A love letter to the haters

You come into my house, firing your gun in the air like you're some sort of cowboy. You think that you're going to scare me, that you're going to disrupt what I'm doing. But this is my house. My rules.

You can make noise but you can't hurt me. The laws of physics don't apply here. I control the limits of what happens. You can fire your gun into the air but I have things set up so eventually you have to put the gun down on the table. You don't have any choice about that. And what do I do with that gun I've forced you to put down?

I put it in your fucking mouth and I pull the fucking trigger.

You gave me that power. You placed all your being into that stupid hater comment. You can lie all you like but it doesn't change the truth. Everything that's you is in there and now I can destroy you. I can choose my method as well: I can spray your entrails all over the walls or I can simply erase you from existence.

None of your protestations to the contrary matter. None of your false bravado means anything. You have declared to the world that you are utterly meaningless. You have told everyone that you're scared of me. I have something you could never have. I do things you could never conceive of doing. You're desperately jealous. And desperately afraid. It's that fear and sense of inadequacy that makes you lash out.

You delude yourself that this tells the world how strong you are, how you're above it all, how you're keeping it real. All you've really done is write in letters 100 feet high: "I'm scared." And for those who say it's only the internet, it doesn't count, I'm only doing it "for the lulz" - you're partly right.

You don't count.

You don't count and you never will until you come to terms with some simple concepts like respect and basic human decency. Without that, you'll never be any more than a passing annoyance that's instantly forgotten. Treading in dogshit has a more lasting impact than your comments. When I scrape the dogshit off, the smell lingers a while. When I destroy you in comments, when I delete your comments, when I block you... you're gone. You cease to have any relevance.

At least the dogshit served a productive purpose once.

So I've got your number. You've got nothing. And I don't care. I don't want you to change. I don't want you to apologise. Because that would change nothing. You still wouldn't count for shit. You can continue to delude yourself for your whole life as far as I'm concerned. That won't change the truth. You desperately wish you had what I have.

And you'll never have anything I want.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=6_ag1ETx6hI

Melbourne awesomeness - the best street art in the world

One of the great things about working in the CBD of Melbourne is the diversity. Lots of great place to eat, great places to shop, an interesting array of people. And some of the best street art you'll find anywhere in the world. Here's some examples that I shot on a recent lunch hour. Everything you see in these videos was in just two alleys, about a two minute walk away from each other.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=rbgJ6HFaW50

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=DA9VX0p8FEQ

Music in both videos is from NSG's debut album, "Working Class Superstar".

http://www.nsg-music.co.uk
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=fvUnNrCoD6o

A voyage on the Enterprize - attacked by pirates!

For any Star Trek fans who are having trouble dealing with the delays to the new Star Trek movie - I have something to tide you over. On a recent weekend I got to go on a reproduction of the Enterprise that will be used in the new movie.

Actually, that's close to a complete lie. The Enterprize I was on is actually a reproduction of the tall ship that brought the first white settlers to Melbourne. Which mean it's Batman's ship. I'm not making that up. Melbourne was founded by Batman. Is your city that cool?

So maybe my weekend had nothing to do with Star Trek (although there is an image of the Enterprize in the opening credits of the most recent series, "Enterprise") and I didn't see any caped crusaders. But I am pretty sure there was a genuine pirate on board. Judge for yourself:

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=37Kdn6QXfcE

All in all, a fine way to spend a sunny day in Melbourne.

Angry Bloopers

I frequently get asked if I have any good bloopers. People assume with the volume of videos I make, I must fuck up a fair bit. They're right. People also tell me they think it would be funny to see me get angry when I screw up. Funny is a personal judgement but I think the answer to that one is also yes.

Take for example the video I recently posted of kangaroos on a golf course. I opened that video with a pretty cheesy slapstick comedy joke revolving around a sign for a scenic lookout. Gimme a break - I saw a sign that said "lookout" and I couldn't resist. It reminded me of an old Far Side comic.

The thing is, it was a fairly obvious and simple setup but I had a bastard of a time gettign it right. See for yourself:

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

Many thanks to my long-suffering girlfriend who was my camera operator on the day. Her sanity saved me when I was really losing it by reassuring me we could come back the next day. How did I respond to her calming influence? By saying:

Yeah, let's get the fuck out of here... FUCK THIS SHIT!"

Kangaroo golf hazards in Australia

Every now and then I like to provide evidence that I'm a frustrated nature documentarian. If that's the correct word. Anyway, living in a country with such diverse wildlife, there are plenty of opportunities for making nature videos. This one probably looks like a set-up but it's absolutely legitimate.

On a golf course just off the Great Ocean Road south of Melbourne there's a golf course with a rather unique hazard on the fairways...

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

The tourism board should be paying me money for this stuff.

Advertising dollars well spent

I don't know about you, but I've stayed out of the so-called next generation DVD wars. I'm old enough to have actually bought a Betamax VCR and paid the price. Besides which, neither of these formats will enjoy the dominance DVD has had for the last ten years because they'll be replaced by digital downloads before they gain that sort of foothold.

A series of nails seems to be getting nailed into the coffin of Toshiba's HD-DVD format so I wasn't surprised to see an article predicting that Toshiba were about to admit defeat. But I was amused while reading the article in The Age website to see an ad for HD-DVD prominently placed in the same article pronouncing it dead in the water.

There's an old advertising joke that says "50% of all advertising money is wasted - if only we knew which 50%." He's a tip: the money spent advertising a product next to an article saying that product is dead? That's probably wasted.

As the advertising for sites like The Age is dynamic this little gem of irony will be a fleeting thing. If you have a similar sense of humour to me, you may appreciate the fact that I saved a screen shot of this little piece of advertising magic:



For the pedants:

• I know nobody at Toshiba said "please place an ad for our product next to an article saying our product is dead"
• I know nobody at The Age said "Let's put an ad for HD-DVD next to an article saying it's dead" - Toshiba simply bought an set amount of advertising and the ad was placed an arbitrary number of times in a particular section of the website
• Get a fucking sense of humour
• No, your sense of humour isn't fine, if you can't just appreciate a simple joke without deconstructing it and finding fault you are fucked up!
• If you're the sort of obsessive dweeb who behaves this way, here a few more to set you off:
• Ron Paul is a gay nazi paedophile drug-smuggling terrorist
• Open source software is a communist plot designed to destroy our way of life and murder kittens
• Your mother fucks truck drivers for 50c a throw and most of the time they ask for their money back

Can anyone tell I've had to deal with some really stupid obsessive-compulsive pedants recently?

Download NSG's album for free

A quick update. The artist whose music I used in my valentines day video has asked me to "leak" his album online. So for a limtied time, follow this link to download NSG's debut album "Working Class Superstar" in its entirity for free!

Valentine's Day Cuteness

The dominant reaction to this video from regular viewers on YouTube is "that's a really weird thing for you to do." Hey, don't box me in, bitches! You never know what I'll do next. Although it never occurred to me as I did the video, I suppose it's fair to say I've never done a music video before for a cutesy love song.

There's a logical explanation for this unexpected action, honest. Essentially, anyone who's watch a few of my videos is likely to have heard my Angry Aussie theme song (or at least part of it - it's the lead-in for Angry News bulletins). That music was done for me by an Indonesian born, London Bred chap who goes by the name of NSG Music.

NSG is a musican/singer/songwriter/producer of prodigious skill and he's just finished self-producing his debut album "Working Class Superstar". He gave me a copy of the album and asked me to spread the word. I spent a little while listening to the album and there was one track that seemed perfect for a Valentine's Day video.

I messaged a few other folk on YouTube who provided some chunks of video that I edited into the video you see below. Incidentally, this was way more work than I usually put into editing. I think I pushed my editing software way beyond its limits and it crapped out on me several times. I stayed up until 3am finishing this so I wouldn't miss Valentine's Day. That probably sounds insane (I won't argue) but I would have been so frustrated if I'd left it unfinished I wouldn't have been able to sleep anyway.

Without further ado, I present "Boyfriend/Girlfriend" by NSG Music featuring Miss Kaz.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=XrxgIh0-bcE

As I expect several request for information from my more libidinous readers, I'll tell you now that the gorgeous and talented young lady you see lip synching and dancing in this video is known as BabyPorridge online and you can see more of her here.

Psychos don't like being caught out

Further to my recent posts on office psychos, I'm still thinking through my Unified Theory of Global Dickheads. I'm sure that's a Nobel Prize in the making. According to several studies I've read, about 1 in 100 people are full on psychopath/sociopaths and 1 in 20 suffer from diagnosable Anti-Social Personality Disorder. My own unscientific observations lead me to believe about 1 in 10 people are just jerks.

I think that the biggest difference between a pychopath and a jerk is that a psychopath can't change and a jerk doesn't want to change. Jerks behave in ways that normal humans find objectionable. Their cunning approach is to be so obnoxious that we either have to let them have their way or essentially fight fire with fire - be obnoxious right back.

The thing is, if you're a decent human, you don't want to spend much time being obnoxious. It actually feels bad. While it's worth shouting down a jerk every now and then, they like to put us in positions where our lives will essentially be miserable if we retaliate. I've noticed this behaviour more and more lately.

This behaviour is far too widespread to be limited to the people who are statistically likely to have Anti-Social Personality Disorder. This is where my theory on the preponderance of jerks comes from. I think being a jerk is pretty much learned behaviour - they see that when they're a colossal jerk, people often let them get their own way just to shut them up.

But you know what? Jerks really hate it when you call them out for being jerks. It's actually fun to watch them squirm but they'll rarely admit they were at fault. Just today I was on a really crowded tram. So crowded in fact that when I got on I basically couldn't move far past the doorway. That didn't bother me too much because I wasn't staying on for very long.

Each stop at least one person would get on and/or off which involved some creative squirming away for me and a few other to accommodate the people who were entering/leaving. Finally, we approached my stop and I stood by the door waiting for the tram to stop. A woman who wanted to get off as well evidently decided she didn't want to wait for the door to open and shoved past me while the tram was still moving. She actually elbowed me in the stomach!

As I got off the tram behind her I decided to communite my displeasure and the following exchange took place:

ME: Yeah, thanks for that.

SHE: I needed to get off.

ME: So did I, why the hell did you elbow me in the stomach deliberately?

SHE: You wouldn't get out of the way.

ME: The tram hadn't stopped, I couldn't get out of the way.

SHE: You shouldn't have been in the way.

ME: There was nowhere else to stand. Besides, like I said, I was waiting to get off too.

SHE: I didn't know that, you were just in the way.

ME: Well, here's a novel idea - try saying "Excuse me" before elbowing me in the stomach!

SHE: And I suppose you would have moved if I'd said that.

ME: No, I would have told you I was getting off at this stop.

SHE: So, I was meant to just wait behind you?

ME: YES, YOU BEHIND ME IN THE FUCKING TRAM OF COURSE YOU WERE MEANT TO LET ME GET OFF FIRST! WHY THEY FUCK IS THAT SO FUCKING DIFFICULT FOR YOU TO UNDERSTAND?

Actually, I may have said "fuck" more times than that. For some reason, the conversation ended awkwardly at that point.

An important message about the US Presidential elections

Sometimes really strange ideas come into my head.  I've read so many stories about how the US electoral system has very little to do with actual democracy that it's getting scary.  The system of delegates and the electoral college creates a situation where you can be forgiven for thinking that the way individual citizens vote is all but meaningless.

I'm not a fan of conspiracy theories but when a system is so deeply flawed it gets easier to believe some of the more outlandish claims that float around.  Which may be where the idea for this video originated.  

I was planning to do something completely different but this idea got into my head and wouldn't go away.  So, as I usually do when I get weird voices in my head, I let them out and this video was the result:

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=xKeNuz1ySKc


The biggest trouble I had with this video was my hair.  I wanted to have a "slick" look so I put about a bucket of "product" into my hair.  And my damn hair still wouldn't stay flat!  The only real result of the mountain of crap I used was my hair feeling like crap until I washed it a few times.

What are you doing for the next hour?

Every now and then I get weird impulses when making videos. Get your minds out of the gutter. I mean that sometimes an idea just pops into my head from nowhere, takes hold and I have to follow through with it.

The idea I had the other day was "How long could I make a video that people would still watch?" I did the lead-in video one day, essentially asking two questions:

1. How long do you think I'll go?
2. How long could you tolerate?

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


The funny thing was, almost everyone drastically underestimated how long I'd go. Quite a few were thrown because they think everyone has a ten minute limit on YouTube. I actually have one of the original Director accounts that lets you go for longer than 10 minutes. They stopped giving this freedom when too many morons posted full TV shows and movies. But they didn't take the privilege away from anyone who already had it.

So make yourself comfortable (if you dare) for a 51 minute rant from Mr Angry. I was absolutely astounded by how many people watched this all the way though. I did make an effort to make it entertaining and worth watching but still, 51 minutes... that's a marathon.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=0MEapnLUzMo


The funny thing is, I only stopped because I thought the battery was going to run out. I actually could have kept going for quite a while.

The pumpkins that ate Mr Angry

I am possibly the worst gardener in the world. The most successful vegetable growing I have ever done was a few years ago when some potatoes and tomatoes started growing out of my compost pile. Now it's happened again. We set up a little garden in the backyard and planted NO pumpkins.

The pumpkins apparently took this as some sort of personal insult and struck back. I suppose it's stating the obvious to say that there must have been pumpkin seeds in the compost. The plants have been growing so fast I thought it was a good idea to warn the little angries to be on the guard with this feral pumpkin outbreak.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=_sgO1P4fCqE


My Youtube viewers have already given me a few recipes to deal with the thousands of pumpkins I'll be harvesting and I share them with you now. Feel free to add your own.

Granny's Pumpkin Bread Pudding with Caramel Sauce
Cooked Pumpkin:
1 medium pumpkin
Preheat oven to 300F (150C).
Cut pumpkin into small manageable pieces and cut off pith and seeds.
Place cut pumpkin skin side up in a large roasting pan. Add 1/4 inch of water and bake uncovered for 1 hour or until tender. Remove from oven and allow pumpkin to cool.
When cooled, cut away skin and mash or puree. Use in any recipe that calls for canned pureed pumpkin.

Bread pudding:
2 cups half and half
1 cup (packed) plus 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
10 cups 1/2-inch cubes pumpkin bread (or egg bread) (about 10-ounces)
1/2 cup golden raisins
2 cups cooked pumpkin or 1 15-ounce can pure pumpkin

For bread pudding: Preheat oven to 350F (177C). Whisk half and half, pumpkin, dark brown sugar, eggs, pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon and vanilla extract in large bowl to blend. Fold in bread cubes. Stir in golden raisins. Transfer mixture to 11x7-inch glass baking dish. Let stand 15 minutes. Bake pumpkin bread pudding until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 40 minutes.

Caramel sauce:
1 1/4 cups (packed) dark brown sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1/2 cup whipping cream
Powdered sugar

Prepare caramel sauce:
Whisk brown sugar and butter in heavy medium saucepan over medium heat until butter melts. Whisk in cream and stir until sugar dissolves and sauce is smooth, about 3 minutes.

Sift powdered sugar over bread pudding. Serve warm with caramel sauce.

The following exuberant recipe comes from the effervescent Emma who has possibly the best user name on YouTube, "KilledTheCheerleader".

WONDERFUL FANTASTIC HAM HOCK PUMKIN SOUP YAY!

big pot! yay!

cut up pumpkin no skin annoying to get off but tastes yukky!
put up potato no skin again but potato skin is yummy just not needed
ham hock on bone for yummy yummyness!!
veggie stock! lots of it boil for ages!!!

add salt and pepper to taste let it boil down!

after all lovely and cookeddd take out ham hock bone take off any left meat from bone

blend it up so all smooth and lovely add some cream if u want not too much just to make it slightly thicker!!

eat yay fantastic!!

And here's another pumpkin bread recipe:

Pumpkin Bread recipe

1 1/2 cups (210g) flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 cup (200 g) sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup (1/4 L) pumpkin purée*
1/2 cup (1 dL) olive oil
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup water
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/2 cup (1 dL) chopped walnuts (optional)

* To make pumpkin purée, cut a pumpkin in half, scoop out the seeds and stringy stuff, lie face down on a foil or Silpat lined baking sheet. Bake at 350°F until soft, about 45 min to an hour. Cool, scoop out the flesh. Freeze whatever you don't use for future use. Or, if you are working with pumpkin pieces, roast or boil them until tender, then remove and discard the skin.

1 Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Sift together the flour, salt, sugar, and baking soda.

2 Mix the pumpkin, oil, eggs, 1/4 cup of water, and spices together, then combine with the dry ingredients, but do not mix too thoroughly. Stir in the nuts.

3 Pour into a well-buttered 9x5x3 inch loaf pan. Bake 50-60 minutes until a thin skewer poked in the very center of the loaf comes out clean. Turn out of the pan and let cool on a rack.

Makes one loaf. Can easily double the recipe.

Don't waste time negotiating with psychos

A little addendum to my post yesterday about workplace psychos. Don't waste time thinking you can change their behaviour. It's that old story about the frog and the scorpion - it's what they do. Most workplaces have some sort of conflict resolution process in place and if you get dragged into one of these with your psycho by all means, participate in a positive way.

But don't fool yourself that anything is going to change. One of the key elements of a clinical diagnosis for a psychopath or sociopath is that they don't respond to treatment. You can't make them "better". They don't want to get better. So don't make yourself look bad by refusing to participate but don't harbour any illusions about the outcome.

To give an example from my personal experience, in one of my earliest jobs as a business analyst, there was one programmer who was clearly a psycho. Part of my responsibility was testing changes to the system before any changes went live and this programmer would get a tad fiesty when I delayed releases of his changes by doing crazy things like finding critical flaws. The process went a little like this:

Monday: I start testing changes he's made to the system. This is a script driven system used by operators in a call centre and it has to guide them through about 20 steps. The program falls over after the second step. It literally crashes and I can't continue. I file a bug report detailing the issue.

Tuesday: The programmer tells me the bug has been fixed and I should test it. Sure enough the bug has been fixed and I can get past step two. Then it crashes again at step five. I file a bug report. The programmer goes nuts and literally starts screaming. He tells the project manager it's my fault the code isn't ready on time because I should have told him about this second bug yesterday. The PM decides to calm the situation by taking us both off to another room to talk about the problem.

It took about five seconds to establish that the programmer was talking shit. Their whole beef was that I didn't tell them about this new bug yesterday. I calmly explained why it was logically impossible for me to have done so. I also was circumspect enough to not point out it was blindingly fucking obvious why it was impossible. The original bug happened at step two. The new bug was at step five. I couldn't get past step two to see the bug at step five until after the first bug was fixed.

As soon as it became obvious his bullshit was indefensible the programmer became nice as pie. He never admitted that his behaviour was totally fucked (let alone that blaming me for errors in his code at all was fucked) but he was suddenly the voice of reason. He actually said "Oh, why didn't you tell me that? I understand now. This was all a misunderstanding."

The PM asked if I was satisfied with the "resolution" of our discussion. I said yes even though I knew that no resolution had been reached, the smarmy git had simply weaselled his way out of the situation. It was clear to me there was no value in pursuing it so I said everything was OK.

A week later exactly the same thing happened. And I mean exactly. This same programmer started shouting and abusing me because I was doing my job (namely, providing evidence that he was shit at his job). The PM took me aside and asked if I wanted another "counselling session". I gave the honest answer:

"No, what's the point? You can see he's being unreasonable, if we go off and talk about it, I'll prove he's being unreasonable then suddenly he'll be all sweetness and light and promise this will never happen again. Then, next week, it will happen again. So long as you know he's being an idiot I don't really mind. I can ignore him."

In some senses, maybe I should have pursued it. He deserved to be fired but that would have involved making a formal complaint to HR and then a process that would drag on for months with this psycho kicking and biting every step of the way. And because of the small size of our team I would have had to keep working with him the whole time.

So getting rid of him was more painful than simply de-fanging him. He would still go apeshit from time to time but I had exposed him for what he was so he couldn't hurt me any more. So from my experience (and this is backed up by the reading I have done) it's unlikely you can actually change an office psycho. Don't waste time and energy on them, devote it to looking after yourself.

Dealing with the office psycho

The other day, former co-worker asked me for advice on how to deal with a difficult situation at work. Apparently I am regarded as "wise" in some circles. As this person was still stuck in the worst workplace I have ever suffered through, I thought the problem would be pretty dramatic. As it turns out, it didn't sound very dramatic. In fact, what he really wanted was confirmation that something was going on at all because he wasn't sure.

He described someone else in his project team that he thought was taking credit for for all of his work. They had clearly delineated areas of responsibility yet he always felt like this person was spending too much time looking aver his shoulder rather than doing their own work. She would drill him with a lot of questions so she had an effective working knowledge of what he was doing. None of this was necessary for her to do her own work.

Then she started answering questions from management that were directed at him. She would go so far as to talk over him if he managed to start his answer first which made him so uncomfortable he stopped talking. After this had been going on for a while he discovered she was sending "update" emails to management detailing his work but phrased to suggest it was all coming from her. Needless to say, he wasn't being sent copies of these email communications.

"I feel like she's out to get me, that she's going out of her way to screw me over. But that's crazy, why would she do that?"

The answer's actually quite simple: she's a psycho. Coming out and describing someone as a psychopath tends to get a laugh in response: "Yeah, she's crazy all right." But it isn't a joke. This type of behaviour is a perfect example of psychopathic/sociopathic behaviour. The diagnosis of a psychopath in the workplace is often not taken seriously because the term is coloured by preconception. People often confuse it with "psychotic". And those who know the difference are often influenced by popular fiction like "Silence of the Lambs".

What the office psychopath and Hannibal Lecter have in common is a complete lack what's commonly known as a conscience. They are perfectly aware of the concepts of right it wrong, they simply don't care. They don't feel remorse because anyone hurt by their actions is unimportant. The difference between a serial killer and an office psycho is what they want from you.

In case you think you think talking about psychopaths in the workplace is overblown, statistically, it's almost certain you work with or regularly interact with a psychopath. Most studies suggest that between 3% and 5% of the population suffer from the milder condition known as anti-social personality disorder and 1% of the population are psychopaths. In other words, 1 in 25 people you meet is a dick (you hadn't noticed?) and 1 in 100 is dangerous (a smaller number of these are violent predator types).

The likelihood of running into these characters at work is higher than this simply because of the number of companies who seem to actively encourage this sort of thing. How many managers would react positively to someone described as "a real results person, nothing gets in their way. They can charm anyone and won't hesitate to go after goals other people say are impossible. Anyone who's not on the team better get out of the way because this guy will crush them."

This is not saying all high achievers are psychopaths, in fact, most psychopaths can't maintain positive results for an extended period of time. This is mostly because they achieve their goals in an incredibly destructive way. They won't hesitate to cause major damage to everyone and everyone around them. Because they simply don't care.

The three main traits usually ascribed to psychopathic/sociopathic personality types are they are very egocentric, they have no empathy for others and they are incapable of feeling remorse or guilt. On the surface, this would appear to make them obvious monsters that could never fool anyone. The scary thing is that many of them are more than capable of faking all the human characteristics they lack in reality. The smarmiest person in the office, the one who easily makes friends and establishes trust can easily be the one who has no real concern for anyone around them.

So how to deal with an office psycho? The first and simplest rule is to get the hell away from them. These people will not hesitate to make your life miserable. They will destroy your career, your finance and your health. Don't try to appeal to their better nature. They don't have one.

Getting away from them means up to and including getting a different job. If you're working in an environment that encourages and rewards sociopathic behaviour, changing jobs is by far your best option. Seeing as how there are usually people who say changing jobs isn't viable for them, I'll provide a few more coping strategies. Seriously though, there are times when you need to bite the bullet and change jobs. There are very few jobs worth the long term emotional and even physical damage a workplace psycho will do to you.

One of the common strategies a workplace psycho will use is to isolate you. You absolutely must not allow this to happen. They want other people to doubt you and they want you to doubt yourself. The best remedy for this is frequent communication with everyone but your tormentor. In the case of my friend, the psycho went out of her way to block his attempts at communication. I suggested he deal with it as follows:

Send daily email updates on progress to your manager. The psycho was not informed of these because they were nothing to do with her. My friend did not report to her and she was not directly involved in his work. The manager doesn't even have to read these unless somewhere down the line there's a clash with the psycho. Then you have a timeline of activity that should protect you from their attacks.

Seeing as the psycho had the habit of talking over him and answering "for him" when his manager asked questions, I advised him to find times when she wasn't around to talk to his manager. These discussions don't have to be formal meetings although there are times when meetings help. Something as simple as having lunch at a different time to the psycho and taking the opportunity to talk while she's at lunch can work wonders.

If you are the target of the office psycho, they will go out of their way to make it look like you contribute nothing. The last thing you want is at some critical point for the boss to go "That's true, what does that guy ever do?" Regular chats (whether informal or formal) will help keep the boss appraised of exactly what you do.

Another important point is to give the psycho as little information as possible. This goes for both your work and your private life. If their plan is to steal credit for your work, obviously you can make it harder for them by not providing them with the required information. If you're going to starve them of information it's vitally important that you keep other informed of what work you are doing (both your manager and trusted peers). That way if the psycho complains that you're withholding information others can say that you've kept them fully informed.

If you're put on the spot as to why you haven't provided the same information to the psycho, be direct but not defensive. It isn't their job and they had no need to know.

Don't underestimate the importance of keeping your private live private, either. These office psychopaths can be especially skilled at appearing friendly. They are frequently consummate actors and in fact they often appear to be the most emotional person in the office. But it's all an act. The don't want to hear personal details out of genuine concern for you or anyone else, they want to use this information as a weapon against you. Don't give them that opportunity.

But one of the most important things you can do when dealing with an office psycho is to recognise them for what they are. Most of us are basically decent people and we tend to assume other people are as well. Psychopaths and sociopaths use that to their advantage. What we regard as a conscience, they regard as a weakness to be exploited. If you're like my friend you'll make the mistake of letting them get away with it for ages before doing anything about their behaviour.

These people are not just jerks and most studies suggest more than not being interested in changing, it isn't actually possible to change their behaviour - their brains are different. One way to tell if a troublesome person is actually a psychopath is their propensity for lying. And I'm not talking about "No, that outfit doesn't make you look fat" type of lies.

If someone can blatantly lie to your face and not back down even when you expose their lie, that's a bad sign. If they can do it twice, they're very likely to be a psychopathic personality. If they do it three times - hide the sharp knives.

Here's a little more fun reading for you:

This Fast Company article is one of the best pieces I found while researching this post.

Bob Sutton has a simple suggestion for companies wanting to keep psychos out - implement a "No Asshole" rule. No matter how good someone seems to be, don't hire them if they're an asshole.

Australia Day

I had a really lazy Australia Day weekend. The most active thing I did was lots of barbecuing, like a good little Aussie. So here's some cooking tips from me along with some general musings on the day:

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=srWaEkrOf1s


And just in case any international readers are wondering what Australia Day marks, here's an explanation video I made last year:

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz45pXcfTHE


And one I made that caused redneck bogans to get worked up for some reason. This also features the first appearance of the Aussie burgers:

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=_zOKwM8Wcu0


Happy Australia Day!

Angry Brother

So I've decided to have my own "reality" video show. Mainly because my head is crowded with all these creepy characters who manifest themselves in videos wearing masks. I need to vote a few of them out of my head. The plan of action was basically my daughter's - she started off by suggesting "Angry Idol" but I'm not cruel enough to inflict my singing voice on you.

And so "Angry Brother" was born.

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

Nanna Jelly Love

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=fJsg9gnCmG8

The man you see in the video still above is comedian Ross Noble and this post is designed to mess with his head. Ross is a very funny performer and anyone who has seen him will tell you he has absolutely astounding improvisational skills. He's in Australia for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival at the moment and he's also hosting a comedy show in Northcote (hello vettiliveinnorthcote!) each Sunday night for the next few weeks.

The series of shows was organised by a comedian I featured in my series on last year's Comedy Festival, Dave Bushell. Each night four or five comedians perform with Ross having a bit of a chat with the audience between each act. Usually the host of a show like this will do maybe five minutes each time they are at the microphone. They way Ross Noble tends to go off on wild improvisational tangents means that he can there for up to half an hour. Five times during the evening.

Dave asked me to come along to the shows and video the acts so they would have some footage they could use for promotional purposes. You may end up seeing some of the performances here although maybe not as they're much funnier than me and I don't want to be shown up. One thing I don't do is video Ross Noble's pieces. There's all sorts of complicated contract issues with a performer like Ross but there's also the fact that he doesn't want these weird little bits he's improvising showing up out of context on sites like YouTube.

That's where we get to me messing with his head. He was off one of his surreal ramble in one of the shows when he started talking about "nanna jelly love". Before I describe the act of nanna jelly love, a few definitions might be in order. First, "nanna" means grandmother. Second, "jelly" is know to Americans (and possibly others) as jello. If you are American, what you jelly is jam GODDAMMIT! get it right!

So, nanna jelly love involves having a life size mould of your nanna's naked body, filling the mould with jelly then having sex with the jelly version of your nanna. There was a certain logic to it but you had to be there. Anyway, right at the point when Ross is headed into seriously wrong territory with this (it actually got worse than the explanation I just gave you) he pointed straight at me sitting down the front with my camera and said "This had better not end up on YouTube".

And of course it didn't end up on YouTube because I wasn't shooting at the time. But if he's ever foolish enough to type "nanna jelly love" into a search engine, hopefully the first thing he sees is that video still and he has a horrified moment when he thinks his nanna jelly love routine has escaped into the wild. Just the thought brings an evil little smile to my face.

Elevator etiquette

I'm back working in a multi-storey office building for the first time in years which means having to use the elevator multiple times a day.  I have to tell you, I'm astounded how many people simply don't know how to use a lift effectively.  Because I like to help (really because I like to vent at people who piss me off) I thought I'd compile a handy guide to proper elevator use.

1. Getting into an elevator: There are basically two rules when it comes to entering an elevator.

• Wait for people to get out before you get in
  
• Don't take all bloody day to get in

For people who don't place any value on courtesy, letting people get out first still seems like basic common sense to me.  There's more room to manoeuvre outside the elevator than inside.  If you push your way in before people get out they'll have to shove past you.  It's easier all round to just step aside for a second to see if anyone's trying to get out.

The second part can be a delicate balancing act.  If you stand around for too long the doors will close.  If you don't wait long enough you crash into people coming out.  Some exercise of the brain is required here.  I hate getting some slug-like entity between me and the elevator who does nothing because they're too fucking stupid to figure out what's going on.  Then the doors close and I'm left to ruminate on why I didn't shoulder charge the obvious moron out of my way.

Here's a tip for the slow learners: try putting your hand on the door frame to hold the door.  You can do this while standing out of the way of anyone exiting.  And on 99% of elevators this will stop the door from shutting before you can get on.  If everyone stands around waiting for someone else to get on first, that isn't "polite".  It's fucking stupid!

2. While in the elevator: Don't listen to people who say you should never talk in an elevator.  It's a fun experiment often given to first year Psychology students to get into an elevator, face the "wrong" way and try to engage people in animated conversations.  99% of people will cringe horribly/amusingly when you do this.  But grownups should be able to maintain decorous conversations in an elevator that also contains strangers.

But for the love of the little baby Jeebus, DON'T have loud conversations on a mobile phone.  Either hang up before you get in or continue your conversation at a conversational volume.  If the person at the other end can't hear you tell them you're in an elevator and you'll call them back.  Shouting at a person who isn't there is fucking obnoxious behaviour to the people who ARE there.  It will be your fault if someone decides to see if your phone will double as a rectal thermometer.

Also, when you get in, stand somewhere that makes sense in relation to where you're getting out.  If you're likely to be getting out the first time the elevator stops, don't stand right at the back just because you're the first to get in.  Stand to the side near the door but out of the way so other people can come in.  That way you can get out again with a minimum of shoving.

Likewise, if you going to be the last one out DON'T STAND IN THE FUCKING DOORWAY!  The only time you should ever stand right where the doors open is if there's no other choice.  Or maybe if you're getting off on the next floor (but if that's the case, why don't you take the stairs you lazy bastard?)  

And if you are in the doorway because there was no choice, when the door opens and it isn't your floor, get out of the fucking way!  Step out of the goddam lift and hold the door.  Then get back in when people have exited.  Don't force people to wriggle past you.  Pull that shit with me and you're likely to get an "accidental" kick to the back of the knee.

So please, people, I'm begging you.  There are precious few things that separate us from the beasts.  Knowing how to interact with random people without causing trauma is one of them.  If you don't have the mental capacity to navigate an elevator without making other people want to punch your lights out, maybe you're not enough of a grown up to be part of the workforce.  Stay in your home with your 24 cats and leave the rest of us alone.

Story time - Mr Angry and the cops

Given some people thing there is not much distinction between the character of Mr Angry and my real personality, what do you think is the most extreme thing I've done to a cop?

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=92ThvWkX6dY


Has anyone done anything more extreme than that and gotten away with it?

Cory Delaney, party boy, is an idiot. The media are BIGGER IDIOTS!

Sadly, this travesty of a non-story seems to have travelled around the world. A 16 year old is allowed to "stay with friends while his mum and step dad go on a holiday. Nothing should go wrong because he's sternly told "no parties". Yeah, that'll work. The inevitable happens and the kid organises a party.

Except this particular knucklehead youthful arrogance and a complete inability to understand the concept of consequences and couples that with modern communications. He's actually stupid enough to announce the party and give out his home address on MySpace. The predictable outcome ensues - a huge crowd shows up, the party gets out of control and the cops are called.

At this point, most people are probably thinking "been there, done that" (apart from the MySpace debacle). Not quite. The cops say there were 500 people (that's a suspicious round number - I strongly suspect it's bullshit). The crowd was described as violent (riotous if you believe some reports) and the cops called in the dog squad and helicopter to disperse them.

This still wouldn't have been a particularly unusual story if it wasn't for the media angle. One of the particularly cretinous tabloid "current affairs" shows decided it was their moral duty to publicly humiliate a 16 year old. Yeah, way to take the moral high ground. The intent was bad enough but when you couple that with a host who's too incompetent to get the better of a none too bright kid, well, it devolves into the realm of deeply pathetic.

Predictably, the interview clip was a huge hit on YouTube. If you haven't seen it already, check it out and see who you think comes off as the bigger idiot:

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=xc0CB6URrV0


While I'm not a fan of self-absorbed teenagers who seem to have been coddled their whole lives and have never been bothered with anything so tiresome as having to face the consequences of their actions, I really hate shitty media outlets. I mean, seriously, an irresponsible 16 year old? That's a news story? And the media wonder why they have all the credibility of a used car salesman.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=f4XmKd5sFgM



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