Use your Allusion

Oh man. I was just walking deliriously home sometime past midnight in the rain after spending 12 hours straight finishing a crappy essay... when an owl flew right towards me and nearly hit me in the KNEES!!! What's worse, I was listening to the climax of Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban audiobook. If the owl had killed me, it would have been totally ironic*. Here is a scary owl picture I found.

*That Alanis Morissette-brand of irony which isn't actually irony but instead just a lot of fucking spoons.

Terror Tazos

So, Tazos. They come in chip packets and usually have the Simpsons or current 'card of the anime of the card' show on them. I've never, ever, ever seen anyone ever be enthusiastic about them. I've never seen a kid play with them. I've never even seen someone remove them from their little foil packaging. So why are they everywhere?

I'm pretty sure they're actually an elaborate, but flawed, terrorist campaign. Think about it... you load up these little discs with hyper-potent anthrax bombs. And how are they triggered? Well, they can either explode on impact when kids play 'Tazos' (a game in which you stack them up... and then, um, knock them down... for POINTS) or be voice activated, set to detonate whenever a child says "hey, let's play Tazos," or "I'll challenge you for your Yu-Gi-Oh Tazos!"... BANG! DOOM!

I think the world is pretty safe.

It's the card of the anime of the game of the card! In Tazo form! Plus inset: the ideal (and nonexistent) terrorist detonator child: cool but cleancut, always up for a game of Tazos!

PS - My theory is refuted by this rad site.

Trapped on an island... or whatever

So I've always wanted to do one of those 'my top 30 albums' things. However, they are boring to put together, and even more boring to read. So let's just say that if I had to go to a deserted island... or maybe to the library or someting, and could only take 30 albums, this is what I would pack at the moment.

Cut the line of coke

Sometimes I park in my dad's underground parking in the CBD, which is shared by his work and a bar. Just recently, I noticed something awesome in the carpark...

That's like 10 boxes of pure, uncut soft drink syrup. The tubes carry the syrup up to the bar, where it is mixed with soda water. I have a good mind to cut one of the cables and drink 10 litres of syrup... mmm, a totally diabetical plan.

Dove for cover

When I was in the UK last February, they had this Dove ads everywhere, featuring models not n*sync with the media's stereotypical skinny, white, young and... um, unfreckled female. The ad presents you with say, a freckled woman (ZOMG the horror!), and asks you, ballot style, if she is 'freckled' or 'flawless'.

Man, biggest backfire ever. Every single Dove ad within reaching distance had been ticked in the negative option. Imagine how the models felt everytime they caught the London underground... the lengthy elevators to the tube stations were lined with about 30 of these ads in a row, each one proclaiming the model as 'fat', 'wrinkled' or, damn, 'freckled'.

But they didn't learn. Now, a year later, they are starting to appear in Sydney. Observe:

Join the beauty debate...


Joined.

Seriously, if you want to fight stereotypes in the media, just include them in your ads without making such a big, exceptional deal out of it. Furthermore, the 'campaign' makes it look like being 'wrinkled' and 'wonderful' are mutually exclusive... Dove are just feeding the stereotype. Fools!

God is Dead

My beloved fish, God, died today. Which is sad, because it's my birthday. It's even sadder because I got him 2 years ago to this day. But it's the saddest of all because he kicked serious ass. So here is my obituary.

God, Moses and the Dinosaurs.

Alys and Pat gave me 2 fish for my 20th birthday, contained in a bowl filled with plastic dinosaurs and a cool Moses figure. The downside to having such an awesome retelling of the Bible was that Moses emitted dangerous variety-store toxins which killed one of the fish. It seemed that only one of the fish could survive these dangerous Moses poisons. So, when it came time to name said fish, it seemed only natural to call it God - the only one powerful enough to beat Moses.

God was a supercool fish... always nibbling the bile that grew on Moses and exploring the rocky terrain of his bowl. In keeping with his theological powers, he was just as happy eating normal fish food as he was with feasting on a food pyrmid. Though he had a few close calls (like that time I dropped him down the sink, or that other time he floated upside down for a few days), he was pretty healthy, and his death was both untimely and unexpected.

He was buried in the my garden late on the 18th. Float on, God. Float on.

Emergency!

Damn, having a very weird crisis here. I'm currently watching this awesome HBO show called Entourage, which is about a young movie star and his 3 leeching friends living it up in LA. Only problem is that the lead guy looks exactly like this Garth I know.

It breaks my mind... how am I meant to believe he's a famous young hot shot on the rise in Hollywood when it's obviously just Garth? He doesn't live in California, to the best of my knowledge. It is impossible to not think that I'm watching the adventures of Garth. I never thought that would be something which I would want to watch. And the biggest problem is... since the show is so funny, I'm all "wow, I'm glad I'm watching Garth's life." So what happens when I finish all the episodes of Entourage season 1? Do I instinctively just start watching Garth through his window frame? Man, season 2 sucks. And is slightly illegal.


The photo inset, taken 2 years ago, only communicates 2% of the likeness. And it's still a large fucking similarity!

Edit: To anyone who knows Garth, this should prove it beyond any reasonable doubt:

LT

Usually, grammatical errors isn't funny, but let's all laugh at some guy's Amazon review of Linkin Park's 'credible' side project:

Your grammar belies you LT.

W.K. interact

Andrew W.K.. He confuses me. And not just because I don't know how to put a full stop after his name whilst still being grammatically correct. It's because he likes to party. A lot. Indeed, every song on his debut album is about partying. Hard ('Party Hard'). Usually until you die ('Get Ready to Die'), puke ('Party 'til You Puke'), or both (it's something that happens). You can tell that his second album is more mature and lovelorn, because it only has one song with 'party' in the title.

So two things confuse me about him. Firstly, why does he only ever wear white if he throws up and dies so much? Surely black would be more fitting (no pun I think) for both occasions (for two very different reasons). Secondly, how exactly do you party? I mean... you can go to a party, sure. And you can organise an awesome party... usually achieved by inviting a magician. But how does W.K. party? Like, if a room is empty... can he just walk into it and party? 'til he pukes? Can he be sitting in a boring bible study and be like "party... NOW!" and suddenly everyone starts partying? I would assume that he can. That's fucking awesome!


"Alright... a minor variant in the key of C... 'puke puke puke puke' and now switch the the diminished D... 'party party party party'."

Who eats the non-biscuit end?

The one unfailing truth in my life has always been that, at any given time, the nearest 7-Eleven will hold a delicious MaxiBon for me to eat. Anyway, now MaxiBons are going through a second coming, what with new ads on buses and everything... SO WHY ARE THERE NO FUCKING MAXIBONS ANYWHERE FUCK ARGH DIE ALL OF YOU NESTLÉ.

Interestingly, MaxiBons are listed on Wikipedia in the 'Dessert Stub' category. Mmmm... dessert stub.

Also, talking of things in shops, I met the sister-in-law of Claes Oldenburg (the 4th best Pop Artist) tonight. She had anecdotes. Intense.

Writer's Block

I have writer's block.

Here are some other blocks of interest.

Bungle

Oh man, I've been waiting all week for an opportunity to take a photo of a National Australia Bank to show how their recent rebranding to the simple, lower-case 'nab' is too easily misread as that word which means "to steal".

Now I search for 'nab rebrand' in google and find a zillion (at least 5) blog entries on exactly the same thing. Cursed blogs. Mind thieves and time burglers all of them.

In other news, I had to shave with a razor for the first time the other day (I lost the power cord for my Philips - 'for the man who needs a sensitive touch' - Philishave a month ago... just enough time for me to develop the beginnings of a sleazy stubble). I had to ask Jeeves how to do it. It felt like I was being bitten by a billion (at least twenty) spiders on fire.

Bort

Putting trash out on the street: