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.