Altered me

Going Camp, Episode 1

2008-04-27T19:16:00.000-07:00

Straw in a Cup

2008-04-20T04:00:00.000-07:00

The end of my day

2008-04-07T03:55:00.001-07:00

I thought I would share this. Here is a screenshot of the end of my day... No wonder it's common knowledge that Macs can' t be used for business...

South Park gives us the Funniest "You live in Australia so you can't have [INSERT INTERNET SERVICE HERE] - Message

2008-03-25T02:54:00.000-07:00

I love a sunburnt country, A land of sweeping plains, Of ragged mountain ranges, Of drought and flooding rains... But I freakin hate the fact that some of the coolest services on the planet take ages to come to Australia...

*Andrew spends three seconds thinking up examples*

- iTunes music store
- iPhone
- BBC Live TV- Gmail

And I am sure the list goes on... Anyway the point I am trying to make is that they wern't funny about it. Now check this out from the newest reason to find a US based proxy.... www.southparkstudios.com. That's right through this lovely South Park portal you can watch all (and I mean all) the episodes ever made..If you live in the us.. So just google US Proxy and you are good to go. But at least they gave me a chuckle..

DOUGLAS ADAMS' VIEW OF AUSTRALIA - The Douglas Adams of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy fame

2008-03-24T21:20:00.001-07:00

DOUGLAS ADAMS' VIEW OF AUSTRALIA
The Douglas Adams of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy fame

Australia is a very confusing place, taking up a large amount of the Bottom half of the planet. It is recognisable from orbit because of many unusual features, including what at first looks like an enormous bite taken out of its southern edge; a wall of sheer cliffs which plunge deep into the girting sea. Geologists assure us that this is simply an accident of geomorphology and plate tectonics, but they still call it the "Great Australian Bight" proving that not only are they covering up a more frightening theory, but they can't spell either.

The first of the confusing things about Australia is the status of the place. Where other land masses and sovereign lands are classified as either continent, island, or country, Australia is considered all three.
Typically, it is unique in this.
The second confusing thing about Australia are the animals. They can be divided into three categories: Poisonous, Odd, and Sheep.
It is true that of the 10 most poisonous arachnids on the planet, Australia has 9 of them. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that of the 9 most poisonous arachnids, Australia has all of them. However, there are curiously few snakes, possibly because the spiders have killed them all. But even the spiders won't go near the sea.
Any visitors should be careful to check inside boots (before putting them on), under toilet seats (before sitting down) and generally everywhere else. A stick is very useful for this task.
Strangely, it tends to be the second class of animals (the Odd) that are more dangerous. The creature that kills the most people each year is the common Wombat. It is nearly as ridiculous as its name, and spends its life digging holes in the ground, in which it hides. During the night it comes out to eat worms and grubs.
The wombat kills people in two ways: First, the animal is indestructible. Digging holes in the hard Australian clay builds muscles that outclass Olympic weight lifters. At night, they often wander the roads. Semi-trailers (Road Trains) have hit them at high speed, with all 9 wheels on one side, and this merely makes them very annoyed. They express this by snorting, glaring, and walking away. Alas, to smaller cars, the wombat becomes a symmetrical launching pad, with results that can be imagined, but not adequately described.
The second way the wombat kills people relates to its burrowing behaviour. If a person happens to put their hand down a Wombat hole, the Wombat will feel the disturbance and think "Ho! My hole is collapsing!" at which it will brace its muscled legs and push up against the roof of its burrow with incredible force, to prevent its collapse. Any unfortunate hand will be crushed, and attempts to withdraw will cause the Wombat to simply bear down harder. The unfortunate will then bleed to death through their crushed hand as the wombat prevents him from seeking assistance. This is considered the third most embarrassing known way to die, and Australians don't talk about it much.
At this point, we would like to mention the Platypus, estranged relative of the mammal, which has a duck-bill, otter's tail, webbed feet, lays eggs, detects its aquatic prey in the same way as the electric eel, and has venomous barbs attached to its hind legs, thus combining all 'typical' Australian attributes into a single improbable creature.

The last confusing thing about Australia is the inhabitants. First, a short history: Some time around 40,000 years ago, some people arrived in boats from the north. They ate all the available food, and lot of them died. The ones that survived learned respect for the balance of nature, man's proper place in the scheme of things, and spiders. They settled in, and spent a lot of the intervening time making up strange stories. Then, around 200 years ago, Europeans arrived in boats from the north. More accurately, European convicts were sent, with a few deranged and stupid people in charge. They tried to plant their crops in Autumn (failing to take account of the reversal of the seasons when moving from the top half of the planet to the bottom), ate all their food, and a lot of them died.
About then the sheep arrived, and have been treasured ever since. It is interesting to note here that the Europeans always consider themselves vastly superior to any other race they encounter, since they can lie, cheat, steal, and litigate (marks of a civilised culture they say) - whereas all the Aboriginals can do is happily survive being left in the middle of a vast red-hot desert, equipped with a stick. Eventually, the new lot of people stopped being Europeans on Extended Holiday and became Australians.
The changes are subtle, but deep, caused by the mind-stretching expanses of nothingness and eerie quiet, where a person can sit perfectly still and look deep inside themselves to the core of their essence, their reasons for being, and the necessity of checking inside your boots every morning for fatal surprises. They also picked up the most finely tuned sense of irony in the world, and the Aboriginal gift for making up stories.
Be warned. There is also the matter of the beaches. Australian beaches are simply the nicest and best in the entire world. Although anyone actually venturing into the sea will have to contend with sharks, stinging jellyfish, stonefish (a fish which sits on the bottom of the sea, pretends to be a rock, and has venomous barbs sticking out of its back that will kill just from the pain) and surfboarders. However, watching a beach sunset is worth the risk.

As a result of all this hardship, dirt, thirst, and wombats, you would expect Australians to be a dour lot. Instead, they are genial, jolly, cheerful, and always willing to share a kind word with a stranger, unless they are an American.
Faced with insurmountable odds and impossible problems, they smile disarmingly and look for a stick. Major engineering feats have been performed with sheets of corrugated iron, string, and mud.
Alone of all the races on earth, they seem to be free from the 'Grass is Greener on the other side of the fence' syndrome, and roundly proclaim that Australia is, in fact, the other side of that fence. They call the land "Oz", "Godzone" (a verbal contraction of "God's Own Country") and "Best bloody place on earth, bar none, strewth." The irritating thing about this is they may be right.
There are some traps for the unsuspecting traveller, though. Do not under any circumstances suggest that the beer is imperfect, unless you are comparing it to another kind of Australian beer. Do not wear a Hawaiian shirt. Religion and Politics are safe topics of conversation (Australians don't care too much about either) but Sport is a minefield. The only correct answer to "So, howdya' like our country, eh?" is "Best {insert your own regional swear word here} country in the world!".
It is very likely that, on arriving, some cheerful Australians will 'adopt' you on your first night, and take you to a pub where Australian Beer is served. Despite the obvious danger, do not refuse. It is a form of initiation rite. You will wake up late the next day with an astonishing hangover, a foul-taste in your mouth, and wearing strange clothes. Your hosts will usually make sure you get home, and waive off any legal difficulties with "It's his first time in Australia, so we took him to the pub.", to which the policeman will sagely nod and close his notebook.
Be sure to tell the story of these events to every other Australia, you encounter, adding new embellishments at every stage, and noting how strong the beer was. Thus you will be accepted into this unique culture.
Most Australians are now urban dwellers, having discovered the primary use of electricity, which is air-conditioning and refrigerators.

Typical Australian sayings:
* "G'Day!"
* "It's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick."
* "She'll be right."
* "And down from Kosciusko, where the pine clad ridges raise their torn and rugged battlements on high, where the air is clear as crystal, and the white stars fairly blaze at midnight in the cold and frosty sky.
And where, around the overflow, the reed beds sweep and sway to the breezes, and the rolling plains are wide. The Man from Snowy River is a household word today, and the stockmen tell the story of his ride."

Tips to Surviving Australia:
* Don't ever put your hand down a hole for any reason whatsoever. We mean it.
* The beer is stronger than you think, regardless of how strong you think it is.
* Always carry a stick.
* Air-conditioning.
* Do not attempt to use Australian slang, unless you are a trained linguist and good in a fist fight.
* Thick socks.
* Take good maps. Stopping to ask directions only works when there are people nearby.
* If you leave the urban areas, carry several litres of water with you at all times, or you will die.
* Even in the most embellished stories told by Australians, there is always a core of truth that it is unwise to ignore.

See Also: "Deserts: How to die in them", "The Stick: Second most useful thing ever" and "Poisonous and Venomous arachnids, insects, animals, trees, shrubs, fish and sheep of Australia, volumes 1-42"

Berry Sad Murder

2007-12-15T21:49:00.000-08:00

Mac OS X Leopard - Hint 1

2007-11-10T17:22:00.000-08:00

Application Folder in Dock fix.

*FIX* for the Application dock folder we all used to have being turned into a stack that just doesn't work for more than 20 Apps

1:Make an Alias of the applications folder, put it anywhere you want I made a folder called aliases in my home folder for I think this won't be the only folder I will do this with.
2: Drag that alias to the dock right side of the runway strip, and presto .. You have your old folder that will open in the finder window like before..

Before :

After:

Flip 4 Mac

2007-09-16T06:08:00.000-07:00

So you want to see movies that have been downloaded from the internet huh? Well they are going to be encoded with whats called a 'Divx' Codec. Don't wreck your brain thinking about what that is, just get 'Flip4mac' and that will take care of the rest..

For people with a fresh Mac

World Music for Free with Magnatune

2007-09-16T06:05:00.000-07:00

Magnatune, with the slogan "we are not evil" they bring you a world of music for a much or as little money as you want to spend.

2007-09-06T05:55:00.000-07:00

2007-04-13T06:46:00.000-07:00

Glaze over the world

2007-04-05T19:14:00.000-07:00

The Coca Cola can sits, crushed. That is all you can say about it really. Pity would warrant a more detailed description but sometimes all you can about objects and people is simple that, crushed. Shadows of people passing by provide a brief detraction from the otherwise constant image of aluminum and concrete. Wind was even barely an influence.

The gathered clouds parted to reveal the ground saturated from the summer storm. Mid morning pedestrians paused and looked to the sky to see the blackness pass on, there was no site of an encore. Heads focussed on the short passage of ground that map their path they continue, some lost in discussion, some with ear phones providing not only a detraction of from their surroundings but providing a glaze over the world, making the somber streets that little more pleasing.

A man runs, he is really running. Two people waiting for a tram can't decide if he is running to something, or running from. Either way there is a good chance the question will be answered, pleased of the brief entertainment their head move from side to side waiting for the answer to either 'to' or 'from'.

The coffee shop on the corner Victoria and Shelly streets plays host to a group of friends, discussion saturate the walls and compete with the smooth jazz carving ambiance.

"I know, every week!"
"Every week?"
"Every week!, I don't know how I am able to walk"
"Damn I would be totally walking with a limp,"

"No way! No freaking way, you don't understand"
"Sure try me, I am the caring type willing to listen"
"Ok well first of all what I don't understand is that no matter how--"
"hang on I have to take this call, but hey I totally respect, that.... Hello!"

"Blue or Green?"
"What?"
"Blue or Green!?"
".......What?"
"Blue or Green!?"
"Blue or Green?"
"Yes Blue or Green!?"

"You look sick, I have a pill somewhere in my bag you should take it"
"you have a pill in your bag, your just reaching in and grabbing 'a pill' and giving it to me for me to take"
"yes.."
"you don't know whats wrong with me.."
"you look sick"
"You don't know what the pill is"
"Oh but when I was sick the doctor told me to take it and it totally made me better"
"Ahhhhh"
"Here it is 'miconazole'. Take that!"

"I am sooo stressed right now"
"so am I, right now, I am soooo stressed"
"You know it, right now, like right now.. I am sooo stressed"
"I wish I wasn't, but right now, as I sit here drinking this coffee, with two sugars, and this piece of dark chocolate sits on my tongue and it melts through when i drink the coffee"
"Yes?"
"I am soooo stressed"
"Me to, i am totally sooooooo stressed"

"OH MY GOD YOU HAVE TO TRY THIS LIP BALM!"

A man runs by, approaching the coffee shop, somewhat a blur as he passes. He dodges a man holding the daily order of liquid intelligence, ducking a weaving, pushing and apologists he runs, and runs and runs.

A coca cola can, sits newly discarded rolling around embracing the new found bliss of freadom. The wind is it's allie delivering it to destinations unknown, giving it adventure the likes it has never seen before. The sheer boredom of it's previous life evaporating. Allready it seems so long a ago where--.

A foot, comes out of nowhere, moving a lightning speeds, crushing the can in a single violent blow. It's rolling motion and blissful freedom stolen by a single running man.

Shadows play, shadows of independent lives dance, it exists now with a single view on the world, strangers ignore. There only gift, shadows.

Running through my veins

2007-04-05T19:12:00.000-07:00

Without doubt I am addicted, i realise this as I sit here typing the fragmented thoughts that ooze there way through arms to the keyboard like a merchant sailor on a London dock at 5:00am. Vices we all have and if I were to choose from the great wheel of vices then I would chose this one over all others. Or is the vice itself talking, through some form self preservation.

I tried going without it for some time, well to be honest some time consisted of four days. The mornings were the surreal array of foster habits that have been addopted to serve as a patch for the missing 'big habit'. Even sitting at my desk seemed a task barely worthy of my most resolute of convictions, a once most secure rope of resolution now is exposed for how threadbare it actually pathetically is.

That was the first day, the second was equally as surreal but somewhat more established, new habits were forming coating the other older habits that loitered with the vice somewhat successfully. If it were a scratch in a table you would still be able to see it, yet invisible to touch. I started mocking other people, "Behold my amazing abilities in self control for I chose therefore I am" yet as I say so i dare not look into their eye for the item in their hand was the object of my desire. Only a phone call saved me from making a embarrassing request.

The third day i introduced myself to the reflection for the first time, for not unlike a departed loved one experiencing a chance meeting some years the latter from the separation only to find that she has changed somewhat, and sadly for the better. I looked at myself, my skin, the lines across face, the state that I was in that was clearly more alert, causing me to stop brushing my teeth and with the foam still present I slowly touched myself on the glass in almost disbelief.

The fourth and fifth were as one, almost not worth the mention save for the constant presence of a small voice, a vice caddy sitting on my shoulder giving me every reason to stop what I was doing, no matter how productive and just have one more... try. Saved again by my hectic schedule and my mistress the mobile phone burdening me with constant wanting of attention and conversation. The schizophrenic device, everytime I talk to it there is another voice, another personality that talks back.

The sixth day, the sixth day, the sixth. I was at the hight of personal arrogance, my body now somewhat clean and my perspective on life not tainted with the constant clock like desire to consume clouding all my judgments, slicing my day into three different thirds. The morning, the after lunch and the evening. I return home, almost whistling some stupid tune as I walk in, I was confronted with a device that was to be bring me to my knees, render the past week as pointless as hammering with a chocolate hammer, and as futile as pushing back the ocean.

A home Coffee, machine. Completely with professional quality handle, steamer and a still sealed tin container of Vittorria's Oro Cafe / Restaurant blend coffee.

My partners parents were sitting at the name, it was clear to me that she had been shopping and given the expression on her face she was beyond joy to see the gift he has brought home. I looked at her, looked at 'IT' and then to the parents. In a slow motion voice, the voice you hear on sport replays she said "Why don't you make us a cup of coffee, i know how much you have always wanting to have one of your own, think of the money we will save. Making all those coffee's, all those coffee's...."

Actually there was a conversation wrapped around those statements, but it was those i heard the others were as much murmurings a kin to the voices of the tables surrounding you in a busy restaurant. They are there but that's all you can say about them. So the machine was warmed up, the instruction manual ignored as I made the coffee.

In reflection it was both the greatest and worst coffee I have ever made. The world swam into focus, the distance between coherence and simply existing was brought closer, everything was possible, everything was achievable, everything was so colorful. Again my day was to be brought into three pieces, again my emotions dictated to me by my vice.

It was great to be back

Printable Camera Hoods

2007-03-25T23:48:00.000-07:00

This is something I never knew I wanted. Just the other day I was thinking about experimenting with other camera hoods for my D70 when I found out the cost. This guy has gone and made it so damn cheap anyone can play!

Basically you print them out, cut them out and use them like ordinary camera hoods. Although i recommend spending a bit of cash and getting some decent black cardboard type paper, to make it that much more like the real thing

Check it out

http://www.lenshoods.co.uk/

Digging a hole

2007-01-14T00:00:00.000-08:00

We are building a fence, but first Kim has to overcome the first challenge. Digging a hole. There are water pipes to the left, and water pipes to the right, can she dig the hole. Catch all the action here!

Rufus Playing with a ball

2007-01-12T22:38:00.000-08:00

It's interesting if you are into that kind of thing!!

Kim doing handy man work...

2007-01-12T22:11:00.000-08:00

She has been waiting a long time to finish this. You can be there to witness the event!

Choose... the Red or the Blue..

2007-01-09T00:23:00.000-08:00

Choose... the Red or the Blue..
Originally uploaded by Drew__.

He wanted to be Morphius from Caddy Shack

THE CROCODILES ARE CRYING - Poem by Rupert McCall for Steve Irwin

2006-09-12T00:27:00.000-07:00

THE CROCODILES ARE CRYING

Endless visions fill my head – this man – as large as life
And instantly my heart mourns for his angels and his wife
Because the way I see Steve Irwin – just put everything aside
It comes back to his family – it comes back to his pride

His animals inclusive – Crikey – light the place with love!
Shine his star with everything he fought to rise above
The crazy-man of Khaki from the day he left the pouch
Living out his dream and in that classic ‘Stevo’ crouch

Exploding forth with character and redefining cheek
It’s one thing to be honoured as a champion unique
It’s one thing to have microphones and spotlight cameras shoved
It’s another to be taken in and genuinely loved

But that was where he had it right – I guess he always knew
From his fathers’ modest reptile park and then Australia Zoo
We cringed at times and shook our heads – but true to natures call
There was something very Irwin in the make up of us all

Yes the more I care to think of it – the more he had it right
If you’re going to make a difference – make it big and make it bright!
Yes - he was a lunatic! Yes - he went head first!
But he made the world feel happy with his energetic burst

A world so large and loyal that it’s hard to comprehend
I doubt we truly count the warmth until life meets an end
To count it now I say a prayer with words of inspiration
May the spotlight shine forever on his dream for conservation

…My daughter broke the news to me – my six year old in tears
It was like she’d just turned old enough to show her honest fears
I tried to make some sense of it but whilst her Dad was trying
His little girl explained it best…she said “The crocodiles are crying”

The new iMacs. Faster. Bigger. Brighter But with a G5!!??

2006-09-06T06:45:00.000-07:00

Here's a nice web site goof

Go to this site http://www.apple.com/imac/

Click on the 'Buy online now' text link on the right

Checkout the add...

*chuckle*

Mark your location

2006-02-27T04:19:00.000-08:00

Mark your location on this Frapper site... Click the link below...

[Click here]
Should be fun..

What do you see?

2006-01-04T18:05:00.000-08:00

What do you see?
Originally uploaded by Drew__.

Well I am in the midst of a lovely pink haze known as ten minutes after coffee... ahh during this time anything is possible, a moment in time when some of the more creative inventions I am sure were invented.. like really dark chocolate.. hmm from a guy named Hanz.. yes Hanz.. who stated that after his second short black... "Meine Schokolade ist nicht genug dunkel. Ich lasse dunklere Schokolade essen, während, Kaffee trinkend. Die ist die Weise, die es sein sollte. Schokolade sollte dunkel sein, wie Frauen einfach sein sollten. Ich bin in meiner Studie"

Well that's how I see it anyway.. and as Wen the eternally surprised says "There is no past, only the memory of the past, events only exist whilst we remember them. Once we forget, they are gone, and they never existed" So therefore if i make something up and don't actually know the truth then inside my own little private universe known as Andrew's Noggin.. It's the Truth, its history.. it's fact... simple.

Why do I take the occasional photo of myself? Well then one day miss Venezuela might call past my site and say 'My gawwwd... yous a honey.. honey!! *click click* .. yes that's right I imaging miss Venezuela as gutter trash picked up from the street corner by a van with no windows, chloroformed, taken to one of those 'special' hospitals where a doctor named "Miguel Sanchez" perform es an enhancement.. She is then trained at gun point to say lines like "I am all about Dolphins, and recycling.. Children are the future, and they should respect the elders and Minority Groups" Constantly fed pure grade Heroin to serve as an invisible bondage, knowing that no matter where she goes, whatever street corner she ends up on the heroin she has there is absolutely nothing compared to what her arm has been sucking up for weeks..

People with no names, similar hair cuts and exactly the same glass frames nod at each other as she rehearses her lines, her turns.. her twenty five minute smile's, the way the hands move, all the motions radiate perfection, glamor, and above all beauty. So when she takes the stage, the inner shell of what was really her, the inner person that had hopes and dreams of one day opening a flower shop and selling reasonably priced symbols of love and hope to new couples as they stop past for one brief moment in the journey that is their blissful life. That one simple dream screams the futile scream of a hostage locked in the boot of a car, pushed of a peer and given one short journey measured in fathoms instead of kilometers, as she glides onto the stage, he skin glistening, her smile locked, he stare of pure heroin induced bliss. She says the right words, makes all the right moves, address's all the demographics that are aligned with the key sponsors. Men fall in love with her, or maybe lust. Women hate her, which is just a more pure and focused form of respect. There is no question that young girls should be just like her.. and for the right price, so can the guys.

She accepts the flowers, the sash, the tiara.. takes the walk, soaks up the praise, sheds an acceptable amount of tears at the exactly the right moment.

The show is over, lights switched off, the men with the same frames give her one last injection rendering her unconscious, she wakes up on the same corner the tiara gone, the flowers by her side and her proud sash still proclaiming absolute beauty. Then the shakes begin.

With left with nothing but an image of the past months blured beyond the point of recollection she attempts to stand. She needs food, or something, anything. Hunched and shaking she stands on the corner, for one lucky man to know what it's like to sleep with Miss Venezuela.

My Em, Staring

2005-11-05T04:40:00.000-08:00

My Em, Staring
Originally uploaded by Drew__.

We eat, on Sundays when we are feeling lazy, to lazy to throw something in the microwave and watch it rotate around and around. There is a place not ten minutes down the road in Box Hill. The food is great, the atmosphere is.. well average, but lets once again focus on the food... it's all about the food.

She sits staring at the window, a person walking past which is painfully thin. She comments feeling a sensation of instant comparison insecurity "Am I fat?" I reply, "Why is it that the thinner you are the more attractive you instantly become?" if this was the case then we would simply draw stick figures and place them in playboy knowing we have reached the peak of sexual attractiveness..

"No honey, she is to thin, i feel like running out with a steak and asking for dear god if she would only eat... put something back on that body, if i wanted to see a rotting corps i could sign up to cut up cadavers... but of course it's your body, who am I to judge.. just don't walk over water drains.."

The food comes... and she eats...

Thank God

This isn't me

2005-11-05T04:23:00.000-08:00

Early Morning
Originally uploaded by Drew__.

I would like to say, that some of the photo's I take really don’t reflect me that well, the look the style the shape the impression I make just isn't who I am in real life. For instance a bunch of people to whom i like to call my friends have mentioned to me that have seen this site that in real life I am not this serious, I am, in fact quite annoying in my failed attempts to be funny, or my obscure look on life. The fact that I can take on glance out of my car on the way home from work, and for some reason formulate that into some opinion about how the universe works.. and how we would save a hell of allot of time if only scientists would only spend less time looking out of telescopes and more time looking at the life that we pass in the car in an average day, to get the answer for everyday questions.. For example..

How did evolution create humans from all walks of life and yet we can have so many things in common.. The stars won't tell you the answer to this, oh sure we could look to the stars for the answer.. "Some distant Galaxy is crashing into another Galaxy therefore that is similar to the “Scots at Battle of Culloden” so there my friend is your answer... now give me another multi million dollar grant!" But there is a cheaper option... for instance.. we can accept the universal rule that no matter where you are from, what culture you belong, there will always be what is known in Australia as a Tool. To prove my theory do this simple test, when driving to wherever you drive tomorrow, to work from work whatever take a look out your window of your car, and if you see some "Tool" with his stereo causing him / her permanent hearing loss, and if he has a sticker on the back of his car with some statement about the size of women that can only enter his vehicle.. or something similar of equal humor value.. Then know that we all can potentially possess the "Tool" gene, and thus binds all our culture into one...

Like the cotton that binds the pieces of fabric that make up a quilt.
What do you think?

The Colour and the shape....

2005-08-03T05:37:00.000-07:00

The Colour and the shape....
Originally uploaded by Avatar Palin.

The alarm insults me, rips me from the world where surreal-ness rules with an iron fist. Although seeing it's a surreal world its more like a rubber chicken, thats how they work. You can't get surreal without strange, it just doesn't go that way, the statement "A surreal thing happened to me on the way to the post office" simply can't happen. It just can't.

I slap the alarm choosing the two hour snooze option and drift back asleep, as the head loses itself the comfort of the pillow, and the body to the womb of the bed. The fragile balance of the here and now and the was and then hang for a still moment in time, lingering waiting for direction, waiting for intervention. It occurs, suddenly noises normally suppressed with pure will power infiltrate the senses previously impervious and cause a nail down a chalk board experience to implode my beautiful zen like state in to chaos. It's times like these you wish the creators of the universe, whom ever they are that they could of built a bit more robustness into states such as Zen, for it's almost impossible to achieve and can be gone in the flutter of the wing of a butterfly.

Actually this is not true, a Zen like experience can be achieved very easily although the event can not occur through any direct action by the person, or Zen'ee. It goes something like this.

The alarm insults me, and rips me from the world where surreal-ness was still ruling with a 'rubber-chicken'. I am reminded of how human I am, the exact reminder located somewhere down near the bladder area, and in haste (given the time) i make my way "to" and then "from" and begin the morning routine of getting myself to work, and then it happens, the Zen experience that i have been so fortunate to experience i am amongst the truly lucky. No the truly blessed!

It's Saturday.

I stare at the mirror, and begin talking to myself (as times like this there is no one to share this moment with) and then with the widest grin a man can possibly achieve whilst being vertical... and not leaning against something for support, I make my way slowly back to bed, i gently lower my head back onto the pillow and silently, whilst maintaining the child like smile ,drift back to sleep.

Zen, the monks can say what they like, it simply... rocks!

Happy Birthday to me!!

2005-07-18T07:07:00.000-07:00

Hotel, Ipod, Camera... sorted!
Originally uploaded by Avatar Palin.

Just turned 30.... God thirty years on this planet... I am starting to respect rocks, they have been around for millions of year...

..Keith Richards to when you think about it

The Plan

2005-07-02T01:15:00.000-07:00

All good plans, be it a renovation of a house, a financial decision, or even a gut level plan consisting of “I plan to ask that person out on a date” eventually have to leave the realm of the brain, where the plan that had succeeded flawlessly now actually had to be put to action…in the real world. Where you quite often realise, as you take the fifteenth trip to the hardware store for just the right type of nail, or explain to your partner why high (short term) returns sadly quite often go hand in hand with high risk, or even that the person you were quite sure was giving you the “right signals, each one of them a green like, red flag, starting pistol.. etc” explained that she would much rather groom herself and / or cut her nails than allow you to give her a free meal, a couple of alcoholic beverages and just because you are a really nice guy. A place to stay when she was feeling tired.

Even though the plan went so swimmingly well in your brain, real life has a way of hitting you with a wet cold smelly fished label “Atlantic Reality Salmon” just letting you know who runs the show around here. You may be the boat, but I am the stream… baby
This was the plan, a simple one. Whilst in a foreign country I decided to pay for a bunch of guys (cousins.. now) to come out with us and consume enough alcohol until we were singing [INSERT FAVOURITE DRUNKEN SONG HERE]. They are both taxi drivers and have to work seven days a week in order to have what they would call a decent living. So it was decided that the plan would be altered. I found out how much they earned a night and well gave them that in Australian money and then asked if they could come out. I didn’t want to offend, but I really did want them to come out on a night on the town. Drinking is an internationally recognised sport of champions, and I was eager to play.

A total sum of $50 Australian dollars was handed over and we were off. The men were sitting around the table, looking.. Staring, not wanting to twitch in case one person spoke out of turn. When on a boy’s night out protocol must always, ‘all-bloody-ways’ be observed lest yea find themselves waking with one eye brow (only the best of friends do this).

A look, a stare trying not to show any sign of emotion. I could feel the sweat beginning to form, “be a glacier, like a glacier” I told myself in the privacy of my own head “you are in Alaska on a glacier… No you are the glacier, you are a …..river… that moves…. Seven inches …a year….BE THE DAMN GLACIER”

Rustle.. lift.. slap.. thud.. Ahhhh

I gave in and placed the first item on the table, I was waiting for them to suggest the first type of drink we would consume, they were waiting for me, neither one wanting to upset the other. If Vietnam had tumbleweeds, oh and if narrative causality wasn’t out the back for a smoke then it would of arranged one to tumble between us. Yet I cracked, I had to find out, what they thought of good old Australian “Bundaberg Rum” So it was presented, the bottle inspected from one person to the next. Which reminds me I should at least introduce my drinking partners, or “The Guys”.

Sung’s father

A construction worker, the man is a born poker player. Perhaps years of living the blue collar life has tempered his emotions harder than steel. He has the ability with one stare to make you feel uncomfortable. He inspected the bottle, taking particular notice to the neck, and asked “can I have it dry”

Sung

Not pronounced “Sung” as in “I sung really well did you hear me did you, did you, did you?” it is pronounced “Soong” well that’s the best I can translate anyway. He is a cab driver, one of the half brothers to Kim adopted many years ago for circumstances unknown. He was keen to see Kim again telling her stories about what she was up to when she was four, rather dull really if it hadn’t been during a violent conflict. He inspects the bottle, taking particular notice of the underside. Gives the facial expression that isn’t a frown, buy that frown like expression that says to the room at large “impressive”*, and passes it to ‘Tu’

*Similar to when an elderly man is showing his teeth, it doesn’t mean they are angry and are likely to attack, it means they are looking at something which they are about to fix, old men look with they’re teeth. Check it out sometime, you will know what I mean

Tu

Father of one, Husband of two (figure that out). Tu inspects the bottle tapping the glass with his nails. Normally that would be pass unnoticed, a man likes to know his drink isn’t about to seep through the container to which houses the contents, stands to reason. A simple tap can really put a man’s mind at ease. Yet as he taps the glass, using one finger then the next and so on. For a moment I am totally distracted, I lose interest in the world and focus on his nails. They are all very long, very very thick. And very…VERY sharp.

I was told that it a common defence tool from the Asian culture to have at least one or two nails grown, strengthened and sharpened this way for defence reasons. Being a taxi driver I can only assume he employs more thorough approach to the safety issue. I asked how this was meant to work, surely a good solid well-chosen fist, and knee combination would give you something to talk about for weeks. Yet they decide to go down a more, what I would call gruesome path. If the passenger decides to endanger the life of Tu… Tu will, to save his own life. Show his nails to the person, in particular the thumbnails. Particularly closely, so closely in fact it would be the last thing the eyeball’s… see.

Well there is something to drink to, drink up Yo Ho!

With the bottle inspected, contents sniffed the liquid was poured into and tasted. They’re eye’s looked into null space as they’re brain waited from the scores from the judges. From the comments, I believe Bundaberg Rum received a firm seven out of ten.

A few drinks later it was time for the various people that my drinking buddies knew to come over and introduce themselves to this Whiteman who for the past half an hour occupied all of their curiosity, until they could “stands it no more”. The first man, in fact worked at the (what I can only describe as an) open air family restaurant. The interesting twist, Sung who had been available for quite some time has recently, somehow, managed the time to get a girlfriend. The man standing over him was the brother of that girl. Sung, very quickly actually almost too quickly (allot can be said by the way a man moves) placed a packet of cigarettes in his hands gesturing him to smoke…now.. and also quickly poured him a glass of this new wonderful seven out of ten Bundaberg rum and coke.

Even though he was ‘technically’ working he took time to accept these gestures of goodwill and consumed them with gusto. Something was said and he gave me a welcoming look and fairly wet and weak handshake, Sung turned red with nervous tension and the girlfriends older (decision making) brother, went back to work.

Ahhhh so the elderly brother has the power to say if the sister will be seeing this man or not, this is interesting in Australia the elderly brother is very much ignored when it comes to whether the girl will date a person or not. In fact no matter how loud the protest the women will very much make her own mind up. In Vietnam Sung must be proven to be a decent person in order to continue seeing her, or as just demonstrated decency can come in many forms. In body, smoke and spirit. Although one thig is assured if the older brother says no then it’s off.

It’s a good thing he liked the Rum, I would hate to be responsible for his chance of romance to be thwarted.

With the Rum finished, and a smaller bottle of really disappointing Cognac we were of to somewhere louder to really let our hair down. The bill came, and for a meal for four it totalled 250,000 Dong ($20 AU). It seems it is impossible to spend any sort of large amounts in this country.

The second destination that was chosen was an all American bar, with the red white and blue colours having an ‘in your face’ style façade we entered and soon discovered that the universal bar like atmosphere has made it to down town Saigon. Although for the first time in my trip I was hearing the English language spoken by strangers. Causing me to do a stupid dance to “Play that funky music white boy” just in front of the smallest door bouncers I have seen in my life, having no doubt that they would be able to show me any organ I chose just before I died I decided to enter the normal way “Don’t make eye contact otherwise they won’t let you in on account of your shoes” Standard denial of entry statement, Page 3, Paragraph 1 from the “Nice Bouncer, Jerk Bouncer” This is where the roller coaster of a night changed from the leisurely climb to the peak of the inclination to the rather fast, loud and above all fun decent.

We were ushered to a table and given a bottle of some sort of Cognac and told to drink that, this is where we came into some confusion, here’s what happened.

“You drink this, is good and you get one for free”

“No I want the bottle of Jameson’s Irish whiskey”

“No you drink this, cause you get a bottle for free”

“No… I want a bottle of Jameson’s Irish whiskey, I hate Cognac”

There was a pause as she looked around and another women came over and continued the ‘sales pitch’

“Hello sir, what will you be drinking tonight”
“Oh you speak English better than the other girl, great! OK can you get me a bottle of Jameson’s Irish Whiskey”

“Would you like to drink Cognac, you get one bottle for free”

“No thanks just the Jamesons Irish Whiskey”

“But you get one bottle for free…OK-‘ And then preceded to walk of in the ‘going to get a bottle of crappy Cognac” walk, I knew what was needed at this point in time. Really bad, broken Vietnamese, it annoys the crap out of Kim it should drive this person spare. Especially if I try to be really, really bad. Beyond my normal level of incompetence.

(Translated in English)

“Hello. How are you. Switch the light off!” – This got her attention in the same way a loud sexist comment like “what are you doing out of the kitchen” would draw at a feminist book sale

“what did you say” – her face said whilst her lips remained still, deciding to have some fun I continued

“Significant other. Go shower. What is the time. Shut up. I am a Mr” which made her lean closer, obviously saying to herself that with the loudness of the band and the dull roar of the crowd what she thought she heard she could in no way possibly actually of been heard, no one would could be that stupid to speak that badly to me, someone like me, no. With Kim almost wetting herself the stubborn barmaid leaned closer and in a defeatist tone asked “what would you like”

“A bottle of Jameson’s Irish whiskey please”

“OK”

Before to long the bottle was placed, even though it did cost me 75,000 Dong it was worth it.

So the night progressed, the band was really good singing all the western classics which were yelled quite loudly buy our group, although the Viet cousins could only word the chorus and just sound the other parts (like we do when learning a song) they kept consuming the Jameson’s, making themselves drink after drinking cheering “Yo” every time. One could almost get RSI from the amount of toasting the Viet’s love to do, it makes for a festive night though.

Then it became apparent that Sung was going to learn a lesson about whiskey and rum, it’s a little stronger than beer. For he has stopped singing at the top of his voice and became, forebodingly silent. He let us know that he was feeling ill, because he stated quite clearly “I feel fine” and he let us know that he was about to, well ‘call for Huey’ because he said quite clearly that “I am not going to be sick”

Then he was silent and very still. The calm before the storm.

Then he grabbed for the ice bucket and in one long “groooop” gave that ice bucket something is was going to try and not remember for the rest of it’s life.

William Friedkin would have been proud!

The immediate tables cheered to this and kept on singing. Tu decided that I was sweating to much and began wiping my brow every thirty seconds. Over and over again, very refreshing as it was I was beginning to get looks from some men within the room.

And then as if someone clicked the ‘next chapter’ button on the DVD remote we were leaving, Sung looking an interesting shade of green, his father completely gone and Tu now having trouble with basic body movements, like walking, even standing up. Even though through a slurred Viet he stated he was fine, and even though he couldn’t stand he said he was ok to ride his Motorbike home. I said to kim “He would made ten feet, how are you?”

“Fine, how are you?”

“Well better than these two, no I’m fine.. Seriously, don’t give me that look”

It became apparent that we had one car to get home and one motorbike, and Tu was starting to become stubborn, he had to save face (as we all do) and through this he had to ride his bike home. I knew it in an instant, this was one of those moments you would look back on and smile whilst saying to your kids “Now you never bloody do what I did otherwise you feel the back of me hand”

“I will ride the bike home, Tu will go with me” This was translated. A shaking hand meant that he didn’t agree

“Look you can’t even shake your hand properly, I will ride you home and if you want to spew tap my right shoulder, or just spew whichever one works”

“I’m not going to spew” Tu said (translated)

“Oh great we have to get him home quickly, he’s going to spew” I said taking the keys of him, which made Tu stare at his hand like I had performed some magic trick, sat in his bike and patted the seat. With a little bit of a protest he hopped on, said something like he was really embarrassed to Kim but stayed on. I told him that this would make us brothers, and if he were in Australia now he would be considered a legend. This seemed to appease the “saving face” thought, and he even managed a drunken smile.

Riding to his house was interesting, it must have been my smooth riding technique because Tu was falling asleep, I knew this because his body kept drifting to the side. Now I had to negotiate the roads, a bike I didn’t know and now a passenger very quickly becoming cargo, and the cargo was falling off.

This is where I started to think of Monty Python, and began to sing… at the top of my voice

“Always look on the bright side of life, de do, de do de do. Always look on the bright side of life. De do, de do de do de do. Life may be a shit, when you look at it…..umm Always look on the bright side of life…. Etc etc”

The looks I received from the people that were up at 3:00am eating on the side of the road, because Saigon really does never, ever sleep. It dozes, it exercises, but it never sleeps. And the non sleeping people on the side of the road that were enjoying a nice and quite bowl of noodles temporarily had it interrupted by a wailing giant of a white man, zooming past with another man on the back half asleep with a rather large drunken grin as he was sung to.

The trick worked though, it woke him up and we made it home. The bucket made it to, with three second to spare before Tu started to really “not” throw up.

As I laid my weary head onto the pillow that night, I had time for one thought. Monty Python, where the hell did that one come from.

Vietnam - Road Trip

2005-06-24T08:26:00.000-07:00

Vietnam - The Beach
Originally uploaded by Avatar Palin.

Road Trip

The street sweeper swept, whilst a family of four on a motorbike passed within inches. The elderly man sat asleep on his banana lounge with a fan resting on his chest. The teenage boy stands waving inviting people to eat at his restaurant. The hawker hawks, the merchants sell, the children play, and life the most peaceful and yet as complex as I know.

… “Lives.”

Whilst Andrew sleeps.

A knock at the door, I turn, mumble something incoherent and drift back to sleep. A distant shower echoes spattering noises. Something is dropped bringing the world temporarily into focus, then fades softens into nothing.

A Knock at the door.

I make sure I’m at least partly covered, something is said, something about getting up. The pillow argues a very persuasive point, I agree with the pillow and send the world back whence it came so easily it amazes me.

Something is said, the same words repeated three times, each time the sound comes into a coherent range, it’s simple.. get up, we have to go. The bus is here

I am sitting in a minibus, staring out a window to a night that is as meaningless and irrelevant like every part of this earth is round the time of sleep being a recent delightful memory. Vietnamese is spoken, a person laughs seats pushed forward, people sit down. An elderly woman steps on, she hits someone with a fan, some dim light within my brain fires, ‘I know that person’.

The world is dark, the van is moving and silence falls. Blissful ‘silence’ if it’s not the mother of rest, then it’s the comforting arms. The world once again becomes softer, softer then like a light it’s switched of,, my own private universe becomes that much more private. Something is dreamt, one of the forgotten dreams.

Three men yell, someone else laughs. I pry open my eye’s, an LCD screen insults the darkness and hurts the eyes. Three grown men, one elderly dance around to a familiar NSync song, singing in Vietnamese. Then they talk and they seem to be funny. Although at this point in time, it’s one of those laugh or cry moments, the ones where you really do find out what you are made off. I laugh, but only barely.. This experience is so surreal I have to consider the possibility that they have taken my marbles away.

The van drives on.

The time is 3:40am, and I am sitting in a minivan, now quite awake having that itching feeling that tomorrow I will pay for the lack of sleep I am missing though with the seat being uncomfortable, and what seems to be the third volume of these three men performing their comedy act being played I knew when I was beat, a personality trait I cherish. So I look at life outside of Saigon, we are now in the country. Looking strangely similar, though what I can see distinctly cleaner. We pass through a funeral precession, there is about fifty people, some of them wearing headbands. It’s strange to see this performed at this time of night, but I remember. I being Australian operate by the clock, they don’t. It’s the coolest, least busy time of day so it’s makes sense.

Eventually we reach our destination. The beach. The reason we are here, because ‘Ba Wi’ wanted to see the sunrise from this beach and so the whole family decided to make all the arrangements and leave, that same day. We left at 12:00am and arrived at 4:45. At what seems to be a roadside diner Viet style. An open design, the place doesn’t have walls just a peak roof that continues down to about a meter and a half from the ground. Lining one side a row of hammocks, mental note if you ever see yourself there make sure grab the nice cotton ones, the robe style design are made for a shorter body, and therefore bloody uncomfortable for a 182cm Australian.

As the sun turns the surrounding from pitch black to monochrome grey the texture of our surroundings appear to be of the mountain persuasion, there are steep inclines cascading to a horizon. As I occasionally gaze as the blacks turn to grey’s with the increasing light the grey’s are slowly replaced with red’s. It appears, unless I am mistaken, that we are in a desert, and what I am seeing before me are hills and hills of sand dunes. Standing up I stumble across a road fifty meters from my uncomfortable hammock where my feet are met with fine, red, sand. There is a large dune in front of me, so with very little thought, caught in the bizarre moment I head for the peak, stand and see before me stretched to the horizon a desert a kin to the middle east. Boy was my ignorant horizon being yanked wide..

The beach where we ended up actually turns out to be quite famous, known as the ‘Gold Cost’ of Vietnam, the tourist industry has taken advantage of the geographical gift and have places non intrusive resorts along the coast, with stories no higher than two the place has a little village feel, even though I am sure big bucks are made. After the sunrise was witnessed we head down to a resort area where we are to stay for the day. $12500 Dong later ($2:50 AU) we had a soccer ball and beach soccer was bringing us all together. Within minutes people from our family, and complete strangers were kicking the ball around. All interested to see how a white person handles the ball. I did ok…(for an IT pro). They were sympathetic, and polite, turning their heads to laugh, pretending to cough etc.

At 6:15 we were swimming in the water, warm and peaceful

At 6:45, we were drinking Tiger Beer.

At 7:45 I had finished my seventh, having this stupid half male half Australian urge to represent my country and uphold our reputation for being able to put them away. Reminding myself this is not a cricket trip, but still if a bottle is finished they quickly give you another one and there were so many toasts.. so many..

10:45, I woke up from a brilliant nap on a banana lounge, the sun now high in the sky and a great number of people all enjoying their day at the beach. Taking the time to check out the white guy, which was fair enough. I was taking the time to check them out.

Before leaving I was introduced to ‘Three ball billiards’, and when I say introduced basically I had my arse kicked. But that’s ok, that’s really ok..

I had to smile when I lay back in bed that night. We drove five hours because the Grandmother wanted to see the sunset from a beach, and the whole family just dropped whatever they were doing and left. No question. That’s a strong family bond, something very typical of the life here in Vietnam. Something they can be proud of.

You should check this country out… you really should

Cu Chi Tunnel

2005-06-20T02:41:00.000-07:00

Vietnam - Cu Chi Tunnel
Originally uploaded by Avatar Palin.

Here’s a morel question for you, given the recent violent events in history, would you if given the chance, pick up an AK-47 semi automatic assault rifle and let loose with a couple dozen rounds or so? While you pondered… I made some noise!

Another question, would you , given the opportunity go meters under the earth in tunnels built in the sixties designed to be large enough for the average Viet soldier, not an American nor Australian. Oh and just for those people sitting on the fence, there might be spiders.

Forgive me but I ticked both boxes yes in that little questionnaire under the title “what do you want to do today?”

Another day in paradise, started like the previous with a glorious cup of caffeine packaged in a coffee bean. Consumed in complete and utter relaxation, the air like a warm bath one can sit easily and let the humidity and heat just melt the tension in the muscles. With the time being passed by turning away the various book, hammock, chewing gum, news paper, motor bike, nail clipper merchants. Life is good on the street’s of Saigon, not only for the tourist but for everyone one in general.

As I think this, a one legged man walks past with crutches selling what appears to be lottery tickets, god even he is smiling.

Once again we are to head outside the city on a one and a half hour drive, to a place that has not only a remaining tunnel system where we will be crawling through but a memorial to the fallen Viet Soldiers in the War.

The conversation in the car ceased as everyone (except the driver luckily) falls of to sleep, I take the time to reacquaint myself with a little gadget I like to call an iPod, being reluctant to wear it whilst I go for a morning run due to two main reasons A: I was told it would be stolen from me, which I now find hard to believe and B: Tiger Beer at night, means no run for Drew in the morning, so no need for iPod. With the song starting, the world that I was looking through the window pain of a taxi became, for one of a better word ‘surreal’ I recommend this when you travel abroad, and something definitely to do in Vietnam. Find some smooth song, John Mayer is an excellent choice and just watch the life go by whilst immersed in the music. You tend to notice things, the different way thhe people going about they’re business. The man chipping away a coconut to be sold as a drink for locals, to the woman walking along with two large baskets of fruit supported by one long flat plank of wood over her shoulder, to the old man kicking back in his own rickshaw with the air of one that projects to the world “if you want business, come to me, because it’s to damn hot to give a damn”. The architecture, to the dogs upon dogs up dogs that just lay around taking things easy, plus of course the thousands upon thousands of motorbikes that zig zag in and out of cars and each other coming from and going to god only knows.

We arrive at Cu Chi War Memorial, after a short stop where the taxi driver (a cousin of Kim’s family) stop the car on the side of the road suddenly, hops out and bolts up the side of the road. Runs into a shop, runs back out again, back to the car, placing one hand on his hips the other leaning against the side of the taxi gasping for air. Then opens his new packet of cigarettes, shoots on in the mouth, lights and sucks about half of the cigarette in one take..

Some things are universal, and the look he gave just then, is the same for every smoker worldwide.

The Cu chi tunnels system is a very interesting tour to go on, just don’t expect to feel welcome when you are there. This was made very clear to me very quickly. Looking like some sort of military camp there were current soldiers casually walking around, although when gave them a smile and said badly “hello – how are you?” all I received was a welcome to Vietnam.. glare. Well I thought, it’s time I introduced you to a little saying in Australia which goes something like “Bugger you”, or something like that. Having paid our ticket we were ushered to some waiting seats fifty meters into the jungle, where the tour guide was to meet us all. The tour began, speaking only in Vietnamese he ushered us down to a shed to watch a fifteen minute video about the history of Cu Chi, which thankfully was in English. It was your typical proper gander style film, though personally there was a fair bit of truth to their side of the story. The interesting part was the explanation of the tunnel system itself. Three levels deep, being 3, 6, and 10 meters into the earth. Each layer becoming smaller and smaller in diameter designed to be only be able to be entered by a very small body, the system stretching for kilometres was the key to the ability of the VC stealth and ‘hit and hide’ style of guerrilla warfare that we know so much of thanks to Hollywood. Once the video had finished we were ushered once again to the area where the tour of the actual tunnels was to begin.

This is where it became interesting. It was very apparent to not only me, but Kim and Tu (our cousin the taxi driver) that the tour guide didn’t want to show us around. He succeeded by ushering the local Viet tourists through the rooms very quickly, as soon as I entered a room after negotiating a rather small tunnel he made sure the other tour wasn’t there. Within five minutes we were along in the tunnel system. Tu was becoming vocal about the whole situation but I assured him through hand and pelvic gestures that we didn’t need him we could guide ourselves. So we wandered around walking into tunnel area to tunnel area, where we would stumble across another tour guide and he would perform the same trick.

…What an interesting day this was turning out to be…

The tunnels were fascinating and I do whole heartedly recommend if you are to decide to come to this great country to visit them, if they are rude to you ignore them. I will make sure Tu will show you around, for what ended up being $60 for a three and a half hour taxi ride, plus he served lunch you can’t go wrong. Driver, and personal guide for under a hundred.

Once the tour of the tunnels were complete we decided to go and see the shrine, I have to admit that from the first impressions I could imagine the government that had hired an architect would of said unto him

“Built me a shrine, and yea make it look like a temple. Which says unto man that enters yea ‘this is a big bastard of a place’, and we will line the walls in gold writing of the fallen, plates one inch high four inches wide. Also to really impress the pants of them, we shall place an excessively large statue of Ho Chi Minh in the centre, with flamingos standing on turtles facing him adoring his presence, amplifying his greatness.. for all kind to see. And they shall know that when they enter a whistle will sound out of the lips of the impressed, for they shall know that this place, this temple, this shrine, is impressive in any language. So just bloody well be in awed!”

..or something like that.

Yes it was huge, strangely empty, there were flamingos on turtles, no not elephants, and there was gold writing and all the other bits that go into a place like this. It was impressive, but most of all I was impressed to see such lengths taken to honor the dead like this, don’t get me wrong I am no drawing comparisons to any other country anywhere in the world. Just this one, you don’t hear about this, news of this country barely gets beyond the terms “I love you long time” so it’s worthwhile being told.

So with all the respect and awe juice squeezed to the last drop, it was time to go and play hick, with an AK-47.

Now this is a famous gun, you might not know this but it has featured in almost every action movie, often held in the hands of some bad arse terrorist, or bad arse communist, or some guy who is just a bad arse, but not aligned officially with a cause yet.. And today, for the next… 45 seconds… 10 rounds. I was that bad arse.. so freakin watch out. You bits of target stick poking out of the ground.. cause daddies home, and there’s gonna be a spankin’.

Right well with my mental attitude in check, I paid my 200,000 Dong ($18 AU) and was given ten rounds and told to follow a soldier out to the firing range. He securely placed the gun through a rail so just in case I might be completely nuts I couldn’t pull the weapon out and fire it on someone else. Although it only took a second to realise that all you would have to do was turn the gun on the side and you would have the weapon free to do what insane sons of bitches do. Although shortly after that thought, very shortly in fact I realised that it would only take one tenth of that second for the ‘soldier’ who had ‘arms training’ to have the pistol position on his wast to be drawn and fired before I even utter the first letter of “April fool!”

So once the magazine was inserted, cocked, and safety turned off I stepped up gripped, and breathed. And breathed. And breathed.

..and squeeze…

-BANG-!!!

“Fuuu…..!!!!” Kim shouted momentary dropping the camera (lucky for cords) as she reached for her ears. This gun was loud (without stating the obvious).. stupid Hollywood why do you lie so much, you see people firing guns all the time, close to their ears and yet the scene later they are talking like all is smooth, Well I took one shot, Kim was standing a good ten meters back and her eardrums almost packed up and left for Australia.

With both of us wearing ear muffs, I continued, and continued,, and continued until I heard the click. Pulled out my mental notepad and ticked of another one of check boxes from “The ten things you have to do before you die” list. Next item, Rome.. “To arm wrestle the Pope.”

As we were leaving we happen to witness a group of soldiers walk past us, they were teasing a girl with the old chestnut of “we are going to throw you in the pool” routine. Much loved the world wide, so I decided to take a snap shot of this. Instantly yelled by some person, though I managed a couple he was giving me standard army glare No12, I simply laughed it off, gesturing that I found the whole incident amusing. Nothing more was said of it, though Tu hastened us to the car very quickly.

Later that night I was told a very interesting story, Kim’s mother having just handed me a bowl of something began to talk about where we had been and what we had seen, saying that the shrine was built for another country to visit. I assumed for tourists like us, but she was refereeing to the North, to them it’s still another country, and what made things more interesting. The names I saw on the walls, all written in gold are only names of the soldiers from the North that died, there are no names from the south. So no one from Saigon goes there, which would explain the emptiness.

The layers that place has, both physical and mental. What a place this is, what a place indeed. Returning back to the hotel, I was greeted by D, he can say my name now and greets me with a hug as I threw him to the ceiling to his delight I thought “the big Ying to the small Yang”

The Dead

2005-06-19T04:11:00.000-07:00

Performing my morning ritual of stepping down the flights of stairs with each step counting up in Vietnamese, feeling somewhat stupid when I keep getting stuck at five (Nam). I reach the bottom and once again experience another morning ritual of realising that overnight the national language of Vietnam didn’t change from Viet to English. The morning greetings to the staff of the hotel are given, they no longer giggle at my obvious miss pronunciation at the word “Hello – How are you?” , and I intern have given up the futile attempt to master at least one Vietnamise phrase before I leave back for Australia, besides I can’t even speak my own language properly.. I keep forgetting to put that vowel “A” on the end of every sentence.

With my ten dollar sandals on I step out into the big wide world that is Saigon, and when I mean that I mean the two meter wide lane that this three story Hotel faces, take a deep breath (not to deep just incase I inhale something solid) and greet the world with my ritual cry “Another beautiful day is Zamoonda” (see coming to America). Even though the hour is just passed 8:30, it’s plain to see that the cogs of this masterly crafted watch that is this city have been turning for quite some time, to the left street’s are being swept by old lady No 3, No 2 looks up waiting for a load of construction waste tied to a rope to be lowered by a pullie, while No 1 walks around after a small child who is chasing a cat with a spoon full of food. Her speed, precision and time are exceptional, being able to place the complete pay load into the mouth without losing any to the face, and as the child squats trying to grab a swishing tail he enjoyed morning breakfast whilst playing with a cat. Already the morning is tainted with a hint of child jealousy.

The men however I have learned do start the day ‘differently’. Everyone here (here being where I am currently living) works. From Adult to Ancestors they work, having all graduated from the university of “Hey you wanna buy/ rent what I have to sell” yet they realise that the tourist doesn’t get up until late (9:00am) and so why should I be where I have to be, where I can have a couple of drinks, watch some wrestling and maybe lounge about on the floor for a while. There is one old man that lives three houses up from us, a total of five meters, who looks like in a previous life he would have been an Emperor. The stare he has on his face is so regal you could almost say it’s inbred. His morning ritual is to walk around with his hands behind his back, dressed in a traditional black silk Chinese pyjamas. To where he goes remains a mystery (to me anyway, I am sure he knows) yet as he passes me, as my lungs are full from my morning intake of air having just said “…Zamoonda” I give him a respectful “good morning how are you” in Viet, which he returns a three second stare which carries enough force to spontaneously combust a small insect if flown between the airspace. Continuing to walk yet maintaining eye contact he returns a sharp yet clearly respectful nod and continues glancing from side to side as he inspects his subjects.

I step out, moving from small alley to smaller alley using nasal navigation to get to my destination. This morning if the news that was given last night proves to be true will be a special morning indeed, for there is word that a shop is selling coffee, not the Viet way of drinking coffee which is in fact an iced coffee with large chunks of ice, (also strangely enough that’s how they have their beer) but an actual cappuccino, or latte, with actual milk!

It should be said that Vietnamese don’t hold with such nonsense as milk, given the fact that most of the population don’t have refrigeration facilities it’s stands to reason to not have something that would last five minutes in the hot humid Vietnamese air before turning to green lumpy cheese. We actually visited a supermarket I think the only one in the city, where out of the whole refrigerated section there was only two different types of one litre milk bottles of milk, the one with sugar and the other with more sugar.

So the news that someone has Milk, and blows steam into it to make a decent (from Melbourne point of view) coffee was well received indeed. There might have been a kicking of the heels in the air, it’s hard to say the mind when all blurry.

The first sip tells it all, if the first sip of a cup of coffee doesn’t have the taste you want there is no way the second impression will trump the first. You can actually see it on people faces, take time to look at someone when they drink their coffee, the blank face, look into nothingness, as if all brain power has been focussed to the taste buds [insert Star Trek quote here], the slight pause as the cup is drawn to the mouth before being consumed, then processed.

The decision will come from two reactions and one sound. If the person (i.e. me) likes the cup off coffee I will look to the distance and let out a satisfactory “Ahhhh” before placing the cup onto the table and announcing before my fellow man that “this cup before me holds the key to liquid satisfaction”. If the person (i.e. hopefully not me) doesn’t like the cup of coffee then after the sip they will stare at the cup, possibly immersed in a cocktail of emotions such as rejection, dispar, anger, humiliation, and the greatest of all negative emotions the one we go through when we have just experienced an event that was looked forward to so, salivated over in a private moment of yearning. Yet when experiences was so much the lesser than the artefact rendered in our minds, or the ‘first date’ emotion.

I went, “Ahhh”

I had discovered coffee in Vietnam! -Sniff- “What a freakin’ beautiful city!”

Skipping through the lanes wondering if I possible I could close my eye’s and smell my way back home, I arrive on the footsteps greeting people as I go we are greeted at the door by Kim’s mother who in her own special way tells us to get ready the taxi is almost here, this is the point where I am told that we are to visit a grandfather, who has been dead for five years.

Kim’s mother,

A very caring a special women who from the moment she knew me, saw past the layers upon layers one uses to disguise the real us and looked into the real me, and thus gave me a strong Vietnamese title, which translated to English meant “Idiot Man”, used only on special occasions like the rare instances I actually perform a rather stupid act she now actually calls me by my name, and leaves that comment as a final after thought. There are many interesting traits about her, there is no doubt that she wares the pants in the family, although chooses to have them put on her husbands body to ease the burden. Also, and this amuses me to this day often appears out of nowhere with a small bowl of some sort of food and will hand it to you with the same style and grace of someone in the office handing out inter office mail. That certain “I know this is for you because it has your name on it” face, with the movement of the arm that indicates that “in no way can this not be for you, because, I, am giving it to you”. It’s a kind of magic, because whomever she gives food to, including myself, no matter what is inside the bowl, is instantly taken no matter what the person is doing. Often taken before even looking at the contents. It really is amusing to see, but I am sure we all have one of those people our families. Perhaps she is a grandmother in training.

We headed north for 45 minutes along the [name yet to be found] tollway, towards the cemetery. As I found out, all cemeteries are placed in rural area’s, due to the condensed population and the reluctance towards cremation they realised ahead of time that in order to give every family the right to bury their dead respectfully, we had better set a place far far away from the city. So we were in for a nice country ride, for one I was particularly looking forward to this, for one I can breath fresh air, and look at something else besides the bum, side or front of a motorbike.

The drive seemed to had only begun when we reached our destination, stopping once to meet up with an old family friend and former nanny. The graveyard was very typical, that is to say full of dead people. Although as I was walking through the grass to the actual grave of the dead ancestor I took a moment to take in the scenery, this cemetery is old, hundreds of years old and now heavy industry was knocking on the door. It will be interesting to see if the government would let it in.

They had planned a ceremony for the time spent there, after general maintenance of the tomb (given the fact that it had a roof) they placed food, fruit, and money and began burning incense. Nothing out of the ordinary here, but it was nice to know that not only did they bring enough incense for him, but for every other ‘member’ of the cemetery. They proceeded to walk around placing a stick in every gravesite, to also show respect for them. This society was proving to be very pleasantly surprising indeed.

Once the incense was burnt, the food placed long enough so the spirit of the food can rise to heaven, and the money burnt so it to can have its spirit rise to heaven. They took a moment to sit around and talk a while. Being short one ‘bablefish’ I decided during these moments to pretty much tune out and take in the scenery, contemplating where I am, what I am seeing when fits of laughter came from the entire family. After enquiring I was told that Kim’s father had been teasing the Nanny, reminding her that she used to wash him when he was a small child, and that she used to wash Kim when she was a small child. So now she has to wash him (me), to wit she replied “No way, he is so big I don’t know where to start. Anyway he is scary, he scares me to much I am not going near him”

They thought this was absolutely funny, it must have been the heat, or the with through the grass, but I couldn’t help but wonder why she thought that so passionately. Though sometimes the obvious

Sites and Sounds...

2005-06-16T03:46:00.000-07:00

Sites and sounds.

I know when I started this blog I was going to focus on the people, and through the eye’s of the local, yet I have come to learn that as you walk the street, beyong the people that shove a child and chewing gum in your face and say by, or the people that have absolutely perfect copies of all the latest releases of whatever book you were looking for only $3, there is a trade for the locals, which is much more subliminal. I guess it reflects on the average mind of the tourist, that we don’t know something is there until its shoved under our nose, or, well actually just shoved under our nose.∗ But when it comes to the local trade, they market themselves known as discretely as possible. Let me explain.

*It’s amazing how many variants of “Shoved under the nose” you can experience, it really is.

Doing, Doing Doing Dong.

For the past three days now I have been hearing a man walk along the street’s that plays what sounds like a 10c musical instrument. Picture the tinny copper sound of a pipe cut in half, he striked the rounded base three times and then the edge once, to give a musical tune similar a Hervey Bay Frog Barbershop Quartet. He walks along, saying nothing, the noise will come and go into the night, gently drifting into the distance. This accompanies the various noises of down town Saigon, and for a brief moment fills the air with a tune I am sure the Frog’s in Hervey bay would really get down to.

As It turns out, this man is selling his services, and before your mind wonders what I mean is that he is selling his services as what Australians would call a “Gopher”. If you were to take his services, he would go and get anything you desire, be it food, good, alcohol, whatever and bring it to you for a very small price. I haven’t seen anyone take up his services yet, I can only imagine it’s due to the fact that whatever you want in Saigon is usually locatable withing a stone’s throw as it is. Or if you have to travel, it’s only one relatively care free trip on the motobike. But still, it’s an interesting way to advertise your business, and one that is not only usefull, but more entertaining than 90% of the buskers in Melbourne.

Shake A Shake A Shake A Shake.

This sound like it’s previous comrade in the service industry could be confused for selling another cheap toy for a small child. Instead of using Frog metaphor’s to describe a sound again, it can best be described simply by explaining what he uses to broadcast his service.

1 X Coat hanger

10 X Washer.

Place the washers on the coat hanger, and bend the coat hanger until you have a ten centimetre diameter ring and the remainder twisted into a handle, flatten the ring to give you a strait service to shake the washers up and down and there you have it. If you are holding one of those little beauties and shaking it, you are an instant masseuse. Now to really separate themselves from the ‘Gopher’ service industry, they ride on push bikes. This I am told add’s trust and projects themselves as professionals. They will ride along rattling their instrument like rattle snakes would, if the rattle snake was on an aged care pension plan, having given many years of shaking service to it’s community, and now wakes up on cold mornings with rather stiff joints. They are only men, the women tend to practice their particular type of profession behind closed doors, often occupied by a gentleman with a three word name, the middle often being of the ‘descriptive’ nature. If you care to utilize his service you are only to simply say, raise hand etc and he will come and give you an instant massage whilst you eat your meal. And choosing a book to purchase, and maybe some chewing-gum, or a lighter, cigarettes, squid, corn, sugarcane drink, paintings. Or if you just plum feel that the money you carry is weighing you down, then people are more than happy to take it of your hands... for free!!

So there you have it just two of the professions that I have been able to notice, I am told however that there exists a plethora of other ‘service’ based professions, though they tend to be even more discrete than the previous examples. Intriguing all the same.

Vietnam Holiday

2005-06-15T03:30:00.000-07:00

Vietnam Holiday
Originally uploaded by Avatar Palin.

I never thought I would do it, let alone in a Foreign country. I was invited, and well I have to admit that I was rather curious to what it would be like. So allowing enough time for the part of the brain designed for one purpose only, to talk yourself out of something I decided to throw myself into the situation, under the moto “it cost quite a bit of money to get here, so live a little dammit!”

I woke up, and got out of bed at 5:00 am.

Person No 4, Kim’s father.

During my entire relationship with Kim I think I have spoken to Kim’s father an entirety of one paragraph of dialect, which I think speaks volumes.. It’s not that we don’t get along, it’s just that I can’t speak Vietnamese very well, and he can’t speak English. So we are limited to a very small range of topics, mainly the ones that involve pointing, laughing and looking uncomfortable before the next item can be pointed to and talked about for the next fifteen seconds. So anyway I know very little about this man, besides his height and other features I can say that’s about it. Oh and that he looks brilliant in a faded blue Singlet, about as Australian as you can get. So when I came over here to Vietnam I was really looking forward to getting to know the man, on his turf. So to speak.

I will say this, for a man that has been away from the country for about twenty five years, he can’t walk down a street without being pulled aside by some person, given a very friendly hand shake, patted on the back and invited to sit a while, where a iced coffee to magically materialise in front of him before he had a chance to say yes or no. It’s seems he is a big man in the community, though the reasons I believe are completely his own.

The Le family fled Vietnam in 1979, when the Government decided that because they owned three petrol stations that they were now an enemy of the state, and therefore took control of the stations and then moved to plan B which was the removal of the owner. They fled the country, deciding not to break their impeccable record of staying alive. So they were boat people, they paid a man a hell of allot of money and chanced fate and came to Australia. Well to be honest they didn’t particularly want to come to Australia, the “To” part of the decision was rather irrelevant, it was the “From” that was of primary importance, the “To” wherever it is, would be better than the “From”. It just so happened to be Australia. They still love their country very much, and to be honest who wouldn’t. I took a moment to reflect what it would be like to flee Australia for life and death reasons, destruction of the social fabric as we know it, plummeting into chaos to the point where life itself as I know it would be so bad, I would have to face almost certain death just to be somewhere else than my own homeland.

Though the chance of Collingwood winning another flag is remote, and not worth losing sleep over.

Though I can say we talk more now, sure it’s still point and talk style of dialogue, but here there is a hell of a lot more things to point and talk about.. Playing “Guess that smell” can fill in a couple of otherwise boring hours quite easily.

5:00 am. (pause for dramatic effect) I heard / felt a knock at the door, I was given half an hour to come to grips with what I have decided to do, get up, shower etc.

Bleary eyed I stepped down the flights of stairs to the ground floor, where I see the staff of the hotel sleeping. On the floor, with nothing but I blanket to call a bed. Though this is what they know, and to them it’s comfortable. Well at least they looked comfortable, sort of.

Stepping out onto the lane I was greeted with the reason why I decided to get up. Motorbike riding. Yes it was lesson time, Vietnamese style!

The Motorbike. A Honda100cc Monster, four gear (automatic clutch), two wheels, a seat, indicator, and most importantly a horn. The lesson itself was over in two minutes, it went like this,

“Key go here, Turn on, Gear push down, 1 , 2 ,3 ,4 and keep going if you want they go round in circle, no worry. Lets go”

The reason why I was up at 5:00am, well I should quote Viet time, “Cold time of day”. This is the time that 80% of the city go for exercises, badminton, foot shuttle thing, tennis, running, strange aggressive Tia Chi, etc. Therefore the roads are strangely empty. For one hour of the morning, you would believe the city, for just one hour. Took time out for itself. So, after my detailed boot camp I was off, though a lane thin enough to touch both sides with your arms, onto the main road, and into cruise mode. This is where I learned what mental state you need to be to negotiate the Saigon Roads. The best way to describe it is this.

Picture a hundred years or so ago, a man turns up and says “By a bike, you go fast and people think you cool, marry beautiful women etc. And apparently overnight the whole city was getting from A to B on Bike’s, and so on the bikes they merged, changed lanes, did u turns, turned corners with the mentality that I am on a bike, so if the person is five feet from me, he will just slow down a bit and I can go through. Peaceful, calm, effective.

Now picture, thirty years ago a man turned up and said “Don’t peddle bike any more, you get motor to be servant. You marry many women, have many son’s etc etc” and then again apparently overnight, everyone in Saigon was riding motorbikes. Yet they kept the same mentality, they figure that they can just do a u-turn with thirty bikes passing a second, and if they can’t go round, they will just slow down. Now here’s the odd thing, they do! Everyone is patient with each other, they do slow down, they do give way, within a three feet circle of themselves. If people became a close as they did in Melbourne, it would be on. Oh yes it would be on.

So I can say that when it comes to travelling on the road’s of Saigon with a motorbike, I am an absolute expert, because I know the secret, it’s really quite simple. As long as they know what you are doing, u-turn, changing lanes, turning a corner, going through an intersection with bikes, cars trucks still crossing infront of you. As long as they know what you are doing, they will alter their path around you.. sure they will beep their horn but unlike Melbourne where the horn is the “F” in “What the F??” here it’s just used as a “I am here, you might want to take that into consideration, many respect to your family”

It’s almost Zen,

Many people gave respect to my family that day..

Day 2

2005-06-13T02:02:00.000-07:00

Ba Wi
Originally uploaded by Avatar Palin.

Eye’s open, taking careful stock of all body parts making sure that they haven’t succumb to an bug of some sort that my myriad of injections didn’t cover, all systems fine time to rise and shine and greet the day.

Walking down stairs I was greeted by Kim’s father who asked me “you come get breakfast don’t worry”. An odd sentence, though as I was ushered to the back of the motorbikes seat it was clear that he was lying, I should worry. Imagine if a colony of ants were to evolve to riding motorbikes, yet scurry around the nest like their ancestors. This is exactly how the streets of Saigon operate. The scary thing is, it works, very, very well. There are traffic lights sure, but they seem to be just a recommendation than actual law. If the light is red, and you still think you can make it, then just go. There are roundabouts that have six to seven entrances in them, all merging at one. Yet with astonishing efficiency, and amazing lack of injury. The Saigonee’s go from there “A” to “B” narrowly missing all the other A’s B’s and other letters of the alphabet as they commute. Which is fine for them. Not for a very white Australian, used to the lovely Melbourne road system.

Breakfast was served to us by a women on the side of the road, called “Sticky rice” she smiled took the money and then wrapped the food into banana leaves and gave it to us without even looking in our direction, like we were an inconvenient interruption in her busy schedule. Yet maintain a high level of respect at the same time, it’s amazing what can be said in this country without actually doing anything, must be due to the heat, conserving energy, that type of thing.

Sitting outside the hotel and beholding the plethora of ‘interesting’ smells, from the old lady ten feet away sweeping, to the old lady to my right mending a shirt, to the other old lady further way down banging something with a harder something. I notice though the men sit, and ease into a Monday morning with a light spell of watching ‘Pro Wrestling’. It seems to me that the tolerance for heat must be higher for women, or the men were saving themselves for something big ‘later on’. But one thing was true, not a single person was complaining about the fact that it’s Monday, because in this part of the world the name of the day doesn’t matter, unit’s of time longer than an hour or shorter than a year tend to be ignored, if anything their clock is a thermostat. For the morning when it’s cool they exercise, in the middle of the day they (the one’s that can afford it) sleep or just lay around looking dead, and in the evening when it’s cooler again they get together, socialise and watch pro wrestling. The actual name of the day to them is somewhat irrelevant.

Sniffing the air, I tried to place a familiar name to what is currently known as “Smell No 3” Rick made eye contact and made a bee line directly for me and smell No 3. Greeting me enthusiastically in French once again, after explaining that French is my fourth language and that I know native American more than French he moved to the international language of “Flex your muscles” and state in broken English that at any time if I wanted someone to push me around, he could not only take my weight, but the weight of my girlfriend at the same time. With a grin I promised in broken Vietnamese to pass on that message to her, word for word.

Today was the day however to visit ‘Ba Wi’ which leads me to person No 3 in my list of interesting people.

Ba Wi

After travelling to the other side of the city we approach her house positioned behind a school. For piece of mind it’s important to not apply your normal thinking to where people will live, here they can take a patch of concrete the size of your bedroom, stick four walls around it, and that’s their home, side of the highway, inbetween two buildings. Pretty much anywhere. I am met with five pairs of eye’s giving me the “Your not from ‘Round here are ya boy” look, when from behind a small fan rises up and smacks the boys from around the shoulders, and the shorter gents, the head. Wielding the fan like a very accute exclamation point she herded the men (still staring ) out of the way and invited us in.

Ba wi is 78, hunched over, very very short, and the undisputed Ruler of her domain. I Interpreted in five minutes some simple commands she used to have everybody in the right place.

-Smack – “Give me a kiss”

-Smack – “ Put that over there”

-Smack – “You get a chair” –Smack-

-Smile – “How are you” (to me)

-Smack- “Move” -Smack- “Move” -Smack- , -Smack-, -Smack- “Move”

She actually fanned herself for a while, whilst the men jostled to complete their tasks, moving this, cleaning that, going somewhere and coming back with chairs. Whilst sitting on the ground up against a wall she watched as the drones work quickly to somewhat impress me, or and this is more likely. Be beaten again by a 78 year old ball breaker. It seems that if respect isn’t given, it’s taken with a small paper fan.

I instantly fell in love with her, this women should be touring aged care homes teaching the senior citizens of the world that with a quick wack before and sometimes after the sentence matched with a tone that radiated compliance like a super nova, you can have anything done for you.

Mate’s and beer

The order was soon given to go and get some beer. I at this point in time felt as though I had to represent my country and, well, drink like a fish and not become drunk. So the plan was, eat as much bread as possible, plus what I can only call ‘pork’ and with the stomach full of food that would leave me in a good position to put in a ‘Good solid innings’

The hospitality was in good supply, I wasn’t left with an empty bottle for long before a new one was placed in front of me, with an assuring grin, and a hand gesture to indicate “Drink Drink”. After a while I taught them one of my own, it’s the old chestnut of placing the empty bottle on top of your head and saying ahh to indicate to the world that it’s finished. To see a room full of Vietnamese people do this truly is a sight.

That night, D decided that he was tired of lying on the stairs and wanted to come into our room to check us, and mainly our stuff. I got received the feeling that he had never seen a computer before, so I thought this was an amazing time to introduce him to the world of “Apple”, before his mind is turned to muck after over exposure to Micrsoft’s rot of an operating system.

He played with the volume buttons for about five minutes.. I felt the lesson should end there. This then led onto a general inspection of our room , picking things up shaking them, tapping and even pushing of buttons. I decided to give him my Kodak camera to use, not that this was a mistake. But I haven’t been able to find something harsh enough to clean of the finger prints from the lens.

Later I learned why “D” came into the company of the hotel, both his parents were killed from an unknown illness that has effected quite a number of country people, so he was picked up and is now cared for by the hotel.

Vietnam, #1

2005-06-12T06:44:00.000-07:00

Coughs colds and other assorted illnesses are quickly forgotten. The scarf lays rejected on the stand at the end of the bed, for I am in Saigon Vietnam. A nation that through the average Australians eye's has had it's identity polarized from the saturation propaganda that we know and love as the Hollywood film. So along with the suitcases of copied DVD’s I want to return from this country knowing not the identity of the country as a whole, but of a select few individuals that make up this nation. Because when it comes to the social makeup of nation, the individual is often forgotten.

Currently I have two people that stand out

D, aged 3

A child that lives in the country, that is adopted by a family for a couple of days so amongst other things, he can have food in his belly. I first meet this resident of lillyput when I come down the flight of stars and see at the front counter of the desk that it’s manned by a person that wont be an actual ‘man’ for many, many years to come. Assuming that the sense of humour is universally the same* I decide to walk up and pretend that A: I am a customer and B: I am making an inquiry. In the most serious soft voice I could conjure I ask “Umm, listen mate.. can you tell me, you know, the way, you know… to the ladies.. Know what I mean?” where without even looking at me he opens up a business card holder and pulls out a card and hands it to me with a big self satisfied grin. With a stunned look, wondering how the hell a three year old child who doesn’t know English, or in theory how to even go to the toilet properly yet knew what I wanted and responded.. well in a helpful discrete and above everything a professional manner.

The card was gladly wasn’t a three step guide to being loved long time, but a card of where the hotel was located, and a pre marked path to the local Internet Café. So he really wasn’t far off.

Then he stood up on the counter, spread he arms wide and jumped for me to catch him. I had known this child for a total of two minutes.

I wonder what he knows what a ‘Wizzy Dizzy’ is.

Person 2, Rick Shaw

A man that looks 75 yet built better than most of my IT tech mates. He approaches us speaking French, disfigured from an unknown reason and baked until his skin resembles a cheep boot he squats in front of us as we sit in the entrance of the hotel. He soon learns we speak english and then begins to play welcome diplomat, asking what I do for a living “ I perform a keyboard typing action and say computer “ he responds in, by grabbing the top of my hand and with a slowly pronounced statement of absolute and utter honesty he says “I am so sorry..” How he knows the plight of the common tech I don’t know, but there and then. I feel slightly vindicated.

He has agreed to have his photo taken. That will be interesting. Perhaps I could do a calendar of him.

So tonight, I sleep, whilst the city I am told comes to life. Tomorrow we are to visit some more relatives.

It should of been perfect

2005-04-03T17:17:00.000-07:00

It should of been easy, it should of a piece of cake. It should of been so damn simple i could execute it without any hassle what so ever, yes what.. so.. ever.

This didn't happen.

In the midst of an early morn one rarely makes the right decisions, although this decision however could be known as one of my best. In the category of "decisions made at 7:35.04am"

It was laid, fastened onto its proper position and with careful ease it was crafted, persuaded and down right bullied into place. This is where it all went wrong, which in a rather insulting kind of way that the 'wrongness' of the 'went' part of the incident only took a fraction of a second, yet the implications of this event were destined to echo for the rest of the day. Similar to an event that occurred around in 1945 at Alamagordo Air Base, which would of proceeded like this. - Click - Booom - "oh bugger...".

confident's grew, and confident fell in love and married 'complacent' which through this union had a child named "bloody cocky" and it was this child of thought that inspired me to be, for a fraction of a second like the child of thought in my head. The action was swift, the action was simple, the action went like this "- grasp, - sweep, sweep..... "f&n, F&N,,, F& F F N!"

There was nothing i could do, like a limp corpse of a fallen lamb no matter how many times the burley farmer cries to the heavens, the heavens will not respond, they will not change the fate of one person and alter the universe to suit, it just doesn't happen that way. You never hear of a plane almost crashing, "But thankfully the mountain jumped out of the way" - Captain. nope event's happen for a reason, sure sometimes that reason is a simple "because" or an even more insulting "I just felt like it" but still it's a reason, and like a two year old child crying for that toy on the shelf, the parent of time Mrs Causality simply ignores the cry's, grabbing the child and dragging it kicking and screaming away... To be thrown in the mataphorical car of existence, and back to the home of reality, and given a good eternal lie down.

So there i was, realizing that shear will alone was not going to change a single iota of the current event. I could infact... choose another shirt, i could just give up on the shirt that was destined to be worn by me. But as the god's are my witness i was going to give this shirt it's destiny, sure it wasn't a particularly interesting destiny but still a destiny it is no matter how bland it may appear to be. So i pressed on, with the iron in my had i held is asunder, grasping the handle firm and true and with the power of all the stupid male stubbiness i could muster, i tried to iron out the crease that the iron itself created.

With very little success....

So the wounded, wrinkled shirt was placed over a rather white body. We had a bond now, sometimes an event is shared between to people, creatures even and sometimes inanimate objects. That shirt was going to be worn and damn anyone to hell that casts a downcast opinion on the shirt, or it's wearer... damn then hell!

Bloody fiery, pointy sticks, alarms going all the time, traffic ridden, end song playing, crap television show watching, bad book reading, clocks always running slow, sour coffee.....NO coffee!

..Hell

Silence

2005-03-16T18:59:00.000-08:00

Car parks are all the same...
Originally uploaded by Avatar Palin.

Honestly if there was ever a need for a zombie extra in some sort of B grade horror film, well I think I could produce an Oscar worthy performance. How is it that I came to possess this talent? Why did the all mighty above, whoever he or she or 'thing' might be give me such a gift? When there really was a vast range of more lucrative gift's I could possess. Like pottery, or abstract art, or (and this one is my favorite) the ability to think of some useless gadget that everybody would step over their grandmother just to posses and cost around 5 cents to make and sold for twenty or so dollars.. 'The dancing Elvis' gift I call it.

Anyway void of all these useful talents i am left with the one and only talent that serves for two purposes, both at night time. I can open a door and go to the toilet without opening my eye's or fully waking up. There, doesn't that bring chills down the back of your spine. No? Well me either, but it did make for a rather interesting evening..let me explain...

Last night, i was enjoying a lovely sleep, and i mean really enjoying the sleep. Dreaming of an invention I had created which was suntan lotion that can only be applied by myself to attractive women, and due to it's radical chemical design, it would take a whole bottle to cover one.... umm part of the body. Where i immediately stood up out of bed, navigated my way around the bed itself and to the back door. or the place that i like to affectionately call "The part of the house you wont see on the brochure" stood there for a second or two as my lovely jack russell dog walked outside closing the door behind him. Then I went to the toilet, played firefighter for a while and then made my way back to bed. Didn't open my eye's and didn't exactly wake up.

Normally this would be fine, normally i would wake up the next morning, other than my hands feeling inexplicably 'worn' i would arise rested and on with the day. Last night however, i was part of a sick dog related joke that would no doubt be barked around the entire neighborhood starting with the line "you think your owner is dumb, listen to what i can get mine to do". Because, as explained i can (or just do i haven't figure that out yet) get up, open a door or go to the toilet. Rufus my dog has a talent, which is being the catalyst to this event. He will sit at the end of the bed, so still, so silent, so motionless the human ear will from one of a better word hear the noise that is not there, so much so the noiseless blast wakes me from my blissful vocation of lotion application.

Human's all over the world experience this, waking due to silence. The most likely situation where this will occur is when you drift asleep whilst a passenger in a car, continuing with your unconscious state no matter how many twists, turns, radio changes and occasional verbal 'driving safety tips' given to other motorists. Yet once the car is stopped and the key's are pulled out and all is silent, you will wake up, instantly. This theory resulted in a line of very unsuccessful "non-alarm" clocks being invented, where the user would set the time he or she wanted to wake up, and when the time came it would as stated in page seven of the manual "blissfully and gracefully fill the room with silence waking the person instantly". The design flaw was they could never quite achieve the level of silence, or relative silence to successfully wake the sleeping beauty. A string of legal "Broo Hah Hah's " later and the non-alarm clock was indefinitely shelved. Making way for it's successor. The "Boorish-Banshee Alarm Clock" A 7.1 speaker, 210.1 decibel monster that would not only violently rip you from your sleep, would also ensure your rather complex and irregular lower intestines were persuaded, at the same time every morning.. to become incredibly, and explosively... regular.

Rufus, my lovely Jack Russell, can achieve "unlike the non-alarm clock" a level of silence so absolute, so pure, it would make black holes cringe with jealousy, so even if the silence in the room was as silent as a mime's audio recording booth his silence would overpower (or under-power) with the greatest of ease, so a sleeping room such as mine, filled with people such as myself would not stand a chance. Therefore, time after time, as he wanted to leave the house for whatever reason, he would simply sit at the end of the bed, and be silent. And like a puppet, the audio strings would cause me to raise from my bed... where my natural born talent would take over..

This is what happened to me last night, time and time again. He would sit, i would awake.. sometimes a firefighter, sometimes just a doorman.. I awoke that morning with a sense of futility, i should of stayed awake and be offered the latest and greatest in exercise equipment on some dodgy infomercial..

"The Sonic-3000! Defecate your way to that trim figure you have always wanted. We tested the Sonic-3000 on ten ordinary everyday people, all at once... just look at the results..."

Tonight.... he get's drugged (just kidding..... maybe)

Carpe Jugular

2005-03-01T00:36:00.000-08:00

I sit here now in shorts and not much else, it has been 34 degree's today, and though it's not quite blow torch weather it has had a rather draining effect. So i am fixing that the only way a man knows how... cooking steak and drinking beer. an antidote that can fix almost anything.... The date is really boring.. have a steak!! she is ugly.. have a beer!! or two... anyway lets move on....

I read a lovely line and I thought i would pass it on, this can be used in business if you want to appear to be on the cutting edge.. to be a predator instead of a sheep, all that nonsensical crap that really doesn't mean anything. And lets face it, if you relied on that kind of way of life to maintain an income you are either incompetant, or a Manager.. which then it's quite possible you are both...

Carpe Jugular
we all know Carpe diem... mean seize the day.. well i like this one Carpe Jugular.... Seize the throat... words to live by really..

Oh I am having a great time at work, every now and then i am thrown a lovely problem where i really have no idea what the hell I am doing. I think I am that guy, you know the guy at work that you can rely on for anything.. and i mean anything.. he is 'the guy' and when you need hooking up he will do it.. well incase you are thinking of something perverse.. i don't do that! Well not during business hours, and not for money.. then what would i do for a hobby.. Anyway I am constantly given projects that are deamed to hard... and they have the assumption of being the guy that i know what i am doing..

..yes i did say assumption.

This is when the act of illusion begins.. man have i been delaying the project because of this strange problem and that... and well I am not really lying because right now i am wearing the tangering glasses of ignorance and everything seems strange... so my conscience is clear.. and well in the world of IT it's survival of the nerdiest.. and baby you had better apear like a propeller head.. otherwise that lovely socially adjusted head will be rolling.. and pocket pen freaks will be standing all around with there forefingers in a V saying 'live long and prosper' and really referring to themselves.. as your employment falls into a small basket infront of the guillotine which most HR departments love to polish on a daily basis..

So today has been a bit tiring.. oh and the fact that i need to get my car windows tinted because someone pointed out to me that i am sunburned on one side of my face.. there's a nice thing to learn late in the day when you are one to many coffee's short of reality...

Will write soon, i don't do the daily thing because I am sure people hate with a passion those kind of blogs

--
got up today... plucked a few hairs.. went to work..

write soon..

--

if i don't think of anything decent to say, then i wont.. although decent is purely subjective....

Knowing yourself.

2005-01-14T04:41:00.000-08:00

Knowing yourself.

It should be know, for the purposes of this entry that I am currently listening to what i would consider a classic album, REM - Automatic for the people, and for those people to 'Love numbers' I am 45 seconds into "Everybody hurts", which is track 5, of 12. Running for a total of length of 5:20.

..the album length is 48.80 minutes.

..Released 1992.

For those of you who "love words" by all means look up the lyrics and dissect the song until you are completely satisfied, and be sure to send me a note on what you think.

The reason why i mention this fascinating and amusing fact is really quite simple, 'REM's Automatic for the people" was one of the five or so albums that were played during my final years of High School* . Those albums have been etched into both sides of my Cerebellum, made a home in the Pineal Glan, thrown it's junk in the Basal Ganglia and left a nasty stain on the Corpus Callosum. They were played over and over again while i sat, burning the midnight candle, generating homework of such a standard that it could only be used as a means for collecting pity. So while the songs now being playes echoed from ear to ear it brought back memories of those happy nights, consuming so much Coca Cola my life expectancy has been reduced by ten or so years, trying to make something of myself, academically of-course, realizing the negative effect that the academic pursuit had on how many times I would get laid in a given week.

* Or as it was later known as Secondary College. This came about because the school had it's bicentenial new coat of paint and well decided to update the name on the door to match the new decor. Strangely enough the fee's went up that year the High School became Secondary College.

Not really a conspiracy worth writing a book about.. but enough to mention in a footnote.

It was on those nights, those late nights, a late night not being laid, I discovered what i my career was to be for the rest of my life. Or unless i think of something better.

I will say this now. I am a geek, although through my hybrid country upbringing i can walk amongst normal people or 'Socially non-challenged' and completely hide my true identity when required. Although i will break out in a cold sweat if at a party someone has trouble with their computer, but i can remain silent.. unless of-course I am talking to a really attractive women, who happens to find that "A really smart person who can fix a really simple computer problem in no time turns her on" Then i am in there so fast my body is replaced with a comical replica cloud of dust.

Now i can say this, being the age that I am, also the fact that I am at my current job I am paid well in excess of what I believe should be paid and therefore i can focus my attention on many of the attributes that were lacking in the past, like a personality for instance.. Yet if we look at the Andrew in 1993, the Andrew in his last year of High school, the Andrew that was madly in love with a person who would leave in December 17. He would have not dreamt that he, well to say I would be him... I mean me.. Well you know. He didn't even know who "he" wanted to be. besides being laid.. he knew he wanted that, god at that age he knew absolutely without a shadow of a doubt that 24 hours a day 7 days a week, he wanted to be 'that'. As far as a life outside of High School... he didn't have a clue. yet all along the signs were pointing him in a direction so finite, so absolute that he wouldn't need to worry about Tertiary education and employment after because it would all fall into place. Like a game of connect four.. and he was the red discs.

So as I sit here now, typing on my lovely iMac, listening to REM i can recall the day, like I have walked out of the computer room, and right into this one.

1993

The homework. Accounting, a subject chosen three seconds after he found that it was either that subject or Mathematics. Given that when it came to Mathematics a wet paper bag would possibly score a higher mark on a test than him Accounting was an interesting 'side step' through required VCE subjects, well so he thought. As it turned out accounting was to numbers, as a blender is to a carrot. He discovered that you could take a number, a whole number and chop it up into other numbers, place those numbers in different areas of a sheet, then make those numbers affect other numbers. Or (as if it was simply designed to cause a headache) check to see if other numbers haven't affected other numbers, because 'those' numbers should only affect their designated numbers, and so on..

And to add insult injury, at the end of it all.. after many hours of work, you should end up with two numbers, at the bottom of a whole stack of numbers above.. and they should be the same value. The freakin same!

Andrew took a gulp of his coke, and felt the coolness of the liquid drop to his stomach, knowing he would need another two glasses to make it to 3:00am. He filled out the final values on the balance sheet, and sat back and took a deap sobering breath. The end was in site, finally after so many hours listening to the same CD over and over again, soon it would be over, and his soft womb like bed which seemed an eternity away, now resides over one more hill. The final values were entered, he knew that with one press of the 'enter' key on the keyboard he would know if the hours of work spent would be worth it. The feeling was ten times worse than the feeling a person gets when they have to read a letter, sent to you by the doctor about that 'nasty rash'. He almost didn't want to press it, because, like the man with incredibly itchy inner thigh he knew what the result was going to be, and it wasn't going to be good. Yet it had to pressed, it had to! If he didn't press it now all the work tonight would be for nothing, even if the alternative offered little more.

He pressed enter.

The numbers didn't match... this was true as true itself. The kind of truth you feel in your stomach. Somewhere in the labyrinth of entries he had screwed something up.. somewhere. it was like realizing you had arranged the sand on the beach in order of size.. and somewhere, there was one grain out of place. He sat stunned. Looking at the screen, not hoping for something to pop out and say "here i am" more something to say "you and this universe don't exist anyway.. so don't worry about it, and any second you and this universe will so be flushed leaving nothing but a streak of existence on the porcelain bowl of reality." The toilet of life didn't flush however, and therefore it dawned on him that if he wanted to get out of this, he would have to start climbing.

He couldn't fix the numbers, this also was truth in it's rawest form, at this time of nigh he could hardly see the numbers let alone figure out where he went wrong. So he decided to do the next best thing. Fill out the number manually so they matched and make the spreadsheet, and all the other associated sheets look so damn good he would get points on presentation, that coupled with the few items he actually had correct could get him over the line. Sure it was about as futile as a pilot of an 747 asking passengers to 'start flapping' but like the pilot of a plane without engines, he had little options.

He changed the values so they matched, and prayed to the god of accounting to grant him this one favor, to have the teacher not check, just to accept and move on.. and then began the work of painting this mule of an assignment to if anything have it look like a pure bread racing champion. Even if three of the four legs were lame

He bolded headings where they should be bolded, he underlined when he should underline, and even double underline.. sure this was showing off but he had to pull out all stops now. He saved the greatest until the end, shadows. These were applied liberally so the whole sheet looked like a three dimensional document. The final touch, shading in area's that needed to be shaded. The end result could be exhibited in the louvre, just not examined or corrected. A safe bet would be to show it in the abstract section titled 'post modern accounting gone mad'. There it would be an absolute work of art.

The document would have to be printed in the morning, his 9pin dot matrix sounded like a the noise a cat would make, if it was being converted to a tennis racket strand by strand. So therefore the other people in his house, his father especially wouldn't want to be woken up to that.. No he would have to go to sleep now, wake up around 7:00 ish and start it then, then get back to sleep, a good solid 20 minute block of sleep later he would wake up fresh as a daisy. Ready to hit the shower, have breakfast and pick his printed copy of genius whilst whistling his way to the bus stop. Then all he would have to do is submit the assignment, making sure it was somewhere near the bottom of the pile and he would be guaranteed a solid, B.. or maybe a C...maybe

The next day came. As quickly as changing a channel on TV, the alarm went off, and thanking himself for the wisdom to place the alarm out of bashing reach so he would have to cross the room to turn it off. Thus rendering him in a state of semi conciseness, lucid enough to complete his task. The alarm, was 'negotiated' into an off state and before he slumped his body through the bedroom door he took one look at his bed. It called to him, the open dooner, the indented pillow. He knew that calling him was a bed so like a womb, perfectly warm, perfectly soft. Just five more minutes, hell even just to feel it one more time, to place the head and to know the heavenly sensation as the eye lids slowly closed shutting out a world which for that moment in time, didn't exist.

But he couldn't, he had a B+ to get to ..

THE NEXT DAY

Wripples keep on wrippling

2004-11-30T14:27:00.000-08:00

This is the last supplemental on the whole making a fool of myself on a national level. I received word from my father last night that the interview with Terry Pratchett on Triple J has been saved to their archives, so if you actually want to hear how the whole thing went you can go there and listen..

and why not, here is the link...

http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/breakfast/listen/Terry_Prat_m972047.mp3

Hope Y'all have a great day.

Drew

I think therefore I am. Seeing that I think more than you, therefoe I 'am' more than you... man..

2004-11-25T21:51:00.000-08:00

The position was simple, crouched. Low, don’t move to much and you have it maid. The technique, well that in itself was even more simple than the position, so to even contemplate the possible outcomes one must consider before entering into such an action were barely worth bothering the required amount of neurons to complete the thought process. I paused, contemplated, considered other options, other possibilities and other courses of actions. Do I have to do this? Is this my place, given the limited amount of time I have to walk this earth, should I be spending my given time. My short, non-postponable amount of time on such activities. I could be doing anything.

We have to ask ourselves, if we had 24 hours to live, why is it that we would instantly change what we were doing and go and do what we truly desire. Usually it involves being naked, well I can only speak for myself.. The point remains. Given the fact that one day, we will, we all will only have 24 hours to live. Sure that time will come to us on different days, but still eventually we will come to live the hypothetical that makes us subconsciously reach for the peanut butter jar. So why don’t we do what we would like to do now, or even some of the things. Why? Because the beauty of having only 24 hours to live, is the fact that you don’t have to live with the consequence, you will be dead. Blissfully dead, leaving the burden of your actions to others as you pass. Like for instance why, during the service there is a distinct smell of Peanut butter wafting from your coffin.

To live without consequences, is that the real dream? The core dream behind all other activities we shrink wrap and call dreams?

I return from my blissful gaze of watching the leaves sway in the wind, decide that all thought is simply a channel of electricity in one’s brain thought billions of neurons, nothing more than a more complex version of the ‘mouse trap’ board game. Therefore the relevancy of such actions is null. Realising that I am now dedicating way to much thought into not thinking I quickly gather myself, enter the stance, crouch low, remember the technique. And execute.

With one squeeze of the pruning shears and the pruning is complete..

Renting a cave, on Mars with a nice rock to hide under

2004-11-18T17:11:00.000-08:00

When an event occurs, one that you would chalk down as an event definitely to suppress. The moment and the plethora of emotions carried with it can only be resurrected in such passionate force, if someone later on reminds you of the situation, as in “Hey a couple of days ago did you do ‘X’. Such a reminder occurred.

If you want to know what I am talking about, refer to my last post, about the utterly humiliating phone call to a person that I would consider on my three people invite list, The other two I will tell you guys about later. So let me explain what happened.

Oh and I recognise the irony of me explaining a situation where a person reminded me of a public event that I just wanted to forget. But it makes for great reading so why complain.

Amongst my other manly and very impressive hobbies, basketball, guitar playing (jazz to metal), I have another hobby, well actually what I would like to consider as professional training, I attend Toastmasters. Now I know it fits right into the fold of a nerd pursuing his nerdy pursuits, but to be honest, I know that without Toastmasters, when it comes time for me to give that all important speech I will fall flat on my face, so there I have explained that, not taking any questions on the subject. How does it relate to this story though? Read on my friend(s) read on.

We were at half time, this is when the Toastmasters get a chance to rest, and the commentary shows various highlights of the nights events, critically analyses them and predicts what is to come. Usual Stuff. I was getting everything into order before heading out to supper when a person, a women, a young women came up and asked me if I had called up Triple J lately to ask Terry Pratchett a question. As my stomach was reacquainted with my heart, lungs and throat I gave her and eternal stare, which lasted for approximately .003 of a second. At this I time I observed the expression on her face, she was smiling, the kind of smile someone does when they are nervous yet very interested in the answer at the same time. Calculated all possible exits, there were none, which I could run to. So I had to respond.

“I suppose there is no way for me to say no, seeing the look on my face” I hoped this would be funny enough for her to, in her own very cute way drop the subject. She didn’t.

She pursued and I confessed, that yes I had called the station up, and seeing that she couldn’t understand why I would ask such a stupid question, I could only say that sometimes the mind is brilliant, and sometimes it’s not. It really is not.

Out of all the people to overhear, or all the people to listen to that radio show, at that time, whilst I called. Well it just goes to show, the Gods have a sense of humour, and from now I they will be blamed, more so than worshiped.

Why do I write things such as this, for the world to see. Well it’s human nature, we would rather see someone stub their toe and dance around, than put on a comfortable shoe. That’s just the way it is

I'm so freakin happy to be alive..

2004-11-13T21:43:00.000-08:00

flickrimage
Originally uploaded by avatarpalin.

A few days ago I wrote a blog which asked the question, should I change my life and pursue a dream of mine, one which I think I am only half good at. One where (even though I may be great, like a talent waiting for the right opportunity to present itself) I am sure I would have abosultely no success in convincing a publishing company to give me some of their hard earned money, to then go to another country on the promis that I will A: come back and B: write something interesting enough for other people, who don’t know me from a bar of soap. Even if that soap was from another country and looked (and smelt) rather exotic.

But I will enjoy the challenge, if anything the expression on the look on their faces will be priceless.

Now that little preamble is over with, I would like to mention, vent if you will a little incident that occurred a couple of weeks ago. In the process I will shed some light on the types of people I go “ga ga” over. Now I know what you are thinking, the kind of Ga Ga a man would only be reduced if a large gaggle of large breasted Brazilian schoolgirls turn up at one’s door and offered to wash your car…with their white T’shirts. No this is the kind of ‘ga ga’ that people often are resulted to when they meet someone they believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are so exceedingly better than themselves. Now for one will say that I will never meet a Pop/Rock/whatever musician and go Ga Ga, for one, I have been there.. done that, on a more pathetically small scale. But I know enough to know that 9.9999 recurring out of 10.0 bands are only successful because the recording manager likes the way they are, or the way their sister is interested in ‘promoting their career’. Hence why I wouldn’t find musicians the kind of people where I would lose the power of logical thought and structured speech. Writers? Now that’s something else.

I think when we all regard in our lives the people that we think are better than ourselves, or to be more polically correct “more fortunate” I don’t think many people would consider writers on the list, but to myself through a rather interesting twist of fate I have now realised they are near the top of the list.

This was the interesting twist of fate

Early one morning, as I drove myself through the ever so familiar streets leading to 173 Elizabeth St Coburg, otherwise known as Kodak ,I was channel surfing hoping for something entertaining. As I changed to the preset of JJJ (pronounced ‘Triple J’) the announcer, in his overly enthusiastic “I’m so freakin’ happy to be alive” voice claimed that “Terry Pratchett” would be just after 8:00 in the morning. Brilliant, seeing I have just finished five books from the man in succession, an interview would be a brilliant way to start the day.

I was poised, I was positioned. The radio was on, and as soon as the crappy song from the no name band was to finish the interview would start. Anyway as the happy happy joy joy announcer came on the air, he opened up with the question “OOOOOOOOk if you would like to ask Terry a question, call in now” Without hesitation, I picked up the handset and dialled. Then it dawned on me, I have no idea what to ask him. I searched for the funniest, wittiest joke my early morning pre coffee brain could muster. I came up with this

“Were you ever a real Freemason?”

Just pause for a second to consider the stupidity.

Anyway the receptionist who answered the call, sounding the complete opposite to the happy happy announcer asked me the question, I said it. She gave me a lovely one second pause, then typed it into her computer, transferred me through.

Now to make a long story, not much longer. I asked Terry the question, he simply responded with a “do you think they would let a person like me in?” and the phone hung up.

Ahhh to be stupid again…

Guide to Earth

2004-11-07T03:14:00.000-08:00

A geeks thought.

This one I need a bit of advice. Now when I mean advice I really mean that I need people to tell me if am (or the idea I am about to suggest is) crazy. Oh and I have a plan if no one responds. It goes along the lines of, “God if you don’t want me to do eat this donut, give me a sign”. So if I don’t hear anything I will assume it a tick in the yes box.

Now the idea.

I had the opportunity of partaking in one of my favourite hobbies. Drinking Coffee in a Gloria Jeans store which is also has a Borders book store. You buy the coffee, then grab a brand new book and read it free of charge, if just feels like a legal version of stealing, it would only be more naughty if I were doing it naked. With peanut butter.. And using for a bookmark… hmmm another time perhaps. Anyway I was reading a Travel book on the Himalayas by non other than Michael Page. This impregnated a thought into my head. Instantly, the gay guy from ‘Scooby Do’ popped next to me and said rather loudly “that’s a plan so crazy it just might work”. Ok here is the plan.

There are a million travel books available today, some are more popular than others because, well the people going to the places are rather famous. So what it seems these publishing companies are doing is, grabbing a famous guy, sticking in somewhere you couldn’t post a letter to and taking a lot of pretty photo’s whilst being there. Add a couple of pictures of some famous people, the famous person being arrested, doing some time.. generally getting into all manner of strife, and somehow.. at the end of it all, arriving at the end still radiating a disturbing amount of charm and elegance.

What we need is a new angle, and this will both facilitate an incredibly niche market of highly paid professionals that don’t travel. And a guy who would love to be paid, being sent to places you couldn’t post a letter to, to get up to all manner of strife and off course at the end still radiate enough charm to power Geelong. I propose

The Geek’s guide to the Earth

Yes that’s right, a computer geeks travel book. I will go overseas, to Asia to meet the hacker that launched the code red virus. To North Korea, to interview one or more of the 500 skilled hackers the government has employed, asking them the hard questions.. “Did Doom 3 live up to their expectations” and “Would they ever use a ‘Wizard’ to create something. Or are those things just not allowed”. Then I could be sent to Tibet. To the skilled Buddhist Monks, forced to Code in exile in North India, and so on.

I believe that, if I survived I would have an almost limitless array of information that I can draw from, to create a very interesting read, one that might cross over from ‘Cheap bastard reading it at a coffee/bookshop shop’ to ‘an honest citizen, wanting to actually part with their hard earnings’

Oh and off course I will take lots of pretty pictures whilst I am there. The pages will be filled with early morning shots of totally fascinating city’s. Elephants bathing themselves. Me doing things I wouldn’t normally do, like bathing an Elephant. To pictures of really old men forced to still perform act’s of hard labor to earn a pitiful amount of money. To me bribing various officials, riding on trains, eating food I really detest, and so on.

Let me know what you think.. Does it have legs?

I bombed

2004-11-03T04:12:00.000-08:00

Tonight I bombed.

With all the speeches I have given, tonight was to be the hardest. Why? Well unlike all the other speeches, this one I actually had to prepare for. Unlike the others, this one I had to recite a passage from ‘The light fantastic”, and unlike the others, I was not wonderfully fantastically…brilliantly funny, I was just dull. Even to die hard Terry Pratchett I would have been ridiculed for the lack off accuracy in what and the way I delivered the speech. I am lucky that all Terry Pratchett fan’s are most likely hard core nerds, for some reason the thought of a master of ‘Kick the crap of you – FU” would not read Sci Fi let alone Terry Pratchett, and so if I would have been subject to a late night, car park style ambush I would of received nothing more than the superficial wounds similar to the one’s endured from a wet paper bag wielded by someone who wouldn’t know how to use one if he (or she) were imprisoned by some evil, yet stupid mastermind.

When I arrived home though, I would find my bank account stripped, wanted on three sodomy charges, that I was no longer alive, or dead. That my house now belonged to the church of scientology and my girlfriend no longer knew who I was, or she was for that matter, just that she kept on being confused on whether Kirk or Pickard were better captains. Both, she would argue had convincing cases.

Don’t screw with nerds, they run the world.

So yes for the first time I completely blew it, a speech equivalent of having a blow-out mid race, or in my occasion during the pits leaving for the race. So now I have to learn to live with this, and hopefully move on. Sadly though, if I ever hold up a convenience store, sometime in the future, this will be one moment where I look back on and thought, if only I had succeeded at that one speech,, therefore I would of never have written this, thus pissing of the nerds, thus now having to walk the earth known on every computer as Mrs Emily Berkenstein resident of Mimas

An observation

2004-10-31T20:01:00.000-08:00

DCP_8350.JPG
Originally uploaded by avatarpalin.

Everything was prepared well in advance. Like a sky diver checking his parachute ‘one last time’ I went through my bag, if I was to forget anything… anything at all then, well you would see me on the news the next day. if i had forgotten two items, that night.

The moment arrived, actually truth be told the moment hadn’t arrived yet seeing that I had the choice of sitting in an empty house waiting for the moment to arrive, or just leave, get there early and watch a couple of matches beforehand. Once again I checked for my shorts, both the pair in the bag and the pair that I now carry in the boot of the beetle, the reserve parachute..

We won, that is true. I am very sore, that is also true. I played well that is true. Because I played well I received a fair bit of the dirty tactics the losing team employed as a bitter attempt to not win the game, but to hurt anyone that tried to score. The moment steamed over, similar to the way the sound of a bottle being broken over a bar is symbolic of two people 'bubbling over' from a mild disagreement to early check in at the local emergency hospital. Nathan went to drive the ring, the player tailing him at the time decided to, instead of bash him around the head which was the previous defensive tactic to trip him which sent him hurtling into the rather solid wall, nicely located behind the backboard and ring which was his original target.

Well the pushing started, the shoving.. I think some names were called I don’t recall, but one thing was for sure a message needed to be sent to these people that we had a handy lead so we could spend some time bruising them if they wanted to play that way. So it begun, knocks to the back of the head, elbows in ribs. Generally bashings all round..

..at the end, or as the poets say ‘As the dust settles’* we had won convincingly, we shook hand’s and looked forward to the next time we play.

The night came and went, besides the match there is nothing of value worth mentioning.. oh besides the corn flakes I ate at 11:30pm, how outrageous is that!?

This morning I made a strange observation. Please stay with me on this one.

Now as we know, or as it is written. In a book. Not all books. That the world is about eight thousand years old, that’s it. Eight Thousand, give or take a couple of years. Oh and this place was built in Seven days. Everything perfect. Seven days.

Sure..

..Dinosaur bones, he put just to screw with our heads

This morning as drove to work I noticed a flaw in this all mighty design, one which I believe contradicts the very fabric of belief that we are made from by one person, and he is perfect and he made the world perfect and there is lots of variety because we are all different, billions of us, different.. unique.

Sure..

Well I discovered something that would cast a little bit of doubt. It’s a small observation, but like all small things, they can often serve as a catalyst of a larger event. I looked through my revision mirror, and saw , what can be called attractive women driving a Mercedes, and I say “what can be called” because once she steps out of the car, and the whole body is witnessed, the title attractive can go down hill very quickly. This was fine, but then as I turned onto St George’s Rd, I witnessed another Women driving another Mercedes, yet it was the same looking car and the same looking women yet distinctly different. Both had thick rimmed glasses, both had shoulder length hair and both were talking on the phone.. yet two different cars. This was odd but not to odd, anyway as I pulled into Elizabeth St I noticed once again another women, she was also driving a Mercedes looking very similar to the previous two, her car was slightly different in the wheels. But all three were the same. So this led me to think. Is there only one kind of women that drives this type of car, or and infact this is a much more interesting theory, that God is limited in his imagination and when he came up with his all brilliantly impressive show off like design, it wasn’t that impressive ‘ oh look at me’ design after all, and to the trained eye you can pick many flaws. Like a jeweller inspecting a recently stolen diamond, as the beanie weary junky moves uncomfortably on the balls of his feet, waiting for the money, listening for sirens, craving the next hit.

So what do you think.. have you witnessed these flaws in what we call reality? Like have you ever wondered why allot of things taste like chicken. Or that TV personalies all tend to be the same. Or and this is the scary one, you will see a fashion show, where no matter where they are being held, the women look all the same. Dead.. but still walking.

* As you know it is often said ‘As the poets say’ followed by a rather witty line, or astute observation. This is all well and good and it is important to have people of that nature that can look at the world from a different perspective, making the observations, writing them down, and requoting them to a collective of beatniks, sipping their coffee’s, smoking their hemp and generally feeling superior with an attitude along the lines of “I think therefore I am, and because I think more than you, I ‘AM’ more than you…..man….groovy” It occurred to me that in order for someone to have the line “as the dust settles” he must have been near, or somewhere within eyeshot of the battle in order to see the dust. If this is the case.. Instead of sitting on the dusty rock, with his notebook, his coffee, his thick rimmed glasses making the observation. He could of picked up a bloody spear and helped his fellow man.

A right of passage

2004-09-22T20:35:00.000-07:00

This was Kane's first fishing experience.....bored in five minutes
Originally uploaded by avatarpalin.

Oh this one has to be put down into the "if your not a parent, then you will be bored" category. Desperate to claim special moments in my sons life, I tend to make situations more momentous than they really should. For instance, if I had my way, Kane's first walk, should of been televised around the world, similar to another walk. But no, it occured at 2:24pm on a Thursday afternoon, whilst I was thirty five kilometers away, doing god knows what at my then employment. The moment was replaid to me as i arrived home. Now that moment had passed, there was a potential plethora of others where, if I had my way I would be willing to say "I was there!".

Is fishing one of them? Damn right it is, if i was made to do it, then so shall unto my Son.

The moment was cleverly disguised as a camping trip, and just to make sure there were no second thoughts on his behalf, the camping trip consisted of staying in a two-story cabin, with running hot water, electricity and all the comforts a child would want. Finally the moment had arrived, three days into the camping trip we had everything that we needed... fishing rod, bait, water, and a fish... check!

The fish was named according to it's breed, personality and the brief description of it's appearance as best i could make out. "Old man Sam", suggested by Kane, assuming he had taken all of the aforementioned criteria into account, it was accepted.

Considering he named a spider "broom" it's not a bad suggestion.

The plan was this.. to put a floater on the line, have the hook about ten centimetres under the water, drifting along to the fish that was enjoying life down the river a way. He would sit on a rock in the middle of the creek and fish, catching the fish within moments..

That was the plan, the reality was something a little more familiar. I assume we have all been fishing, with our parents, not because we wanted to , but because they felt the need to see us go through the experience. So with that assumption, we should now all think what went through our minds when told to sit, be still and most importantly be silent.

Well it began with Kane asking Van at the top of his voice if she had felt anything move on the line.. then idly splashing his feet in the warm water, and then drawing on the rock with a wet finger. Then deciding to swim around a while waiting for something to happen..

I assumed the fish left, feeling that it's intelligence had been insulted.

But a magical day, one I can say that " I was there..."

The Beginning

2004-09-20T16:36:00.000-07:00

As with everything, there has to be a beginning, middle and end. I think one's success can be calculated by how well the beginning went, how long the middle was, and offcourse how short and sweet the end, inevitably is.

I hope this place will be entertaining for you, the words that i write will be a complete and honest transcript of my thoughts and activities, and as you will begin to learn. The life i lead is rather, well interesting.

Enjoy

Drew