January 2008 Archives

What a disappointing news article (and potentially a disappointing blog post). Here I was thinking I was going to read something strange, something unique and bizarre, as I sat here waiting for the page to load I thought I was about to read about the death of someone stupid. But alas, truth is never as strange as fiction, and as I read the news.com.au article titled "Man dies in crocodile orgy" I have to say I nearly lost faith in our news services...

Here I was expecting a sordid and somewhat painful tale packed full of men, half-full bathtubs, thrashing scaly limbs and mouthfuls of flesh and teeth, an ultimate crime of passion. Part of me expected to read a tale of revenge, where a once jilted crocodile lover dished out retribution by the mouthful.

But no. News.com.au, you misled me.

After such a seedy title, the best you give us is "AMOROUS crocodiles are causing so much havoc to a Papua New Guinean coastal community that authorities have ordered a cull." - Seriously, what is that? I have seen old people living in nursing homes more sleazy than that...

There was no scaly manic crocodile orgy. What there was, was a report about a man dying because a crocodile got territorial during mating season. Since when is that news? Every spring the entire Australian population turns to making protective ice-cream bucket hats to protect them from swooping magpies. Did I make the news when my ear was pecked by a magpie on the way to school? Did I make front page of news.com.au for fighting it off with a maths book and surviving? No. I'm a survivor and I WANT MY RECOGNITION!

News article, you are worthless to me now. What happened between us, was no more than a magpie swoop, albeit with more teeth... and a little more blood and death. I am disappointed news article. It reminds me of the time I found out the girl I liked happen to like girls a little more than guys, but even that was more sultry than you.

News article, you are hereby banished to my firefox browser history. And even then, I may just delete you because you anger me... oh you anger me so.

I guess for those that know me, it pretty much goes without saying that I got spanked a lot as a child. Sure, according to my parents my little brother 'allegedly' got spanked more than me, but I put that down to him having all the subtlety of a block of cheese when he misbehaved, whereas when I got up to mischeif, I tried to keep it on the down-low. No point taking unnecessary beatings now is there? I guess my brother and I are different people...

For example, when I was mucking up in year two at primary school I would be passive agressive to the teacher, and refuse to do what they wanted for an hour or so. My brother? Well, he was on a first name basis with the school principle, and on one occasion he decided that a short range attack on the principle was in order, and as such, during one lecture in the principles office he walked forward, kicked the principle in the shin as hard as he could, and then turned tail and ran home as fast as he could.

Never a good idea when the teacher knows your name, and when you still have to return to school to collect your school bag and belongings to avoid getting in trouble from your mother for wagging school. Oh, also not a good idea when you live two houses away from the school itself.

...on one occasion my brother decided that a short range attack on the principle was in order... during one lecture in the principles office he walked forward, and kicked the principle in the shin as hard as he could.

I remember when I was a lot younger mum would grab my left wrist with her left hand, and dangle me in the air and using her right hand, she would hit me on the backside so hard I would swing like a pendulum. I remember one afternoon racing to simultaneously put on three pairs of shorts knowing I was about to cop a smack for an assortment of disobedience. One time her grip slipped and she sent me flying across the room. I turned around and asked if we could do it again...

Pretty soon mum upgraded from the hand to a leather strap or wooden spoon. In the worst cases when I was being a little brat with mum while we were out shopping or at church, she would look at me and speak the words that strike fear into the hearts of every small child.

"Wait until you get home and I speak to your father."

No matter how hard you tried to work off your debt, no matter how much of an angel you became for the rest of the shopping trip, you always knew that at some stage that evening you were in trouble. Big painful trouble. The worst part was the waiting, not knowing exactly when that pain was coming. Sometimes it would be as soon as Dad got home, other times it was hours later after dinner. Either way, you knew it was coming.

I thought I had seen it all when it comes to child beatings... hands, sandals, belts, wooden spoons, wooden spoons as thick as cricket bats, wooden and metal rulers, tyre tubes and even knives. (Yes, my grandfather would whack us across the back of the knuckles with his kitchen knife if we had bad table manners... he was very English.)

But now apparently kids develop a strange 'love-hate' relationship with their instruments of discipline. One house I visited had two wooden spoons in a special jar on the sideboard. One for each child, and each individually named. Not with the names of the children however, no, these two wooden spoons had their own special names written in permanent marker.

"Mr Oh Oh" and "Señor Spanky".

I guess things have changed a lot since I was a kid, when if I ran amok in a shopping centre I knew I was about to have a meeting with "The Belt" or "The Cricket Bat Wooden Spoon", nowadays kids get to go home to see "Mr Oh Oh" and "Señor Spanky". It almost sounds appealing, like some new toy or candy treat.

"Daddy please may I go home and play with Señor Spanky?"

But there is more to this. Each wooden spoon has its own stereotypical face drawn on it. Mr Oh Oh is an extremely Asian looking character, who conveys this overwhelming sense of "Grocery store operator by day - kung fu master by night" aura. You probably wouldn't want to complain about the freshness of your lettuce to Mr Oh Oh. Oh Oh could bitch slap you back to Wednesday if he needed to.

Señor Spanky is a somewhat different character... The over-sized moustache and large sombrero allude to a middle age Mexican man, sleeping under his poncho and sombrero by the side of a river, with a little campfire and his trusty horse somewhere nearby. But don't for a moment think it is OK to poke Señor Spanky with a stick, and steal a spoonful of beans from his campfire, because under that coloured poncho that his wife gave him last year, Señor Spanky packs heat in the form of two six shooters and two ammunition belts wrapped around his chest. You cause trouble with Señor Spanky, and he will cause trouble with you.

"I am Señor Spanky, you ate my beans... prepare to die!".

But seriously, if my parents had drawn faces on the wooden spoons and given them cool names, spank time would have been a whole lot more fun than I ever remembered it. A whole lot more fun.

Kids say the strangest of things at times... especially little chubby kids that obsessively lie and feel the need to tell tall stories to compensate for being a little larger than all the other children. "I have a big stomach and my thighs touch together... and did you know I have a pet Komodo dragon? And a pet Cane Toad."

Take this example from today...

Boy- "How old are you?"

Me- "A thousand"

Boy- "Did you know that people that are breastfed live longer?"

Me- "Uh... great"

Boy- "Thats why my Dad is so old..."

Me- "Oh really?"

Boy- "Yeah, he was breastfed as a baby..."

Me- "Um, yeah... thanks for that. Did you say that deliberately because you saw me pouring milk into my tea? Can you now see me pouring that tea down the drain? See? It's all gone now. Thanks a lot."

My dad has been working in a new project manager role which at times, when he is not busy forcing me create high speed broadband 'design packs' for free for him, sees him spending time at the computer creating 'design packs' and getting paid for it. Sucks.

Anyways, most of these design packs involve creating and overlaying plans for various fibre optic runs throughout complex mazes of phone exchanges, and it requires a lot of cutting, pasting, dragging and drawing on the computer. After doing two design packs for Dad, I left him to do the last one on his own while I went and showered.

"So do you still cut using 'CTRL + C' on this?"

"Oh ok."

*** I walk upstairs, shower and then come back down past Dad at the computer staring at an untouched floor diagram.***

"It doesn't work."

"Ha... um... yeah... about that 'D for Douchebag' thing..."

"So yeah, there was a crazy twist with that whole thing too."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah, I told you how I have a criminal record right?"

"Um... no."

"Yeah."

"No... you? Really? What for?"

"Drug and Firearm possession... it was heroin or cocaine, I can't remember which..."

"What?"

"I'm pretty sure I mentioned it."

"Yeah, no... I'm pretty sure I would remember something like that."

"I'm sure I told you last year."

"Nope. I think that kind of thing would stick with me... it's not like you just got fined for speeding."

"Oh well... anyways, I have this criminal record right..."

Just another random actual conversation in the life of such. Seriously, when the straightest, best behaved, most upstanding people you have ever known turn out to have criminal records based on illegal firearm and drug possession, you know you might just be rolling with the wrong people.

Actual conversation from boys night after watching 'Blood Diamond' and drinking the occasional cool refreshing beverage...

"How do they know how many child soldiers there really are over in Africa?"

"They just check out their facebook profiles... any picture of a little kid with a gun is counted as a child soldier."

"Dickhead"

"I know... still funny though."

"Yeah... true... true."

So this post has been a few weeks coming, and I assure you, it would have been posted earlier if I could work out what to call it. Titles are important you know.

Allow me to set the scene for you... Long time readers of lifeofsuch, will no doubt be familiar with the absolute disaster that was the first 'Stockton Beach 4WD Adventure', appropriately titled 'how not to die...'. On that trip, Josh's X-trail (Which isn't a '4WD' at all... it is no more than a plastic lie), decided to take us out into the middle of the largest strip of coastal sand dunes in Australia, and then break down more frequently than Britney Spears... as can be seen in the photo below. The X-trail, bogged down, overheated, and stranded out on the sand. Awesome.

The crappy 4WD system would crap itself if it even thought it was heading more than 10kms from the nearest cafe that could serve a "Double shot, half decaf, soy latte'. Josh soon realised that his Nissan X-trail is the Boy George of off road vehicles. I even came up with a mathematical formula to explain the event. It went something like this.

(Sand + 4WD X-trail) = (Overheated 2WD X-trail) = Us stranded in the middle of what for all intensive purposes is a large, hot, sandy freaking desert.

Leaving the past behind is one thing. Leaving behind your mate who just dug you out of the sand to run 3 kms though soft sand to catch you up as you get towed off the beach by a rescue 4WD, while deleting ALL the pictures off his phone that captured the very moment you got yourself bogged down and blocking 5 other 'real' 4WD's is something all together different.

Josh soon realised that his Nissan X-trail is the Boy George of off road vehicles.

Anyway, back to the story. Which really isn't much of a story. After being immasculated by his plastic lie of a 4WD, one Joshua Hinton went out and bought what can be defined as a 'real 4WD'. A Toyota Hilux. And then got into it and took it straight out onto Stockton beach. To be honest, things started well. We drove over stuff, Josh got lost and couldn't find the ocean, we drove over some more stuff, and then up a little sand dune. For the record, a Range Rover had attempted the same dune, but was sent sprawling backwards time after time. The Hilux did it first go.

But then things went horribly wrong. And I mean horribly wrong. Firstly, I was given the opportunity to drive the Hilux on the beach. Secondly, I decided to give way to some other 4WD's, and thirdly... well. The third problem is at the core of why I have had such trouble naming this post. In fact, I have a whole list of titles I could have used.

"Everything I touch breaks... can I touch your face now?"

"The tale of two pricks."

"Stockton = 2 - Josh's 4WD's = 0."

"First an Xtrail, now a Hilux... next time bring a god damn quadbike."

"How I ruined everyones daytrip adventure... again."

"How I ruined everyones daytrip adventure... without being obscene or inappropriate."

"The best laid plans of mice and men can still be thwarted by little pricks."

"Show us your fat spare tyres."

"Why you should never ever ever ever, on any circumstances give way on a beach."

"Never underestimate the danger of a small prick - just ask Jamie Lyne Spears."

As you can tell, I went with 'the tale of two pricks'... because unfortunately on that beach that day, the path of those two pricks crossed, and destiny was changed forever. One of those pricks was driving the Hilux, staying left to give way to two other 4WD's on the sand about 50 metres up the beach, and the other prick had somehow buried itself in the sand, and was just waiting to bring me down. And it did. As you can clearly see, the prick I met was in fact a metal stake, buried 4 feed deep in the sand, which just a razor sharp point sticking out from the sand. And as you can probably work out from the picture below, I just clipped it with the sidewalls of the massive Hilux tyres. Both tyres on the left hand side went down.

As soon as I brushed it, I knew something was wrong, because there was more hissing coming from the tyres than an unhappy audience at an Amy Winehouse concert. And yes, the tyre marks in the sand are mine.

So, with the Hilux lurching to one side, we waited and waited in middle of the sand dunes, kilometres from any help or rescue, with only an esky full of alcohol and leftovers for company.

Once we were done waiting, we did some more waiting, and decided to attempt to at least change one of the tyres and see if we could limp our way off the sand. Someone asked if we could just go get another tyre. But apparently being stranded in the middle of Australias largest sand dunes, in the middle of nowhere, with no way to move is not conducive to tyre shopping. Oh, and because heaps of auto traders are open in the middle of nowhere late on a Sunday afternoon. Did I mention we were in the middle of nowhere?

Changing the tyre didn't go so well either. We jacked the Hilux up just fine, and could walk all over the tray while it was jacked up, but then a peculiar thing happened. As soon as we took the wheel off, the Hilux became a giant wombat, and began burying itself deep down in the sand. You know, if I listened more in Sunday school I would have remembered something important about not building houses on the sand, unless all your builders are models wearing nothing more than small bikinis or something.

Hmm... X-trail? Hilux? Can you see the similarities?

We were forced to call a rescue service for help, and some hours later towards the end of the day as the sky clouded over and it started to rain, our help arrived. An older man drove up to us, with a creepy laugh, a pronounced limp and missing fingers. He would look at us, mumble and laugh and make comments like "I really don't know how much this is going to cost you...", and "I've never had to do something like this before...", and "I wonder what I will charge you for this." and then he would tilt his head over and look the two girls up and down like someone who has done time. The whole time he was there I kept having strange flashbacks of "Wolf Creek" for some unknown reason, and had picked out a little thicket of bushes in the sand that I would make a run for if things went bad.

So hours (and hundreds of dollars) later, we arrived back in Sydney... tired, annoyed, poor and somewhat pissed off because some stupid prick had ruined the outing for the day. And if in this rather long jumbled post there is some moral to be found, it would be that you should never, ever, under any circumstances, underestimate the power of small pricks. Especially when they are driving.

I never get tired of television from the USA. Honestly, the constant streams of rednecks, hicks and trailer trash peeps that those producers manage to dredge up week after week is truly something to behold. George Bush, Paris & Britney, Jessica Simpson, Miss South Carolina... and now this. You guys rock.

Seriously though... the 'dubya' Bush vid is worth checking out for a laugh...

Over the past few days, my brother and I have been feuding little on the whole issue of cleaning and responsibility. As the older brother, I have been looking after the house, feeding the animals, vacuuming, washing sheets, clothes and blankets, topping up and chlorinating the swimming pool, cleaning my dishes, and most importantly, making sure that I have a steady supply of milk on hand in the fridge for my cups of tea.

On the other hand, my brother has been sitting around on his ass, watching movies in the loungeroom with his girlfriend, cooking and making a massive mess in the kitchen, sitting around in his room watching movies and eating, and generally making mess.

Which leads us to the real issue. I have no problem with him having friends over. I have no problems with him making mess. Honestly I don't. What I do have a problem with, is when he sits around for days on end, watching dvd after dvd with his girlfriend who basically comes to our house for two days straight, eats food, makes mess and leaves, and neither of them even think about cleaning up one part of their mess after two or three days.

So to cut the story short, Sam and I had been feuding. I had been asking him to clean up his mess for days on end, and he would just ignore me, swear at me and refuse to clean. Obviously he is too lazy to clean up after himself, to put dishes in the dishwasher, too lazy to hang his towels up and remove his clothes from the bathroom, he is too lazy to put pizza boxes in the bin. No, everything ends up dumped on a bench or on the floor.

I think he has some kind of mental development issues, because as a grown adult (who as we speak is out playing computer games at a friends house), he obviously believes in 'magical cleaning fairies' who will come and clean up his mess.

Well, surprise surprise, today the magical cleaning fairies made a visit to our house, and visited the kitchen, the loungeroom and his bedroom. It is true, only the magic cleaning fairies were obviously as pissed off with his lazy ass as his older brother, and they obviously share his older brothers sense of humour.

Fortunately, I was on hand with a camera to catch the handiwork of the kitchen fairies in both Sams room, and the kitchen. You have to love those fairies.

So, the kitchen before and after the magic cleaning fairies...

And Sams room before and after the cleaning fairies...

As you can see, unfortunately it appears that Sams computer desk space has been somewhat cut down in terms of available workable area. His keyboard is somewhat obscured by a filthy frying pan, coated in thick black charcoal. Plates are stashed on every available surface. All of his cups and port glasses, that he was too lazy to stack in the dishwasher, are now covering his books and mousepad instead of the kitchen bench and lougeroom floors and coffee tables. His computer screen is now home to the pizza boxes, old garlic bread and and empty bottle that were left dumped on the loungeroom floor. The bottle of worcestershire sauce now calls his desk 'home', seeing as though sam was to lazy to put the poor bottle away in its rightful place in the cupboard.

You have to love those magic fairies. So next time Sam... don't be a little lazy prick bitch that doesn't put your messy stuff in the dishwasher. Don't be having your friends around, and being a lazy-ass that refuses to clean because you are too busy watching reruns of Arrested development.

Basically, if I ask you to clean your sh*t up, do it. Because next time, the magic cleaning fairies, on which you so obviously rely will be putting your dirty plates, dishes, cups, cooking utensils and excess meat juice from the bench into your bed and rubbing it all over your freaking pillow. Don't be such a little bitch next time and grow the freak up and think about it.

I'm glad we had this chat.

A couple of weeks ago, I posted about a particular email that appeared in my inbox, noting an apparent 'error' in the header of my website. After writing a post explaining that it was actually a 'half discovered easter egg', there were a number of people who actually went off around the site hunting for pictures of easter eggs.

As I originally explained here, you are not searching for a literal easter egg, an image of an easter egg, or anything bunny/egg/easter related. What is actually hidden are a couple of small hidden 'extra features' on the site.

So don't go off surfing thelifeofsuch.com for eggs, bunnies or chocolate, because there just isn't any. And to add to the suspense, the first person to email me describing (one of) the hidden features, AS WELL AS how the hidden features are activated and controlled will in addition to the previously promised mini poem praising their ninja detective skills also get a mini-them created and displayed on the site. So get searching, and hit up 'will at lifeofsuch.com' with your emails.

Happy hunting!

An awesome video of the effect of drugs on wood spiders, and their web building habits. And before you all yawn and say "crap boring poo bum documentary", trust me, sacrifice a couple of minutes of your life, and at least watch up until the crack spider...

...because web building is fo' suckas.

Today I spent most of the day cleaning... changing sheets, washing clothes, vacuuming floors and washing blankets. I am the quintessential domestic goddess. In fact, the goddess within caused me a small moral dilemma today.

I was vacuuming, and I am pretty sure I sucked up a handful of stones... I could hear them rattling and bashing around making horrible noises inside the vacuum. I did think that I should really switch it off, pull it apart and check, but I didn't, I just kept on cleaning.

Not because i had the urge to clean, or because I had fallen in love with the vacuum (which some men do... apparently). No, I kept on vacuuming because seconds before I sucked up that handful of stones, I had just sucked up a handful of spiders, complete with their web. And there was no way in gods blue earth that I was going to stick my hand in and check it out.

In fact, I wasn't even fully prepared to stop the vacuum at all, lest the spiders run back out and attack me with machettes and home made weapons. So I did what all good brothers and tough man-like domestic goddesses do...

Quickly unplugged the vacuum, race upstairs and dump it in my sisters bedroom. She can sort it out. Mainly because she has bigger biceps than me. And when it comes to rock throwing spiders, biceps are all the freaking rage!

There is nothing funnier than a full grown adult having a tanty about something small and insignificant. It is especially when that person happens to be a close friend and throws a tantrum in front of a group of people on New Years Eve. And when that person immediately regrets throwing the tantrum that you may or may not have been directly responsible for causing.

Basically a certain female someone was attempting to light the gas bbq after accidentally turning the gas down so low that the flames went out... nothing major, except for some idiot in the group constantly giving pieces of stupid safety advice. Advice that went something like this:

"Careful, if the gas builds up too much it might pop and explode and you will burn your face", and "Hurry! Quick light it before there is too much gas and it might get dangerous!" and "Don't stand too close, when it catches alight it is going to boom".

That on its own would drive anyone to a temper tantrum of epic proportions, but not this rather forgiving individual. She took it and took it, right up until a point of no return. I waited until her face was very close to the hotplate of the BBQ, and then clapped as hard as I could, making a mini booming sound. She thought the hotplate was exploding with her face in rather close proximity.

She paniced, dropped the torch, and then threw the lighter over our heads onto the grass on the other side of our little new years eve bbq setup. She could have hit an endangered Bilby with that stray lighter.

As soon as she threw the lighter away, she realised her mistake of showing her fear and frustration, and almost before we had realised she had chucked a tanty like a misbehaving 6 year old child, was across the other side of the area retrieving the lost lighter. That girl is always cleaning up after herself... so efficient. Even cleans up after her own temper tantrums. Good kid.

So I thought I would interpret and exaggerate the nights tanty through the majesty of badly drawn cartoons. As you can see, I called it "When Lighters Attack". Classic 'B Grade' comedy.

I like to break jobs down into little pieces. When I am at work, I break my day down into a series of tasks that need doing, like morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea and second afternoon tea. If I am cleaning, I break the monster task down into smaller less monster sized tasks and then avoid each one of those tasks like I avoid shaking the hands of teenage boys after they have come out of the bathroom.

Basically, I do things in small half measures.

So it is no surprise that when I talk about my New Years Eve experience, I will also break it down into smaller bite sized stories, to tease the whole experience out and make sure I actually have something mildly amusing to write about over the next week. Or two weeks, depending on how much I forget to write.

So where were we.... oh yes. Fat, naked and wet on New Years eve.

Now, when you think of a nice quiet NYE BBQ on the beach you don't automatically remember to include loud noisy teenagers wearing no clothes. Well, maybe you do... I do not. So for a moment, put yourself in my position, and imagine you spent your NYE only a few feet away from a teenage party, where one of the larger members of that party insists on running around with a shirt on, and constantly twitch and wiggle.

To be honest, I don't know if he was twitching and wiggling on purpose, or if he was just suffering the negative effects of momentum from standing up a whole two minutes earlier, but there were parts on that teenage boy that were still shaking like jelly long after he had stopped moving.

Inevitably, the more he drank, the louder he became, and the more insistant he was that once it hit Midnight, everyone should remove all their clothes and promptly run into the water. Sure, it sounds like fun for those teenagers, and maybe even for the local greenpeace activists who would have wrapped him in wet towels and kept hosing him down until they could send him out to sea, but I for one did NOT want to see naked overweight males running around the beach while I am trying to eat sausages. It is just not fun.

So the inevitable countdown takes place, and the jelly boy is leading the charge into the new year...

"Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.... HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!"

(Jelly Belly gets up yelling and jumping)

"Yeah... Come on Guys lets go!!"

(Jelly Belly removes jeans and is now naked)

"Yeah... lets go... starkey swimming with the sharks!! Yeah!!!"

(Jelly Belly fumbles down to the beach at speed and crashes into the water)

"Yeah!"

(Looks around to realise he is the only one...)

"Guys.... hey, Guys come on! Hey... come on Guys... are you coming?"

(Realises he will be alone in the water naked tonight)

"Guys?"

(No response)

"Oh F*ck you guys!! This is the third time this has happened!"

Does anyone else get the impression that this fat naked curly haired teen, who unfortunately reminded me of Jonah (picture above supplied by the internet) from "Knocked Up", doesn't learn from his previous bad experiences of being stood up and laughed at by his friends? Funny thing is, later in the evening the same jiggle boy got chased by a group of creepy small children when he again went naked in the water... but remember how I cut up tasks into smaller bite sized pieces? Well, yeah. Wait for it.