Thoughts on departure

I'll say this for moving overseas for an extended period, it sure does make you popular. Just today I received at least 4 phone calls from 4 different people requesting my company, which I sadly had to decline due to prior arrangements. Never in my life have I felt so popular. I should move more often.

But mostly its just a pain in the ass. Happily a lot of the annoying things have been taken care of like flights, visas, housing ect. but there are still many annoying things about moving OS on a student budget.

Packing: Currently I have been tasked with trying to cram pretty much everything I'll need for 2 years in to one suitcase with a limit of 20kg, a backpack and the pair of pants with the biggest pockets I can find. Currently I've had to cull my precious t-shirt collection down to "must-haves", I'm trying to figure out how best to get my skateboard over there or if its more cost effective to send it and leaving my precious N64 at home for 2 years is going to be the end of me most likely. And there is also the concern that anything left behind will either be damaged or thrown out by my family members while they have the chance to clear out my "clutter". All I can say is that if anyone even TOUCHES my CD collection without my permission, they will be killed.

Money: Shit's expensive yo. I currently don't have enough money to live comfortably for two years AND fly back to Australia when I'm done. Let's see how that goes...

The questions and tips: For the last 6 months I have been bombarded with the same god damn questions (some times by the same people) or being given "helpful tips" every second day and frankly I'm sick of answering/hearing them. I get them everyday and I have been to Lapland before SO in order to try and prevent more silly questions, here we go... I leave Canberra on the second of January and Australia on the fifth from Melbourne. I am in Melbourne to visit my Nan. I will visit friends in Helsinki and Oulu before arriving in Rovaniemi on the eighth. I will be studying a master's degree of Industrial Design at the University of Lapland and I'm doing it because its free and why the hell not? I already have a flat and will be sharing it my Polish friend Aleks, who I met last time I was there. My flat is 3km from the uni. Yes, I can legally get a job in Finland but it will be difficult since I do not speak Finnish. Yes, I will be learning Finnish. Yes, I intend to keep doing parkour, strength training and longboarding while I am there, just because I'm in a different place doesn't mean I will enjoy these activities less. Yes I would like to go skiing/snowboarding. I am aware that Finland in winter is very cold and that I will need warm clothes. Yes I have a Finnish bank account. Finland is on the Euro. I don't know if I can drive in Finland. No I don't like fish. Yes Finland is very dark in the winter and I will not see the sun for days on end. It is the opposite in summer. Yes I intend to visit other countries if I can afford it. Yes I want you to come visit me. Yes I would like to come back to Australia half way though, feel free to buy me a ticket. Yes I'm having a farewell, its tomorrow.

BUT this all has the pay off of me living in a beautiful country where drunken nudity is not only accepted, but expected, for a decent amount of time. Come see me, it'll be like a dream.

Similarities between Norse and Christian religions pt.2

So I realized I missed some points in my previous post. Here comes some more mindless drivel!

Significant people sacrificing them selves.


So you of course know that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. What an upstanding thing to do. Not sure what beef the Romans had with him but oh well. Its alright he rose up again 3 days later.


BUT did you know Odin also sacrificed him self for the good of others? Well mostly. When you look at it, his actions could also been seen as overly selfish, but I choose to believe he has every one's best interests at heart. Basically, Odin first sacrificed one of his eyes at Mimir's well in exchange for a drink from the waters in order to gain great wisdom. He became wise but wanted to be more wise (so he could help people right?) so he hung him self from Yggdrasil (the world tree) for 9 days and was pierced by his own spear as an offering to him self. Yes, he sacrificed him self to him self. While hanging from the tree he observed all the 9 worlds and gained great wisdom. He learned 18 runes (18 is a multiple of 9, noticing a pattern here?) that gave him various powers that he could use to help him self or others. He had certain powers just for him, such as a rune that made it impossible to tie him up, but many for others that mostly gave great advantage in battle (very important in Viking culture) such as invulnerability, blunting enemy weapons, the ability to catch arrows etc. etc. There were also a few more practical ones such as one that allowed him to save ships from storms. All up some pretty spiffing things for a chap to be able to do for you. Anyway he learned all this while he was dying on the tree, but its ok he was fine after a good lie down.

Apple theft.

Adam and Eve, those naughty devils, ate some of God's apples in the garden of Eden after being convinced to do so by a sneeky snake and as a result they were promptly ejected from the premises. Harsh drag.

Well I'm sure you'll be amazed to hear that there is a similar story in Norse myth! In this version a giant called Thiazi steals not only the apples of the gods but the god who grows them too. This is all in a cunning plot to see the gods wither into old age (the apples provide eternal youth) and the giant makes off with the goddess Idun to his home in Jountenheim. Loki is sent to retrieve Idun (I won't tell the story but its his fault she was kidnapped) so he transforms into a falcon and flies to the land of giants to get her. He finds her, uses magic runes to turn her into a nut and starts to fly back to Asgaard, but not before Thiazi finds out that Idun is gone! Thiazi thurns into an eagle and chases Loki down just as he reaches the realm of the gods, but luckily the gods are awaiting his and Loki's arrival and they promptly set him on fire and kill him for stealing their apples. That's how that tale goes down. I like it because people are turning into things all the time and there is a chase scene.

In both versions the perpetrators learn not to steal apples. Adam and Eve via being kicked out of paradise and Thiazi by being set on fire then killed. The lesson here is gods really like apples.

Copyrite or coincidence?

I don't feel the urge to write often but this is a thing I've been thinking about lately and figure I should put it down somewhere before I forget.

I'm just going to put this out there, this could be offensive if you are a religious type, but that's not what I'm getting at here. I just find this real interesting.

As you may or may not know, I have quite the liking for things both Norse and mythological, so it stands to reason that Norse mythology is something I like to investigate. Over the time that I have been reading Norse myths about creation and general activities of gods and what not I have noticed some rather curious similarities between them and my limited understanding of Christianity (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about anything though. Most of my Religious education comes from the Simpsons) so if you care to read on I will be rambling on at no particular rate about what I've noticed...


The general structure of the world.
-The Christian model for how the universe is generally put together is pretty well known. Up the top you have Heaven, a place where God lives and where all the good and righteous chaps and chapettes go when they die, if they have earned God's favor. Then there's the Earth where people go about their lives, its pretty uninteresting generally. But they do have skateboards and rock concerts so its not all that bad. Then underneath is Hell, a generally hot, firey, uncomfortable place lorded over by a fallen angel called Satan who was kicked out of Heaven because God was afraid he'd start shit. Satan is generally seen as a flaming daemon type character bent on destroying the realm of Heaven and generally causing a rukus. This is where you go if you're a bad egg when you die.

Yggdrasil

-The Christian structure is all pretty well known. But do you know how the Norse world is structured? Well for a start its all in a tree called Yggdrasil that has three main levels with several worlds with in them (nine in total). At the top is Asgaard, the realm of the Gods. Here is where Odin (the all father, more on him later) and his family and friends hang out for the most part. It is also where Odin's hall of Valhalla is located. This hall is where valiant warriors who fall in battle go when they die, to await to fight along side the gods at Ragnarok, the great battle at the end of the world. Beneath Asgaard lies Midgaard, the world of men (this shares the same level as the realm of giants called Jotunheim) and is generally pretty uninteresting until the Gods poke their nose in. Below is the underworld which importantly contains Nifelheim and Muspelheim, the realms of cold and ice and heat and flame respectively. In Nifelheim is Hel (yes with one "L"), domain of demigoddess Hella, who was expelled from Asgaard because Odin and co. were afraid she'd start shit (her father was Loki, God of mischief and change). She's half dead and half alive and generally just looks after the dead. Next to Nifelheim is Muspelheim where in dwells Surt, a flaming daemon type character bent on destroying the world and generally causing a rukus. It is said that at Ragnarok the armies of Muspel will rise up to fight the Gods and men.

Now I'm just putting it out there that there are more than a few similarities here. In fact I'd go so far as to say the two are pretty much identical save for a few minor details like names and the like. Obviously Christianity's version is lacking a big old ash tree but the similarities between the two are quite interesting. I particularly find the way the Christian underworld seems to be a blending of the two realms and main occupants of its Norse counterpart to be of great interest, it even borrows the name. With Hella and Surt being combined to create Satan and the realms of Nifelheim and Muspelheim combining to create Hell. Interesting no?

Creation and all that Jazz. 
-So from what I've heard God was a pretty swell fellow and made us the world in 6 days and also invented taking a day off too (what a rad dude). I have no idea what he used to make it from or anything like that but he certainly didn't just rock up on a pre built place and get his divinity on. He built everything from scratch. He then made two people, a man and a woman, called Adam and Eve who then went on to spawn all humans on Earth. Then later on God flooded the Earth to cleanse it of the wicked (yeah I know that isn't a part of creation but bear with me here).

Odin riding his 8 legged horse Sleipnir, followed by his two ravens and wolf

-In Norse mythology the creation of the world is a little more complex as it also involves the creation of the universe too (the story is similar to that of the big bang if you ask me...). In the start there was just Nifelheim and Muspelheim (remember them from before?). A realm of ice and once of fire. My understanding is that they expanded, with rivers of ice flowing from Nifelheim and heat and fire from Muspel, until they came together in a place called Ginnugagap where the fires of Muspel started to melt the Ice of Nifelheim. Eventually the drops of water from the melting ice formed into Yimir, the first frost giant. From here it goes on similarly with various characters emerging from the ice in various ways (the first "man" is licked out of the ice by a cow). Basically from here there were a bunch of dudes hanging out, both men and giants. The men fathered Odin and his brothers Vili and Ve. Those giants were causing a rukus and generally messing the place up and Odin and his bros didn't take kindly to that, no sir! Basically they just decided to kill Yimir. So they did. Then they dragged his body to the middle Ginnungagap and over some time made the world out of his body (did you know that clouds are actually a giant's brain?). The three brothers then later made the first man and woman called Ask and Embla out of an ash and an elm. They then went on to populate the world. During the creation of the world, there was a great flood of blood  (keeping in mind the world was being made from Yimir's body) that drowned all the giants bar two, a giant named Bergelmir and his wife, who survived the flood in a boat made from a hollowed out tree.

The similarities are pretty obvious here. God(s) made the world. Made people. Killed wicked creatures with a flood, which was survived by few in a boat.

God/Gods getting ladies knocked up.
-Basic tale of Christmas, Marry is pregnant with Jesus, Joseph has nothing to do with it. Cuckolded by God, nice.

-In the Viking world there were three castes of people. Basically put, slaves, free men and kings and the like. The way these three castes were established is told in the song of Rig, where in the god Heimdrall heads into Midgaard posing as a man called Rig. In the tale he travels about and on three separate nights he seeks shelter from three different couples, in three different houses of three different levels of niceness. That is to say one was rubbish, then comfortable, then real nice. While staying in these places he would sleep between the man and woman living there and the next morning the woman would be pregnant. The children of these encounters would be the beginnings of the three castes. Summary: Heimdrall is a dick and you shouldn't let him stay at your house or he'll knock up your wife while you're sleeping next to him.

The end of the world.
-I'll be the first to admit I know very little about the Christian version of the end of the world BUT my understanding of it goes something like this. The Rapture, all those who God deems worthy get taken to Heaven. For every one else its Hell on earth basically, with the armies of Satan running rampant about the place causing havoc, death and destruction. So far as I know the four horsemen of he apocalypse ride out and cause a bit of a mess too, basically heralding the end of everything. I'm also under the impression that a happy fellow known as Leviathan rises from the bottom of the ocean and starts to churn up a storm. So much rukus is happening no one really knows what's going on.

Gods face their enemies at Ragnarok

-In Nosre mythology the end of the world is seen as a big battle called Ragnarok. During Ragnarok various creatures rise up against the gods of Asgaard to destroy the world. It is somewhat similar to the Christian version but not quite. Instead of those chosen by the gods being taken to safety, they instead ride proudly into battle against the forces of evil along side the gods to fight in a battle they know they'll loose. This is where the armies of Surt (that Satan like fellow from before) ride on the rest of the world, setting things on fire and what not. There are several heralds of the Apocalypse, namely Loki and his sons Fenrir and Jormagand, who's arrival can be seen somewhat like that of the four horse men. At the end of the world Loki joins in the mess with Surt by committing an army of Giants the fray. Fenrir the wolf breaks his bonds (he had been bound by the gods because they were scared that he would start shit) and runs rampant on the earth opening his mouth so wide that his lower jaw scrapes the ground and his upper touches the sky. His brother Jormagand (also known as the Midgaard serpent) churns up the oceans and makes way for dry land and promptly starts spitting venom all over the place. The gods fight against these characters ending in both sides being killed. Generally there is so much rukus happening no one really knows what's going on. After the battle everyone is dead. Gods, monsters, everyone. Except for two humans who hid inside Yggdrasil. These two go in to repopulate the world and everything starts again.

In my simple mind these two events are almost the same save a few choice details. There's armies of evil running about the place. The chosen of God/the gods are involved in some way. There are heralds and there is a big sea creature that basically messes up anything he can. But in the Norse version everything keeps going after.

So what?
What I wonder is if it is a coincidence that there are so many overlapping elements of these religions i.e do people find the same ways to explain things no matter where they are? Or is it more that the Christian missionaries were influenced by the Viking religion when they arrived in the region? Perhaps the populous changed the religion around their pre-existing beliefs? Or did Christianity just think these were some cool stories that they'd kinda like in their religion too? Who knows, I just think its real interesting.

/rant

Things I've been thinking of late.

Sometimes I remember that I have a blog to write my rambling thought paths down into for all the world to see. The problem is when ever I think of something to write I'm not near my computer and when I am I've forgotten what I was going to say. And they were good things to say too. Anyhoo, here's a few things that have been on my mind.

1. Religious holidays in Harry Potter. I'm all for tolerance and all that jazz and I have no objections to witches and wizards exchanging gifts under a large tree that has been erected indoors at christmas time but one thing bothers me here. Doesn't god hate witchcraft and all that sort of thing? I'm sure there was this whole burning witches at the stake thing that happened at some point that I would have thought would make magic types want to distance them selves from religious types as much as possible. I understand that christmas is a pretty neat time of year and all (I'm certainly not religious and I certainly don't object to food and gifts in large amounts) but I figured magic types may have some better thing to do than celebrate a holiday central to the reason their people were constantly murdered violently. Just seems like an odd choice to me is all...

2. The Finnish government. Now I understand that Finland wants to keep undesirables (read poor people) out but why the hell do they have to make it SO DAMN HARD to get into their country? Firstly I need to have 500 Euros in my bank account when I apply for my residence permit. I can't show documentation showing that I will have the amount by the time I'm in the country, I clearly need to have that money 6 months before arriving. I understand that you don't want some foreign schmuck mooching around in your country doing nothing but taking up valuable resources that could be used by useful people and 500 Euro per month is a reasonable amount to expect but it makes it very hard to get a visa if you have to have it on hand right away. Health insurance is another thing. Sure, again you don't want to be supporting mooching internationals on your excellent public health scheme but Australia and Finland have made a thing stating that Australians have access to medicare in Finnish medical facilities (read we still get subsidized healthcare like we would here) so why do I need insurance that does pretty much the same thing? Or perhaps I don't understand how medicare works, which is entierly possible...

3. My boss. Why would you sign someone onto a permanent part time contract for 21 hours a week then hire more people and cut everyone's hours? It just makes no sense to me. Also why is it so hard to actually roster me on for the hours you promised to give me?

4. Why are people scared of fun? There's this dude I work with who seems to be scared of having any fun at all. Anything at all seems to be far too risky for him to consider doing. I'm surprised he's even left his house. I mean honestly what's the point in having a life if you spend all your time doing nothing to keep safe.

What your joystick looks like inside (LOOK AT THE DUST!)

  5. Nintendo 64 controllers. Seriously, Nintendo designed a great controller for a great platform but why did they allow it to fall down in material selection? I recently pulled apart a N64 controller to see if I could discover why the joystick goes all loose and limp after a while and it turns out that it all came down to poor material selection by the design department. There are three components which are in constant contact in the joystick assembly, namely the joystick its self and two black plastic parts that it locks into and moves when the joystick is moved (which in turn activate optical sensors that tell the computer that's going on. Think old school ball mouse). The joystick is made of a harder material than the two black parts which results in the black part grinding away every time the stick is moved and causing the stick to feel loose after a while as it has nothing holding it up anymore. Games like Zelda, Mario Party and GoldenEye (which relied heavily on vicious joystick use) have a lot to answer for here. Was this planed by Nintendo to facilitate more control sales (remember all the pretty colours these things came in?) or just some lack on foresight by the design team?

The sides of the hole are not supposed to have a big curve in them

Anyway, that's me done for now. I hope you enjoy my poor spelling and bad grammar.

Driving with Douglas

I'm scared of a great many things, snakes, heights, really small places where I can't lift my arms, deep and meaningful conversations... but the one thing that scares me more than many of those things is driving with my father. During the time that I was on my L's my dad was very insistent that I learn how to drive properly and safely. He even made me read a few books on safe driving techniques (I think he may even have quized me on them). I even remember one afternoon where he made me reverse around a car park for at least half an hour so that I could do it well, man did my clutchn' foot hurt after that one. When I got my license, that birthday I received a voucher for a defensive driver training course from my dad because he wanted me to be a safe driver. I learned the basics of how my car would act in varying situations and how to act safely on the road, which was all great, a very good gift for a new driver indeed. I was also encouraged to complete and off road driver training course, which I did and that was great. all up my dad wanted me to be a safe and cautious driver.

So why, I query, is driving with my dad at the wheel often such a frightful experience? I have a memory from some family holiday of my dad over taking several cars around a corner on double un-broken lines. Which to me back then was perfectly normal. I mean everyone's dad drives like that right? Just tonight as we were traveling to the gym for our weekly pump fest, we were speeding, tailgating, doing risky lane changes and taking some very small gaps. If we were in a hurry this may have made sense, but we weren't, so it seems quite unnecessary to take such risks and endanger the live of others for a trivial time gain. We were almost in an accident and I was constantly pushing my right foot into the floor looking for a brake pedal that wasn't there. I remember once in high school I was at a friend's house and we wanted to go to the shops, so we got my mates brother to drive us. He drove your typical bogan HSV commodore so a mere drive to the shops consisted of multiple power slides, burnouts and a top speed that exceeded 100km/h. The thing was I didn't notice, I was too busy thinking how much I hated the nelly song playing on the CD player. My mate was most surprised when he asked me what I thought of the drive I had no idea what he was talking about. For me it was just a regular drive. I'm not saying my father is a drastically speeding, burnout doing bogan, but it's not uncommon to here those tires squeal from time to time. Mostly I've just taken to accepting that fact that he's never actually BEEN in an accident ever so I'll probably be fine... probably...

Your fittness is what you make it fool!

Before I start, I have no problem with fat people. If you want to be fat that's fine with me, just don't complain to me and do nothing about it please. Also its important to note that I have no qualifications at all.

Now I am hardly a fit person. I spend more than my fair share of time in front of a computer contributing in no way to the betterment of man kind. I like to drink, eat fatty things and spend whole days watching TV shows. Yet I am constantly cursed as a "fit skinny bastard" which I think is a little un-just. I'm going to make a possibly very offensive statement here. If you aren't as fit an healthy as you like and don't have some legitimately good reason for it (like a medical condition) then I'm going to go out on a limb and say its your fault. As I said I like to drink, eat and have lazy days where I do nothing, but I do this in moderation. Its about realizing what your body needs see? My dad complains to me about how skinny I am and how fat he is then proceeds to consume a whole block of blue cheese and consume a bottle of wine. This annoys the hell out of me. If you aren't happy with your weight or fitness I have no problem with you complaining (god knows I do) so long as you actually TRY to do something about it. Here's how I managed to trim off some of those pesky fat handles if you care to read.

First is food. Put simply, eat what you need. Your body uses what ever you eat to refuel and build it self, what it doesn't use it keeps for later in a general sense (read fat). Carbohydrates (like in bread, vegies, grains and all manner of other food stuffs) are what the body primarily burns for fuel. So your intake of them should compliment the amount of activity you do lest there be a surplus that later gets turned into fat. Protein is what YOU are made of so its important if you're looking to get those big biceps to impress girlies at the pool this summer. You should again be eating this stuff as suits your activity. I'm no expert in the matter though and have no idea what your goals are so I'll let you do some research in to what you should be doing here. Although I do quite like the idea of the Paleo Diet. Eating in general should be done after physical activity, not before. Its after any intensive action that your body is looking for something to replenish its fuel and build stuff out of so to get the most out of your food eat within two hours of finishing a workout. Which leads me to...

DOING STUFF. People think getting fit and healthy means they have to go buy a gym membership and buy protein shakes. But did you know you can do all that stuff for free (or close to if you want to get a bit of equipment) if you're clever? First is the most obvious. Walking and running. Cardio work is great and not enough people do it. I don't see why people have to drive to the gym to get on a treadmill either, why can't you just go for a walk? You get to see more than a bunch of fat sweaty middle aged women wobbling about and I personally feel like I actually achieve something when I go for a walk or a run. So go for a walk or run. RIGHT NOW(note: bikes are good too). Secondly is for the people who are after a bit of beef on the ol' bones. Again you don't have to go to the gym to get big and strong. Here I like to use the ideas of Georges Hébert and his natural method of training, which you can research as you will. Basically use what you have around you to make a work out. While you're out on that run why not stop at the local play ground and do some pull ups? or do some Bulgarian split squats on the park bench with a big rock? Why just an hour ago I did a strenuous workout in the corridor of my house using the floor, a door frame and a wall. Get creative. Pushups can get boring fast, but try some variations. Try different hand positions, change the elevation of your feet, put some weight on. Try it with your hands on a ball. In general body weight exercises are your friend. And if you're feeling adventurous parkour will build a lot of strength fast if you apply your self.

So if you're fat, unfit and don't like it (providing it isn't due to a medical condition) its your fault. Go do something about it. But if you like eating cakes all day and watching high quality TV shows that's fine with me too. Be what you want to see in your self.

Nuclear Blast webshopping

Again as you may or may not know I have recently been on a quest for sew on patches of bands that I like in order to sew them onto a vest I have. Its a heavy metal thing and some fine examples can be seen here. So for the past few weeks I have been trawling about the internet in search of the patches I have become so hungry for. Which eventually lead me to the Nuclear Blast webshop. At first you may think, as I did, that this is your simple run-of-the mill heavy metal webshop despensing the standard fair of black band shirts and a fine range of patches. But after further investigation, it would seem that Nuclear Blast have taken things to the next level. Not only do they carry a wide range of band merchandise but anything else a metal head could need...

Heavy metal utensils

Firstly, what do you do as a extreme music fan? You go to festivals of course! Its ok, Nuclear Blast have you covered. They have everything the intrepid festival goer could want from tents all the way to a camp toilet and camo netting. I was amazed at how much this made sense and wonder why I had never seen this before. But wait! THERE'S MORE!

A lot of heavy metal makes reference to old religions such as that of the old Norse, so this section also makes sense even if it is a bit left of feild... I must say I was more than a little tempted by some of those drinking horns and some of that chainmail looks pretty fresh... but who could go past the chainmail neck tie? I was again, flabbergasted by the array of viking related goods available on this site owned by a recording label (who are supposed to make their money from recording stuff). I mean there's even carved wooden wall hangings and mead...

But what got me the most about this site was the homewares section, which has everything from heavy metal tea and black skull and cross bones pasta all the way up to black christmas trees with decorations. I'd like to think that when I own my own home that it would be full of classy things like this. No because I think its cool, but because I think that heavy metal is stupid as hell a lot of the time and too many people take it too seriously ALL OF THE TIME. I'm all for artists being serious with their music and that, don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting that every band become some cheesey Alestorm type novelty, more that everything doesn't have to be frost bitten and grim all the time...

After spending several hours perusing the pages of this webshop I drew a conclusion. And that is that I should probably try not to buy stuff from it, simply because I know I'll lose controll and within 3 days a package containing a drinking horn, some cool biscuit cutters and maybe some spikes to stick on my belt would be shipped from Germany to my door. Oh, I may get some patches too.

This site is amazing and is doing a great service to the fans of metal. Not just selling the wares of the artists signed to their label but selling them the things the really need.

Pungent puns with Tim

You'd best believe my life contains pun duels. To this day I have proven to be a strong pun master and just tonight I bested Tim in a pun off. Oddly enough the topic of the punning was sewing and all involved showed an unnatural amount of knowledge on the subject for two men in their early twenties still living at home. The battle raged for 20 or so minutes with many well thought out (and some not so well thought out) puns being flung to and fro. the conversation went something like this:

Alphonze T. Habbernackle says:
would it be too much effort to make my own blind guardian patch?
Team says:
I imagine sew.
Alphonze T. Habbernackle says:
oh tim
bravo
Team says:
That pun was just looming around, waiting to be used.
Alphonze T. Habbernackle says:
oh man
Team says:
You'll be in a stitch if you can't think of any yourself.
Alphonze T. Habbernackle says:
you've got me in stitches here
Oh
god
 damn it
Team says:
I've just got too much material tonight.
Sassy says:
Needle little help there James?
Alphonze T. Habbernackle says:
my roll as pun master is unraveling
Team says:
Start a thread on 4chan about it.
Alphonze T. Habbernackle says:
I was going to make a thread pun
but thought better of it
I figured you'd all cotton on soon enough
but we've had a good yarn
so not all is lost
Team says:
Well, I had it bobbin around in my head for a while too.
Alphonze T. Habbernackle says:
see I couldn't find a way to weave it into the conversation
and neither could you
you were at a loose end
Team says:
I don't think I had to go too far from the pattern to get it in here.
Alphonze T. Habbernackle says:
Man
these are getting laboured
it seems like we should stop now...
*seams
Team says:
Yeah. I absolutely agree.
They're getting worn.
Alphonze T. Habbernackle says:
A bit thread bare
Team says:
All strung out.
Alphonze T. Habbernackle says:
well we've skirted it enough now
we should stop
Team says:
That's enough talk about your full metal jacket.
Alphonze T. Habbernackle says:
man
untill now all our puns had been cut from the same cloth
Sassy says:
Oh darn
Alphonze T. Habbernackle says:
but that one jumped
oh man slim
nice
Sassy says:
I was going to start some bullet puns
Alphonze T. Habbernackle says:
wait
did you intend that pun?
Team says:
So simple, Slim, yet so clever.
Sassy says:
But you continued
....yes
Alphonze T. Habbernackle says:
good
I was unsure
Sassy says:
And by that I mean no
Alphonze T. Habbernackle says:
this saddens me
Team says:
How long did you have that one up your sleeve?
Alphonze T. Habbernackle says:
a while
I'd say he just kept his lips buttoned untill the right time
Team says:
We really need to just zip it on these.
Alphonze T. Habbernackle says:
we really need to cut them out
yes
Team says:
Having to think of replies is getting me all hot under the collar.
Alphonze T. Habbernackle says:
We're going to have to trim our oun usage for a while
*pun
Team says:
Eventually one of us is going to have to split anyway.
Alphonze T. Habbernackle says:
before one of us comes undone
Team says:
And I'm not as good as you at fabricating puns, either.
Sassy says:
Yeah, I think soon I'm goign down for the night
Alphonze T. Habbernackle says:
mine are getting a little frayed around the edges though
Team says:
You're just better tailored to it.
Alphonze T. Habbernackle says:
you're pretty well suited your self
Team says:
Nah. I doubt I can keep going in this fashion for long.
Alphonze T. Habbernackle says:
you're going to have to pin me down with a good one soon though
Team says:
I thought I had you in a tight fit with that last one there.
Alphonze T. Habbernackle says:
I've got beads of sweat running off me trying to think of another
Team says:
Well.
You got me.
I'm all tapped out.
Well fought.
Alphonze T. Habbernackle says:
I'm sure you can patch together something?
Sassy says:
I wool'd think of one if I could
Team says:
I couldn't remember if we'd used 'freyed' yet, but I think you did.
Alphonze T. Habbernackle says:
I did
you could have made some alterations though

And that gentle reader is how I beat Tim in a sewing related pun off.

The end.

Skootboardings in Cranberra

As you may or may not know I have a habit of rolling down hills rather quickly on a rather expensive piece of wood. I thought it may be fun to give a brief outline of the local speed and steeze junkies that I spend some of my time with and the general radness that we get up to on a semi regular basis.

For some reason this form of skateboarding has a rather high proportion of older participants (rather than the ratty teen demographic of regular short boarding) which can cause confusion at first. "A middle-aged man on a skateboard?!" I hear you hearken from your lips. "Surely skateboards are but toys for children, youths and low lives?!" To which I say no. I hate that people assume that just because something is fun that it must be childish and therefore for children only. Why should children have all the fun? It seems that far too many people are scared to have fun once they pass a certain age for fear of what people may think, saying things like "I'm to old to be doing things like that anymore" and that is why longboarding is great. I can go out and have a swell time with dudes that are just looking to get the most out of life. In one session of skating I could be riding with an 18 year old still in college, a 25 year old entrepreneur who's always cooking ups some crazy money making scheme, a father of 2 and dude in his late 40's with a gimpy knee that gives him trouble pushing his board. Its all just fun to these guys and they don't care what others think and that, I think, is great.

Father, graduate, working stiff and student sharing a hill.

Sure we may not be very GOOD but what we lack in skill we make up for in enthusiasm! Compared to the rest of Australia, Canberran skaters aren't that great. We rarely attend races (we do if its close enough) and people never really come to skate with us from interstate. What we do instead is make our own little races for Canberra riders only (well we only tell people in Canberra) in order to make our selves feel better about our skill levels. Sadly last time this was ruined by a semi-pro rider visiting from southern California entering our race and taking all our money. He's a nice guy and all but he was far to good for our likings... A video of the race can be found over here.

Last week we got really enthusiastic and donned some cow hide to ride some hills out the back of Canberra. It was a lovely sunny day spent at speed on public roads on which its probably illegal for us to skate. The day ended in us doing a run down Discovery Drive to get coffee and ice creams at the moon rock cafe at the tracking station, where we spent half an hour watching the satellite dish re-align and Owen yelling at magpies. It was a pretty swell way to spend my day off. I should hope to do it again some time soon.


Anyhoo, none of that really makes sense but a re-cap for you all the same: Lots of people skate and have a good time. Canberra aren't very good but still have a rad time. Skating is rad.

Other videos of what we get ups to:

C.D.D.H
Shred 'till ya dead
Ditch ya missus, come skate
Fuck you, come skate
Have a thrash with the 'tache
Shred ditches, get bitches
(I wonder why we don't get any girls skating with us?)

Mackenzie rocks EXTRA hard!

So I decided that it would be pretty swell for me to post up a picture of the "Mackenzie rocks EXTRA hard" poster mentioned in my previous post. So here we are.

Oooops I forgot I already had a blog...

So I remembered that a few years ago I made a blog with the intention of updating it regularly. Sadly it wasn't very good and reflected poorly on me as a person. It can be seen right here ol' chum if such things tickle your fancy. Its not about anything important but offered an interesting glimpse into the beginning of my 2009.

I was delighted to find a post about Andrew Mackenzie and the large amount of scorn that I held (and still do hold) toward that man for the detriment he has caused to my education. Its been 2 years since I've had a class run by that man and I still have no idea what I was supposed to have learned from him. What I do remember was that the ol' Tim and I created some interesting things during his lectures. Perhaps this was his aim? creating an environment where the student was forced to be creative to prevent themselves from going insane due to the pointless drivel issuing forth from the man's mouth. Either way I was never creative in the way I was supposed to be. Mostly I drew dumb pictures and passed them to Tim.

Now that I'm a qualified (if somewhat unemployed) industrial designer I can still see no real benefits of having a unit run by one A. Mackenzie other than that sweet "Mackenzie rocks EXTRA hard poster" that I now have. I wish that more cross disciplinary subjects had been run by Gowrie Waterhouse (yes his first name is also the name of a suburb) his classes at least made sense and made me do and learn something useful. Man, I kinda miss design history (may or may not be because the girl who taught my tute was rather attractive...) I gained some fine knowledge from those lectures (and spent most of my tutes distracted by rather scanty outfits, so I'm not entirely sure I got much of educational value out of those...).

Now that I think of it, when I was in Finland there was none of this rubbish really. The classes had a point that you could see. You knew why you were there and it was up to you (with the exception of classes run by Mr.  Mikko  Sääskilahti. I mean honestly, why hire a man who lives at the other end of the country and is only in town once a week?) to do the work given to you. It was clear what the point of each class was. There was no dilly dallying about with inventing fictional stories spreading them out into parts and then piecing them together as a group (this is actually something Mackenzie had us do in one of his classes and I still to this day have no idea why). But then again, thats Finland for you. And that's why I'm trying to get back there. Not just for the casual nudity, heavy metal and drinking culture...

Blogs are cool right?

So it seems that blogging is what cool types are doing these days. Some fine examples of good, entertaining, thought provoking bloggery can be found here, here and here. So I thinks to my self why not jump on to this merry band of fun, where I can exercise my thinking and typing muscles at the same time? So here I am, babbling in-comprehensibly via digital medium. Sadly I don't think this will be anywhere near as entertaining or thought provoking as the fine works given above and I fear that it will mostly degenerate into mindless potty talk and childishness. But this blog is for my own amusement so if you don't like it you can just go and get bent.

I have a suspicion that the main subject matter of this blog will be in no particular order:

• Skateboards
• Parkour
• Lifting heavy things
• Mindless rambling about nothing in particular
• Pointless things I've done 
• My job being lame
• The Finnish government being far to fussy

I make no promise that this blog will be interesting to read, make sense, have any sense of continuity or even be updated regularly, but I'm bored now so we'll see how long writing poorly structured and punctuated sentences about nothing in particular can keep me amused.

Enjoy