube and in the last 6 months I've gone up to almost 4,000. Along with this, the number of comments on each video has gone up gradually from a handful to at least 100 for each video, often more than 200. So given my obsessive need to answer comments, most days I'm answering well over 100 comments (as I still get a lot of comments on old videos.)

One of the reasons YouTube has become more appealing for me than the blog is there is much more instant gratification on YouTube. It is much easier to find an audience on YouTube than it is on an individual blog as YouTube aggregates the videos in a way blog hosts don't. On the other hand, achieving success with a blog post feels more satisfying as you have to do it yourself.

And while there are more people watching YouTube than there are reading blogs, I shouldn't underestimate the power of a popular blog post. After all the closest I've come to a "big break" has come via this blog. My infamous "alli diet pills make you shit oil" post was noticed by someone from one of the American broadcast networks and I was almost interviewed for one of their feature programs. I'm still kind of bitter that didn't go through but that's the way things go sometimes in this big, tough world.

Well, I'm about to start a new contract. The last one was pretty stressful and I never regained the rhythm of writing in my lunch break - I essentially had to get the fuck out of the building for an hour each day. Maybe this one will be a bit more balanced and I'll get back to writing regularly.


Anyway, to round off, I want to thank everyone for their support (for however long you've been with me). Particular thanks to the die-hards who've been reading almost from the start, like Sandra with whom I pretty much share a blog birthday. It's been quite an adventure and I'm not about to stop now!

Angry April Fool's Day Prank

It's April Fool's Day so I figured it might be expected to do a prank. So here goes:

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=C6Jrq4SXTV8

For anyone who has to ask: Yes, this is totally for real and my neighbour is now dead.

The music used in the video is "Badman" by NSG from his debut album "Working Class Superstar". He's a legend, check him out.

And for those who are interested, here's the previous prank involving the same neighbour and Mr Safety. Note that I'm not totally heartless, this prank is more on Mr Safety than on the neighbour.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=_4k7N38-s1A