Tough

I know that this is a turbo random story, but this morning I was super proud of my dog, Steph (right). Steph is about thirteen, she is deaf as a post, has poor vision due to cataracts, shocking arthritis from years of escaping from home and all after a recovery from botulism about six years ago (when she very nearly died).

Steph normally sleeps upstairs at our house, she takes herself up there when she gets tired so as not to be disturbed, so when I woke up this morning she was outside my room. I gave her a pat then said and gestured ‘downstairs’ to her. Our stairs are fairly narrow, so she needs to approach them with a little caution. As such she was probably a little too excited, so took off with a little too much speed. About half way down she got in trouble, and began to loose her footing, bouncing on her side down the last three or four steps before sliding across the floor and slamming into the lounge sweet. Any other wimpy dog would have just sat down and felt sorry for themselves, not Steph, she tried to get up straight away. She fell over again, no doubt a bit wobbly, but kept on going. What a trooper. I know it sounds lame, but it was such a strong display.

Good fun

Yuck

I am always sad to see constant reminders of the destruction of the SMH. Some are more obvious then others, such as this...


What a waste of space. Obviously what has happened here is that the SMH has searched for ARIA related news, and found a press release on arguable the most over-hyped twin in history (big call I know, perhaps the most over-hyped twins in music history… still a big call) and put it up as news. There is nothing sexy about these two, nor would I argue that there music has demonstrated any progression from there first songs. I can’t hear a difference.

Ill write something better soon, can’t think of anything at the moment.

Big Question

I have a conundrum for you, on which form of public transport do you find the most annoying passengers? Is there a definitive answer, or are there too many wankers on everything to ever have a relatively straight peaceful, stress free commute on transport provided by the state?

Well, let’s work through the options. That is always the best thing to do.

BUSES
I was going to begin by saying that buses would have to be red hot favourite, but in a field like this that is too big a call, so I won’t make it. For sure though, Buses are pretty bad. Yesterday, my first time on buses home for a while, started off pretty badly. I got to the bus stop and had a bus drive straight past me, even after the driver acknowledged me. The bus was not full, there were not even people standing past, so I have no idea why he drove past me. I then got onto a crowded bus, crowded that is up to the rear doors only. Passengers standing seem only to mull around the front of the bus, I have never known why this is. To heighten my discomfort and frustration a woman standing next to me proceeded to explain to a tourist where the central bus stop was in arguable the most patronising manner I have ever heard. I believe that she was not intending to be patronising at all, she was just a terrible person. This was particularly bad. When I did get a seat a man sat next too me, far too close for my liking. Rubbish. Terrible. No need.
This was just one, personal example of why buses are bad, I shall have to point to identifiable population segments that frequent buses to properly evaluate the terror.

Horrible groups that are particularly prevalent on buses include:
- School Children. The never seem to move out of your way, talk too loud and are just generally pathetic. They also get their ticket for free. This upsets me.
- People who don’t move to let you up. Particularly on the older Mercedes buses, this is one of the worse offences known to man. Particularly men who are Six Four.
- Tourists or those who don’t know the route. Whilst I don’t mind these people asking questions when they get on and off, please don’t argue with the driver on his knowledge of every route in Sydney. He won’t know, no one cares, piss off

Wow, that will be hard to top. Let’s see how we go…

FERRIES
I don’t frequent Sydney Ferries, but from what I understand, they must be pretty bad. In point form below are some external summations on why I feel Ferries have some of the worse commuters:
- Higher proportion of tourists. Taking photos and being annoying, there are always heaps on the ferry. Particularly the Manly Ferry
- Potential for passengers to be seasick. At least there isn’t much motion sickness on the buses or ferries, more so intoxication related illnesses (or relief…)

I can’t think of too many more. I am sure there are plenty, and indeed the actual service is pretty appaulling (people die when run over in dingies, wharves fall over etc), but so far I am thinking that this is perhaps looking like the most tolerable form…

LIGHT RAIL
Wow, what a wank. Imagine having to catch this in everyday. It is not even a real train, but some slow rubbish thing. Terrible. I bet that there are a lot of tree huggers on these ones too. Rubbish. I really have never caught it, but I don’t think I would want to

TRAINS
Wow, the much hated trains. I have been catching trains for the past six weeks so I can give you a first hand account of the irks that I have. Here we go… well in all honesty, there aren’t that many. I got frustrated by school kids, I always do, but I would argue it was the most straight forward commuting I did in weeks. I haven’t been stuck due to trackwork or the like or anything, but it was straight forward.

SO THERE YOU GO. The winner is BUSES. They’re the most annoying things ever. In the history of everything for ever and ever. Times 2391093. Heaps. Tops

WORD

Abe

I really wanted to write more things for here but I was stuck and couldn’t think of stuff to write. I then thought I should touch on a few things I was thinking about, you know, as you do, so I could write some stuff. Success it would seem, indeed hopefully a few posts for today…

On the weekend I headed up to Bathurst for the races. What always astounds me at Bathurst is the amount of complete and utter drop kicks that turn up. I really don’t understand how some of these people are still alive, they seriously seem that stupid. These people, who can barely manage a coherent sentence let alone walk in a straight line, are obviously interested in Cars and the like, so I would assume drive and have trick cars.

If these people are idiots walking around a camp site, you can only assume how they drive on public roads. I can only assume that people such as these are often the culprits of accidents and the like. It is scary that such people can get their licenses. It makes you think that no matter how well or safely you drive, there could always be an idiot around the corner to take you out. Norick Abe died in a motorcycle accident in Japan yesterday. He ran into a lorry that was doing an illegal U-Turn. Norick was a MotoGP and World Superbike race winner, and one of the most exciting races I’ve ever seen. Not many people would be handier on a bike then him, but he lost his life on a public road. Tragic.

So there you go, a rant. What else is new?

I was watching when...

... Rugby died in Australia. Four more years, four more years. Lets hope we find a front row in that time

SMH Spiral

I saw on Facebook today (now restored at work, huzzah!) a group that had recently been created named ‘The Sydney Morning Herald is no longer fit to call itself a real newspaper’. I went to have a look at it, and it made some astute observations. Here is a bit taken from the blurb:

It was once an outstanding newspaper to read on a daily basis, with thorough and objective reporting on both current affairs and local news. It used big words that we would have to look up in a dictionary from time to time.This is no longer the case and the point of this group is too encourage people not to read it nor visit its terrible gossip magazine-style website.It largely buys well written "World" articles from newspapers such as The Guardian, New York Times or LA Times and occasionally the Daily Telegraph. Though it chops them down to about 1200-2000 words because thats all an Australian reader can manage, apparently. (At least that's all its sub-editors being dicated to by moronic marketeers can) It now pursues what it perceives to be of interest to its readers, such as the hounding of individuals or the pursuit of petty scandals.
Its final crime is allowing cadet journalists to write lazy pieces such as "Facebook bans the use of the word gay" which are beneath the intelligence of a ten year old. These articles are usually printed during slow news feed days as too "up" the traffic to the website. The articles are usually pulled off the site within 3 hours and rarely, if at all make it to print.

It is hard to disagree with this. I read the SMH daily but its standards are continuing to drop. As mentioned above, the quality of the articles are dropping, and indeed the number of annoying pop ups is growing rapidly! When I had a look just then, the stories cycling through the bar on the top right were mainly linked to blogs, such as ‘Sam in the City’, that seem entirely pointless. The main story on the left was about the delivery of Hummers today and how it ironically coincided with walk to work day. Trash. Perhaps more telling is the links to the most viewed articles down the bottom. ‘Alan Jones knows election date’ is the top rated video; ‘Ask Sam Friday – Intercultural dating, is there any hope?’ is the top rated blog. The most viewed article is in relation to maternity wards, which has merit, yet the fifth most viewed article is about Ricky Ponting’s retaliation to claims from Indian cricket about something or the other.


It is sad, I guess that you just have to read from international news outlets, or perhaps the Australian.

Getting Old

Last week I chaperoned a team to the Gold Coast for the Australian University Games. This event, as most of you are no doubt aware, is little more then Schoolies for University students. The fact that it was on the Gold Coast only served to compound this. It is perhaps thus not that unusual that I left the week feeling like a ‘Toolie’, an old fart amongst much younger individuals.

I have expressed this view to a number of people who have almost universally replied, ‘Villa, you’re not really that old’. These kind words are always accepted with gratitude, but age is not always expressed in the simple passing of years since ones birth, it is a product of perception and experience. I was thus thinking through other examples of how I’ve become old and disgruntled, ill set some out below:

- Loud Music. I don’t like places where the music is too loud. I prefer small bars where you can sit and talk. Way old

- Reading. I’ve stopped listening to my iPod and begun reading instead while on public transport. Reading is fun, but when other people are listening to loud music on their iPods I get annoyed. It is distracting and silly, they’re destroying their ears

- Sensible clothing. Comfort is king.

- Going to bed early. I’ve always gone to bed early, but I really need to go to bed early now a days. I’ve even been going to bed early on Saturday nights. This is particularly terrible.

- Ironing. I enjoy ironing, but now I perform most of my domestic duties on Sunday to make sure the week is alright. Concerning.

- Being Grumpy at people. I get grumpy at people a lot more, I never got grumpy before. I find that I don’t seek to please everyone as much anymore, I hold more grudges.

So there you go. I’ve become soft. Will have to pick up my socks.

I’ve decided to write a few different posts today, will write more from now on. I miss blogging, will pick up my socks.