Got Milk?

I do. A lot of it…
But not in a weird way…
But I do always have a bit of milk in me…
Damn it, what I’m trying to say is that I drink a lot of milk. Like in summer sometimes I can go through a 3L in a day or less.

So I had this random idea of tallying all the milk that I drink for an entire year and count it up at the end. So, starting tomorrow I’ll be keeping all my receipts and noting exactly how much milk I drink for an entire year. (You can tell I have a lot of time on my hands.) Now this is where you all come in, I want everyone (yes all three of you) to place bets on how much I can drink in 2010; the most common suggestion (or the average) will be the target.
I may also collect all the bottles (and keep them in the garage) for an elaborate video at the end of the year involving the words “Milk was a bad choice.”
We (I) need your help. Contribute to the Milk Allowance now.

Other things I plan to do with milk over the summer:

1. Put a petition to Centrelink about creating a Milk Allowance. For the lactose impaired.

2 I’ve had this idea for a TV show for a while now (and if I haven’t already explained it to you in great detail, then I probably don’t like you very much), the premise is this: it’s a milkshake review show where we travel around the country (eventually the world) and review milkshakes. Initially it would be just me and Jodie, but eventually I’d like to get about four reviewers for all the different flavours. We’d give scores out of 40 (ten each for flavour, size, price, and accessibility) and make a list of where the best milkshakes are to be found. I’m still torn about the intro sequence; initially I wanted an upbeat intro set to ‘Shake It’ by Metro Station (because it’s a hilarious pun, and a cool song (until you watch the poncy video clip)), but now I’m thinking more of a ‘Reservoir Dogs’ intro where all my reviewers are in suits walking in slow motion towards the camera to an old 70s song. And text would come up introducing everyone – Ben: Strawberry Specialist, Jodie: Chocolate Specialist etc.

3. Write a spin-off of The Milkshake Review Show, and seeing as vampires seem to be big right now, I’ll capatalise on that and write a screenplay where the world is riddled with vampires, except the catch is that everyone’s blood is actually milk. So instead of blood-sucking vampires they would be milk-sucking vampires. And instead of different blood-types people have different flavoured milk. And it would be filled with bad one-liners, like when the American military come to take out the vampires they say “got milk?” and then riddle them with bullets. And the best thing about it all would be bamboozling the MPAA (the dudes that classify movies), because there’s no blood! Only milk =]
And I’d call it…wait for it…'Milk’…
What? There’s already a movie by that name? Shit! Well then "I’d call it ‘What’s Your Flavour?’ and the theme song would be ‘What’s Your Flava?’ by Craig David. (Can you tell I just made all of that up now?)

By The Numbers

Fuck me, what a day!

Yesterday, there was an epic all-day concert at the Kelvin Grove amphitheatre, and I volunteered as a photographer. Little did I know just how epic it would truly be. Let’s just say, my ass is bruised, my feet are bruised, by ears are impaired, and my eyes hurt from lack of sleep. But aside from the sensory deprivation and bruises left right and centre, it was an outstanding day. Although next time i’ll bring a water bottle, lunch, and remember to slip, slop, and slap.

If you know me, you’ll know I love numbers and statistics, so here’s the day by the numbers.

1 – Day

2 - Blocks of delicious Lindt chocolate (god bless you Woolworths…I hope no-one from Maleny heard that…)

3 - Toilet breaks (the last of which was in the complete dark, but luckily I had already been there twice and knew my way around)

4 - Sound Technicians

5 - Film & Photographic crew (none of whom as omnipresent as I)

6 - The amount of times Rob hijacked the keyboard

7 - Hours without food (thanks Jodi =])

8 – Pm. Marked 12 hours since my arrival (coincidentally, the same number of times I wished I could leave and go to sleep)

9 - Different styles of music

10 - Rows of the amphitheatre

13 - Cups of water (see #3)

14 – HOURS! (58% of an entire day)

16 - Members of Noosphere

21 – Acts (were planned; 19 actually went on)

45 - Minutes break (5.25 – 6.10)

123 – Songs*

827 - Photographs taken (of which, 10 are probably good =P)

* This is purely guesswork. But I know it was a lot, and I know it was over 100.

Break It Down Now

Ben’s Day, featuring: a 12 pack of toilet paper for $2.99; a Clint Eastwood movie; a train; a $5 shake; a $9 salad; a sexy bitch; and a pantomime.

So I started the day just like any other; woke up set on doing uni work and then found a whole bunch of new and ingenious ways of wasting time and procrastinating.

At some point in the afternoon I thought it would be a good idea to do a shop, on account of there being no toilet paper, and no god damn food. I went up to Lutwyche, and popped into the op-shop briefly, thinking they might have something I could use for my Halloween costume.They didn’t, but before I left I saw a 12 pack of toilet paper for $2.99. A mighty good deal.
I did the shopping at Coles, and you know how it is; you go in there needing toilet paper, a loaf of bread, and a can opener and you come out with bloody cordial, biscuits, cheese, mayonnaise, and half the bloody time you forget the things you went in for!
So instead of the small $20 shop I had planned, I came out with five bags (plastic bags, yes I felt terrible for the fuckin’ environment, but you know what, I also felt terrible for my fuckin’ hands; plastic bags are bitches to carry) and it cost me $67. So here I am, making my way to the bus stop, trying to carry these five heavy, awkward bags and realising I still need the damn toilet paper. So I hobble across the road, buy it (of course they don’t have bags) and try and fit it in my already over-crowded bags. Anyway, the moral of the story is: CARRY MY FUCKING SHOPPING WENCH!

I got home, watched Unforgiven (Clint Eastwood) and had some delightful and hard earned snacks, including chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate.

I caught the 7.19 train into the city and made my way to JoJo’s in the Queen Street Mall (it was a friend’s birthday dinner).
Turns out I’m there before the actually birthday crew (lame, or totally awesome?), so I grab a seat and whip out the book i’m reading, Tarantino and Philosophy: How to philosophize with a pair of pliers and a blowtorch. Fucking good read, I recommend it.

The peeps rock up, we get our table, and we gets to perusing the over-priced menus. The meal that caught my eye was the Sirloin steak, with chips - $18, which isn’t too bad considering, but I looked one row down to find Sirloin steak, with chips and a salad - $27. That’s a fuckin’ $9 salad. Outrageous!
After I got over that I also found a $15 sandwich, but hey it’s gourmet right? And $20 Tortellini! You can buy that shit (i’d like to say it’s not actually shit, it’s my favourite meal) for $6 at the supermarket, add $4 for sauce, and that would feed 4. God damn.

The highlight of the evening, however, came when I started getting thirsty. I felt like a milkshake, so I went to the bar and saw the milkshake flavours, so I thought cool, no dramas. But what actually unfolded was a strange re-enactment of the milkshake scene in Pulp Fiction (which coincidently i’ve been reading a lot about).
I ask the guy, “Hey, do you guys do milkshakes?”
To which he replies, in a very whingey, non professional tone, “Ahhhh nnnnn, yeah we do. I just don’t like making them.”
Astounded I said, “Well how much would it be?”
He ummed and ahhed for a moment and then said, “Well…$5.”
To which I replied, “$5 shake? That’s milk and ice cream?”
”Yeah.”
So he trudged off and started making it (Mark said he saw him pretending to spit in it), during which he asked, “you don’t want bourbon in it or nothin’?” (Those weren’t his exact words, but I can’t remember which alcohol he was referring to; regardless, the point remains the same.) I said no, to which he replied, “Weak.”
To which I said, “my [fucking] choice [you fucking douche bag].
He came back a couple of minutes later with the big metal mixing cup. I thought, sweet as, this guy has been a douche, but I paid $5 and I’m getting what I paid for.
However what actually happened was he got out two glasses, a big milkshake glass and a girly wine glass, he pours it into the wine glass and says, “one for you,” then pours the rest into the milkshake glass, “one for me.”
The audacity!

All said and done though, it was a good meal, and the shake was alright too. Certainly no top 10 material; certainly not going to make my milkshake review show. Despite everything I thought the restaurant was quite cool, but if I go there again and that guy acts up again I’m gettin’ his ass fired [out of a cannon, into the sun].

Next we hit the valley. Now it was never my intention to go out that night, especially because I was wearing a jumper and carrying a bag and my head was messed up. But I got into The Beat so we went and danced for a bit. Mark had assigned me a mission and claimed that if I did it, I would be “a legend”. My mission, if I chose to accept it (which I did), was to go to the valley, wait for our friend Steve to arrive, call him a pussy, and then leave. I did all of those things, except instead of really leaving, I just pretended to leave. But it was still funny as hell (had to be there).
I hadn’t danced yet, but when my song came on (Sexy Bitch) I got up on that dance floor with Mark, and we ripped that mofo right up. Good fun. What a great song to dance to.
About 15 minutes later I was sitting down at the table and this guy came up and eyed me, then proceeded to grab at the air in time to the music, after each time he shook his head, and sometimes he would flip the sunglasses over his eyes and start again. Steve came to sit down and was like, WTF, and I was like ZOMFGROFLMAO.

And that’s my story. Now, back to uni work =]

It.Was.You

I’ve been struggling with things to write about for weeks, but this morning the floodgates opened.

So this morning I came in and sat down in my Corporate Writing and Editing lecture. About 5 minutes afterwards this girl comes in and sits down a row in front of me. A couple of minutes after that she gets up and turns around.

“It was you.”

“Huh?” I said.

“It was you last week that was coughing all lecture.”

“Um, sorry about that…I was sick.” A hint of sarcasm.

She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a packet of butter menthols and passes them to me.

Perplexed, I laughed and said, “No i’m okay now thanks.”

Rather abrasively she says, “No, i bought these especially for you.”

I take them from her, awkwardly. Then she proceeds to pull out a packet of tissues. And a bottle of water.
She leaves them on my table and goes to sit back down.

“I’m sorry for my random act of, getting sick.” Medium sarcasm.

“Well, i just did it so that we could all have a pleasant lecture.”

“Well, i’m sorry if i offended you. You know it was actually intentional. I went to the Ekka and made out with a lot of sick people. But i didn’t expect to get sick.” Sarcasm in overdrive.

Even our lecturer, Glen Thomas, entered the conversation.“You didn’t make out with any sick pigs did you?”

Beside me, Ethan was beside himself. lol, epic win.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Obviously i told everyone I knew about this bizarre occurrence. Man we had a field day; laughed till the cows came home. And then some.

A few questions, however, still plague me;

1. Did she rehearse what she was going to say?

The general consensus amongst my friends was yes. And i have to agree; one does not rationally spend five dollars on a stranger and then not plan what they are going to say. But then again, one does not rationally confront someone about the involuntary act of coughing whilst sick. Which leads me to the next question.

2. Is it the same as walking up to an Asian person and saying, how dare you be Asian?

My friends insist that i shouldn’t compare being sick to being Asian -and they make a good point – however, my intentions are good. It’s the same principle; being berated for something which you have no control over. Some would argue that i could control whether I went to the lecture or not, but I would call them useless fuckwits, and then proceed to berate them about being so stupid.

3. How much does she fucking love Corporate Writing and Editing?

Okay so let me just say that this 2 hour lecture entails Grammar, Punctuation, How to write reports and so on. I would perhaps understand if it was a god damn film subject and Quentin Tarantino was giving a guest lecture, but it’s fucking Corporate Writing motherfucker, get the fuck over it!

4. Does she now feel like the biggest douche ever/is she mentally retarded?

Now i’m well aware that sometimes confrontation needs to occur, and when I am the instigator I often feel guilty, whether I believe what i’ve said is true or not. But in this case, I really do wonder how you could not feel like the biggest douche bag ever, unless you were actually retarded in some way.

Jackie Fail

Jackie Fail: A slang term for when Jackie McKimmie does or says something stupid.

Okay, so news flash for those of you who are thinking; who the fuck is Jackie McKimmie? Well she’s no-one really, just one of my lecturers. For film and tv scriptwriting.
Now i’ve had something against her ever since the first lecture, which was comprised entirely of her telling us how amazing and brilliant she is; how many films she’s worked on, and showing us clips of films she was apart of.
So she’s a pretentious wench? Deal with it Ben. Aha! That’s where you’re wrong, she’s so much more than just a pretentious wench. She’s also stupid and annoying. A stupid annoying pretentious wench she be.

I got my marks back from our first assignment the other day.
Now let me first say that I explained to her that i am doing a non-linear, hard to explain story, and told her that my synopsis may not be as clear cut as ‘This is a story about [protagonist] who runs into [conflict] which is caused by [antagonist] which is resolved by…’
She’s extremely by the book in that way. Well, in every way i can think of. She’ll be like, ‘okay, so does anyone have an opinion on this?’ and I’ll put my hand up and give my honest opinion, and in no uncertain terms she will say, ‘No, you’re wrong.’ Then she will spend the next 3-5 minutes denouncing what i’ve said. Not blatantly. Usually pretty subtly, i’ll give her that.
Okay, now that i have explained that, i’ll tell you about the assignment. She gave me a 4 because ‘the synopsis was unclear’. In other words, she was unable to comprehend it, or she disagreed with it in someway, therefore a 4. But here’s the kicker; for someone claiming that something is unclear and vague she doesn’t do a very good job giving feedback.

Okay, so for those of you who have no idea what the fuck that says, here’s a translation, provided by Google’s foreign language translator.

“And?

Not oure what you wont ill audience [infinity symbol] thik/feel – why Bette a [indecipherable] he way ole olds.”

Seriously. I’ve heard Chewbacca speak better English. Thanks anyway Google, you tried your best.
But that’s just one of the many Jackie Fails. So it gives me great pleasure to introduce to you the list of top 10 Jackie Fails.

#10: On a lecture slide was a url which was supposed to link to a screen website: Screenbub. Which she later changed to Screenhub when students couldn’t access it.

#9: Every time she has a worksheet out the front and a student walks by she will say (quite aggressively), "’Hey, grab that!’
Try it, just to get the inevitable response, it’s hilarious!

#8: On a lecture slide there were two references to Melbourne. The first was spelt correctly, the second however was spelt Melboorne. Fair enough though, she did write it in pen; no spell checker.

#7: About the second or third lecture Jackie was telling us how much she loves Seinfeld, The Sopranos, Deadwood, and Analyse This (they are actually the only things she ever talks about). Anyway, she then proceeded to act out an entire scene from Analyse this and part of one from Seinfeld. Taking up a good 20 minutes of class time.

#6: When teaching us how to refer to unspecified people (like Girl 1, Boy 2 etc) she got the asterisks horribly confused with the hash.The result being, ‘you should always write Cop*1 or Girl*2.’

#5: In one lecture she tried to use the word evoke, but failed hard and said emoke instead. Which consequently failed to emoke any feeling that i might have in regards to her being semi literate.

#4: In one particular lecture she was talking to us about making sure audiences don’t loose interest. Ironically, as she was saying this, a bunch of people left the room.

#3: Jackie on Characters and motivations, "And then they get something, which is either nothing or something."

#2: A direct quote from Jackie, "The main character is the one who features mainly in the plot." 

#1: In our second or third lecture there came a point for her to use the word poignant. Now most people know that it’s a silent G right? She didn’t. A rather foolish mistake for a teacher who was just claiming that spelling errors and the like will not be tolerated.

[Thanks to Gavin for some quotations]

Finally, just to demonstrate how right i am; here is a selection of inspired haiku’s by my classmates and myself.

Ten in the morning,
McKimmie, McKimmie why
you torture us so?

Jackie, I loathe thee,
Jackie, your voice is so shrill,
Poin-yant, not poig-nant.

Your glasses are red,
You have a stupid fat head,
Now analyse that.

This lecture so dull,
Get the fuck off your high horse,
Insalubrious.

As of now they’re just mine. But hopefully I’ll be able to persuade some of my brethren to put some of theirs up. And yes, they are terrible, but i think that it reflects the truly terrible, horrific conditions under which they were written.

Songs You Love To Hate (Or Hate To Love)

Has anyone else noticed how pretty much every song in the top 10 is totally shit, but has a catchy beat?
Songs that are shallow or have no substance whatsoever, that promote douche bag things like alcoholism, promiscuity, sexism, and being blasé about ridiculous amounts of money. Case in point;

- Sexy Bitch; or anything else by Akon for that matter. Aren’t Sexy Bitch, Smack That and Shake That essentially the same fucking song? Akon’s songs, like most rappers are always about the same shit; money, hoes, and often excessive amounts of alcohol. Way to set a good example for the kids Douche Bag!

- Good Girls Go Bad. No not even Leighton Meester could save this one. And what’s with the setting. ‘Yeah, we’re a bunch of teenage sluts who just want to go out and get drunk and make out with random guys, where’s the best place to do that?’
… An Abattoir?! Sorry, sorry; a nightclub beneath an abattoir. Because that make so much more sense.

- Poker Face; or anything else by Lady Gaga. P-p-p-poker face, f-f-f-fuck her face. None of her songs have any substance, they’re all about the same things; getting drunk and being promiscuous. Oh and wearing ridiculous and outlandish outfits.
And we all know that Lady Gaga is actually a man, i think she would have a lot more respect, if she just came out with it. A transvestite pop star. Then she’d actually be doing something different, rather than senselessly slutty herself around like so many before her.

- Right Round; I actually do love this song, but seriously Flo Rida? Here’s how a pitch would have gone;

Flo Rida: Yo Homie, i’m thinkin ‘bout doin’ a song about getting head. Cuz that’s all me does 24/7, gang-STAH!

Agent: Um. Well you did have a big hit with the rob a bank song. Tell me more.
Flo Rida: Well, the beat will be a cheap rip off of some popular 80’s song; i’m thinkin’ Sweet dreams or You spin me right round
Agent: Sold!

- I Kissed A Girl; shamelessly using the “lesbian” image to sell  songs. That’s low. At least Tatu looked like lesbians.
That’s just to list a few. Also, who else is sick of hearing Tainted Love being recycled over and over again!? I mean it’s a good song but seriously. There’s been stacks of covers, but recently, Rihanna sampled it on S.O.S (which i thought was used effectively), but then there were a swath of other songs which didn’t use it so well. The latest is Sexy Bitch.

Most of these songs are just shameless rip-offs of Tainted Love with different lyrics, they would claim otherwise of course, but we all know they’re full of shit. It’s kind of like how Vanilla Ice said that he didn’t rip off Under Pressure when he totally fucking did. And how Destiny’s Child recycled the opening riff from Stevie Nick’s Edge of Seventeen and said, ‘Ohhhh look at us, we’re Bootylicious.’
Anyway. That’s just hip hop and pop music for you. It’s been happening for a long time, and it’s never going to stop; it’s just like fashion, we are doomed to keep repeating the same fashion trends over and over again, until someone finally has the guts to go against what will assure them a house in the Hamptons and say, ‘Let’s do something new.’
But then again, people are scared of what’s new; they just want to see, hear, and wear the same thing they have done a thousand times before. But a tiny little bit different.

No, You’re A Twat!

I wish people would stop following my god damn twitter page instead of my blog. The only update i’ve put up there in the past 5 months is: Ben Carey – Is scratching his arse. If you’re reading this and thinking, ‘well why don’t you just delete it?’ Good fucking idea, i think i’ll do it now… Or, I could just constantly post links to my blog. Shameless.

Seriously though what’s so great about twitter? The only reason I use facebook is because it’s a convenient way to keep in contact with people these days… And yes,  i am implying that people are too fucking lazy these days to pick up a god damn phone or to reply to a freaking email, who ever thought email of all things would become one of those tedious forms of communication such as snail mail and telegrams.
Everyone’s into it aren’t they? All the celebrities and that. All it is, is a glorified myspace/facebook status update box. WHY DOES IT HAVE 100 BILLION TRILLION USERS???
And then there’s all the stupid lingo that goes with it: ‘What are you doing Johnny?’ ‘Oh I’m just tweeting’, no Johnny, you’re a fucking Twat is what you are! It should definitely be renamed twatter. I wonder if anyone would do anything if I just constantly posted messages saying: ‘Twitter is gay’, ‘twitter is stupider than Sarah Palin’, ‘twitter sucks monkey balls’.

Another thing that worries me is how desperate the movie industry is at the moment, what with the whole 3 good movies being released in the past decade thing (slight exaggeration, there have been a lot of good movies lately, but they are still desperate! Case in point – the 100 trillion comic book adaptations being made). Next thing you know you’ll be watching ‘Twitter: The Movie’ and wondering why you just spent $10 to watch some accountant guy, hopeless at talking to the opposite sex, find the love of his life through the ‘magic’ of twitter. Here is the sample trailer:

Twat #1

6.37 - I Just got home from work
6.38 – I had such a bad day
6.40 – Everyone yelled at me for no good reason
6.42 – I Think I fail at life
6.43 – Do I?

Stupid Movie Guy Voice: He was down on love, he hated his job, he failed at life. Just when he had given up all hope, he found twitter.

Twat #2

7.01 – Ohh I hate my life
7.02 – I just broke a nail for your information
7.04 – Screw you, cruel world, nobody understands me!!!!

She was a pretentious wench, who lost her job, she hit rock bottom and twitter was there for her. She was hopeless at love; she had been with all the wrong guys, until now.

[Climax of the movie]

Twat #2

1.02 – What are you saying?

Twat #1

1.04 – I’m saying… I think I luv u

Twat #2

1.06 – Oh my gawdddd! I luv u 2!!!!

Twat #1&2

1.07 – Thank god for TWITTER.

[Fade to black]

Think it will be a hit? Probably not, but if you think i’m just being stupid, well… I am, but there is some sort of truth to it, albeit, the alleged facebook movie. Ohhhh dear. I wish there were more Tarantino’s in the world.

Why the word epic is the most dynamic word in the English language (besides fuck).

Ladies and gentlemen; I am here today to prove to you beyond doubt why epic is the most dynamic word in the English language.

Consider:

As a statement

Epic. (Your everyday, standard epic)

Epic! (For when you just need a little extra oomph)

Epiiiiiiic!!! (Used mostly when observing sports)

In the 21st century, our silly language is full of plain old statements like ‘That was good’, ‘Sweet’ or ‘Awesome.’ Yes, even ‘Mad’ and ‘Sick’ got a little old, whodathunkit? (or as I should say; Who would have thought of that?). So why use silly old 1 Dimensional words, when you could using multi-layered dynamic words like epic!

As a question

Epic?

Unlike fuck, epic can be used as a question. One would surely not have the following conversation: ‘Oh my god! I’m getting married!’ ‘Fuck?’
But one would be be perfectly correct to reply: ‘Epic?’

Now we move on to the juicier stuff; Epic as a verb, adverb, and an adjective.

As a verb

“By jove, that man is epicing along!”

By far the most creative use of the word epic, is in verb form. While normal, inferior people may choose to use a word such as ‘Speeding along’ or ‘Zooming along’, us learned folk know better. A – The act of ‘verbalizing’ the word epic depicts that the action in question is truly of an epic nature and B – It sounds… Well, epic.

The test was Monday; he epiced it.

Our team played in the final last night, however we got epiced.

As an adverb

Sometimes in the English language, one cannot find an appropriate word to describe the way something is being said or done; in those cases you must consult epic and never fuck. Consider the following: ‘“I was playing a game last night and there was a power cut; i lost all of my progress,” he said fuckily. It is extremely lacklustre and obscure; the reader doesn’t really know that the writer is on about. However, the next example is considered much better.

“We won the championship!” he said epically.

As a adjective

“That Glen Thomas is truly an epic man.”

Some words simply cannot sum up what a person is trying to say in a concise and cohesive way. Fuck can achieve the same effect, but most of the time another word has to accompany it for it to make sense. Example: ‘That match was fucking awesome’, one could not say ‘The match was fucking’, unless one was watching a porno (and in that case fucking becomes a verb). The meaning becomes very unclear. More examples follow.

He did an epic poo

That was truly an epic movie

Fuck and Epic finally square off in the ring

Some would say ‘Yeah but fuck can be used to described sex, as well as to intimidate, it’s so dynamic.’ Consider the following comparison:

They went home and had sex all night long (Blatantly obvious)
They went home and fucked all night long (A little crude)
They went home and epiced all night long (Not too heavy, not too light; it’s just right… Anyone?)

The latter latter is obvious the most creative, and one of the principal rules of writing is ‘Show don’t tell’, make people use their imaginations.

As a method of intimidation:

I am going to smash you in the face, arsehole! (Blatant)
I’m going to fuck your face up, arsehole! (Better; more emotion)
I’m going to epic your face up, arsehole! (Perfect mix)

And that’s all we have time for today. So until next time kiddies, if your mother or father asks you to do the dishes, your first instinct may be to say ‘Go and get fucked’, but that would be unwise as they might take it the right way, whereas if you say ‘Go and get Epiced’, they can’t, because you didn’t officially use a profanity.

… Oh, and beware of the Grammar Nazi!

Harry Potter 6: Why The First 2.5 Hours Were Awesome And The Last 25 Minutes Were Shit.

I’m a big fan of Harry Potter, books and movies alike. Sure they have their flaws and J.K Rowling isn’t exactly the most talented writer, but you have to appreciate what she’s done. It’s amazing.
The hype, the mass hysteria. The people that dress in robes and take their wands to movie premieres.

Now when it comes to the movies; I think, as a whole they have been very faithful adaptations, probably amongst the best book to movie adaptations i’ve seen. The 5th one was great, probably the best all round film.

I thought the 6th film was fantastic. The visual style was very different from the other films. It was also noticeably a lot funnier, which i believe was an effort to balance the tone of the movie as it was a lot darker than the others.
My only real problems with the film came in the last 25 minutes, and the annoying thing is, they aren’t even major things (they could have been cut and the movie redeemed), but i believe they detract from the film.

The worst part in the movie was the 10 second scene when Harry is hiding underneath the astronomy equipment (which never actually happened, he was hiding under his invisibility cloak) and Snape approaches him holding up a finger up to shoosh him. It was so fucking unnecessary!
Why? Because it’s major foreshadowing (and it didn’t happen in the book). At the end of the 6th book you’re suppose to hate Snape.
Another problem i had was the manner of the dark wizard’s exit. I’m almost certain that in the book they were chased off by the very powerful teachers of the school along with Ron, Hermione and all that lot, it's a big battle. In the movie however they came in, killed Dumbledore and left of their own free will, no fight at all. And also, logical fallacy; um let’s see, dark wizards in a building which contains hundreds upon hundreds of wizards who could easily grow up to challenge them, maybe even kill them. Why not kill them first, there and then??!! (Too dark!?).
And, if they had Harry, why the fuck didn’t they take him!? Isn’t that like the only thing Voldemort wants?
One more thing; when Harry and Dumbledore were at the basin in the cave i don’t feel the director did enough to emphasise why the potion had to be drank. Why couldn’t Harry just ladle it into the surrounding lake?

Now, on a lighter note. The film was also very funny. My personal favourite was when the kid puked on Snape’s shoes. Ohhhh, the pause, then the look he gives him, “You just earned yourself a month’s detention.”
Also notably the scenes with Harry on Felix (drugs). I’m not exactly sure why having lots of luck made him act stoned, but it was funny.

I’d like to preface this section by saying that it may contain spoilers. But if you have actually ever read the 7th book, then you’'ll know it was spoiled a long time before i came along and wrote this article.

This is the point where i start getting anxious about the 7th movie. Now we all know how I feel about the 7th book (it’s a disgrace to both literature and Harry Potter alike) and everybody should know by now that it’s being split into 2 films. Which i personally think is the studio trying to milk it for all it’s worth. I don’t buy their ‘we are just trying to fit as much in as possible into the finale’ bullshit.
Either way, it’s not really the format it comes in which fazes me, it’s the content.
I certainly hope J.K Rowling can admit to her mistakes with the book and say, “Hey, you know what. I’ll let you guys take it from here.” And fuck off back to the Hamptons or wherever she lives.
I don’t know, maybe bring in some real writers and write a better fucking ending.

I joked with Jodie earlier that they should hire Tarantino to direct the final film. She said, “Gory.” And i thought about it and said, “that’s the way it should be.”

Straight up. Harry should fucking get his hands dirty. Kill that motherfucker! Not that bullshit from the book where Voldemort’s spell rebounds of Harry’s and kills himself, which therefore morally protects Harry from any wrong doing. FUCK OFF! This guy killed your parents and countless other people, he has terrorised the world for over a decade. Get your hands dirty!
A fucking 3rd year Expelliarmus spell and Stupify aren’t gonna cut it.

Here’s the Tarantino Version of the final movie:

And god help me if they include the epilogue in the movie. That shit should have been illegal. She should have done time.

Criminal 1: “What are you in for?”

Criminal 2: “Aggravated assault.”

Criminal 2: “You?”

Criminal 1: “Double homicide.”

Both: “How about you pretty lady?”

Rowling: “I wrote a 7 Part book series, spanning over 10 years, enticed people young and old to follow, nay invest themselves in a young boy’s wonderful journey to a magical land of wizards and witches. And then i fucked them all by writing an epilogue 10 years after the events of the last book, leaving nothing up to the reader’s imagination.”

Criminals: “Shit. That’s some cold blooded shit.”

There is a certain level of mystery which is GOOD. But god damn, I don’t want to know what Harry is like when he is 35 Motherfucker!
Of course he is with Ginny, and awww what cute fucking kid’s names. Fuck off. The reason people read books is to use their god damn imagination and especially in this case where so many people have grown up with Harry, we don’t want to know.

Essentially what J.K Rowling did with Book 7 was this. She approached Harry and said, “Hey look, a Unicorn!”
Then whilst he was preoccupied searching the horizon for a phantom unicorn she violated him. Didn’t even ask his fucking name or get his number.

Sorry Daniel. But i need to make a point.

Smells Like An Apocalypse

I was on the bus the other day and I saw a girl drop her iPhone. Honestly I could not stop laughing. She gave me a filthy look. I tried my hardest to fight back another wave of laughter.

Anyway this isn’t going to be another rant about why iHate apple so much, i’m sure we’re all very familiar with that by now. I just thought it was hilarious and definitely worth a mention. In fact i’m planning on this entire entry having no particular structure. Just a bunch of funny (chick dropping the iPhone), random (purple chickens) or completely awesome things (me fighting a bear) that happened during the week.

At the beginning of the week I checked the mail and found this:

Seriously, how epic is that name? BRTCVNIK. That’s one vowel!
Only two ways I can see it happening; either they are Russian or they slipped on the keyboard whilst typing out their name. Or both.
I wonder if people would take you seriously with a name like that on your passport or driver’s license. “You’ve got to be kidding me, get out!”
It’s kind of like the handful of people around the world actually named James Bond. Who the hell is going to believe that?! No one, that’s who, I’d tell them, “Get out of my bar you filthy swine.” (Now swine is a double header, on one hand it’s a crafty insult and on the other it is a slightly subtle yet devilishly awesome cultural reference to the 2009 swine flu hysteria. What now?!)

The holidays are a weird time for me. On one hand (yes i’m aware i just used that expression in the previous paragraph, fuck off) I love just relaxing and having nothing to do for a couple of weeks. But then after a while i start feeling guilty. Guilty that i’m not writing a novel or scaling Mt Everest. But seriously, every holidays i tell myself i will read more and write more. Never happens. Although on a high note i did finish two books at the start of the holidays and I submitted my first ever story to a publication (the one about the alien prostitute, class act that one). Oh and I had this rad idea about a dude who can smell the future. “I can smell something foul on the air, and it aint that dead chook out back, it smells like…the Apocalypse.”
I would really like to try and write a humorous story, because i always have funny ideas but they always tend to turn out serious. No idea why.

On a finishing note i’d like to praise and curse (but mostly praise) Wimbledon and The French Open. Curse for keeping me up until 4 am every night and preventing me from doing anything for their duration (people gotta know that in my life Slams take priority, I don’t care i have a 2000 word essay due the next day or if the god damn Pope is knockin on my door, Slams take priority).
And the praise part for obviously being awesome, high quality tournaments. Federer is without a doubt the greatest tennis player who ever lived and is most likely the 2nd greatest person who ever lived (do you have to ask about number 1?) and he is a magician. I can’t wait to see him play again at the Australian open.

P.s. Watch the Thriller video clip, it’s so outstandingly awesome.

Ten Things I’d Do With $1.95 Trillion Dollars

I opened my email a few days ago and the Subject of one of the emails in the inbox was this;

YOU HAVE WON $1,950,000,000,000

Naturally I was excited at the prospect of having won more than the entire wealth of Australia for doing absolutely nothing, so I opened it.

HELLO YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS WON YOU $1,950,000,000,00 PLEASE DOWNLOAD ATTACH FILE AND READ THE DETAILS OF YOUR PAYMENT.CONGRATULATION

DR MICHAEL CLIFF

I couldn’t understand why Dr. Cliff was shouting at me. I also couldn’t understand why he didn’t know any grammar and couldn’t spell. Nevertheless I deemed it a legitimate offer and opened the attached file. It was an extensive 2 page word file (all in caps) explaining the elaborate process of how I won this awesome amount of money. Now it didn’t strike me as weird that the money was apparently coming from the FIFA 2010 league which I don’t even follow and I was genuinely heart broken when I emailed them my bank account details and no money was deposited. In fact $2000 went missing. Must just be coincidence.

LOL. Okay so that last bit is a lie, but the email is 100% True, and it got me thinking about what I would do with a ridiculous amount of money like that. So now I present: THE TOP TEN LIST OF THINGS I WOULD DO WITH $1.95 TRILLION DOLLARS!

1. The first thing I would do is buy an island, screw that, I would buy an entire archipelago in the South Pacific somewhere. On the primary island I would reconstruct (in intricate detail) the Lost island. Then I would hire each actor from the show for a year and have them act out the first 3 seasons.

Cost:

Archipelago – $50 Billion.
Lost Island Construction – $1 Billion
Actors - $60 Million give or take.

Total = $51 Billion

2. The second thing I would do is buy one of every awesome mode of transport; Private Jet, Helicopter, Submarine, Sports cars (which I would pay Johnny Depp to drive me round in). I would need these things to get me round the world to all of my 600 houses.

Cost:

Private Jet – $70 Million
Helicopter – $10 Million
Submarine - $50 Million
Sports Cars - $20 Million
Johnny Depp - $10 Million a year should cover him.

Total = $160 Million

3. I read about this ridiculous mansion which had 101 Rooms, including 20 bathrooms, a private theatre and a bowling alley and god forbid a ‘Gift Wrapping Room,’ I kid you not. Well I'd knock that all down and build a bigger and better one, with 102 rooms. It’d be an awesome Castle with a moat and a drawbridge, the whole deal. It would have a private club, theatre, bowling alley and 4 Tennis courts (One of every surface, naturally). I would stage an international tournament there, and there would be a Guest House for Roger Federer and Mirka. The Castle would also feature a world first ‘Shoe Lace Tying Room.’

Cost:

Demolition: $2 Million
Castle: $2 Billion (I want a nice ass castle)
Tennis Courts + Tournament Costs: $2 Million

Total = $2 Billion

4. In my awesome house I would have every gaming console known to man (yes even an xbox, for Halo of course) and a back catalogue of every game in the world. Also Every Movie and TV Show (within reason, i wouldn’t buy Twilight for instance). Also an extensive library with all of the classics.

Cost:

Consoles - $10K
Construction of Library - $2 Million
Library of Games, Movies and TV - $1 Million
Library of Books - $1 Million

Total = $4 Million

5. I would make a movie with an awesome all-star cast; Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt, Kiefer Sutherland, Morgan Freeman, Samuel L Jackson, Gary Oldman. Directed by Tarantino and JJ Abrams. The movie would be about Time Travelling Monkeys which have Ninja reflexes and wield Samurai swords which come to take over earth. Earth’s defence is lead by an Super Team known as The Awesome Foursome (Depp, Pitt, Sutherland, Jackson), Freeman narrates and Oldman is lead Time Travelling Monkey. The story will be co written by myself and Steve.

Cost:

Actors - $100 Million
Locations & Sets - $100 Million
Special FX - $100 Million

Total - $300 Million

6. This is one of the things i want to do most in the world. Go in to space. It’s only $200K for a 3 hour trip in to space but i would want to go for a week. Therefore i would buy my own rocket and crew. Depending on how much I liked it up there I might buy a space station and call it the Moonraker.

Cost:

Rocket - $300 Million (I want the best)
Launch - $10 Million
Crew - $150 Million
Space Station - $100 Billion

Total: $100.5 Billion

7. I would donate $100 Billion dollars to chartable causes around the world (mostly out of guilt for spending so much of the world’s wealth on myself).

8. After getting over the weakness of guilt I would follow up by debut to movie making by making a GOOD version of Philip K Dick’s Paycheck and I would also remake Quantum of Solace. I would then pay excessive amounts of money to have all source copies and store copies destroyed and offer a $10,000 reward for people that trade theirs in to be destroyed, effectively eliminating that movie from existence.
I would then commission a final season of Smallville in which Clark and Lex become best friends again and fight crime together.

Cost:

Paycheck - $150 Million
Quantum of Solace (including extermination) - $500 Million (worth it)
Smallville - $100 Million

Total = $750 Million

9. Following in a similar vain to the Quantum of Solace extermination I would wage war on Apple. I could probably buy Apple for $100 Billion dollars, but that would be a waste of money and a lot less fun than the alternative. I would simply offer people $1000 to film them smashing their iPods. Now i’ve done the maths, there are approximately 175 Million iPods in the world, now including iPhones and Macs i would say its around the 200 Million mark. So 200 Million x $1000 (slightly more for the computers) = $200 Billion dollars. Trust me it would be worth it to rid the world of apple. Of course people might just turn around and spend the $1000 on another iPod, except i would have them sign a contract on receiving the money, which states they are never allowed to purchase or be in possession of an iPod for the remainder of their lives.

10. So in total I have spent $465 Billion dollars. This includes the aforementioned 600 houses which weren’t tallied (Approximately $10 Billion).
Barely even scratched the bank. The remaining $1.44 Trillion dollars i would deposit in a nice Swiss bank account and live like a pig for the rest of my life on interest. $1.44 Trillion x 4% Interest/pa = $57.6 Billion a year.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hahaha. Fun fun fun. If you actually read that entire article congratulations. I present you with a medal. The medal of being awesome!

The Way You Make Me Feel

I’m sitting here on the floor of the living room listening to song after song by Michael Jackson. It’s really god damn sad. I mean i know he got a bit weird near the end, but in my mind he is still one of the greatest musicians ever. I don’t care what he did. He is still awesome.

I truly feel that apathy is on a comeback, either that or arrogance. Over the past couple of years there have been quite a few unexpected deaths (Steve Irwin and Heath Ledger to list a few) and of course for the first few days the majority of people just mourn and pay their respects. But after that everything is fair game apparently. If you mention Steve Irwin’s name in a group of people, chances are there is someone there who absolutely hates him (most of the time they can’t even give you a good reason why). Also their have been a lot of (ill humoured in my opinion) jokes about the both of them. I would like to think that it’s just specific people’s way of dealing with tragedy. But that would be a lie. The truth is that everyone’s a fucking comedian and everyone wants a cheap laugh.
If you mention Steve or Heath , chances are someone has something “Controversial” to say. It pisses me off!
How is it that someone can be made to feel guilty about mourning another human being? Seems utterly ridiculous, but it’s true, with everyone’s bullshit sometimes you are encouraged to feel uncool for mourning.

Now before we go anywhere, I am a firm believer that the media have their priorities fucked (100%). If you watch the news, chances are you will see the Football scores and hear about the 2 year old from Norway who can tell you the capital of any country in the world before you hear about the latest train bombing in Israel. Everyday thousands, tens of thousands of people die in third world countries from starvation, wars and i’m sure a lot of freak accidents, but what do we see? About 1% of all that.
Not only that, the Australian media is so fucking biased. 90% of the time if there is a story about a plane crash in Tahiti it’s because god forbid there was 2 Australian's on it, never mind about the other 300 people. But that’s another story/rant altogether.

It’s only a matter of time before people start bad mouthing MJ and making jokes about his death. People truly have no shame. All i really want to do is sit here and listen to some really great songs in his memory, is that really too much to ask?

One Word

Volition.

That’s it. Not really hehe, imagine a one word post, that would be most epic. It’s just my favourite word at the moment. That and erstwhile. Anyway so i’ve been getting crap left right and center lately for all my negativity. And i’d just like to take this moment to say, “Fuck you all! I’m not angry, just misunderstood.” (Yeah no one saw that coming at all).

Now to my real post (why do i always do that?)

Don’t you think it’s amazing how one word can completely change your day, sometimes even your week?
I was on the bus this afternoon and this lady beside me wanted to get off the bus. She tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Excuse me Sir.”
I was so taken aback. I got up much quicker than i planned to. Very awkward, i almost bumped my head.
SIR? What the hell, I’m only 21. Well 21 and a half, my birthday is in October. 21, is that old enough to be called sir?
Hell, if I was 40, i wouldn’t even care but I'm nowhere near 50!
Did i say 50? I meant 40, god damn it, I do recall several people telling me a few years ago that “you’re halfway to 40” just to scare me and now i’m thinking to myself, arghhhhh i’m almost halfway to 50 and what the hell have i done with my life?

So in effect, one word from that lady caused me to have my own mini mid life crisis (wait, does that mean I'll only live to be 42?). I suppose it’s a quarter life crisis (84, that sounds more like it).
Anyway, after i had my little quarter life crisis i thought about the lady who dropped the S bomb. She couldn’t have been older than 20 herself! What business does she have callin’ me Sir? I wonder how she’d like it if I called her, ‘Madam’ or ‘Miss’ or ‘Maam.’ ‘Sheila’ Perhaps? She probably wouldn’t care. lol. The funniest thing about the whole thing wasn’t the fact i freaked out over absolutely nothing. It was the fact that when i thought about it later, she was probably only trying to be respectful. God damn, just shows you how messed up everything gets when you over analyse things.

…And take drugs.

Fuck you Paul Roe!

You are probably wondering who the fuck Paul Roe is? If not then congratulations, you are really fucking retarded!
Paul Roe is the wiley, pig nosed son of a bitch who is standing between me and finishing my degree. He runs a fun little class called INB345 Mobile Devices. Sounds interesting right? WRONG. What INB345 essentially is, is a soap box for Paul’s own sickening infatuation with the fucking iPhone. Every fucking lecture he exclaims how wonderful it is and how it will save the world from hunger and cancer and all that shit. It’s like Jesus with a touch screen interface apparently. Anyway, every lecture consists of him and all the other Apple fanboys wanking off to the latest iPhone news and trying to spray the rest of the room with their disgusting, infectious juices. I realise that was gratuitously graphic but i just need to vent exactly how much i fucking hate the iPhone and everything it stands for, all the brainwashed peons who preach their fucking religion to everybody else. “Oh well the iPhone has an app for that”, “the iPhone can do this and that.” Yeah well in my professional opinion the iPhone can fucking eat a dick. A huge, veiny penis in fact.

Okay. [Takes Chill Pill]
I’ve just started studying for this bullshit exam tomorrow morning. Can you believe this, 8.30 AM on SATURDAY! and i have a god damn cold!
And now i’ve officially given up because every fucking slide is littered with iPod this and iPhone that. I just can’t be bothered. I mean, if passing this subject means sucking Apple’s large and unattractive dick then that’s a sacrifice i am not willing to make.

Seriously though. Next person who waves an iPhone in my face and tells me how great it is, is going to be spending a couple of nights in intensive care whilst the doctors marvel at just how i managed to shove the entire phone up their ass and contemplate how to get it out without Apple’s notoriously brittle glass breaking.

FUCK OFF! WHAT UP?!

What We Learnt In mX Last Week

This last week in the world wasn’t exceptional. And I should know, i was there. mX was far from producing it’s best kitty litter lining (hehe it’s funny because it’s true and it’s also hard to say) as well, but that doesn’t mean to say they didn’t try. Their “experts” are still trying to tell us to say goodbye to our family and friends, stock up on food supplies and not go outside for the next three weeks lest we catch the infamous swine flu. The flu which in pretty much everyway resembles the regular flu and has people in hysteria. Um guess what dumbasses? It’s winter. Flu season, of course people will be getting sick!!! Besides, more people die from the regular flu every year than this new mystical strain of influenza.

So Microsoft is releasing a search engine…called Bing. Fuck guys! All i can say is Epic Fail. If you seriously wanted to compete with Google (which you absolutely can’t) you would at least try and think of a better name. Bong, Bung and Bang are all delightful words which most likely describe the search engine functionality more accurately. After all, the name is the very marketable essence of the product. Are people really going to drop the B bomb in everyday conversation? What’s that Sally? You want to know the definition of a bad business decision? Sure I’ll just …Bing it. All it reminds me of is that stupid episode of Friends.

My god, Inga Gilchrist, she probably makes me even angrier than Claire Roberts (Mrs “I have 500 friends on facebook, all of which I am too good for.”)
To start with her main source in the article is a “Social Networking Expert.”
Fuck off! There is no way people make a living out of analysing facebook and myspace…is there? And if there is they should be executed by firing squad, whilst wearing wet socks and listening to Jessica Simpson sing live.
She basically spends this article trying to convince us that we should be shallow, self centred media sluts (if you aren’t already) and that we should whore ourselves around the internet and make as many pseudo friends as we can in a hope that 5% of them will know who we are. You are then awarded the status of being a “micro celebrity.”
Oh. OH. And her “expert” uses this made up word “Facebookability” which is utterly horrendous. In fact i wept tears of blood after reading it. That’s how bad it is. No expert i’ve ever heard of makes up stupid words because they can’t explain the very thing they claim to be an expert at. Oh, well i’m an expert TV watcher, I’m an expert online poker player, I’m an expert Breather, Eater, Sleeper. FUCK OFF!

“Be A Phoney Celebrity,” more like, “Be A Phoney Expert.” Here’s the tagline for an advert in the paper (hopefully mX). Enrol now and become an expert at absolutely anything! And the best part is, you don’t even have to know a thing about it!
And if you sign up today you can get your very own piece of paper which clearly states that you are an expert in your chosen area and will allow you to be quoted in stupid articles for the mX! All for only $200!

It’s good to see the mX finally publishing some articles that are backed up by some hard evidence. A mysterious UFO which allegedly saved earth, 4000 years ago, conveniently before surveillance cameras were installed in the stratosphere. It’s like reading a really terrible piece of fiction written by someone on drugs, who was watching War of the Worlds (the Tom Cruise version, because it’s shit).
But there’s proof you say! What, the quartz slabs with strange markings which he estimates are from the control panel of a spaceship. A little farfetched maybe? But to be fair, he’s proably never even heard of the word. Besides isn’t that a Pokemon?
His immaculate descriptions sounds remarkably like something from Star Trek, Smallville or any other supernatural or alien show out there. Idiots. 99.99% of the time lights are just lights and rocks are just rocks.

Woah News Flash: Writing an introduction to a column about search engines in the style of the ships log in Star Trek makes you sound like a douche. A big douche. An insanely massive douche wish certain people may wish to assault. No one cares how witty you apparently are, just because you’re Asian, doesn’t make you Mr Sulu.
So Matt Sun. Fuckface. Why don’t you take a step back and literally FUCK YOUR OWN FACE!

Okay, for starters this movie should never have been made. For starters it is hugely offensive to both lesbians and vampires. It’s degrading and cheap. And fuck you for endorsing it. "Whether you like what it's selling or not, you certainly can't accuse it of false advertising." Yeah but i can accuse you of being a shitty writer and a failure human being. The only people stupid enough to go and watch something like this are 14 year old boys who will go to see it because they think that A – Vampires are cool, B – Lesbians are hot (but of course gay is still gayyyyy) and C – If both things were put together it would make the best movie ever. The fucking idiot who actually gave them the money to make this shitty, poorly conceived pile of shit should be executed. No wet socks or horrible pop music to pass the time, just CHK CHK BOOM!

And the one story of the week which i don’t cringe at for its sheer lack of journalistic skill. However i do cringe at it for other, obvious reasons. Crazy bitch.

So I realised this week that I have sentenced a lot of people to death. But that’s only because A – They deserve it and B – They either wrote for, or were quoted in mX, which brings me back to my first point. They deserve it.

Federer Eats Black Holes For Breakfast

“Tasty,” exclaimed the former world number one after devouring his latest victim, Tommy Haas. In a post match interview he cursed his alarm clock for not waking him up sooner. It went off mid way through the third set (4-4) and he was quite startled to find himself on a tennis court and even more surprised that he was down 2 sets. He broke serve and took the third set then literally bent Haas over the net and gave him a good rogering in the fourth set (6-0).
He wrapped up the match in just over 3 hours, which coincidently is about the same length as a standard warm up session for Roger. Next victim, Gael Monfils. Then Del Potro and maybe Murray?
Federer is being treated to quite a Smorgasbord this week.

10 Things That Are Shit About Centrelink

When i started writing this blog I changed my Facebook status to: Ben Carey is writing a blog about how shit centrelink is. One of my friends commented on it and said, “So i guess that means you don’t support the system that supports you?” to which i replied, “No no, I would rather fuck the system that fucks me.”

Centrelink, the government’s lovely idea of keeping tabs on everyone and providing financial “aid” to people in need. What a joke. It’s more like a game show with like really shit prizes. They notify you to come on down, answer a shit load of useless questions and then they say, “Congratulation Benjamin, you have won the chance to Justify Your Existence!”
Which brings us to, the ten shittest things about Centrelink:

1. The pale green walls

I’m sure it’s supposed to evoke a sense of calmness and tranquillity, but it just reminds me of vomit and baby poo and how much i hate both, it just makes me angrier for being there. It’s enough to drive one insane. I’m actually really surprised (considering all the shady characters that reside there) that there hasn’t been a Centrelink Massacre yet. I mean what do people usually kill for?

- Money
- Being screwed over
- War, defence and other ridiculous reasons

Seems like a perfect target to me. I’m not saying that i condone it in any way, I’m just saying i’m surprised it hasn’t happened, and let’s face it, at least the walls wouldn’t be so bland anymore.

2. The shitty Mid day television

My god!
It’s just so cruel. As if we haven’t been tortured enough. Really old (and not the good kind like Dawn Patrol or Dr. No) movies, with terrible acting, shrill American accents, predictable storylines and ridiculously upbeat music that makes you want to fight something.
The least they could do is give us Foxtel. Then at least it’s modern shitty American television.

3. The disgruntled workers

It’s a statistical fact that 99.37% of Centrelink workers are fuckbags who don’t have a shred of human decency or that little thing that most of us treasure called personality. It’s just their job you say? Fuck you, i would reply. Get another job, all they do is inflict their depression on the rest of us.
The worst part is when you find a really nice person (most of the time at the counter) who understands your problem and then they transfer you to some other douche bag who you have to explain everything to AGAIN.
It’s like saying to a kid, Oh here’s a PS3, the pinnacle of human achievement and a super awesome HD TV for you to play it on…but you can’t actually use it, you can only look at it and compare it to how shitty your Xbox is.

4. When they cut you off for no reason or loose your forms

Fun fun fun. Especially when it’s in the middle of your exam block. They will request that you come in 5 times a week just to sort out something that is completely their fault to start with AND if it all gets sorted out they will not even give you the slightest apology let alone any kind of compensation. They will either imply that it’s your fault, or some other branch of Centrelink, but never them personally.

5. The company

Only in Centrelink will you find such an assortment of Ex-Convicts (and lets face it; soon to be Convicts), drug addicts, alcoholics, wife bashers, seedy old men and my favourite of all – irate aboriginals that reek of a mixture of alcohol, petrol and McDonalds. For starters, don’t you dare call me racist! I have just as much respect for an aboriginal person who acts like a real human being as anyone else. I do not however have a shred of respect for those who beg me for money and shout insults at me if i don’t give it to them, those who waste away their lives and kill the name of aboriginals everywhere by sitting on streets getting pissed, being violent and generally unpleasant. If they have enough time, money and effort to do that maybe they should get a fucking job, go back to school, or do some volunteer work. Anything is better than that right?

“Life is unfair, kill yourself or get over it.” – Child Psychology by Black Box Recorder.

6. Their stupid forms and the amount of them you have to fill out

Centrelink has recently been advised that you went to the toilet on the 23/04/2009. You are required to provide all information about that visit. Please answer the following questions:

1. Roughly how many times did you go to the toilet on the 23/04/2009?

2. Was it number ones or number twos?

3. What was the consistency of the urine?

7. The waiting time

2 Hours to hand in some fucking forms!
Enough said.

8. The waiting time

Maybe not. 2 Hours!!!!!!

9. The punishment they dish out the unemployed

Okay so half the people that get dragged through the Jobseekers system are just plain lazy and couldn’t be bothered get off their asses to get a job, but the other half, ones that can’t for the life of them find a job in the current financial situation get punished too.
If you don’t know about the system, every 2 weeks they have to apply for 10 jobs and write them down in a form and show them to Centrelink. On top of that, any job which they are accepted into they have to take. But here’s the real kicker, as of July 1st people on Jobseekers will have to work for Centrelink for their fortnightly pay. Now that’s just plain evil. Crimes against humanity. Personally i’d rather die of starvation and pneumonia then put up with their shit.

10. It’s Centrelink.

Do i really need to say more?

Wet Socks!

Some people say that losing a child is the worst pain someone can experience. WRONG! Wet socks (with a possible combination with a number of other things such as being violated) are far worse.

It started raining yesterday, fairly lightly, but it continued on through the night. This morning it was crazy, it was blowing a gale and pissing down for hours and unfortunately i had to go Uni. So i braved the elements with my tiny blue (and very broken) umbrella. I was nearly blown away by the gale force winds and freezing cold because the jumper that i was wearing was saturated from the rain. After Uni i made the grave and uneducated mistake of getting on the bus home. I would like to clarify that is a 5 minute trip from Kelvin Grove to Windsor. I got on the bus at 3.49 and was still on it an hour later. In fact i hadn’t even gone 1 stop!
But then again it was a 333, so what else is new?
Near the service station I found out that it was quite heavily flooding and therefore the road was blocked off. The traffic was moving an average speed of 3 meters per minute and our bus was being diverted off in the opposite direction. I knew it was going to be a long ride home. I took this opportunity to edit an article which is due tomorrow. I also got some good shots for my Homely assignment in Photography.

I wonder if there is Guinness World Record for the longest amount of time trapped on a bus travelling 3 kilometers due to unforseen flooding. If there isn’t, invent one motherfuckers! You obviously need one. Besides if there’s a record for the longest toenails or nose hair then there should be for this. And i should win it and be given a check of $100,000 and write a book about it and stuff. Maybe this is the blurb?

As you can tell i have been trapped on a bus too long without conversation with real human beings (I did have a wonderful conversation with a bunch of leprechauns and a cave troll but that probably doesn’t count). I am hungry and tired and i want to watch TV!

If i believed in god (see i didn’t even capitalize his name, shows how much of an unbeliever i am) i would probably think it was him either trying to smite me, or the much more likely, give me a sign that i should stop procrastinating and do my work. “What the hell?” I would say, “What’s your problem you big jerk. I edited my article (I don’t care if it was only 300 words), what do you want from me?!”

1 and a half hours now. I am really hungry and the air-conditioner is making my head all stuffy. I fear i won’t be home in time for dinner. Or Neighbours. Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo That was a joke by the way, i don’t watch that trash…I much rather Home and Away. Hahaha, GET ME OFF THIS BUS!

Fast approaching 2 hours. I’ve been eyeing of this fat kid about 5 seats in front of me, wishing his arms actually were actually chicken wings. He must be about 100 kilos, about a week’s food if i ration it. Should i eat him raw or cook him against the hot spot where the tires are? I know it says you can’t eat hamburgers and drink soft drink on the bus, but they didn’t say SHIT about…chicken wings. I’ve never even seen lord of the flies but i have heard about it and i imagine this is how they felt. Oh come on i haven’t eaten in 6 hours and at this rate wont for another 2 days. Maybe i can trade him my camera for his left wing, I'm sure he’s right handed anyway right? Who uses their left arm anyway? Except for stupid things like eating, driving and playing the guitar.
Fuck i am hungry, i reckon if it takes too much longer I'll have to put a move on him. The way i see it, I've gotta eat him before he eats me.

2 Hours comes and goes. My mind is torturing me with thoughts of Roast Chicken and Grandma’s best in the world mashed potato. Nachos, T Bone Steaks, Cheeseburgers, Chocolate and Mangoes. I try to fight it, i focus on my music library. Fuck me i didn’t know i had that?!
The Way I Are comes on and i have to fight off the urge to jump up and show off my mad hip hop skillz which i learnt from so you think you can dance and music videos. I just need something to expend some pent up energy. Seeing this 6 year old girl running around (doing exactly what i want to do) isn’t helping. Maybe i should eat her too (if your thinking what i think you are then you can just fuck off!)

2 and a half hours. The bus pulls up in front of Bowen Hills trains station (1 stop before mine on the train). By the time i pack up my stuff the bus actually moves, too far to run back. The bus finally stops at Lutwyche (1 stop AFTER where i need to be), the next bus isn’t for 20 minutes and I could still eat a whole cow so I run over to the Coles. Thanks god for Coles Lutwyche. I bought Two packets of twisties and 3 chocolate bars and i am currently stuffing my face.

I just went to the bus stop and the bus driver said that there were no buses going past Windsor. He told me it was flooded. Jackass.
So i rang Jodie to see if her and Jess could come pick me up, but apparently no one is supposed to be driving. Looks like i’m camping out at Lutwyche tonight which sucks because i totally forgot my sleeping bag.

…

SHERYL I LOVE YOU!
I rang her up and she came an picked me up. We drove through the carnage and when we entered Windsor all of the house’s lights were out. I got home an collapsed. Then after a while we all went for a walk and i took pictures [Coming soon]

P.S I realise my tense is dreadful, but that’s because i wrote it during and after these things happened.

Sporadic Ramblings

lol*, so many things happened today. I got offered a job, i got a distinction for my non fiction assignment, i had an epiphany about pool and had a funny dream about being in an army squadron and Trevor (the ebony fellow with dreds from Big Brother 4) was in it.

I’ll start chronologically. I recently bought a game called Valkyria Chronicles for the PS3 and it’s fucking shit hot! So far i’ve clocked about 40 hours play time. I love it. Pretty much every waking moment over the last week has been devoted to that. Needless to say it had some affect on my subconscious life. Pretty much every dream i’ve had has involved the battlefield of Gallia. The night before last, i had a rather strange dream about meeting Mischa Barton, in a church, posing as a singer, in England. AND, I totes blackmailed her. I said if she let me get my camera and take pictures with her that i wouldn’t tell the paparazzi where she was. Harsh much? I ran home and Told Jodie and then everything was gone. I was back on the battlefield. Is that my subconscious telling me I miss the O.C.

Now, last night. I was in this cool little squadron, which didn’t actually fight any battles. There was this cool dude who was really good with a sniper rifle, these two rad lesbians who rode on a sweet harley and for some strange reason Trevor! He had a temper on him, probably because he was sick of being called that guy from Big Brother. And i couldn’t break the chain. I said, “Hey, it’s that guy from Big Brother.” He punched me and i got up and turned to the girls and said. “So worth it!”

I woke up super late, 8:35 (my lecture was at 9) and blamed it on Jodie then skipped breakfast and made for the bus. At the stupid traffic lights, two of my buses went past (not one but two!) and i had to get creative and jump buses to get their relatively on time.
After class i went down to the guild bar to get a $6.50 movie saver. The chick at the front desk was running around trying to find them and I saw a stack behind the desk and said, “Hey that looks like them there.”
She smiled and said, “You should be working here, do you want a job?” I laughed and said, “Sorry, i’m not looking for work at the moment.”
Random.

And now my epiphany about pool. It occurred to me whilst playing a few games (free games!) that it it is the most Racist thing i’ve ever seen. Alright, BLACK ball and 12 COLOURED balls which the WHITE ball is constantly hitting. You win when the coloured balls and the black ball are in the holes and the white ball reigns supreme. It totally think it should be banned.

*Possibly the most unliterary way to start a sentence in the history of everything. Don’t blame me, i grew up reading J.K Rowling.

Wolverine

[I’d like to first state that any movie with Ryan Reynolds in it is destine to fail.]

Wolverine was one of those movies which i hoped was going to be good ever since i heard they were making it. Even after it was released and people were trashing it, i thought, well it’s going to be bad, but it couldn’t be that bad. I was wrong.
We all know the character of Wolverine, bad ass dude with Adamantium claws. That’s all we need to know, that and he gets paid to fuck dudes up. For some dumbass reason they decided to turn this movie into an excruciatingly detailed back-story of Wolverine’s life. To sum it up in a sentence, it was 2 hours of bad twists and turns with every single character which has ever been in a Marvel comic thrown in there. Even ones they made up just for this shitty movie.

Charlie from Lost (Dominique Monaghan) was the one and only redeeming feature of this film, he played a cool character with a rad power and guess what? They killed him off 15 minutes in.

The asshole director throws us right in there, not unlike Pirates of the Caribbean 3 or Quantum of Suckass, we have absolutely know idea what the fuck is going on and surprisingly enough still don’t when the credits come on. The opening follows Logan and Viktor (who is apparently his brother now) through their bulletproof history of violence. It shows them fighting in countless wars and i have no fucking idea why, it didn’t add anything to the story or the development of the characters, except foreshadowing Viktor’s (Sabertooth) turn to the dark side. It felt like a cheap trick to get from A to B really quickly. And it wouldn’t be the last time i felt that.

The next scene sees them chained up in a dungeon which for some stupid reason they can’t escape from, even though they are both invincible and have the strength of 10 men. Some retard General comes along and offers them a job and they take it. They introduce some other mutants including Ryan Reynolds as a loud mouthed samurai sword wielding prick, Will.i.am as the token black teleporting guy (wait, didn’t they already have a cool teleporting guy called nightcrawler. Maybe he wasn’t black enough) and that douche bag, smug faced git from the 4th season of Lost who later turns into a 600 pound fat guy which for some reason Wolverine fights. Oh that’s right, if it’s in the movie, Wolverine fights it. General rule of thumb.

Anyway, back to the “Story.” Van Wilder (Fuckface) is sent into an apparently well guarded building to clear it out. He pulls out two swords and fends off the bullets, swatting them like flies. And if that wasn’t bad enough he actually slices a flying bullet in half (which i saw coming, but i just hoped they would go there).

Wolverine gets sick of hangin’ with the wrong crew and leaves.
Six years later he has a girlfriend and is living a happy life on the top of a mountain in a log cabin. Long story short, the retard general comes back to tell him to be careful, he ignores him and his girlfriend gets killed…

He gets angry (and i’m talking Anakin Skywalker, when he finds out Padme is dead in Revenge of the Sith, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO) and signs up with the retard to get injected with a boiling hot indestructible metallic compound called Adamantium. But oh no, the crazy scientists turn against him (duh?) and try to erase his memory, so he busts open the glass tank and gets on out of there.

Next he stumbles upon the farm of the loving Jonathan and Martha Kent. They take him in and feed him and the next day they get shot and blown up. Wolverine is just a sucker for punishment. He fights a hummer and a helicopter and has this stupid conversation with a guy who was in the chopper and should be fucking dead but only has a few scratches on him.

After blowing up the chopper with the sparks from his claws he goes to find Will.i.am and fights the fat guy for information which leads him to Gambit. For some stupid reason him and gambit fight, but then Sabertooth shows up and he fights him instead.

Turns out the retard general was working with Sabertooth the whole time. Who would have seen that coming??? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
And better yet, his girlfriend that died, didn’t actually die, they injected her with some hypodermic bullshit (which slowed her heart rate to a flat line) and Sabertooth spread fake blood on her corpse. All an elaborate scheme to get Wolverine to come into the lab and make him kick ass?!?

They free a bunch of mutants from the lab, the dumbest of which has diamond skin. And i’m not talking a cool opaque suite of armour, her skin actually turns into a thousand diamonds. Just in case the audience didn’t get it.

For some reason they throw ANOTHER character (deadpool) into the mix. He is the ultimate mutant killer and Wolverine and Sabertooth have to team up to kill him.
And Logan’s girlfriend comes back to die again.

But the icing on the cake was the Adamantium bullets which the retard general fired with amazing accuracy at Wolverine. One penetrates his brain and wipes his memory. How convenient. I wish someone would shoot me with a fucking Adamantium bullet so that i would forget this movie was ever made. In fact, a regular bullet will do just fine.

What We Learnt This Week In mX

The first thing we learnt this week in mX is that the media is still obsessed with Paris Hilton. Every week she makes headlines around the world, whether it be for her ‘crazy party girl’ antics (i.e getting smashed and filming herself having sex) or for her spectacular new dress (which cost about the same as a third world country). I took the liberty of giving her a Sharpie make over. Hope you like it =]

Number 2. There has been a rise in the number of prissy little interns for shitty little papers. In this article Claire Roberts spends 400 words trying to convince us she’s not a stuck up bitch who thinks she’s so above Facebook updates. She goes on about how she doesn’t care what people think and how she wishes people would just ask if she’s single. 400+ Friends says to me that she does care. A lot. But the worst part of the whole article isn’t her religious preaching of how much better she is than us ‘regular' Facebook users, it’s the humour. She tries so hard but fails epically. ”If you see photos of me having gained 20 kilo, i’ve probably had a break-up.” And on and on. Why the fuck don’t they give me a column to bitch and moan about all of my trivial problems?

I think i’ve found my arch nemesis =] 

The government is still pumping out lame ads about drugs and alcohol. Persuading people to not take drugs shouldn’t have anything to do with being busted. Should be about them getting fucked up and dying or hurting the people they love. Hire me motherfuckers.



There’s still crazy motherfuckers out there who have never seen The Island or any other movie where cloning goes horribly wrong. This guy is pretty much creaming his pants talking about how we will have cloned human babies in 5 years. WHY?????
What possible benefit could come from it?
Are we going to keep them in cages and harvest their organs? Because that shits fucked up. “Oh I lost my ear in a motorcycle accident, think i’ll just go down to the clone store and pick up a new one.” Just one of many major ethical issues. Aren’t there enough people already? And isn’t there enough segregation between people? It might usher in a new era of racism. Clonism or Clonists.



Jennifer Hawkins is still Super Hot!



‘Aussie Rap’ is still shit!



Supermodels should never be aloud to have an opinion.



And neither should these people.



And the now, the big finale! Lindsay Lohan has now been miraculously cured of being a lesbian (‘born again heterosexual’ as mX put it. Morons). Some might say she was never a lesbian to start with and that it was all a publicity stunt (stranger things have happened) and some might even suggest that she’s a filthy whore. And i will happily admit i am one of those people =]



And that about wraps it up for this weeks folks. Tune in next time for the weird and wonderful tales of mX. I’ll leave you with a little article which gives me some hope for the future. It’s all about the content!

Great Expectations

I’m not exactly sure how many 21 year olds can honestly say this, but I have started contemplating what I want written on my tombstone. At this point i have no idea what i want, but i know i want it to be cleverer than what I wrote in the senior yearbook, “I am a fish.”
In no way do i regret writing that, i still to this day think it’s brilliant and captured very accurately my frame of mind at the time. Looking back on it now, coming up with outlandish and somewhat genius quotes was probably my strongest suit in high school. Another favourite of mine, “Hooray for the watermelon factory,” captured the very fundamentalist essence of high school. Actually i’m just talking shit now, i just thought it was some cold blooded shit to say before i popped a cap in some fools ass. Again complete bullshit. What can I say? I’m a sucker for cultural references.

Anyway getting to my actual point. I’ve only just recently realised why i stress out about everything so much. Expectations. I realised that from a very young age we have these expectations thrown upon us. The first one is surviving the trials and tribulations of the womb, our parents (or in my case Parent. In case you didn’t know, I was immaculately conceived, like Jesus and Anakin Skywalker*) have such high expectations that A – we are going to live and B – we are going to grow up to be a nice respectable human being. Of course there is also the expectation that you wont be a mutant.

Throughout our childhood there are numerous expectations, mostly from our parents (or parent). At around six months we are expected to be able to crawl, at a year we are supposed to be able to walk and not only walk but run. He could be an athlete.
When you start Pre School (or Kindy or Prep or wherever the hell you start these days) you are expected to be able to tell the difference between green and blue, between happy and sad, between Sandwiches and Sand. In Primary school we are expected to be able to read and write. In High School we are expected to get good grades, make lots of friends, have a an attractive girlfriend, have sex, drink alcohol, do drugs, rebel against authority figures, die your hair, fall in love and then get depressed. It’s the classic High School scenario. Vintage OC.
I think a lot of teenagers buckle to the pressure and just give up. Any form of emotion that in some way resembles enthusiasm is thrown out the window.

And now, after leaving the small town for the big city, have my expectations been fulfilled? Of course not! There’s more than ever now. Expectations to have something published in some newspaper, The Australian, The New Yorker. To write a novel, to get it published, to become rich and famous. And that’s about where it ends, because by the time i have fulfilled all these expectations, i’ll be an old man in a wheelchair contemplating what my life would have been like if i had done things differently. Not buckled the the expectations that myself and others placed upon me. Etcetera etcetera. But that would also be a load of shit because expectations are apart of day to day life.

Even in writing this article i feel like it’s not as good as it could be, what will people think of it? Of me? Will they laugh? Will they understand what i am going on about? Will they love me forever or will they stop reading my blog altogether?

Yet more expectations i have set for myself. I guess it’s learning to except them and embrace or ignore them as they come which is what makes us truly successful at life. A life full of regrets is epic fail (you can quote me on that). So that’s why I’m getting started on my tombstone early.

* I still want to use this in a movie or a story one day =]

Artist Or Bullshit Artist?

I’ve been a member of the deviantArt community for nearly 2 years. It is a fantastic website which allows you to showcase your artworks or works in progress. It’d kind of like youTube in the sense that it’s a huge community based, content driven platform. The only difference is that people on deviantArt generally give you intelligent feedback rather than saying “that’s gay.”

The problem i have with deviantArt (and any other popular, content driven platform for that matter) is that sometimes there is a fine line between art and shit. It is true that art as a whole is subjective, but i’m not here to debate whether Jason Pollock is an artist or not. The thing that drives me insane is when truly awful or just plain average pieces get praised.

For example:

Okay sure, there is some sort of artistic expression in this image right? WRONG! This kind of shit belongs on myspace! Or at the very least in the ID category. If you view her profile you’ll find about 15 other identical images. Much like myspace.
Now i’m no saint when it comes to taking gratuitous/epic amounts of myspace photos. It’s fun as hell if you’re in the right mood, but there’s a time and a place for it.

That said, this photo has 1700 Favourites!?!
I mean what the fuck is up with that? Like 5000 comments of people saying “omg i love your eyes” and “omg you are so beautiful, do you think that if i comment on every one of your pictures you will consider sleeping with me?”

My best piece of art has 15 and the funny thing is I don’t consider that bad, i am just well aware that the system is all fucked up. People get popular from one image and then gain a religious following who worship the very ground they walk on. Then what happens to the other people, the ones with good art which deserves to be recognized? They go unnoticed and a lot of the time will never get that recognition they both deserve and crave. It’s a sad reality, but everything is a popularity contest.

Oh and get this! She actually has the audacity to bitch about how people don’t appreciate her art, they just admire her beauty.
OMG bitch, At least they are there in the first place! Some of us lesser mortals have to earn the right for our art to be viewed.
If you really want to be taken seriously as an artist, stop fucking taking pictures of yourself, try taking some of still objects, buildings, nature or…god forbid someone else…