Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Too much

Sometimes when I look at a tree or a hill or something I might think “Gee, that looks realistic, I wonder how many megapixels they used for that.” This probably means I use too much computer and watch too much tv. I guess it’d be more worrying if I looked at something outside and thought “that looks fake, it’s photoshopped.” Particularly since I really dislike it when people do that online.

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Sometimes you gotta let your mind wander


My father, my brother and I (mostly my father) had a go at fixing my car's seat today, it was leaning back too far because the moving frames which help you adjust the seat's position were in different places, and one of them was completely unattached to the front of the chair. We got that right I think. The other problem was that the seat was sagging, I thought a spring had broken, it turned out the seat was help up by a fairly inflexible net made of plastic attached to some rubber strips which were quite stretchy. The rubber on one side had torn in a very straight line leading to a loss of support. We had a go at pulling it back together with some wires, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to need a new net thing. That is much better than having to get a whole new seat, which I can't get from anywhere. Can somebody with a Toyota Carolla from 1986 please crash their car a little bit so that I can easily get replacement parts next time something goes wrong?

We got a new old car, a Daihatsu Charade, I think the best part about it is the name. It's a few years younger than my Toyota, but it's mostly not as good. Today something with the clutch stopped working properly, so I can only put it into gear when the engine is off, which isn't very helpful. Right now we've got two undriveable cars at my place... I should probably walk or ride my bike more often anyway.

Lately I've been enjoying bread a lot more than I used to. I love bread now! Used to be that I'd get a sausage in bread and I would throw the bread away, I only wanted the meat. Now I almost enjoy eating the bread more than the meat. Almost, but not quite. I can't think of the last time I said no to bread, but toast doesn't count in that. Toast is a terrible crime against bread kind and against humanity too. If you're toasting your bread because it's stale then stop, make some soup and dip your bread in that instead of ruining it! If you're toasting your bread because you just like toast then you're mad! We've been having some awesome bread rolls with dinner lately, they're cheap and they taste particularly good warmed up and spread with butter so that the butter melts. Then again, I'm pretty sure melted butter makes everything taste good. I think the best bread I've had was a pumpkin bread, but the pumpkin flavour was very light. I particularly liked the pumpkin seeds on top.

People have begun complaining about mosquitoes again, I generally don't notice them though. I have killed a couple of them in the last couple of days though. I think they've been breeding well what with all the rain of late.

Sometimes I play Hexic on my Xbox. I never played it when I first got it, but my mum saw my brother playing it and decided she would play it too. For a while she was the one who played that game the most, my brother was discouraged by the fact that Mum was better than him at it, but I decided I had to be better than her. I started playing it. I usually give Mum instructions when she's playing now. The other day I managed to win! I took ages, 121 minutes. Check it out:
I'm pretty proud of myself really.

Blossom falls slowly
Like a snowflake down to earth
Landing silently

Champing at the bit
With Jockey cracking the whip
Ready for the race

I wrote some haiku the other day while I was waiting for something, those were my favourites.

Also about poetry, for uni I had to talk about a rad poem:

Strange Fish
(Alice Springs, September 2006)
an abandoned school of silver shapes, partially imbedded in
the sandy skin of the Todd River. These 'strange fish' seemed to
have perished in a pack, almost Lemming-esque, when the river
disappeared into the dreaming of evaporation. Back in the city
we know these strange fish by urban-zoological nomenclature:
Goonius baggas. Vessels for cheap wine, the most distinguish-
ing feature, a white bulbous plastic eye, like a Cyclops. But
here on the Todd these eyes are permanently fixed on the desert
sun. Eyes that once held magic! Eyes that were once the gate-
ways of inebriated souls, and now their souls are bled too.
Shiny bodies, awaiting fossilisation. Suspended in animation;
a sad reflection of a past tide, caught in the immortal sands of
this winding, broken, hourglass...
Samuel Wagan Watson

I like it.

I've been doing some gardening lately, the most recent being a small garden in the front yard, I dug out all the weeds and planted some sunflowers. It's looking good, they're going to be massive. They've been loving all the rain. I'm totally going to eat seeds from my flowers. Maybe some homemade bread with sunflower seeds on top, and maybe pumpkin seeds too. That'd be rad.

Also, I caved and am now on twitter. One of the guys I went to school with convinced me. Well, I can't hate myself too much, all my productivity will be out the window. Ha. What productivity?


Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Car troubles

 Zits for 11/10/2010
This pretty much is based on my experience from monday afternoon (Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman were only two days late). My car's clutch stopped working on my way home and I had to drive Dad's Yaris, which looks remarkably similar to the thing in the comic. My car's fixed now though.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Toyota has short term memory loss

Last night after a partay with good dinner and fun poker we did this:


The other two guys involved have already been blamed by the victim, but not me. Scot free as they say. Pretty fun. We did run out though, there's about 1200 post it notes on there. Took the three of us two hours to do. A weird guy ran past at about 1.00 am, he kept saying "just keep running". I'm thinking maybe he was attacked, or paranoid, or both.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

When hippies attack

I've been appalled since the Hippy guy attacked former PM John Howard with his shoes... How could he have thrown the shoes... so badly?


That hippy can't throw. I have been upset that people around the world will think Australia's protesters are inferior to the Iraqi protesters, but then I realised that he was just paying tribute to Johnny:



I don't mind that Howard isn't great at cricket, because he's not the PM anymore, but I did mind when he was.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Time of your life

This morning I woke up at 7.50 am, looked at my watch and thought it was 9.40. Clearly that was when I was supposed to wake up because I went back to bed and woke up at 9.50! It's a much more sensible time to wake up. Now I have to deal with some DRM issues and then I might even do some study. Wouldn't see me doing that at 7.50, uh uh.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Brisvegas

So I went to Queensland for a week. First the Gold Coast then Brisvegas for a while. It was a lot of fun, I probably liked the buses more than I should have though...

Monday, October 11, 2010

VW is a little bit puzzled

Not long ago my car must have gotten cold, as I found it wrapped in plastic wrap on a monday morning. I found out who played this hilarious and witty prank quite easily, and heard quite a funny story about the deed. Apparently there was a number of people involved in the deed and whilst they were still at it a guy on a motorbike drove past. Since my car sits right underneath a streetlight the pranksters were very visible, so they decided to hide in the garden... except for one of the girls involved who hid behind my car. The guy on the motorbike saw her and started asking questions, but one of the guys involved came to her rescue saying it was a friend's car (perhaps not anymore) so it was fine. Well, other than forcing me to miss a lecture on monday morning it was fine. I decided to get some revenge on one of the girls involved la
st night.




I'm not sure how well she took it, but I had fun doing it. I've heard that her mother thought her boyfriend was responsible, which I found hilarious.

Well, tomorrow morning I'm going up to the Gold Coast, so that should be rad.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Offending strangers

I went on Omegle and eventually had this fun conversation:

Stranger: hi
You: I will eat your kitten's balls if you say asl!
You: sorry
You: it had to be said
Stranger: if that would mean that youd buy me one, id be okay with it :P
Stranger: how are you today, anyway?
You: What type of kitten do you want?
Stranger: a black one, would be nice
You: And I'm a little tired of repetitive conversations, you?
Stranger: cant you buy a female kitten so that there arent any to bite off? it would save you a lot of trouble
You: that wouldn't be very threatening though would it?
Stranger: no, but it would be very nice of you :)
You: I will do nothing to your female kitten!!!
You: Better not cross me!
Stranger: it comes across a lot more psychotic than the biting-balls-off-thingie
You: More?!
Stranger: yes, much more
Stranger: because it sounds much more insane
You: I don't understand how that works
Stranger: you should remember that for the future
You: I'll try it next time
Stranger: if you say: ill bite your kittens balls off and so on, im just afraid
You: That's why I apologise straight after
Stranger: but if you say "ill not do anything, harr harr", im more frightened because i dont know what to expect
Stranger: how many kittens balls have you bitten off, after all?
You: Loads
You: I eat dim sim all the time
Stranger: you are a very bad, bad person
You: I take that as a compliment
Stranger: okay :)
You: So thank you
Stranger: youre welcome

Then the stranger disconnected. Stranger; I'm not really like that, I was just irritated by the previous bunch of boring conversations. The next person was interesting too:

You: I will do nothing to your female kitten!!!
Stranger: heyheyhey
You: Does that sound threatening to you?
Stranger: ok good, she is giving birth now anyways
Stranger: yes it does
You: Wow
You: Last stranger said it would be
You: I didn't believe them
Stranger: oh, do you believe me?
You: Yeah
You: Two separate sources of information works for me
Stranger: good! bananas!
You: verification
You: bananas?
Stranger: so whats with you alien?
You: I'm only an alien if I'm not on earth anymore
Stranger: are u on earth?
You: Do you ever sing the Gwen Stefani song when you write the word bananas?
You: I believe I am on earth
You: I could be mistaken
Stranger: i do!
Stranger: b a n a n a s!
You: It's the only part of the song I know
You: Who said pop culture can't be educational?
Stranger: ha
Stranger: s o l o
You: There's also a song from the show Arthur that taught me to spell Aardvark
Stranger: i didnt know that!
You: It's a way rad show, you should watch it for sure
Stranger: iv watched it before!
You: Ah ok
You: sorry
Stranger: i prefer little bill
Stranger: haha
Stranger: or elmo
Stranger: thats very educational too
You: Elmo is educational
Stranger: and dora. it helps me with spanish class
You: Dora is also good for the lead based paints
Stranger: yes, stupid chineese people trying to poisen our children
You: Hmm, that's probably irony there
You: I'm not sure anymore
Stranger: i have no clue
You: Too many conflicting ideas about what irony is
Stranger: i completely agree! anot like foreshadowing
You: Foreshadowing?
Stranger: like in english
You: I must have been distracted when they taught that one
Stranger: oh, its ok. i inly know it cuz we just learnedd it
You: They need a song to teach about foreshadowing
Stranger: i know! so much easyer
You: let's not get alanis morissette to sing it though
You: She's responsible for my confusion about irony
Stranger: no! too confusing then
You: Can you explain foreshadowing to me? It's ok if you can't/don't want to.
Stranger: its like irony
Stranger: like when in the beggining of the book when a kid says my mom would kill me if i get a bad grade, its like a hint later on that the kids gunna get a bad grade
Stranger: but i gtg
You: Oh
You: that was more obvious than I expected
You: K thanks for chats

I kind of felt stupid at the end there, I totally know what foreshadowing is, only it's past 3.00 am.

Rick K and the All Nighters

We were talking about the awesome drummer Steve Moore from the Vegas band Rick K and the All Nighters a little while ago, so I decided to put some videos up of them. The drummer really is awesome, if I ever learn to drum I want to be like him.




I did a beer and Bear while they were being uploaded, it feels pretty awesome to be able to just grab something tasty and sitting back whilst Bear Grylls struggles to get something that would taste filthy.

Thursday, September 30, 2010

stats

I like looking at the stats on this site, my personal blog's stats. Something particularly interesting is the search terms in google that have led people here. Somebody actually searched for "blibbity blobbity bloop!" another for "supercalifragilistic graduated from district reppin the south". If you're someone who searched for that then welcome. Thursday nights are boring without Bible study on.

Monday, September 27, 2010

Important issues for consideration

Einstein said that "You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother", does that mean that if you no longer have a grandmother you can't understand anything? Some people might get around this by explaining things to the gravestone, at the moment I feel like hippies do that, so out of all the people in the world hippies must be the smartest, because they can understand the most. I reckon this also explains why parents are always complaining about children being 'know-it-alls', it's because they've still got grandparents to validate their understanding!

Talking about hippies, they like to say that we wouldn't go around not caring about the trees getting cut down if they could scream. Imagine trees that just screamed all the time, I'm pretty sure everyone would care a lot more, we'd want to shut those trees up by cutting them down. We'd not have houses built out of wood anymore, the trees wouldn't get the opportunity to grow big enough. They wouldn't even get big enough for hippies to chain themselves to them. If someone did chain themselves to a tree you could easily pull the chain hard enough to break the tree in half, it would be the hippy's fault that the tree died then. That would be pretty cool.

I wanted to say ironic, but I definitely don't know what irony is, it's just too confusing. I don't think irony is ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife though. It's probably not Mr. Play-It-Safe waiting a lifetime before flying and then crashing in the first flight he took either.

Plane crashes must really suck, lots of people in pain or dying. If I'm ever in a plane crash I'll probably avoid mirrors for ages, if I survive. If I don't see the injury it won't hurt as much. It's when you see how you're hurt that really throws you into a panic, so if I avoid seeing it I'll be fine. It'd suck it my head is knocked off and my last sight is my headless body falling to the ground, that would ruin my whole plan. It would be pretty hard to find a girl friend without a head too. I need to find one before I next go on a plane.

I've been thinking about whether it would be better to get a tattoo of thong straps on my feet, or an operation to have opposable toes. One of the two things are going to happen eventually, but which? The tattoo is cheaper and less can go wrong, I'll be able to continue not wearing shoes and not having any pain on account of the calloused nature of my feet. The opposable toes would fundamentally be an operation to replace my feet with somebody's hands. This has the potential to go badly wrong, and will be very expensive, also unless I find a carpenter or something who is willing to give up their hands my new feet would be quite sensitive and it would be painful to walk on gravel and stuff. They would be totally worth that though for the functionality. I could climb trees and stuff with my feet, and pick up various objects. It's a tough decision.

In Æon Flux Sithandra has opposable toes.


She ends up the bloody queen, mate.

Clearly she ended up in that position because of her toes.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Post race argument

I'm going to upload the post race video again, because there are loads of people that don't understand it.
There are certain things that people find offensive, but I reckon they don't actually remember why it's offensive. There aren't many people who were chained up and forced to hammer rocks for railway tracks around, those are the people who have a legitimate claim to being offended about things. Younger people only think derogatory words are bad because of the older people being offended. If people stopped being offended those terms would eventually lose all their sting and would no longer be derogatory. It's kind of like having cordial and watering it down, eventually you get to the point when you can't call it cordial anymore, it's just water because there's no flavour left. This can be done to derogatory words by doing them in a good natured manner. Feel free to disagree with me further, I'm ok with that.

Sometimes I find board games pretty lame, but today I had fun playing Monopoly and Quelf, it was mainly because the people who were playing were fun. Making weird deals in Monopoly is awesome, like selling a property for ten percent of the other players income, or rent immunity. I once bought Mayfair in exchange for whenever the other person got sent to gaol we would swap positions. It actually worked out better for me because I had to spend so much time in gaol I didn't have to pay much rent, the other person had to keep paying me rent when they landed on my property though. Some people might call that cheating, I call it ingenuity.

All my family is on holidays, but uni is still on for me. Oh well.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

So tired

I failed at sleeping last night, I got through today on endorphins, adrenaline and caffeine. That all crashed this evening and I thought I would fall asleep during Bible study, but as soon as I got home I'm not tired again. Bah.

I gave blood today, and for the first time ever I filled the whole bag, no bleeding on the floor this time! The first attempt did fail, the nurse missed my vein, I reckon it is too tough and was pushed out of the way by the needle. She put a heat pack on my other arm to weaken my defences. A different nurse ended up sticking the needle in and her hands were heaps shakey, this was the first time I've felt the needle going in, it hurt!

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Enemy of the library

Last night I had an awesome dream about my house being a library. The back room of my house was merged with the library from my primary school, the kitchen was merged with the library at uni and the living room at the front of the house was merged with the local public library. My house was a very big library, even the toilet was merged with a mobile library that I went to once. The rooms started of normally but once you got to where the wall should be there started the library. there were books stuffed in random places too. Next to the television, under the couch, in the oven... they even had specific subjects in those places, like my underwear drawer having the sex ed books. Obviously the proper library parts of the house had shelves, exactly like they were the last time I visited the particular library. For some reason we didn't want a library in our house, so Dad and I decided to destroy the books... with a sword. I was the one wielding the sword, because in my dreams I'm the only one who can be trusted with something sharper than a lemon. ("Only Luke can be trusted." "In your dreams!", and in my dreams people other than me can't be trusted with lemons because a lemon is acidic.) So Dad handed the books to me and I sliced them in half. I've probably played too many video games in my life because the books disappeared in a puff of smoke at that point. I wasn't allowed to cut the books in midair, Dad wouldn't let me. It's my dream so I should've been able to do whatever I wanted! I did end up doing it a couple of times when Dad wasn't looking. It took a really long time to cut all the books in each library since I was only cutting them one at a time, but eventually I got through them all. As I finished one room's library worth of books the library part of the room ceased to exist, the wall was back and the room was normal again. I don't remember any transition from weird library room to normal room which is disappointing. I got through the primary school library, the uni library and the portable library in the toilet, but I woke up before the public library. I didn't look in the garage, but I reckon it would've been good if there were magazine racks in there, car ones and science ones.

Today I could have run over a rabbit, but it was dark and I thought it was a dog so I slowed down. Last time I hit a dog it ended up costing me $70 for a new indicator lens cap. Took ages to find one at all!

Epistle To Mrs. Scott

Gudewife of Wauchope-House, Roxburghshire.

1787

Gudewife,

I Mind it weel in early date,
When I was bardless, young, and blate,
An' first could thresh the barn,
Or haud a yokin' at the pleugh;
An, tho' forfoughten sair eneugh,
Yet unco proud to learn:
When first amang the yellow corn
A man I reckon'd was,
An' wi' the lave ilk merry morn
Could rank my rig and lass,
Still shearing, and clearing
The tither stooked raw,
Wi' claivers, an' haivers,
Wearing the day awa.

E'en then, a wish, (I mind its pow'r),
A wish that to my latest hour
Shall strongly heave my breast,
That I for poor auld Scotland's sake
Some usefu' plan or book could make,
Or sing a sang at least.
The rough burr-thistle, spreading wide
Amang the bearded bear,
I turn'd the weeder-clips aside,
An' spar'd the symbol dear:
No nation, no station,
My envy e'er could raise;
A Scot still, but blot still,
I knew nae higher praise.

But still the elements o' sang,
In formless jumble, right an' wrang,
Wild floated in my brain;
'Till on that har'st I said before,
May partner in the merry core,
She rous'd the forming strain;
I see her yet, the sonsie quean,
That lighted up my jingle,
Her witching smile, her pawky een
That gart my heart-strings tingle;
I fired, inspired,
At every kindling keek,
But bashing, and dashing,
I feared aye to speak.

Health to the sex! ilk guid chiel says:
Wi' merry dance in winter days,
An' we to share in common;
The gust o' joy, the balm of woe,
The saul o' life, the heaven below,
Is rapture-giving woman.
Ye surly sumphs, who hate the name,
Be mindfu' o' your mither;
She, honest woman, may think shame
That ye're connected with her:
Ye're wae men, ye're nae men
That slight the lovely dears;
To shame ye, disclaim ye,
Ilk honest birkie swears.

For you, no bred to barn and byre,
Wha sweetly tune the Scottish lyre,
Thanks to you for your line:
The marled plaid ye kindly spare,
By me should gratefully be ware;
'Twad please me to the nine.
I'd be mair vauntie o' my hap,
Douce hingin owre my curple,
Than ony ermine ever lap,
Or proud imperial purple.
Farewell then, lang hale then,
An' plenty be your fa;
May losses and crosses
Ne'er at your hallan ca'!

R. Burns
March, 1787

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Thongs

I sent a message to Havaianas on their website the other day:

If I were to get Havaianas thong straps tattooed onto my feet would
you pay the tattoo artist, with advertising space being the justification?

I never wear shoes, so the tattoo would always be on display!

It took them a while but they eventually responded:

Hi Luke,

Thank you for your email.

There have been a few Havaianas fans in the past that have done just this.

Unfortunately this is not something we can help you with although if you do go ahead with the tatoo we would love to see a photo.

Regards,
Aqueo Import and Distribution

I replied with:

Carly, I like that you took my request so seriously. I guess you probably get loads of requests like that? It all came from a camping trip I was at, someone said I should tattoo shoes onto my feet, I said if I was going to do anything like that it would be Havaianas straps. Everyone pretty much told me I had to try and get money for advertising, so I did, I'm usually more of a follower than a leader. One of the girls did draw some on for me at the time, but they have worn off already, after only two days. I've attached a photo of the drawing for you.
Thanks for taking the time to reply,
Luke.



They said:

Hi Luke, That’s not a problem at all… thanks for the photo and if you do decide to get them tattooed as I mentioned we would love a photo of that also. Have a nice day.
Regards,
Carly Dee

Obviously I couldn't stop there, so I sent:

Hi Carly,Have you already got photos of people who have tattoos of thongs? Can I see them? I have been considering getting a tattoo for a while, but since it's so permanent I don't want to get something I won't like later, so pictures could be helpful. It would be great to see how such a tattoo looks after a period of time, as in when the wearer is wrinkly. If I decide against thong straps I would probably go for a robotic arm, but getting my whole arm tattooed would be time consuming and costly. The other option is to wait until I go bald, which genetically speaking is very likely, and get one of those funny tattoos of a little man 'lawn mowing' at the point my hairline has receded to, either that or a bar code like in the Hitman movie and games.
I also need to consider which thong to use for the tattoo design, I'm thinking the strap from the Halftone Top Print would be the best. Which do you think would be best?

Unfortunately they haven't replied to that so far...

Monday, September 13, 2010

Poor poetry and Venn diagrams

I remembered that I had a (really rather lame) website years ago today, so I had a look at it to procrastinate. Most of it is just stupid stuff that I found funny at the time, but I had one page on it which was an ongoing competition to find the worst poet in the world.

Here is the winner, by someone calling themselves Scuba Police:

Go
I have nineteen thousand seven hundred and fifty two dogs that all say bow-wow.
I also have a cow.
My friend said how.
Do you have nineteen thousand seven hundred and fifty two dogs that all say bow-wow.
And also a cow.
I said do I have to tell you now.
He said yes now.
So I said that yes I would tell him how.
I have nineteen thousand seven hundred and fifty two dogs that all say bow-wow.
And also a cow.
Right now.
After I told him he had a funny eyebrow.
Because it is too low.
And when he punched me his fist and my face together made a sound that sounded like pow.
I said ow.
A big cat passed and said me-ow.
I said the hurt and he said I know.
He said your face looks like dog chow.
And so we had our first row.
I said my face needed a plow.
He said wow.
Your a good friend and I said I know.
The cat came back and mauled my friend to pieces and with his final dying breath he said ow.
The cat left again saying me-ow.
So I didn't have to tell my friend the way I could have nineteen thousand seven hundred and fifty dogs that all say bow-wow.
And a cow.
Which is good because thinking about them reminds me of the twin tow.
Ers so now.
I'll take a bow.

Pretty darn bad I'd say. Here are the others in no particular order:

On my foot
I have a bunion
The size of an onion
But smells worse
by UD

Peanut smoothie
and Frog spawn. Yum
by Dion

Poopy
Turkeys, Dinosaurs, Monkeys
and Turnips, Fried eggs and rice
all smell like poo
but taste very, very nice
by Dion

Turnips
I like turnips a lot
when they are boiling in a pot
I eat them while lying in a cot
I eat them with a glass of rhubarb juice more often than not.
But not when they got in a lot of snot.
by Scuba Police

An ode to Mark holden:
Your biznitch was the shiznitch,
your foogles were the glop ,
you made so many ****ing words
now it's time to stop
by Louis

Potty
Wind, Rain, Sleet, Snow,
Where's the potty I need to go
by Dion

Louis's Super Duper Zippity day haiku
Yo my name Louis
Would you like some tea mister
one sugar or two?
by Louis

An unnamed poem
I smells.
by Andrew

Pizza Pie
Blibbity Blobbity bloop
I gotta big pile of goop
It's brown & sticky &
... oh my whoopsadaisy it's
POOP!
by Dion

Chinese haiku
Me speak English good
Me learned at many place
Me very poor now
by Louis

Story
Ounce upon a time ... there was
a boy & he was poor & he was 615 year old
& he died 425 years ago THE END
by Dion

Bolands Poem
Hush the rain is falling
and the humidity has stifled my brain.
by Boland

BAGPIPE MURD’RIN
Och! Dar!
Ye'rrr mussin' oot ye ken
On th' soond a' th' bag pipe murd’rin down in yonder glen!
A salve to y' agein' heart t’d be t' hear the buck pipe scream;
Cornered, wailing out it's chilled blood baying
Echoin’ harshly on the breezes floatin' down the
Mighty Murray Meadows, by our valley staying.
T’wer brave the man who faced yon bagpipe growling
Armed with naught upon him for his prowling
Than with his trusty sporting sporran.
When feral bagpipe turns to breed,
There'll be upon these hills no peace.
Pity then the RSP won’t agree to let
The brawny Vet to cull: by strangulation.
There doesn't seem in this extreme
Without distain a more humane
Routine to move this curse from our domain.
by John

Obviously if I'm going to talk about bad poetry I have to mention the list compiled by Douglas Adams;

in third place for the worst poetry is the fictional race of the Vogons:

Oh freddled gruntbuggly,
Thy micturations are to me
As plurdled gabbleblotchits
On a lurgid bee
That mordiously hath bitled out
Its earted jurtles
Into a rancid festering [drowned out by moaning and screaming]
Now the jurpling slayjid agrocrustles
Are slurping hagrilly up the axlegrurts
And living glupules frart and slipulate
Like jowling meated liverslime
Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes
And hooptiously drangle me
With crinkly bindlewurdles,
Or else I shall rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon
See if I don't.

Second is Grunthos the Flatulent, poetmaster of the Azgoths of Kria:

Relax mind
Relax body
Relax bowels
Relax.
Do not fall over.
You are a cloud.
You are raining.
Do not rain
While train
Is standing at a station.
Move with the wind.
Apologise where necessary.

First was Paul Neil Milne Johnstone, a real person:
The dead swans lay in the stagnant pool.
They lay.
They rotted.
They turned
Around occasionally.
Bits of flesh dropped off them from
Time to time.
And sank into the pool's mire.
They also smelt a great deal.

I've learnt that Venn diagrams need to have a representation of the Universal set surrounding the circles which make the diagram. Well, I'm not really convinced that they're necessary at the moment, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to be taught more about it. I spent some more of the day procrastinating by researching Venn diagrams. As far as I can tell from the internet (a wholly reliable source to be sure) the Universal set is sometimes included but it does not need to be. I asked some math kids, they said pretty much the same thing as the internet did, which seemed to legitimise it a bit for me, but the one saying a Universal set is crucial is probably of a higher math authority.

Obviously from there since I didn't want to have to start doing uni work still I started thinking about Venn diagrams about poetry.



This is my reinterpretation of one I found, I think it's an improvement. Notice I didn't include a Universal set? It's not because I had decided it's wrong, I just couldn't be bothered with it.


This one I had absolutely nothing to do with, but I liked it.
There was also a non-literature one that relates to a conversation I had at camp on the weekend:



Also, I did end up doing that uni work, and even submitting it, with 30 seconds to spare. Winner!

Sunday, September 12, 2010

If you're not in New York, you're camping out.

I went to a camp where we concentrated on God, but it wasn't a concentration camp. Sorry about that one.

The focus was on how to encourage others in Godliness, that we should always be listening during conversations for ways to help other people and use our words to build them up. It was pretty great.

Changing from camp stuff to camp stuff there was also an instructional video on how to give a man hug. It was funny, but I don't think I'll be making too much use of those instructions, I'm much happier with a good firm hand shake.

I have clearly become quite tired as I've been finding my fathers jokes rather hilarious, so Ima try get heaps of sleep now.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Random things currently in my head

The postman is really ripping up my front yard.

There are quite a lot of ducks at uni.

A truck driver asked me for directions while I was crossing the road in front of him.

They should have a pirate Bible.

If somebody couldn't care less it means that the amount they care equals zero, but if someone says they could care less it means that the amount they care is greater than zero. I think it's implied that they could also care more, so they care less than infinity. That means that any of the infinite positive numbers might be the amount that they care, the possibility is infinite, but infinity is not a possibility. Maybe the amount they care is infinity minus one, but that still equals infinity so that can't be right.

Vests are rad.

Friday, September 3, 2010

The wise teacher (sarcasm)

I did a talk at Yoop, it was fairly short but I reckon it went ok. It was focused on 2 Timothy 4. This is it.


The world is a big flat disk and all the water falls off the sides in massive waterfalls. If it was actually a sphere people would fall off the bottom!

It’s ok, cigarettes won’t kill you, there’s no conclusive proof that they are linked to lung cancer.

Sometimes people refuse to believe the inconvenient truth, instead they want to hear reassuring lies. They want to hear comforting things because the truth can be scary. The truth is that the world is a massive sphere and cigarettes kills loads of people, but those truths have made some people uncomfortable.

The world often says that you should abandon those who abandon logic and reason, but what does God say about those people?

(At this point everyone went off to do the study)

God loves everyone, so he wouldn’t send anyone to hell.

Jesus was just a really good teacher; he didn’t have any special powers.

Are these lies any different to the ridiculous lies about cigarettes and the world being flat? Would you rather feel comfortable believing a lie now, or spend eternity in heaven with the Lord of all? I hope you choose truth, but what about people who keep fighting for their reassuring lie? Paul encourages Timothy to Preach the Word in and out of season. That means that regardless of your audience you should always try to tell people about the good news of Jesus, because even if it does sound a bit scary Jesus will return and everyone will be judged. Not everyone will listen, a lot of people will turn aside to myths, but that doesn’t mean you should give up, keep telling them that Jesus died to save them from their sins, to me, that’s much more reassuring than any lie.


I had a different talk prepared, it was about the same thing, but it went around in circles a bit, plus it went for fifteen minutes so I deleted it this morning and rewrote it. It was a shame that I couldn't have done the other one, because I had all of the hand gestures worked out. I can't actually remember some of it already, so it's probably good I decided to redo it.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Don't threaten me with love, baby. Let's just go walking in the rain.

It seems to rain every wednesday, right when I want to walk to Bible study. I didn't get too wet today though, so it was fine. I seem to be a bit paranoid (who has been saying I'm paranoid?!) because a foul mouthed woman with what I assume is her boyfriend, but I wish was her husband, followed me halfway home. I was thinking the whole time of how I would defend myself, at first I figured I would attack the guy first, but then I realised that the girl wore the pants in the relationship and was the dangerous one, so I would attack her first. Obviously I would wait for them to make the first move, I would use the old mantra that the sensei always talked about at goju kai: evade, control, devastate & dispose. In other words you make sure your opponent is actually a threat instead of assuming people are dangerous and hurting innocents, then you avoid the attack by moving in an appropriate direction, whilst doing that you control the attack with a block, then it's time to attack them and dispose of them. The attack and disposal that I generally go to in my mind is to break the knee then trip them and leave. I haven't done it to anyone yet, unfortunately.

I wasn't the only one who was paranoid, I ended up following a couple of kids walking their dogs. One was a girl who was probably ten years old, she swore almost as much as the grown woman who had been following me did. She kept saying (with cuss words sprinkled through liberally) "That creep is following us. Do something. Call the cops. Kill him. He's still there" et cetera. It was only for two blocks, but it felt like ages. I was forced to think what I would do if the two teenage boys with the two dogs attacked me. Obviously I'd go for the dogs first, I'd drop to one knee planting the knee in the dogs back and try to break its neck. I would then kick the other one where ever I can as hard as I can. My tactic would then be similar to the previous woman when it came time to fight the boys.

In a more cheery note, on monday I was looking after kids and I sat down while they were building towers with blocks, they got to the roof which is heaps impressive, and my phone fell out of my pocket. They stopped playing with blocks and started playing with cars, and a little girl, probably 1.5 years old, picked up my phone and managed to turn on the music player (it was already open, she just pressed play) and exit it so that the phone locked. Her sister took the phone off her and tried to turn the music off, but obviously she couldn't since it was locked so she gave it back to the first girl. She started pressing buttons and getting excited every time the screen lit up. After a while she got bored of that and held the phone to her ear as if she was talking on the phone and started rocking in time to the Gyroscope which was playing. I found it pretty hilarious, it entertained her for a good half hour, so win-win really!


Monday, August 30, 2010

5 clicks

I just decided to play five clicks to Hitler, a form of entertainment on wikipedia, you choose a random article and then see if you can get to the article on Adolf Hitler with just five clicks. I found it was quite easy. I started off with J24 as my random article, my first click was NER class P which is apparently a type of train, the to British Railways and straight to History of rail transport in Great Britain where I was hoping to find something about the war, which I found and obviously Hitler was pretty easy to find from there. Five clicks to Hitler!

For the sake of another link and a whole lot more rad I want to draw your attention to the game Devil's Tuning Fork. It's about echolocation. I haven't finished it yet, but it's on my to do list. Probably more than once.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Cold

I walked home from Bible study in the rain, I ended up soaked. I'm not complaining though. I can't get away with complaining now, I had too many people offer me a lift home. It was fun! A lady at the petrol place walked past me and said "Fantastic." I don't know what to make of that.

I played this rad game called One Step Back, have a go, it's cool. It's got a sequel called The Other Side, it's not as good, but it's still worth a go.

That's all I think.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

New ukulele



This is my new ukulele. It's rad, I'm pretty happy with it. I wasn't so happy having to wait 2.5 months for it, but it was worth it!

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Soon...

The music shop says that I should be able to get my new ukulele on thursday, which will be rad.

Today when my siblings got home my brothers were exiled from the front room because my sister's friends were coming over. There was a lot of girlish giggling. The Bible study my sister was doing was pretty loud too.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Letter on important issues

I was told by a member of the committee of management for church that someone had brought a complaint to the committee about how I don't wear shoes. He actually went on to show me a bumper sticker that he thought I should buy. I wrote a letter in response, and this is it:

To the esteemed members of the committee of management,
thank you for your concern in regard to my attire. Being unaware what the reason which brought this issue to light was, I made an assumption that either someone has deemed it to be disrespectful, or that it is a safety hazard.
I do not believe that God requires me to wear shoes, we are saved by the grace of God in Jesus Christ, not how well we are presenting ourselves at church. In fact in Exodus chapter three verse five God instructs Moses to remove his footwear.
Even the most perfunctory internet search into health and bare feet shows that not wearing shoes can have a myriad of benefits, in a 2001 research paper Michael Warburton wrote that running barefoot decreases the likelihood of ankle sprains and chronic injuries, such as plantar fasciitis. Going barefoot can also increase the circulation to the feet which will combat varicose veins. However, it is an obvious fact that any sharp object that finds its way to the ground can pose a risk to a barefoot individual. I am willing to take that risk, I generally am cautious about where I tread so I have not had any major incidents yet. In fact God built a mechanism into the human body which affords protection for the feet after prolonged exposure, that is callouses.
Many people think that not wearing shoes leads to unsanitary feet, with the risk of spreading disease, however, as I have already stated, I take care where I step and am thus less likely to spread bacteria infested substances such as mud or faecal matter as those wearing shoes, which can trap all manner of things in the tread of the shoe. Wearing shoes can actually aid bacteria multiplication on the foot as the shoe holds in warmth and moisture whilst providing darkness, the perfect environment for bacteria growth.
If there are any other concerns on this subject feel free to inform me of them and I shall reconsider my position on the issue.
Grace be with you

Sincerely,
Luke Bartholomew.

Near death experience

Last night I tried a kilpatrick oyster at an engagement party. That wasn't the near death experience part, it was pretty awesome actually! The party was fun too. After that we went for an afterparty where we discussed the worlds longest poo, among other things. 26 feet if you wanted to know. After that I played responsible designated driver and drove the people who had consumed alcohol home. I was passing over the freeway with someone it the backseat when a white 4wd went through a red light and stopped right in front of me. Since it was slippery braking didn't work, neither did turning, I was just skidding towards the car, I kept turning the wheel and back to straight and with about a meter to go the car got some grip on the road and I swerved out of the way. It was a very quick experience, but it was exciting. The guy in the back seat was feeling a bit sick after that though.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Inception and Scott Pilgrim

I recently saw Inception and today I saw Scot Pilgrim, and I have been a little surprised at how good they were. I have been given a couple of inaccurate reviews by friends for some DVDs lately, so I'd begun believing the opposite to what I hear in reviews. Luckily I still gave these movies a chance though, there was only one disappointment about my cinema experience today. My sister decided to go to see Scott Pilgrim at 1.45, my brothers were also going to see it, but were scared of my sister so they were going to go to the 4.15 screening. I talked them into going at the same time, so that we could annoy my sister, but she didn't seem to be too upset. Oh well.

On Thursday I went to a rad poker night, 12 hours of poker straight! I taught people to play Omaha hold 'em, but most of the time it was Texas hold 'em. I wasn't going too well for most of the time, but I won the last game, so that was good. Winning isn't really the point though, the whole lot was fun even when I was losing. I had fun and there was pizza!

At Yoop last night I wanted to have pool, table tennis, card games and carpet bowls, but I couldn't find the carpet for it. We found a foosball table instead and I'm pretty sure it worked better than carpet bowls would have. The big hit was spoons, but I put straws instead of spoons in case any went missing. I had fun and there was pizza!

Should've at pizza at the cinema today...

Thursday, August 5, 2010

The morning

"Morning."
"Hi"
"... So what have you been up to this morning?"
"Y'know, the usual."
"Which is..."
"Wake up, peek out the door to make sure you're still asleep and find your door closed, walk to the toilet naked, have a shower..."
"What if I got up while you were walking past?"
"I dunno, probably awkward times. Anyway, I get dressed and I have breakfast, usually it's cereal, but today I had a cooked breakfast, I fried some bacon, ate it off the pan, juggled some eggs then fried them too, then I fried a tomato and half an apple..."
"Yuck."
"Whatever. I leave the other half of the to sooth my burnt tongue when I'm done, then I drink some milk and you usually wake up around then so we chat for a while. Normally you talk more, since you're a girl. Something wrong?"
"Ah..."
"Hey, what's news?"
"Nothing."
"Do you reckon other people's wee tastes different to your own?"
"... I'm going"
"I'm not sure, have you tried your own before?"
"Nah, but like, you eat heaps different to me, does that make your wee taste different?"
"I don't know..."
"I dunno either... What would be the best way to drink wee?"
"Teacup."
"I was thinking of like, soaking something in it, then eating it."
"... I'm speechless..."
"I reckon toast would be the go."
"You do know that weeing into a toaster would be ten times worse that sticking a knife into the toaster?"
"Yeah, duh, I'd put the toast in the sink then stand on the bench and let 'er rip"
"Make sure if there are any dishes there that they are dirty, and wait until I'm out of the room before you start"
"I'm only thinking about it, I'm not that stupid."
"Oh, but you are, you're not Einstein, you won't be satisfied by a thought experiment, you'll keep thinking about it and eventually you'll do it."
"Do you think cat wee would taste different to my wee?"
"I wouldn't touch her cat if I were you, that thing is vicious, and yes, it would taste very different I suspect."
"Well, have fun today."
"See you later."

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

I'd call it 'Killer Luke in the Forest of Doom during the Zombie Apocalypse'

I walked home from Bible study, just made it before it started raining. I dawdled and went exploring a little so it took a while. I kept getting worried because the ground ahead had what looked like glass, and obviously I wasn't wearing shoes, but I knew it was the wet stones in the road that were a little shiny since it had rained a bit before I left. I kept forgetting though and getting worried that I'd cut my foot open and have people all saying "told you so, I said you should wear shoes." So far it's been fine.

I like walking in an empty street where nothing else is moving, I imagine that I'm in some kind of post-apocalyptic zombie movie, but at the part where everything is ok because the zombies haven't appeared yet.

I saw a Ray White real estate sign, it has a picture of a person on it. I never pictured Ray White as being a blonde woman before...

Friday, July 30, 2010

Pretty much Nostradamus

On Wednesday night I had a dream about playing soccer at Yoop. It was going fine for a while, but then I was banjoed. Not overly fun. Tonight at Yoop that pretty much happened, but it wasn't a soccer ball that did the damage, it was a person, and I didn't start flailing about in the air as an eagle in immense pain either. I had to laugh regardless of the pain at the coincidence.

Monday, July 26, 2010

Qui a été totalement rad!

Last stage. The sprint in the end was amazing, Cavendish coming out of nowhere to win by a mile. Almost literally. Cav is awesome. Contador has won the tour again, I would like to give him a message: "Deja de fingir a disparar un arma, es sólo la mano y parecer estúpido." Good on him though, I hope he doesn't win next year. I was kind of expecting Phil Liggett or Paul Sherwan to say "If we stopped the tour now..." I would've found it hilarious at least.

I'm a bit sad that it's all come to a close now, not going to have as good an excuse to stay up heaps late with a bunch of rad kids. Next year will bring another tour.

Changing topic completely, Onslaught 2 is a heaps fun tower defense game.

I probably will go back to not posting things here regularly now... nothing to talk about.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

second last, stupid kids and sex ed

The penultimate stage was probably the most exciting time trial I've watched. Others said it was boring and fell asleep, but I loved it. Schleck really made Contador work, which was awesome, but unfortunately Contador came out ahead. He came out ahead to make annoying gun gestures when he got the yellow. What a loser!

On my way home it was foggy again, just like the first week of le tour. I was marveling at its thickness when I saw movement on the road ahead... a girl ran across the road and stopped in front of my car with her arms stretched out as if to say "try and hit me!" I switched to 2nd gear to rev real loud, which didn't phase her, but it motivated her friend to drag her off the road before I hit her. I also slowed down like the responsible driver I am.

I can't remember what reminded me, but today I remembered the first time someone 'taught' me about sex. A girl that at the time that I would have very loosely used the term friend about came up to me while I was playing outside and asked me if I knew what sex was. "No, what is it?" "It's a lolly" "Oh, ok" "Would you like some sex?" "No, I just had lunch." I guess she thought it would be funny to hear a kid of about 5 years old say he would like some sex... too bad.

I like fantastic contraption, I'm not very good at it though, I haven't finished it yet... It sure is fun.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

3rd, 2nd, 1st

3rd last stage of the tour! It was very exciting during the sprint finish.

2nd attempt by girls to put make-up on Dan, this time successful. Also 2nd is Schleck, who unfortunately doesn't have a great chance of beating Contador.

1st was Cavendish, he won the stage, he is rad even without Renshaw. Also it was the 1st time I drove all the way to the Sheely's place. Amazing.

Dan was slightly hooked on Little Ships for Little Wars, so here's another game: Continuity.

I have also been told I have to share about any more interesting dreams since the last one, possibly good for Freudian analysis, was so strange. I had a dream that was nowhere near as weird as the last one, I was standing outside a house, which turned out to be a commune for all the cool kids to live, and hundreds of massive balls, blue ones and yellow ones, were flying towards the house. I was armed with various sporting equipment. I started off with a tennis racquet, but it kept changing, it was a cricket bat for a while. I was hitting the balls with my weapon, and as I did they broke in half, pretty much exactly like in pilot wings. Pretty soon there was a swarm of tiny flying balls clogging up the air, they became small enough to fit through the flyscreen. At that point I realised that I had failed at protecting everyone, they were all doomed. I couldn't leave it at that though, I wasn't going to simply sit there and let everyone... have balls flying around them... I can't remember if there was any actual bad stuff happening in relation to the balls, but I remember thinking they were evil. Luckily the flamethrower I had been carrying in my back pocket was perfect for removing the threat. I don't remember actually using the flamethrower either actually, the dream kind of ended when I got it out. I was a hero though.

Friday, July 23, 2010

pyyric victory

Schleck won the stage, but I think that since he couldn't gain any time over Contador he doesn't have a good chance of winning yellow, which I am quite unhappy about. This stage seemed to take a lot out of the both of them, and a lot of people touched Contador on the bum, but they didn't gain anything out of it. I didn't like that Schleck's hopes for winning le tour de France are pretty much out the window, but it was a pretty exciting finish.

Sam and I had a massive Bible session today, it was rad.

I also played a game called Little Stars for Little Wars, it's not an original idea, but it's the hardest of this type of game that I've played.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

You snooze you lose

Carlos Barredo did pretty awesome today. Lance Armstrong tried to win but it turned out just as Jess Amy predicted. It wasn't a heaps exciting stage, particularly after yesterday's excitement. Tomorrow will be worse, rest stages are heaps boring.

Dan had a bit of a nap during the stage so he had some mean photos taken by some people. He woke up before they got lipstick on him though.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Worst. Stage. EVER.

NOOO! Schleck lost yellow, which is terrible. Contador got the yellow, which is even worse! Poor old Schleck was about to have a brilliant attack and gain some time over everyone when his chain fell off. He was calm, he pulled over to the side and tried to fit it back on so he could get back in the race, but the chain came off again! Schleck knew that Contador was getting away, every second counted. He got annoyed and dropped an F-bomb, then he tried to catch up. He couldn't make it. I don't even want to talk about it anymore right now.

C.Evans had pretty much the same bad luck when he was in yellow, cracking his elbow. Obviously he has been losing time ever since, so he can't be blamed for being a fair way behind the leaders. It seems pretty terrible to me that the best placed Australian has a cracked elbow, surely the other guys would be able to get above a guy with a fractured elbow...

I'm so tired, I got about three hours sleep, I went to bed about 2.00am, but I was awake til around 5.00am, then I had to get up at 8.00am to get ready for uni. This is only slightly less sleep than what I've been running on for the whole tour, but it's kind of the straw that broke the camels back. My brain is doing weird things in my head... My lassitude is merely making my annoyance at Contador worse. I think I'd better go to bed before I break things.