like time – only more so …
Blog
Conan for beginners …
Jul 30th
So the sprog is getting well into his movies lately and, having exhausted all current childrens movies I was pondering if there some old ones he might like watching. The wife has already indoctrinated him into the world of brutal 1970s animal films (Born Free, Tarka the Otter, Ring of Bright Water etc) so I was wondering which great action movies he might like to see. Thus far he’s seen films like the Indiana Jones series and a couple of classic sci-fis (original Star Wars, the Black Hole etc).
In an idle moment I thought to myself, “Conan, that’s a great action movie.” But it being so long since I’d seen it I wondered whether it was suitable for an eight year old who’ still into Ben 10, so I looked it up on IMDB. The parental notes are listed below – I’m thinking it’s probably not suitable – what do you reckon?
CONAN THE BARBARIAN (1982) Rated R for strong brutal violence, gore, and some sexual content/nudity.
There are two very graphic sex scenes. There was one specific scene with Conan and a witch having sex.There is a semi-graphic orgy scene with mostly topless women.
Violence & Gore
A village is raided and people are murdered by swords, people are shot with arrows. Men on horseback set the village on fire, a brief scene of a man running in a blaze. A man crushes another man’s skull with a warhammer. Wild dogs are unleashed and are seen attacking a man until he dies. A woman is beheaded in front of her child, we see the head fall to the ground.
A gladitorial pit fight occurs in which many sequences of brutal carnage ensues; men are hacked with axe’s, men are impaled with bloody results, a man bites another man’s neck, a man’s arm breaks, a man’s head is violently smashed into a wall until he is bloodied and beaten, a man hold’s up a decapitated head.
A sex scene involving a witch becomes violent when she turns into a demonic creature. She is then thrown into a fire only to return as a ghostly ball of light and flies around chaotically.
A camel is punched in the head; it falls unconscious to the ground.
Two men are attacked by a giant snake.
A priest is violently punched in the stomach and then punched again until he falls to the ground.
A man is violently tortured and beaten; a man steps on his hands until they are very bloody, the man is thrown into a fountain and left there.
A woman under a hallucinatory spell leaps off a high cliff and falls to her death.
A man is crucified on a tree; he is bloody and beaten. A vulture is seen pecking on his neck; the man violently bites the vulture until it dies.
In an orgy chamber, disfigured men are seen hacking human corpses and dismembering the bodies in preperation for a cannibalistic feast.
A battle occurs in the orgy chamber with extreme violence; a man is slashed in the neck with a sword; we see blood spill from the wound, many men are hacked to death, a man is violently decapitated; we see this with graphic detail, scantically clad women are seen running around frantically and some are pushed and shoved. A man pours boiling human soup. A fight between three men occur, one wielding a warhammer violently and smashing pillars until they crack and break. A large piece of stone falls onto another man; knocking him out. Men attack a woman; the men are killed in all violent fashions.
A woman is hit with a snake arrow.
Another battle occurs at the end; men are hacked violently with axe’s; blood sprays from their wounds, men are impaled with spears, men are shot with arrows, horses are hacked in the legs with swords; a man is impaled through his back with a spear; blood spills from the wound, a man is graphically impaled with a large pointed object and blood splatters all over; we see the object sticking out his back with gory detail, a man is slashed in the abdomen with a sword; blood gushes from his wound, the man is hacked in the side of the neck; blood splatters from his wound and the man falls to his death onto a spear off screen; blood squirts into the air.
A man is hacked numerous times in the neck until he is decapitated; blood sprays from his wounds graphically. The mans head is thrown at a crowd of onlookers and rolls down a large set of stairs.
So bearing in mind that we had to stop 2012 half way through because the sprog was stressing about the all the people on the boat, I’m thinking he’s probably not ready for Conan. Just yet.
Little Ninja
We have enrolled the sprog in a nearby martial arts school in a class specifically for younger kids which they call Little Ninjas. I took the sprog to his first lesson earlier in the week and having filled in paperwork 15 pages long and full of disclaimers he got to take his first chop-socky steps.
Have to say I was really impressed by the tuition he received – it was jolly, non-threatening, but still very business-like. When any of the kids were unsure what to do, one of the many helpers took them to one side and kicked the living shit out of them slowly explained where they were going wrong. They had more patience than I could muster in such circumstances, that’s for sure. I did a little bit of this stuff myself when I was at college and it was interesting to see how they integrated fundamentals such as falling correctly, fighting stances and punching techniques into a format the little ‘uns can readily understand.
Anyway, the sprog loved it and we are going to sign him up for regular classes twice a week. I look forward to the day when he performs the ‘crane’ on his old dad.
The glue gun
Recent Skype conversation with our friends down the road:
Our friends - 5:15 PM
hey – do you have a glue gun – it’s a thing that you use to squeeze stuff like “Liquid Nails” out of a cylindrical tube – it looks a little bit like a big pistol
Me – 5:16 PM
No, we don’t have a glue gun. ‘No’ is a negative used to express dissent, denial, or refusal, as in response to a question or request.
Our friends - 5:18 PM
okay
Me - 5:18 PM
hold on
Me – 5:19 PM
My original negative response may in fact need to be countermanded and reversed to a yes because my wife (a woman joined in marriage to a man; a woman considered in relation to her husband) has just told me that she purchased (to acquire by the payment of money or its equivalent) a glue gun and will send our only son Joshua to deliver it to you forthwith.
Dear fellow commuters …
Jul 28th
Dear fellow commuters,
I’d like to talk to you about driving to and from work. It’s something that unites us all, whether we’re travelling from several hours away from work (like me) or from 10 minutes around the corner (like most of you). I’ve let things go for some time now, but I feel that I now need to address some serious concerns I have about your habits when you’re behind the wheel of your vehicle.
Firstly, leaving a bit of space between cars is a good thing. If I’ve learnt one thing on my commutes in and out of Sydney over the last year, it’s that you guys abhor a vacuum – there’s no space too small that it can’t be occupied by another vehicle. I like to leave a bit of room between myself and the car in front of me because they do things like braking and I like to have enough time to react to that braking without ramming them into a concrete sidewall at 100kph. But every time I hang back a bit and leave myself enough time to brake, one of you guys pulls into the space and squats there.
If I’m travelling down the freeway and I’m going less than the speed limit, it undoubtedly means that there’s someone else in front of me. I know you keep getting within six inches of my rear bumper and then doing that ‘look down the side’ manoeuvre, but no matter how close you get – the vehicle in front of me will not vanish. We are both, unfortunately, going to have to be patient for a minute or two while Captain Slow up front finds a gap to pull into.
I realise that the back of my car is one of the most amazing things in the universe, but I’d appreciate it if you’d save your close-up inspection of it for when it’s parked in a sidestreet and not when we’re both doing 110kph down the F6. We both know that when you piss me off enough to make me pull over, you’ll inevitably proceed down the road at exactly the same speed I was going – and if you were particularly annoying, I’m highly likely to return the bumper-hugging favour.
Personally speaking I like to drive at or slightly above the speed limit. I appreciate the fact that not everybody shares my driving outlook and that some of you prefer to travel everywhere at exactly 15kph below whatever the speed limit is – unless we’re in a built up area with kids running around when you inevitably speed. However while I do appreciate the fact that you like travelling at speeds well below the marked limits, not all of us do and I’d greatly appreciate it if you didn’t do your impression of a rolling roadblock during the rush hour in the outside lane on a day when your rear view mirror appears to have malfunctioned. See all those people streaming past you on the inside lane? They’re travelling at the speed limit and are obeying that road sign that says ‘Keep left unless overtaking’.
Foglights are designed to be used when it’s foggy. I know it’s a tricky concept, so let me repeat it for you in a slightly different way. When it’s not foggy, you don’t need to turn your foglights on. I realise that you feel empowered at the wheel of your vehicle and that you love playing with all the buttons and switches on the dashboard, but having fogs on when it’s not foggy is not only dangerous, it’s also illegal.
When the freeway is moving okay and you’re sat on the inside lane minding your own business, please check that wing mirror before deciding that the time is right to overtake the car in front of you. I’m the bloke in the blue Kluger driving at or slightly above the speed limit in the outside lane who is now intimately acquainted with your Baby-on-board sticker.
Not every car with lights on its roof and some kind of decal on the bodywork, is the old bill. You do not need to slam your anchors on because there’s a Sydney Water van in front of us.
Finally, please reserve your intense nose-picking session for those moments when we’re not alongside each other at the traffic lights. I know I’ll probably never see you again and that we’re both in our own cars, but there’s something about watching a bald 40 year old man excavating his nostril that puts me right off my morning cheese and ham croissant.
With kind regards,
The bloke in the blue Kluger
The long dark teatime of the soul …
Jul 24th
I have a large JD and coke in front of me, a most superb mix playing in my headphones (Euphoria: Return to Ibiza if you’re interested), the house is otherwise quiet and I have resolved to update my flipping blog. Here’s hoping I manage to string together a few paragraphs this time, because every other time I’ve tried to update my blog in the last few months apathy grips me within minutes and before you know it I’m browsing Reddit yet again.
Holiday in the sunshine ….
We’re not known for our holidaying prowess, our family. (How fucking good is Hallelujah by the Happy Mondays? Jeez this takes me right back). Whether it’s my latent Aspergers, a total and complete lack of funds, the time constraints forced on us by the fact that I’m a wage slave and Liz runs her own business or just plain old fashioned apathy, we rarely go on holidays these days. In fact the last time we had a proper go-somewhere-more-than-50km-from-your-house holiday was ermmm, about seven years ago. But by some strange conjunction of the planets we not only booked some flights somewhere else, but I reserved the holiday time and Liz let her clients know that they wouldn’t be able to phone us at 3:00am and expect an answer. Our destination? Cairns.
Yes, on account of the fact that my kid brother and his girlfriend live up there and on account of the fact that they probably won’t be doing so for much longer and on account of the fact that it’s a bit shit that we’ve been living in this country for four years and have never strayed outside the state of New South Wales – we booked flights to Cairns. Jim’s a mind-bogglingly experienced diving instructor (the most experienced in the diving-mad state of Queensland in fact) and the plan was to have him show us around some choice spots in sunny far north Queensland.
We flew up on a Tuesday on account of the fact that Virgin Blue’s airfares for Tuesdays are the lowest you’ll see all week. We left 16 degrees and rain and arrived in Cairns at night to 26 degrees. Within 30 minutes of arriving at my brother’s house the sprog had managed to (accidentally) kick the hinge off my brother’s girlfriend’s Dell laptop. Needless to say everyone was thrilled to bits by this sensational beginning to the holiday. We spent the next day touring computer shops getting quotes for laptop repairs and followed that up with a mooch around Cairns while easing back into shorts and thongs mode. Liz and the sprog went swimming in the pleasingly situated Lagoon swimming pool (sweet jesus there’s some fit fucking birds hanging around that place) and I got a tour of the marina and esplanade by my brother.
On the Thursday we decided to sample the delights of the Skyrail, Karunda and the Kuranda scenic railway. The Skyrail was probably the highlight of that trip – it goes for bloody miles, over the tops of pristine rain forest. It was worth going on if only to watch Liz jump every time the cabin went over a pylon and the whole thing rattled. Karunda was, ermm, pretty shite actually – a tourist trap in the worst sense – one shark tooth necklace shop after another. The railway was alright, but like many scenic railway journeys – too long. It goes through amazingly scenic countryside, but by the time the train rolled into Freshwater station we were well and truly over it.
Day 14 of the train journey and with the delights of Travel Scrabble exhausted, boredom starts to set in.
On the Thursday we took a trip out to the reef. Yes, that reef – the Great Barrier one. There had been much uhming and ahhing over which dive company we’d go out with, but in the end we settled on SunLover because they seemed to offer a balanced family oriented range of activities. We travelled out to the reef first thing in the morning and after an hour had arrived at the pontoon from which you go snorkelling. The whole thing was extremely well organised from start to finish – superb friendly staff, great facilities and bloody good value for money – I have no hesitation in recommending this company.
Sunlover's pontoon - located on Mason's Reef towards the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef
Without doubt the coolest thing that happened during our day on the reef was the ‘outside’ tour with the on-board naturalist. For just $35 a head you get to go outside the roped off snorkelling area and venture out into the wider reef. Liz, who refuses to wear a pair of goggles at our local beach in case she sees a fish, was very brave and ventured out with us, only panicking when the 1m reef dropped off to 10m. We got to see pretty much the entire cast of finding nemo with the exceptions of the sharks and the bus driver. It was a terrific day all things considered and one that I’d happily repeat if given the chance.
The author with the shy star of Finding Nemo - Crush the sea turtle. Noggin!
The next day we picked up some picnic supplies and did a tour of the Copperlode Dam and other pleasing (Far out, how good is the bassline in Starlight by Supermen Lovers) locations up in the hills above Cairns. We had a tasty picnic lunch at Lake Morris, which is the dam from which the good people of Cairns get their fresh water. Unlike many reservoirs and lakes you’re not allowed to boat, fish or otherwise use in a recreational capacity the pristine waters. Seemed a bit of a shame to me, since it’s a stunning spot, but the closest you can get is a walkway out to a pumping complex.
(Oooohh – Born Slippy by Underworld). Day four of our trip to FNQ was spent in the Daintree. We drove the 100km up from Cairns and went first on a croc cruise during which we saw crocs small and large. Then we headed further into the rain forest, heading for Cape Tribulation – named by a certain James Cook in 1770 when he ran aground on a reef there. Amazing landscape, but sweet jesus there’s a lot of backpackers there – kind of ruins the ambiance a bit when you’re taking in the views only to have your eye drawn to the flappy baps of Tracey from Solihull sunning herself under the palm trees. Highlight of that day’s trip though was the spectacularly shite restaurant we had lunch in. The servings were hilariously small (portion of fish the size of a chicken nugget, seven (no literally, seven) anaemic chips), awful food (my steak sandwich was actually an over-cooked piece of steak on toast) and every single dish (no matter what it was) was inexplicably accompanied by a slice of pineapple. On the way out the proprietor was giving a riveting talk on tropical foot – “This is a tangella,” he said, holding aloft said fruit. Fucking hell I’m sorry I missed the whole talk. (Choon! Wizards of the Sonic by Westbam).
Down at the wharf in Port Douglas
On our last day, we headed up to Port Douglas. I have to say I really like Port Douglas – bit on the posh side sure, but a really chilled out ambiance to the place which I felt very at home in from the moment we arrived. We had a good look around the posh shops and then had a meal at the Salsa Bar and Grill. The food was fucking sensational – I had this superb cajun chicken dish that I suspect I’ll be hard pressed to improve on. Really great restaurant in every way – real colonial feel to it. After eating we headed down to this joint called the Groper Bar where they feed these massive gropers at the same time every day. The place was heaving though and there was plenty of cases of grown men and women nudging little kids out of the way so they could get a better view, which sucked. Big shoulder shrug from me that one – can’t say I’d recommend bothering with that one.
Grown men and women nudge children aside in order to view a large fish eating another fish - note the kids behind bars!
And that brought our action-packed holiday to an end. I enjoyed my time in FNQ a lot, partly because it was 10 degrees warmed than down here, partly because it was great to catch up with my brother and his partner and partly because it’s on of those ‘must do’ locations. Same some amazing stuff, had some amazing food enjoyed some amazing times – hope to return there before I die.
The PM from Barry Island
Jun 27th
So, as you may have seen on your local news broadcasts, there’s been a small change in the big office in government here. The fair-haired Milky Way Kid otherwise known as Kevin Rudd has been ejected unceremoniously from office and his replacement is a Welsh lady with ginger hair and a vaguely impressive rack.
Can’t say I’m overwhelmed with interest of the politics of it, though I did feel that Kevin always came across like a big drip – I think it’s pretty clear that Julia has bigger balls than him. The media have of course gone to town on the subject, with the left-leaning news outlets proclaiming her as the saviour of the Labour Party and the right-leaning outlets casting aspersions on the fact she’s childless.
Meanwhile, the Barry and District News is of course making a big deal of the origins of Miss Gillard and, keen not to miss out on things, Wales Online carries a story titled, ‘Gillard used to play in my back garden‘. Elsewhere there’s been coverage about her hair colour and quality.
I thought the coverage could best be typified by the screenshot left, which I took on my iPhone the day that Gillard came to power. You’ll note that the headline is the fact that the Socceroos were knocked out of the world cup and the fact that the PM had stepped down to be replaced by the country’s first female premiere comes in second. Nice.
Politics seems to be very volatile in this country. I think it’s a combination of the fact that you’ve got a federal government elected via proportional representation and state governments with wide-ranging powers and it’s all based on a small population. It means that even the most insignificant of political parties can make an impact on the political scene, as evidenced by the presence of Stephen Fielding, a far right wing politico and representative for the ‘Family First’ organisation.
We’re due a general election some time this year and it remains to be seen whether or not Gillard and the left-leaning Labour party or Tony Abbot and the right wing Liberal party will come to power. Abbot’s another god-bothering far-right wing nutso and there’s no way on earth I’d ever vote for him, but the problem is that Labour seem to be intent on bringing in the Internet filter and I find that to be abhorrent. Who knows, maybe it’s time to give the Greens a go.
Whale of a time
It’s whale season at the moment and the few humpbacks and wrights whales that have managed to slip past the wanker Japanese boats plundering the Antarctic marine whale sanctuary are currently making their way up the east cost of Australia to warmer waters for winter. We regularly go up to Blackhead down the beach from us to see if we can spot any whales. No joy there so far, but I’ve seen plenty up in Bondi. Anyway, there was a superb sunset up at Blackhead yesterday, which I captured as best I could on the 3megapixel camera in my iPhone.
Farcebook …
Jun 26th
OK, so what is your criteria for adding someone as a friend on Facebook? Seems to me that the most popular website on the planet has stretched the concept of ‘friend’ to stretching point and beyond. In fact it’s fair to say that Facebook have crept up behind ‘Friend’ grabbed its knickers from behind, hoisted the elastic skywards and given it a wedgie the like of which its plums are unlikely to ever recover from.
My definition of ‘friend’ goes like this: are you someone who I know, do I see you fairly often or (and this one’s pretty crucial) do I like you. Those are the questions I ask myself when someone’s name pops up on Facebook and I’m asked to ‘Confirm’ or ‘Ignore’ them. I’m not being the least bit snobby about this, but the fact remains that the only people I want to read about on Facebook are people who I know and like and therefore care what they’re up to. I’m sure as shit not one of these ‘friend’ collectors who seems to rate their personal worth in terms of how many friend blips they’ve got on Facebook.
I had a bit of a weed out of my friends list the other day and I am left with 31 names. That includes family of course – even my old dad is on Facebook these days. With a few notable exceptions I also only keep people on the list who bother to interact with me occasionally. I’ve got a few people from the surf club in my list but I refuse to have the younger club members on there because I like to swear. Occasionally. Also, people who only ever get in touch with you because they want something – they can piss off too.
Some people live in a bit of a Facebook shadowland as far as my account goes. I still want them as friends, but I don’t want to read every status update. This is particularly true of a couple of my FBFs – they recently hooked up with each and every other status update is some sickly love note or another. So, knowing that I was bound to give in to temptation eventually and say something which offended them, I’ve hidden them. If and when they get married I can of course unhide them because as we all know, all talk of love and romance goes right out the window shortly after ‘I do’.
Club of the Year
I have successfully completed my first year as Club Captain at my surf club. It’s a job I completely underestimated when I agreed to take it on at the AGM in July 2009. The Club Captain is basically in charge of all the patrols on the beach – the rostering, the manning of the patrols, the equipment and of course any issues that patrol people are having. Due to the fact that we’re a very under-supported club and because the buck stops with me, I completed 138 hours of patrol time in the 2009/2010 season – by way of contrast most other club members clocked up about 60-70 hours. And in a busy club an active patrol person only has to do 30 hours to get ’100%’ for the season.
Anyway, I really enjoyed it. I was shit at time, like when I’d planned to do something else of a weekend and we had a no-show at the beach for patrol. It was also really good at times, like when the Tsunami alert happened and we got to speed up and down the beach in the IRB advising beach-goers of the (supposed) impending arrival of a tidal wave. And the day when 60 juvenile Hammerhead sharks showed up and decided to swim between the flags. And the day we timed the run from our beach to Black Head in both the duck and the IRB. There have been way more good times than bad, but it’s a draining job and I’m hoping to get a bit more help in the coming season.
Our surf club is part of the South Coast Branch which comprises nine clubs, stretching from this side of Wollongong to Mollymook – about 100Km of superb coastline. We had our branch presentation night at the bowling club here in town (we’re in the middle of the branch so everyone comes to us) and the club was awarded ‘Club of the Year’. We were given this award because we’ve managed to reverse the club’s fortunes in a fairly short period of time. There’s still a lot of work to do, but we were close to closing our doors in 2008, but now we have a bouyant nippers program, growing patrol numbers and a blooming associates membership.
The sprog
This week the sprog competed in a public speaking competition at his school. He was put forward for the finals by his teacher. He did two minutes on ‘The Three Richest Men at the Turn of the Century’, in front of his entire class. Very impressive he was too – about the only thing I could do in front of an entire school at the age of 8 would be to pick my nose.