Polish man awakes to find Communism gone! In shocking news straight from the presses at the ABC a Polish man who after an accident was left in a coma has awaken to find that Communism is gone from his homeland.
The report does not say that he longs for a return of meat rationing and vinegar tea, so I assume that he is happy with the current situation in Poland. I wish him all the best and hope that he awakes tomorrow morning being able to walk again.
I can see it now, hundreds of thousand of people all over the world are lining up to get put into comas just to avoid admitting that their current leaders are total smack-heads. I know I have asked my Doctor to put me under but alas he cannot do so due to ethics and the like. I might look into travelling overseas like so many cosmetic surgery patients have - but I am not sure I need new breasts just yet.
Looks like I will have to wait until the next election and hope. Or move to New Zealand.
In other news Spain looks like the place to be for 2008! With Elvis on the Council and a new Nudist Pool opening in the Town Square Reus might just be THE place to BE.
Alas I am sorry to disappoint all the budding young reality show-files out there. But the Danish Reality show based around competitors battling it out for a chance to have a kidney was a hoax! How could TV have come so low as to LIE to us - the viewing public. I was hoping to be able to watch the losers die a slow and lingering death as the winner proudly showed off his new kidney. How could they do this?
That is all.
Sunday, 3 June 2007
Lists
It seems that my love and wonderful person Anjel is making up some lists. Well at least I know what to get her for an engagement ring - I think we have some in the cupboard already!
Which neatly and almost as seamlessly brings me to a place where I can comment on the number 10.
Ok we have 10 finger, 10 toes (at least 'normally' we as humans do) our numerical system has increments of 10. 10 is a good number, it is useful and it doesn't look too bad to boot. So why do we have 60 second to a minute, 60 minutes to an hour and 24 hours to a day. Not to mention the silliness that is 365.25 days to a year. It is just plain stupid. Tad Williams, in his Shadowmarch World has created what I have always thought to be the best Calendar system. 10 days to a week, 3 weeks to a month and 12 months to a year, just to be nice and even the remaining 5.25 days are in the void of 'no month' and are outside of the year. Orphan Day I believe he calls it - kinda like New Years.
He doesn't go into detail - at least in the first book - about hours and such but let us instead here and now make up some hours for Tad's day. Again we will sit in with the 10 theme. I can see us simply having 100 seconds to a minute, 100 minutes to an hour and (well here is the hard part) either 10 hours to a day or two lots of 10 hours (20) to form night and day. I prefer the plainer 10 hours which means that the modern 'noon' would be hour 5 and midnight hour 10/0.
Do you think it will take off? I doubt it as business and the like are probalby adverse to changing. I do think it would make everything better in the world. End poverty and world hunger - maybe even the war in Iraq... Well it might, they'll all be too busy trying to workout what time dinner is to fight!
Ending this madness now...
Which neatly and almost as seamlessly brings me to a place where I can comment on the number 10.
Ok we have 10 finger, 10 toes (at least 'normally' we as humans do) our numerical system has increments of 10. 10 is a good number, it is useful and it doesn't look too bad to boot. So why do we have 60 second to a minute, 60 minutes to an hour and 24 hours to a day. Not to mention the silliness that is 365.25 days to a year. It is just plain stupid. Tad Williams, in his Shadowmarch World has created what I have always thought to be the best Calendar system. 10 days to a week, 3 weeks to a month and 12 months to a year, just to be nice and even the remaining 5.25 days are in the void of 'no month' and are outside of the year. Orphan Day I believe he calls it - kinda like New Years.
He doesn't go into detail - at least in the first book - about hours and such but let us instead here and now make up some hours for Tad's day. Again we will sit in with the 10 theme. I can see us simply having 100 seconds to a minute, 100 minutes to an hour and (well here is the hard part) either 10 hours to a day or two lots of 10 hours (20) to form night and day. I prefer the plainer 10 hours which means that the modern 'noon' would be hour 5 and midnight hour 10/0.
Do you think it will take off? I doubt it as business and the like are probalby adverse to changing. I do think it would make everything better in the world. End poverty and world hunger - maybe even the war in Iraq... Well it might, they'll all be too busy trying to workout what time dinner is to fight!
Ending this madness now...
Reality
Reality is waking up each day finding you have to go out of your nice warm bed and do the meanial tasks of your job - so that someone else can take the credit and get more pay then you because their badge has a longer title then yours.
That is all...
That is all...
and so we go...
I just read a short story at Subterranean Press a really good story - one that John Scalzi even recommends in his usual off the cuff way. There is something to be said about being able to read a story for just a little while. Take 10 minutes out of your life and enter the world of another, knowing that it'll only be that 10 minutes. This story, although not a happy one, still brought me into the lives of these people - the last man, and the last child. Very human, very real and still they belonged to a world that we are apart from (thankfully). I really enjoyed this story - not all that Subterranean Press puts out are stories I like - that has nothing to do with the quality of the work just my tastes - but this one struck a chord and made me want to be more creative. Maybe write something that has this much power.
I am reading both of my new purchases at the moment - I couldn't decide between Joe Hill and John Scalzi, and I am really enjoying both of them very much - to the point where I could have sat up all last night reading and then this morning at the breakfast bench I was still entranced in the worlds I hardly got to work on time. I might review the books when I finish them - or link to a review that I agree with - it just depends on how I feel about what I can write about them. I am not a reviewer and I lack the experience and skills to write a good review about something that I really respect, maybe my opinion wouldn't give the piece(s) the justice it deserves.
In saying that I read "American Gods" last month and that is a brilliant story - buy it! The funny thing about that is that I read "Anansi Boys" first - call me what you will but that is how I bought them... don't ask I was desperate to read something good is all I will say. So because I knew a little more about the Gods and there ways AG perhaps didn't hit me with the same power that it might have had I read it first. That is not to say that I didn't enjoy the story I loved it, it dragged me into the world so easily and it was another book that I couldn't put down and one that was almost sad when it finished. I first read Neil Gaiman when he teamed up with Terry Pratchett (one {if not the} of my favourite authors) to do "Good Omens", which really changed the way I looked at fantasy and the books that I chose to read. I suppose I grew up (in my teens) reading such fantasy-pulp as the TSR Dungeons & Dragons novels, I did read things like "The Hobbit" and a lot of Rosemary Sutcliff (Arthur and Merlin and such), but it was the pulp fantasy that I really got my teeth into. It was much later in life that started to read the better written works, from the ink of Raymond E. Feist, Tolkien (LOTR), and Douglas Adams to name but a few. I really enjoyed the way that a good author can brings his or her world into my head and let me live there for a day or an hour, or 10 minutes.
So after all that - that is really my point. I love a good read because I can slip off into another world and for a time at least let all my worries and fears subside and BE.
I am reading both of my new purchases at the moment - I couldn't decide between Joe Hill and John Scalzi, and I am really enjoying both of them very much - to the point where I could have sat up all last night reading and then this morning at the breakfast bench I was still entranced in the worlds I hardly got to work on time. I might review the books when I finish them - or link to a review that I agree with - it just depends on how I feel about what I can write about them. I am not a reviewer and I lack the experience and skills to write a good review about something that I really respect, maybe my opinion wouldn't give the piece(s) the justice it deserves.
In saying that I read "American Gods" last month and that is a brilliant story - buy it! The funny thing about that is that I read "Anansi Boys" first - call me what you will but that is how I bought them... don't ask I was desperate to read something good is all I will say. So because I knew a little more about the Gods and there ways AG perhaps didn't hit me with the same power that it might have had I read it first. That is not to say that I didn't enjoy the story I loved it, it dragged me into the world so easily and it was another book that I couldn't put down and one that was almost sad when it finished. I first read Neil Gaiman when he teamed up with Terry Pratchett (one {if not the} of my favourite authors) to do "Good Omens", which really changed the way I looked at fantasy and the books that I chose to read. I suppose I grew up (in my teens) reading such fantasy-pulp as the TSR Dungeons & Dragons novels, I did read things like "The Hobbit" and a lot of Rosemary Sutcliff (Arthur and Merlin and such), but it was the pulp fantasy that I really got my teeth into. It was much later in life that started to read the better written works, from the ink of Raymond E. Feist, Tolkien (LOTR), and Douglas Adams to name but a few. I really enjoyed the way that a good author can brings his or her world into my head and let me live there for a day or an hour, or 10 minutes.
So after all that - that is really my point. I love a good read because I can slip off into another world and for a time at least let all my worries and fears subside and BE.
Friday, 1 June 2007
Yowie? Or not!
You can all blame Constance for this one... It was her news post that got me all caught up in the search for the elusive. Then I read in the local rag (The South Coast Register) that there has been a sighting of a Yowie in Batemans Bay (approx 2 hour drive south of where I live). Here is the story of that (this) fateful day...
The article was full of key words like "mysterious", "allegedly", "hallmarks", "legendary", and "cryptozoology experts" and that was just the first paragraph! I flip back to the cover of the newspaper, just to check if I was reading "enquirer", but no this was still The South Coast Register - a knowledgeable and highly regarded journal. I also noted with interest that there wasn't a picture of this "two-legged non-human creature" (just a digitally created image the newspaper used in it's online edition -ed) that an unnamed eye witness saw in her head lights, how can they run with such an important story without (dare I say it) a burred image of a humanoid shape.
It was at that moment that I decided to amend this travesty of news-media, nay of the very justice of all things sacred and holy - or at least sensational and media related. I and my trusty companions will get that picture! (insert fan fare of trumpets). (cross fade to telephone, back packs, pack mules, a banana and finally the team fully assembled)
They stood before me, three rough and tough fellow explorers and righters of media wrongs. The elite team of "Today Current Report-ers" (dada da dada da dada da deeee). Angel, the flaming hair beauty whose main skills are animal control, horse-womanship, cleaning, blades and devotion to yours truly. Delta of short brown hair and fiery spirit, she is a Martial artist with knowledge of the occult, bad books and the supernatural. Rev. Bob, big, bad, bald and on God's Mission, he is the muscle of the group, able to lift tall buildings out of the way, his computing skills are second to none and have proved useful in tight situations - he also is Delta's partner. Finally myself, a professional actor, photographer, script writer, musician and amateur sleuth. I aimed to get that shot of the Batemans Bay Yowie - or my name wasn't Dr D!
Filling in the team on the situation I set them to work gathering all the current and relevant information on Yowie sightings in the area. I wanted to know all I could before putting my team in harms way. I had heard reports of the beast having "prodigious strength" and knew that such a being would be dangerous if cornered or threatened.
The article was full of key words like "mysterious", "allegedly", "hallmarks", "legendary", and "cryptozoology experts" and that was just the first paragraph! I flip back to the cover of the newspaper, just to check if I was reading "enquirer", but no this was still The South Coast Register - a knowledgeable and highly regarded journal. I also noted with interest that there wasn't a picture of this "two-legged non-human creature" (just a digitally created image the newspaper used in it's online edition -ed) that an unnamed eye witness saw in her head lights, how can they run with such an important story without (dare I say it) a burred image of a humanoid shape.
It was at that moment that I decided to amend this travesty of news-media, nay of the very justice of all things sacred and holy - or at least sensational and media related. I and my trusty companions will get that picture! (insert fan fare of trumpets). (cross fade to telephone, back packs, pack mules, a banana and finally the team fully assembled)
They stood before me, three rough and tough fellow explorers and righters of media wrongs. The elite team of "Today Current Report-ers" (dada da dada da dada da deeee). Angel, the flaming hair beauty whose main skills are animal control, horse-womanship, cleaning, blades and devotion to yours truly. Delta of short brown hair and fiery spirit, she is a Martial artist with knowledge of the occult, bad books and the supernatural. Rev. Bob, big, bad, bald and on God's Mission, he is the muscle of the group, able to lift tall buildings out of the way, his computing skills are second to none and have proved useful in tight situations - he also is Delta's partner. Finally myself, a professional actor, photographer, script writer, musician and amateur sleuth. I aimed to get that shot of the Batemans Bay Yowie - or my name wasn't Dr D!
Filling in the team on the situation I set them to work gathering all the current and relevant information on Yowie sightings in the area. I wanted to know all I could before putting my team in harms way. I had heard reports of the beast having "prodigious strength" and knew that such a being would be dangerous if cornered or threatened.
Our first call of ports was the Internet. I set out with a Google search and sent Delta off to track down any rare texts on the subject. Angel dived into her vast knowledge of animals and set to finding all she could on the possibility of such a creature existing. Rev. Bob gathered all our supplies together, loading up the Landie with all we would need on this harrowing journey into the unknown, known as Batemans Bay.
Below is a summary of the information I have found, I post this here in the advent that should we not return the world will know of our journey and perhaps someone else shall find a clue we might have missed:
Yowie Hunters :-
Sighting and 2 pictures, young man sees the Yowie from a distance, says it moved too quickly to get an accurate picture of it although he has two shots of the ape like creature.
A second sighing this time describing a larger creature possible 7 feet tall, although it was crouched when it passed their car. Note strange lingering smell, could be a clue - note ask Angel about using tracking dogs.
The most reputable sighing I have found so far, the man known to have the most knowledge of the creature 'Tim the Yowie man'. A quote of his catches my eye and makes me more nervous about our trip into the unknown. "He tells me and my loyal photographer, Marc, known as Gidds: “Your British celebrities are right to be scared. The Yowie has been known to throw stones and even trees at people before."
A more descriptive find is from the archives of our library vault, secured 16 storeys down in our hidden base of operations (I have linked our archival evidence to the group known as the Yowie Hunters so all free spirited men can share our knowledge). Quotes that had been kept secret for years by the authorities, released by Peter Turbet in 2001, it is the only real first hand knowledge from the local Aboriginal tribes. They called him Puttikan and describe him as "shaped like a tall man and had a hairy body with a large mane. His feet were reversed so that he could not be tracked and his skin was so tough that no spear could pierce it."
This posed more questions to our safety, tracking would be more dependant on the animals under Angel's control, our weapons may prove useless if it attacks and we already know it's strength is sometime to be feared. Yet we must continue this journey and get that photo, not just for ourselves but for all media kind.
With no less then 7 sighting reported to the Yowie Hunter for the Batemans Bay area I knew we had chosen the right place to being our search for the Yowie. In all these reports I can see similarities, Ape like man, 7-8 feet tall, large footprints (bigger then a mans), and the most startling fact - it retreats away from people, so it may not be as aggressive as I first feared. There was one fact that grabbed my attention the most - the sighting in 1996 where the creature seemed - to the gentleman who spotted it - know of the dangers of the road, and waited until his car had moved past itself before attempting to cross. This proves that the creature has some intelligence maybe more then we realise.
I know sit egally awaiting the rest of my team's reports and prepare for our journey.
Thursday, 31 May 2007
Insurance
I was, as is my usual tool, surfing the interweb. Checking out sites and links until I ended up somewhere I had never been before. Jacquline Mackie Paisley, who I take it, is or was a prolific blogger who is now taking a break or not blogging us much - now to what matters to my post right here. That is the content of here latest blog, posted 29 May 2007.
Which relates to Health Insurance and her struggle to find the right policy for herself. What brings my attention to this is the apparent lack in interest in the fact that she HAS to get health insurance in order to plan for any future medical assistance.
The post reads as if she has lost all thought that her Government has some responsibility to her well being and health. I suppose I am looking at this from the perspective that here in Australia we have a partially Government sponsored Health system. That is if we need emergency health care - aside from the Ambulance trip, which is another story - we have things covered in the sense that the hospital will heal you, operate etc. It is not completely covered but you will get medical care in emergencies and in selective surgery you will, eventually, get in to the hospital and get say a knee reconstruction or hip replacement.
From what I understand in the USA if you have no health insurance you will not get any medical care at a hospital. I understand that there are 'free' clinics and such but I do not understand the general apathy that intelligent people, like JMP seems to be, have towards Health Insurance. Why does she pay taxes if not for the Government to take care of her well being.
I realise that I am picking on JMP a lot and I do not mean to single her out, I mean this to the general public of the USA and as a warning to people in Australia. Are we turning into America, will we one day turn people back form medical care because they do not have Health Insurance? What will that mean to us as a country if or when that happens?
I am happy to be in a Country that cares for those on lower incomes, that cares for the battlers and those unable to work in a higher paying job. I also am happy for when I earn more money to use things like Private Health providers instead of the strained public system. What I am not prepared nor willing to do is sit back and let it all turn into a terrible and horrid system like they have in the USA and like the UK is going/gone.
Public Health and Public Education ( I'll leave that for another rant) SHOULD be and always SHOULD be the major mandate of any Government. After all it is he Tax payer moneys that fund Governments and not the other way around.
There is my rant for the day.
Thoughts? Theories? Go right ahead maybe we can get a debate happening here.
Which relates to Health Insurance and her struggle to find the right policy for herself. What brings my attention to this is the apparent lack in interest in the fact that she HAS to get health insurance in order to plan for any future medical assistance.
The post reads as if she has lost all thought that her Government has some responsibility to her well being and health. I suppose I am looking at this from the perspective that here in Australia we have a partially Government sponsored Health system. That is if we need emergency health care - aside from the Ambulance trip, which is another story - we have things covered in the sense that the hospital will heal you, operate etc. It is not completely covered but you will get medical care in emergencies and in selective surgery you will, eventually, get in to the hospital and get say a knee reconstruction or hip replacement.
From what I understand in the USA if you have no health insurance you will not get any medical care at a hospital. I understand that there are 'free' clinics and such but I do not understand the general apathy that intelligent people, like JMP seems to be, have towards Health Insurance. Why does she pay taxes if not for the Government to take care of her well being.
I realise that I am picking on JMP a lot and I do not mean to single her out, I mean this to the general public of the USA and as a warning to people in Australia. Are we turning into America, will we one day turn people back form medical care because they do not have Health Insurance? What will that mean to us as a country if or when that happens?
I am happy to be in a Country that cares for those on lower incomes, that cares for the battlers and those unable to work in a higher paying job. I also am happy for when I earn more money to use things like Private Health providers instead of the strained public system. What I am not prepared nor willing to do is sit back and let it all turn into a terrible and horrid system like they have in the USA and like the UK is going/gone.
Public Health and Public Education ( I'll leave that for another rant) SHOULD be and always SHOULD be the major mandate of any Government. After all it is he Tax payer moneys that fund Governments and not the other way around.
There is my rant for the day.
Thoughts? Theories? Go right ahead maybe we can get a debate happening here.
Wednesday, 30 May 2007
Links to make you think
The first link in this series is courtesy of my Friend the critical critic, Constance;
Fashion Guru and 'inventor' of the Punk image - designer of the Sex Pistols outfits - Vivienne Westwood seems to be in the media again, this time not bringing down the constabulary but trashy TV shows, Magazines - encouraging people to read and visit galleries and museums.
It seems Vivienne wants us to be released from the mire of crap and rise out of the depths and reclaim our sanity. Good Luck Vivienne! with all the Hype and Media driven mania around reality TV and Celebrity Gossip you 'll have more of a fight on your hands then I think you can handle.
She is fighting the good fight and I wish her well. Any thoughts on the article?
Fashion Guru and 'inventor' of the Punk image - designer of the Sex Pistols outfits - Vivienne Westwood seems to be in the media again, this time not bringing down the constabulary but trashy TV shows, Magazines - encouraging people to read and visit galleries and museums.
It seems Vivienne wants us to be released from the mire of crap and rise out of the depths and reclaim our sanity. Good Luck Vivienne! with all the Hype and Media driven mania around reality TV and Celebrity Gossip you 'll have more of a fight on your hands then I think you can handle.
She is fighting the good fight and I wish her well. Any thoughts on the article?
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