..all's quiet

Nothing to see here folks. Just me and the tubleweeds.

When I vowed to post daily (excluding weekends and probably public holidays) I had a sneaking suspicion that it might become a bit of a chore.

It's like my brain has lost it's creative spark and I'm finding it difficult to blog about anything. I'm sure it'll pass though, and some day soon I'm due to have about 50 ideas at the Pub one evening and jot them all down on a serviette to keep this thing going for a few more months.

While I generally have a shortish attention span, does everyone else also have "bad blog weeks" from time to time?

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...kittinger

In 1959 a bloke named Joseph Kittinger hopped in an air balloon and took off skyward. Nothing unusual there, except he took that balloon higher than any manned balloon had ever been before. He took it 31,300 m (102,800 ft) above sea level... that's 33.1km above the ground! Then, he did something only a human would do. He jumped out.

Four minutes and 36 seconds later he had fallen 26km, through −70 °C temperatures at up to 988km/h, before his parachute opened.

Kittinger takes the plunge in 1960

Humans are fascinating because we do some really crazy things, some of them in the name of one of our favourite favourite inventions called 'progess'. Kittinger jumped so they could make fighter pilots safer or something. He actually did the balloon thing three times. He also raced speedboats, flew 483 missions in Vietnam and was shot down and became a POW, so he probably makes a mean rice paper roll too.

Joseph William Kittinger II

b. 1928
Patriot and Complete Nutjob

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...bro from unzud

The other night at the Pub I was having a chat about redundant methods of financial transaction with a friendly Kiwi bloke, when he suddenly exclaimed "I hate chicks!"

It turned a few heads and got a few "Wha's" in his direction, before we realised that he really hated "cheques". Oh how we larfed and larfed.

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...the mating of the wersh

Strange how I like the concept of theatre, I admire good acting and I like(d?) being on stage, but being in the audience of a theatrical production is generally not my cup of tea. The last time I was actually in the audience of big production was a fancy production of Oliver when I was 10. I was bored shitless. So when I agreed to attend a Bell Shakespeare gig several months ago, I did so on the condition that it wouldn't be a bunch of gay cowboys eating porridge. I like the artsy...I'm not so keen on the fartsy.

So on Saturday night I found myself in the audience of a lesbian interpretation on The Taming of the Shrew. Sure the kissing was good...

...actually, it wasn't that bad at all, once I'd developed an ear for the lingo. All female cast, great acting, the wit of The Bard, hot chicks kissing... what's not to like? It's given me a taste for more (Shakespeare, that is).

*I used to enjoy treading the boards back when the Pub was only serving Sunnyboys. I suspect I might still enjoy that type of thing.

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...they have the power!!!

Did you read this?

That's right folks. Apparently the internet is "not a free for all".

Somebody had better tell the internet. And I'd better take down all my bizarre-creepy-stalker-hate-blogs.

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Also, in step with several other media outlets, due to rising cost of quality blogging, The Man at the Pub will soon be charging a subscription fee to it's readers. The fees are yet to be announced but full fee paying customers will receive 100% non-stop, hardcore pub action, plus this great T-shirt! For a lesser fee, readers can choose Pub-lite, a magazine-style bloggette full of past Pub gems and associated fluff, shite and cringe-worthy banter.


If you would like to join The Man at the Pub or Pub-Lite, please click on the following form, print it, fill it out and post to:

The Man at the Pub
That Little Cupboard Next to the Hot Water System
Melbourne 3001
Victoria, Australia

And happy Friday!

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...you have the power!!!!!

I assume everyone's got one. One of those friends/acquaintances who send you the most god-awful powerpoint presentations or chain emails that are written very badly in sickly coloured large type in a terribly ugly font with far too much exclamation that say things like...

DREAM TO LIVE!
YOU HAVE THE POWER WITHIN YOU TO MAKE MAGIC HAPPEN!!!!!

THE UNIVERSE LOVES YOU!!!

(Usually followed by...)
SEND THIS EMAIL TO 30 OF YOUR FRIENDS. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT!!! IF YOU DO NOT, THE DREAM WILL DIE... BLAH, BLAH, BLAH...

...that is meant to be profound but just sounds like it was written by some drug-addled hippy lurking in the back of a crystal shop, or an extremely untalented English language student who just figured out how to use email.

Next time someone sends me one of these I'm gonna send then an email that says...

BUGGER ORFF AND DIE!
YOU ARE A COMPLETE TOOL YET MAY HAVE THE POWER WITHIN YOU TO STOP ANNOYING INNOCENT PEOPLE!!!!!

THE UNIVERSE LOVES YOU, BUT I THINK YOU'RE A TWAT!!!

(followed by...)
DO NOT SEND THIS EMAIL TO ANY OF YOUR FRIENDS. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT!!! IF YOU DO, YOUR MARGINAL POPULARITY WILL DRASTICALLY WANE...

Then I'll attach a nasty virus.

That'll larn 'em.

...the other white meat

(Yes, I know I'm bad and I'm going to hell for that. It's not funny etc, etc., at least not in this country. Anyway, they probably have red meat.)

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...the man of the pub

What makes somone get an "of" in their name followed by a place name. like Lawrence of Arabia or Joan of Arc? My mate Keith has been to Thailand but I don't call him Keith of Thailand. I've been to Sumatra but they don't call me James of Sumatra, though it might be nice.

Still sick. Tenacious bugs attacking head zone. Swollen, weeping, eyelid. Congested sinuses. Forgets how to blog properly. Back at work :o( Send food and sympathies, stat!

...sickies n' sadness n' stuff

Farwell Aunty June. I only briefly met you twice, so I never really got to know you. I suppose living 2000km away doesn't help. You led a very interesting life from what I hear, and your medical career and charity work shows how dedicated you were improving the lives of others, which is just awesome. It's a shame you didn't make it to Mt. Kilamanjaro like you had planned. I would have loved to hear about it. Kilamanjaro spins me out, in a geophysical sense. A thanks for the crystal decanter wedding present. Even though the card fell off we are 95% sure it was you. For a 'traditional' wedding present, it is actually rather beautiful, and I'm, not known for my appreciation of modern crystal decanters. I don't actually believe in heaven, and I'm not sure they have blogs there so I don't know if you'll be able to read this message. Anyhow we all love you, and your little sister and her daughter really miss you already.

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On more self-indulgent matters, I'm on a 4 day weekend. Woo hoo! Only catch is that I'm sick as a sick dog, ie; sick. Boooo! I have a nasty cold/throat infection and a weeping, itchy sty in my right eyelid, so I look like a prize fighter and sound like I've been punched in the throat. But on the good side, I'm on a 4 day weekend, I've stocked up on 'sickie' food (ice-cream, soft drink, etc.) which purely serves the purpose of cheering one up rather than having any therapeutic benefit, so my cup is half full. And I've been watching morning telly, which is bloody hilarious! It's all just a big ad, and is so scripted it makes me want to puke. They're just hookers for capitalism, peddling mindless consumerism. And that Reyne guy (I can't tell David from James) looks evil. All that Botox makes him look like Brendon Nelson. Ha! Take that, strange, plastic television people!

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...sad at the pub

It was Q's birthday yesterday, which is always cause for celebration. Only she got a call last night telling her that her Aunty June was on the plane that went down near the Kokoda Track. Q wasn't close to her adventurous Aunty, but it's still sad. At this stage they can't confirm the status of the passengers, but we're bracing for bad news.

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...f*c*book

I'm not a Facebook junkie but I do see it's appeal. It seems less cold than sending emails and you can keep an eye on your friends' activities, if they are also into Facebook.... assuming that you actually give a toss about them.

I do use it a few times a week however and I'm starting to feel a little bit uncomfortable in my own skin, aside from the fact that in the Legal Terms & Conditions that everyone agrees to without reading when they sign up says that apparently I and all my friends and personal information are now the property of Facebook and that the only recourse I have involves spending 'Damnation in Hades' and something about filling my mouth in with cement.

I'm relatively fine with that. What I'm not sure about is my ex girlfriend now wanting to be my friend after dumping me seven years ago, (but she's a family friend, so I guess some degree of contact in inevitable). Or weirdo, long-lost relations inlaw wanting a cut of the 'action'. I haven't even met some of these people and from what I've heard, I don't want to! Or friends of the family that you don't particularly like. Just because I've had lunch with you at Aunty Beryl's house doesn't automatically mean I want to be your friend. Or my police officer inlaw, when me and my friends come from a strictly non-policeperson background. I don't want my police officer inlaw snooping around me and my friends' shenanigans, not that we actually do 'shenanigans' anymore, but I'd like to keep the door open.

What should I do?

Should I...

a) remove all of my personal information, photos, status, etc, change my name to Enigmah (with a silent "h" to make it more enigmatic), have extensive plastic surgery, move to the mountains of Ecuador, live with a group of exiled guachos and visit Facebook once a year for the purpose of 'keeping up appearances'?

b) go and see a psychotherapist about my acute paranoia?

c) not worry about it? Befriend everyone except convicted mass murderers and then completely ignore them?

d) not get romantically involved with friends of the family ever again?

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..really bad jokes

What show do horses like watching?

Neiggghhhhh-bours.

I just made that one up. You can probably tell.



I thought of it as I was thinking of this joke...

Why don't they watch Neighbours in Afghanistan?

Because there's a Tellyban.


Bwah Ha Ha Ha! Me so farkin' funny!



Its alright. You're going away now.

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...born to be mild

I've never been much interested in extreme sports like skydiving, hang-gliding, BASE jumping, riding your bike on Melbourne's roads or lion-taming, though I've done a bit of rock climbing and SCUBA diving in my more acne prone days... but it was over-rated. I once went SCUBA diving at Port Campbell and it was so cold several of my appendages went blue, but they had a really amazing colony of rusty shopping trolleys just off the pier, so it was ok.

So no thanks. I don't even fancy sitting in an aeroplane, let alone jumping out of one... unless I have to. So I really would prefer a parachute under my seat rather than an air-filled plastic ring with a small, red whistle. But the upshot is that I could play a nice ditty as I plunge to my death at 112.4metres/sec with an inflatable pillow around my neck. I reckon I'd play the intro to Stairway to Heaven, or maybe something by Boney M.

This may be one of the strangest questions I've ever asked but what song would you most like to play on a kazoo as you fall to your death from 30,000ft?

Happy Friday!

Time of post: 12:34:56 07.08.09. Spooky!

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...randomness

The Moon was walk-into-a-tree-fantastic last night. We had a huge halo around the full moon with Jupiter at the bottom right, the whole lot behind a screen of mist.

Come to think of it, I should have taken some photos, but photos never do these spectacles of nature any justice. But I did take a nice photo of a comet once.

But I can't find it, so here's a photo of some poppies I took in Canada.


Aren't they purdy?

Geek fact: If you see a rabbit in the moon (and I can't) the moon landing occured at the bottom of the right ear.

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...rick amor

This is some of the work of Melbourne artist Rick Amor, and I'm a big fan.

The Ship

Broken Ship

The Runner

He's very much a Melbourne painter, but the underlying themes are universal. Tradgedy, isolation, mythology, iconography, its all there, in a subdued yet brooding way. It's subtle, but theres always something going on, ghosts and seamonsters, stray dogs and lost brides. And he does seascapes, which is great because nobody paints good seascapes anymore.

Entering the City

The Hour

Evening by the Sea

Self Portrait

I kinda wish I was doing stuff like that, but then it wouldn't be my stuff.

But maybe I like it because it is a bit like my stuff? And maybe my stuff is a bit like his stuff because I've always liked his stuff?

Either way, I find it inspirational.

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...the collective

Everyone loves collective nouns. There are some absolute rippers out there, as pointed out recently by the delightful Eleanor Bloom. But what I want to know is what is the collective noun for a group of bloggers?

A rant of bloggers?
A bullshit of bloggers?
A hermit of bloggers?

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...can you hear the plunder?

Have you heard this story, the one that Men at Work ripped off Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree when they wrote Downunder?

Now I'm no musical virtuoso, but those songs don't sound a bleedin' thing like each other. One is an early 80's pop/reggae smash from an obscure band from St.Kilda and now favourite of drunken, embarassing fellow Australian backpackers world-wide. The other is a campfire round written by Girl Guides (I mean no disrespect to the International Girl Guide Association, in fact I have a ton of respect. Keep baking little sisters!!*)

Apparently it has something to do with the flute bit, but I still can't hear it. I didn't even know that Kookaburra has a bloody flute in it. I also forgot how funny that Men at Work filmclip is.




Because the best way of finding out the ultimate truth about everything is handing it over to a bunch of bloggers, what say you, o' learned ones.


*I also realise that the Girl Guides Association does not continue to propagate the stereotypical role of women and girls acting primarily in the role of unpaid domestic worker. Nowadays, according their their webpage, they fight AIDS and save the enviromnment, along with making a mean chocolate crackle. Most girls join the Scouts anyway. Baden Powell would be rolling in his grave.