rat race.

By Challi

First of all, way to suck, Port! I knew Geelong was going to win because they wanted it more, but yikes, a 119 point margin? That's just taking the piss. Also, I might know very little about AFL strategy, but maybe any defense at all would have helped? but hey, I'm just being an asshole. Who I really feel sorry for are those fans who spent all that money to go to the cesspool that is Melbourne, some even without tickets, to watch their team do their best, and that's definitely not what they saw.

Anyway, I was watching the Sunday program yesterday and there was this bit about a doctor deeming that Australia is racist in regards to our attitude to Muslims. Now, although I don't deny that Australians are racist (in fact, being part Asian, I've experienced it first hand), I feel like I need to clarify a few things:

1. "Muslim" is not a race of people, they're followers of a particular religion called Islam. Therefore it's not racism, it's religious discrimination. I'm not saying it's still not bad, just saying that it's dumb to call us racist towards something that's not even a race.

2. Race only exists as a social construct, not a biological one. I'm not too sure how this gets us off the hook for being racist, but I just felt like showing off my Uni intellectual prowess.

Racism is way too an obscure definition anyway and I still haven't quite grasped what it means. Apparently generalisation is a form of racism but I've been involved in a situation where it seemed like it was perfectly valid to generalise (in fact, it was impossible not to generalise in the context it was in) and I was accused of being racist even though I couldn't really avoid it. So in what situation could I have not avoided being generalistic? Well gather round and I'll tell you the story:

At our catholic school's year 11 spiritual retreat, we were put into groups of 10 or so people and we were given a scenario where there were several people on a boat and the boat was slowly sinking and the only nearby island was kilometre away and they had to get rid of some of the people on the boat and leave 5 so that they could make it to the island without sinking. Sounds ridiculous, I know, but bear with me. The people we could choose to save included a lawyer, a doctor and her husband, an Iraqi man, and a 24-year-old Aboriginal man. I don't remember the rest. I stated that the Aborigine should be on the boat because he could make smoke signals and get help.

but no, the supervising teacher was having none of that. She stated that not all Aborigines make smoke signals and since I apparently generalised that they do, I was racist for doing so.

That's just stupid. This is a fictional Aborigine in a scenario where we clearly had to make shit up, and I think it's perfectly valid that the Aborigine should be able to make smoke signals. They want to get off the island, don't they? Besides, since it's fictional and we're only given the detail that it's a 24-year old Aboriginal man, of course I'm going to assume everything else and use stereotypes to do so. I had no other option.

and why was the Aboriginal and the Iraqi man the only ones whom it was deemed their nationality was worth pointing out? Why not go ahead and give us the nationalities of the lawyer and the doctor? Why was it so damn important that the 24-year old man was Aborigine if we couldn't make use of it in the scenario?

Man, I hate retreats.

So that's my story. In the context I was accused of racist in, I think we are all racist in some way. We all generalise and assume things about races and we've all laughed at racist jokes, don't deny it. As long as we don't start Cronulla-esque riots or start a political party built on racism we can pretty much get away with it, and that's what makes Australia great.

-C

mr. mime!

By Challi

Marcel Marceau, emo pioneer.

Let's give a thankyou to the great mime Marcel Marceau, who died on September 22, 2007. Yes, the mime has been officially silenced. He was the man who brought miming to the modern era. Without him, there'd be nowhere near as many street performers at the Botanic gardens in silly white makeup and black skivvies pretending to eat dinner or walk in the wind or be entertaining. Wait, why are we thanking him again?

Channel nine news already did the tasteful "let's have a moment of silence" quip already so they killed my routine. Thanks, channel nine.

So how did Marcel Marceau die? Rumor has it that the imaginary dog he was walking attacked him. Other people say the glass box he was pretending to be stuck inside caved in on him. Some say it was heart attack but nah, the first two were much more plausible.

Apparently Marcel Marceau's "walking in the wind" gag inspired Michael Jackson's moonwalk. Really? Was Marcel the inspiration for Michael Jackson's face too?

and does anyone find it odd that he even has quotes?

Marcel Marceau had very little to do with kettles, and there's a smooth segue into the other thing I wanted to talk about that I can't be stuffed making another post for.

What is with this sudden influx of people using the old "Pot calling the kettle black" idiom? The phrase implies hypocrisy so I'm not sure why people bothered using such a stupid metaphor of coloured kitchen objects when they could just go "You're a hypocrite".

and why the hell are people giving a damn that the pot in the saying is a hypocrite? Wouldn't they be much more surprised that there's a talking piece of cookware? I sure as hell would be. They should change the phrase to "Hey look, talking metallic cookware" though I'm sure the phrase would end up losing it's point if that was the case.

How did this phrase even come about? Was some opium-fueled deadhead looking at the stuff in his kitchen and going "Gee, I wonder what would happen if the stuff in my kitchen could suddenly talk and if the first thing my cooking pot would do is accuse the kettle of being a certain colour whilst being that colour itself. OMG let's make a proverb out of it!"? I'm sure he wouldn't have said it that coherently, or even have said "OMG" but that's the only rational explanation I can think of.

Besides this semantics, why are people still using that particular metaphor as a phrase? It's kind of dated, isn't it? I believe it has been around since the 16th century and relates back to the days when people cooked their food and heated their water in their fireplace, the "black" being soot. Get with the times, yo! We have microwaves and electric kettles now. Cooking metaphors are lazy anyway, let's try some new ones:

"That's like the Nokia 6300 calling the LG KE600 connected to Bluetooth"
"That's like the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 calling the ATI Radeon HD 2000 laptop compatible"
"That's like YouTube calling MySpace a waste of time"
"That's like anyone reading this blog calling this post fail"

and so on.
but don't take my word for it, let's hear what Marcel Marceau has to say

"..."

-C

the brush off.

By Challi

No matter how many fun songs are sung about it on Sesame Street and Play school, nothing can make the concept of brushing your teeth fun. It's just a stupid meaningful task which we all feel we have to do because we want our teeth to still be attached at 30 and hate the idea of gingivitis and bloated gums. Trouble is, we - and by that I mean me - tend to avoid it because it takes off 2 minutes of my life that I could be using for playing video games, which is so much more important to me. Hedonism comes before personal hygiene all the time. Also, if I miss the bus, I'd hate it to be for the reason I was taking care of myself. Another thing I hate about brushing my teeth is that I like to put extra toothpaste on the brush just to be sure of clean teeth and a lot of that ends up on my shirt, and that always looks a little suss.

but even though I can't be bothered to find time to do it and I hate the mess, it's a task that must be done. So after about a year of neglecting my teeth, I've been combining the frivolous brushing of my teeth with a task that I love doing and feel more obligated to do that doesn't get toothpaste on my shirt and also make it seem like I give a crap about saving water for those farmers whining about the drought.

I've been brushing my teeth in the shower.

Now, I'm sure I'm not the first person to come up with this idea but I'm sure as hell taking credit for it because it's brilliant. I just brush my teeth during my shower and use the water pelting down to rinse my mouth and clean off the brush when I'm done. It's also a great excuse to stay in the shower a little longer and I'm obviously not wearing my clothe in the shower so the stains won't still be there after I clean the toothpaste off my chest.

Now if you want to rip off this idea which I'm sure I unintentionally ripped off someone else, if that makes sense at all, be my guest. Just make sure you don't get the toothpaste tube mixed up with the shampoo bottle, which may induce tragic results.

Just saying
-C

blue dodo down.

By Challi

I'm bringing blogging back (yeah), them other n00bs don't know how to act.

Yes, I had a nice half of a summer holiday that involved me getting drunk off my ass at my brother's wedding and watching the worst of daytime TV and overall just avoiding this blog, thanks for asking. However, now I'm back from outer space and you just walked in to find me here with that sad look upon my face. Should you have changed that stupid lock or even made me leave my key if you had known for just one second I'd be back to follow you?

*water splashes on face*

Ok, back to business. Let's start this blogging year with a pointless rant about an annoying ad.

Not only is this ad annoying, it is also immoral and just downright evil. It's bad enough that Dodo Australia has played God by resurrecting an extinct bird and painting it blue in order to sell their services but they also are playing on people's addictions to sell their services too.

In this ad, there are people in a group counselling session ala Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous where they go around the circle and everyone states their name and tells everyone that they have an addiction or dependency. In this case, they are apparently all mobile phone addicts. The first guy stands up and states his name and says he is a mobile phone junkie. The next person is an overtly happy woman who just says "I don't have a problem because my mobile charges are half price!"

Wrong! It's wrong!

If it's an addiction then the idea of getting it cheaper won't stop the addiction, it would only make it worse! That's like going into a Narcotics Anonymous meeting and saying "I don't have a problem with my addiction to crack anymore because I know a place where I can get 10kg of crack for 50 bucks!" How much it costs shouldn't be the problem, it should have something to do with, oh I don't know, how much it can kill you? How much you get addicted to it and ruin your life? Even if the addiction is mobile phones, the radiation poisoning can kill you and you're always paying for it anyway and yeah, it damn well ruins your life! So for ruining everybody's life, Dodo, Derryn Hinch just has this to say to you:

Shame, Shame, Shame

Oh wait, while I still have Derryn Hinch, he also has this to say to you:

Paw-paw because you pour pour the milk, Mango because it makes a man go.

Oh, and this:

A licky boom boom down

*Water splashes on face*

Where's all this water coming from?

Before I stop wasting your time, another ad I hate is that god damn ad for Off! insect repellent. Sure we should be concerned that it's called "Off!" but there's more. In it, there is some family outside going all "I don't think I've got it on but you've got it on well I've got it on let's get it on and something about mosquitos".

Now look, I don't mind American ads on television, but they shouldn't need to dub everyone with Australian accents when we can plainly see that the ad was American to begin with. Australians don't look like that, and if we know they're not Australian then your pathetic attempt to make it seem like it's a product of Australia has failed miserably. This isn't the only ad where they do it either, and it's always painfully obvious when they do. Stop dubbing ads, thanks.

-C

living next door to Challis.

By Challi

Challis? Who the fuck is Challis?

Well since you asked, let me just get a little history of the Challis family out of the way first. 9 or so years ago, me and my family lived next door to where we live now. Then we moved to where we are now upon the realisation that nobody actually lives next to us on this side. We then just rented out our old house to several different people and we get a little bit richer because of it. Who knows? Maybe we'll end up buying all the houses on our street and then maybe the whole of Littlehampton and have monopoly over it and paint all the houses green and add in some hotels which are red and have chimneys for some reason. Kind of like this:


Yessir, we'll have complete monopoly over our suburb, just like that board game where you try to gain a monopoly over everything, y'know, chess.

The people currently renting our house appear to be a family of 3 who ironically look homeless and obviously have minimal possessions that don't include a razor or soap. They used to live in one of those Housing Trust houses where the house is practically free. Apparently they left because the house was a little bit too small. Sounds like a dumb excuse to me, there's only 3 people in the family and the house is free anyway! It's fucking free! Who gives a shit if it's a little small? I'd live in a 2 room house with no toilets if it was free. Oh well, I guess beggars can be choosers and these people look an awful lot like beggars.

One time when I was walking home I saw the sasquatch father and the son of this family playing cricket with none of the actual equipment you need to play cricket but I'm sure they were still kind of playing cricket. They had a tennis ball for a ball, a wheelie bin for wickets and, here's the quencher, a tennis racquet for a bat. OK, the tennis ball I can understand because it bounces better, the wheelie bin I can understand because, let's face it, nobody actually owns a set of wickets but a freaking tennis racquet? No! Uh uh. That's just not cricket. That's a travesty my dear sir. I would of leant them my brother's Gray Nicholls cricket bat if he didn't take it with him. Hell, even a plastic cricket bat would of been good. But no, they play cricket with a tennis racquet. There's only one thing I have to say about that:

Shame Shame Shame

What annoys me the most is that these losers think they have a right to complain that the bathroom is a bit dirty. Wa wa wa, call a wambulance. We're the poor people who have to watch these ugly neanderthals play cricket with a tennis racquet in our backyard while their ute rusts outside. They have no right to complain at all. I hate how the bottom rungs of society feel they can bitch about anything their superiors do when they're not exactly setting the best example either. Now I know how the Prime Minister feels.

and if those people don't clean up themselves and their act, I guess they've got to get used to not living next door to Challis.
-C

koalafication.

By Challi

Yeah, I'm neglectful of this blog. You'd be too if you were taught in an institution that inspires apathy towards everything. Don't be fooled by a university's stalls and stands which promote whatever kooky BS they pretend to believe in, everyone just wants to attend classes and then piss off home to play video games and/or smoke their bongs safe in the knowledge that uni will tide them over until they get a solid job that pays well. After that, they'll forget about whatever their Uni taught them altogether. That's how it works.

Oh damn, now I need a segway into what I actually wanted to bitch about.

Well, universities like to do environmental shit like save koalas so they feel better about themselves, right? (Well there is my segway. Smooth.) but who will save us from the koalas? Yesterday, my dad almost ran over a koala that was trying to cross the road. Conveniently it was a 4-wheel drive with big wheels so the koala only received a donk on the head as we drove over it. We didn't swerve, of course, because that would of killed us and frankly we're better than some koala. Eventually the koala managed to make it to the other side with only a throbbing headache.

How terrible are koalas as pedestrians? They're so slow on the road and they never keep an eye out for traffic. Screw the koala cull, they're culling themselves with their reckless disregard of the road, and they could potentially be killing other drivers too if the drivers were dumb enough to swerve as a lot of them are.

We humans had to adapt to their environment when we came to their country several thousand years ago, now it's their turn. Yes we may of killed half their environment to make room for roads, but since we all have to go to universities and other shit that we quite clearly care a lot about, they have to at least have the common courtesy to look both ways before they cross the road and get off as quickly as possible so we can get where we need to go.

Is that too much to ask?
-C

caught in a web(ster).

By Challi

This week's cover of Zoo Weekly features forgotten Sydney 2000 singing starlet Nikki Webster in racy lingerie and promises more pictures of her like that in the magazine.

Now right now you're either thinking "Giggidy giggidy giggidy" or "eww" or "I don't care" or "How the hell did I end up on this website?" or all of the above but I was just thinking "Why not? She's 19 and she's got a nice body, more power to her", but I'm still not buying the magazine. I know it's cheap but I'd only be getting it for Nikki and I don't want to even get it for that. I learnt my lesson from her first shoot in a Zoo weekly magazine that I actually bought. It said "Look what's happened to Nikki Webster" and it featured her in a two piece. I bought it, conveniently I was in Queensland at the time so nobody I knew, except my cousin, knows that I bought it, but now you do. Dammit!

Anyway, I was kind of excited to see her but when I looked at the pictures I was kind of disappointed. I'm sure Patrick won't appreciate me posting smut on the blog, we're way too refined for that, so just search nikki+webster+zoo in Google and you can see what I mean. She doesn't smile in the majority of her photos!

I know the oogling of her body is degrading and demeaning to both her and I, but she doesn't need to remind us of it! She has a look of disgust on her face like I just walked in on her while she was getting changed. Now excuse me while I talk in second person. Just pretend you're Nikki for a moment.

How about a little smile, girl? You're getting paid to wear barely anything and look pretty, not make us feel bad about ourself! That look of disgust is really discouraging and a real turn-off anyway, especially because you show your buckteeth when you do it, I hope you don't stare at your boyfriend in that way when he's pleasuring himself to your pictures.

Ok, you aren't Nikki Webster anymore, not that you ever were.

If it wasn't for the pictures semi-naked women, Zoo magazine would not be worth buying at all. It's just a whole lot of poorly pieced together articles with a section full of jpegs that are all available from the freaking internet anyway. So I want to get what I paid for: Scantily clad women looking pretty and looking like they enjoy it, and I don't feel dirty because they've still almost got clothes on.

and before you try to connect this with what I do during the night with the door closed, I say this:
Shut up, you do it too, just not as frequently.
-C

the twenty dollar challenge:

By Challi

I needed some kind of inspiration for me to make an interesting post, and some of the best inspiration I can always get from work, and that's what I did today: I went to work. Yahoo for me!

Today in the till I noticed a twenty dollar note unlike any other, it had a protest on it! Check it out!







Now if you can't read neo-greenie high horse it says "TRUST JOHNNY HOWARD. ? (Squiggly mark) No No No (Squiggly mark) ." and even if you can read it, that's still what it says.

Did you get the ever so subtle message? Howard has the word "war" in his name so they've highlighted it to refer to his connections with a war! It's like since his last name has "war" in it, he is destined to participate in a war! *poke* Geddit? *poke poke*

Clearly this twenty dollar must of been scribbled on by some self-righteous hippie whilst the election between Mark Latham and John Howard took place and people were still bitchy about the 2003 "invasion" of "Iraq" by "The Coalition" and wanted "Mark Latham" to be "elected" in the 2004 "federal election" because they "reckon" he could "stop it" (Ok, I'll stop with the quotation marks). It was also scribbled on during a time when that phrase would of still been considered clever.

Nowadays, your average Australian citizen cares a little less about the war in Iraq because we're all focusing on some war between Israel and Lebanon, and we've even stopped focusing on that because it's footy finals season. So this twenty dollar note represents a moment in time when a whole lot of whiny Aussies decided that they don't like the war because people die in it, and we all stepped up and let John Howard know that we don't like him anymore because he sent troops out to kill and get killed. It's a piece of history, basically, so I might keep it for a bit until I lack money and actually need to spend it and then some other unfortunate sod will be stuck with a twenty dollar note that has a slightly outdated protest scribbled on it. Or it's still valid, I don't know how hippies think.

But wow, what a great way to protest. Sure it's illegal, sure people will be embarrassed to use it now, but at least people will read your message and you will be heard by the masses due to the power of consumerism and money circulation. Besides, nobody wants to chuck a twenty dollar note away, do they?

Think about it
-C

cheers to you, mrs. robinson.

By Challi

Hello, my name is Michael Challis, co-contributor to the blog, you killed my father, prepare to die.

If you don't know me by now, congratulations. You're one of the lucky ones. Unfortunately you'll have to find out about me and watch me fuel my ego while this blog is still around and I'm still on it. I used to have a blog of my own but then I realised that in order to have a proper blog I would have to update it at least once a year, which I failed to do. So I'll just let Patrick keep the blog alive and I shall use this blog on the occasion that I feel a rant coming on and need to dispose of it here so I don't stain my clothes. Like now:

As a job, I work at my parent's pet stuff and pet food store down in rural Adelaide Hills. As such, we get many a customer, most of whom lack teeth and reek of pot. Whenever we finish a transaction with a customer, these monstrous entities always feel they should exchange gratitude for it. That's fine, if they just said "Thanks" but unfortunately for me, the flavour of the last few years has been "Cheers". Nobody ever says thanks anymore, they just say "Cheers", like I just clinked a glass of rancid wine with theirs, which I haven't.

Why has "Cheers" officially replaced "Thanks" in Australian culture? Were we just looking for something different to say, or were we just trying to allude to that stupid sitcom? Saying "Cheers" doesn't even make sense in a situation where you'd normally say thanks anyhow. "Cheers" implies celebration, and buying something from our shop, which they do every freaking day, isn't exactly a cause for a celebration. That is unless you're a really lonely person who gets really excited every time you go to shop because that's the only way you can make human contact anymore.

If that is the case, then that's not exactly a cause for a celebration, but crank out the booze anyway.

-C