The Mighty Ginge

On to greener pastures

2009-08-07T06:18:00.009+08:00

I sit here in the kitchen of a house in some back-water English town, eating chilli coated peanuts and drinking raspberry cordial, and I wonder if things have improved. I'm still unemployed, still waiting for things to change. I'm still out here by myself with no real home and no real country, just a free radical bouncing from shelter to shelter not knowing where or who I'll be next.

Then I punch myself in the balls and, in the words of Barney Stinson, say "Stop being sad, and be awesome instead". Looking back I've been a sadsack on the Ginge for the past few months, blogging about what I'm doing, instead of ranting about head-butting pensioners or molesting farm animals like I should be. Luckily for you (and a little for me) I've recognised my ... error? Anyway, I've sorted out what the Ginge has been lacking lately, and part of fixing that means leaving the comforting cleavage of blogspot.

The new Mighty Ginge site has been created, tweeked and fondled over the last week, as well as a series of sub-domains for my side projects. Old time Ginge readers can expect a return to the original Mighty Ginge - no more "101 Things To Do Before You Die" updates, no more book updates, no more whining. All that shit is still going on, it just won't be making it onto the Mighty Ginge blog anymore. I'm running a seperate personal blog* for updates on what I'm doing, the 101 things, my book and other side projects. Unless it's fucking hilarious and hence Ginge-worthy, it's going elsewhere.

Jesus, I can't stop eating these chill peanuts - it's like they're sprinkled with PCP

And nothing will be happening on THIS blog anymore - I've transferred the posts that fit with the Mighty Ginge's new cut-down approach (eg. everything except the updates from the last few months), so this will be the last post for the Mighty Ginge on blogspot. The blog will stay up here as a fossil of the internet though - something for future interweb archaeologists to discover, ponder over and misinterpret.

Anyway, looking forward to seeing you all at the new Mighty Ginge, revelling in all it's majesty and contributing to it's continuing awesomeness.

All hail Larry, the one true King of Lemurs & Bad-Assery!

On the personal blog: Don't be offended I don't send you the link even if we've known each other since humanity decided to dig holes to shit in. It probably means a) you've made enough of an impact in my life to get a mention and I don't want you to be weirded out by it, b) I've mentioned doing stuff I'd prefer you not to know about, or c) I just plain don't like you. It's all entirely stream of conciousness, so I type shit and publish it without reviewing anything - going back over some of it now it's pretty dark stuff. Not for everybody.

If you're interested in reading it, send me an email/message.

Coming up for air

2009-07-27T17:43:00.009+08:00

By now I'm sure you're all picking up on the fact that my post regularity is directly linked to the chaos levels experienced by my real-world counterpart. Needless to say, things have been pretty crazy for the last month - spent the week raising merry hell in London after I got back to the Astor hostel (highly recommend all of the Astor chain by the way). After a week of being a dodgy museum tour-guide for the most stunning little blonde* I've ever met, I was a complete wreck from lack of sleep and a busy week with my Royal Marines fitness preparation. To top it all off, Cat from the Monopoly Board Pub Crawl called me out Friday night, we watched movies till 5:30am, got 30mins sleep, then I had to run for 2 hours to get back to my hostel and check out on time, before running with my house on my back to catch the train to Exeter.

Spent the week in Devon again, and nearly blew my brains out dealing with hostel staff bullshit in the process. Got bumped out of the usual place in Exeter for 2 nights, and had to go stay in the sister hostel in Plymouth. By the time I got back, half my food and milk was gone, and everyone in the hostel had suddenly decided *I* was the go to guy for dealing with their social ineptitude. I'd planned to spend a few weeks there till the Edinburgh Fringe festival, but given I'd started to imagine skinning people while they talked at me, perhaps it was better that I booked a train the fuck out of there.

Polar bears - as lazy as they are adorable

Thankfully I'm back in London again. Back into the book writing, which has also been on hiatus lately, and hopefully more blogging. Regularity is the key here, and shorter posts. And having somewhere more regular to stay now will certainly help things. I have 12 weeks from today till I start training with the marines - 3 months to see how fit I can get, how much of the book I can write, and how much trouble I can get in.

It's been a crazy month, it's going to be an even crazier 12 weeks - The Mighty Ginge will be shifting to it's own domain, I'm heading to the Fringe festival, the book is growing, and new adventures are happening everyday.

Stay tuned

*I've never been attracted to blonde women before, but luckily this one is actually a secret ginger. Lets be honest though - if you're naturally blonde, there's a damn good chance you're also a vapid whore.

Watch this space

2009-07-10T23:00:00.005+08:00

Just trialling a new banner I just threw together - my complete lack of design skills are more apparent every minute. It'll stand for awhile till I sort something more permanent out.

Big shifts on the book happening at the moment - seems being away from that evil little soul-sucking hostel in Exeter and being in ANOTHER evil little hostel in London is doing wonders for my productivity. Looking forward to shifting back into the Astor hostel in Hyde park Saturday. The place I'm in at the moment was all that was available Thursday and Friday night, and it's horrendous - no wireless in the rooms, patchy wireless downstairs (but no powerpoints), rude staff, full of obnoxious french tour groups, nasty showers, nasty rooms..... the list goes on. I've actually snuck back into the Astor to sit in their lounge, recharge the laptop and sponge some wireless to type this out - and escape that other dump.

More appealing than the Foreign Legion
Headquarters I'm staying in at the moment

I'll be living in the wild for another 2 months now, since the Royal Marines aren't going to start training me till October 19th. In the mean time I'm going to try and annoy the delightful Miss Campbell on her week off this week (provided she doesn't pike out AGAIN), visit some old acquaintances from living in the Middle East, head up to the Edinburgh Fringe festival to see some of the gang from the Perth comedy scene plus some of the other acts up there (scored a free room anytime I'm in Edinburgh from one of the guys I did the PRMC with so I won't have to sell a kidney to stay there during the festival).

Also been hitting the "101 things to do before you die" list pretty hard (sitting on 40 completed at the moment), so all good news from there. They're mostly going in the book now, so don't expect any of that kind of stuff to pop-up anymore (other than the odd progress update). Got a little list of editors together to pour over my drafts when they're ready, so great progress all round. Part of me wants to keep going hammer and tong at making stories for the book, the other wants to stop, take stock of the chaos of the last month, and actually write the book.

Fuck it, I've got 2 months to go - I'll just take it as it comes.

News from the land of Oz

2009-07-07T06:41:00.007+08:00

I know I'm running late on this, but just in case you missed the big news over the weekend,

DING-DONG, THE WITCH IS DEAD!

Seems everyone's favourite psycho is bailing out of the overwhelming pressure of Alaskan politics - what with the fighting for the little guys like BP and Exxon, the agonising decision over whether to build a bridge to nowhere, protecting Alaska from the Red Menace, and fighting wars on three fronts against the combined forces of the new axis of evil. Oh, and some little nuisance about an ethics investigation or something too.

My only hope is now with all the time she has to be out hunting Beluga whales, there's an increased chance she'll gets splashed with water and melt.

Running on a sugar high

2009-06-27T21:35:00.009+08:00

So, I’m back in London again – I use that term loosely because Greenwich is hardly London. Feels like it’s closer to fucking Paris after having to get out here.

Whatever, I’m drunk.

And for some reason firefox at this stupid internet cafe has caught super-Aids and refuses to open java script, so I have to type this into word instead of directly into blogspot - which also, subsequently, has caught super-AIDs & Giraffe flu because it’s formatting is fucked. That’s right blogspot, you heard me – you’re formatting is fucked. I try and post a video of Rhino the hamster tearing more ballsacks than Germaine Greer, and you can’t even expand the formatting to fit it.

PHILLEEEEEP! I EXPWECT THIS SITUATION TO BE RECTOFIED!

(I told you I’d been drinking. People say I’m no fun when I’m sober - they just haven’t met me on Bundy)

Anywho where have I been, what have I been doing you may be asking? Actually, I doubt ANY of you are asking that cau.... oooooh I haven’t checked facebook! Be right back...

OK, cool I’m back. Where was I. Right, no one really reads this (although you’re all bound to spring out of the fucking woodwork now I’ve said that.... pfffft.

BUT HEY! I ENJOY WRITING IT SO SUCK MY SUGAR-COATED GINGER BALLS

Okay, the situation is this: I’ve just finished the Potential Royal Marine Commando course (the PRMC) where you basically get butt-fucked by big men with green berets for 4 days. It’s..... goddamit Silversun Pickups are playing in Vancouver like a month after I leave, I’m gonna go drown a puppy. Sorry – the PRMC is supposed to be a chance to see what training to become a royal marine is like, and for the training staff to assess you’re fitness and determination. Fitness is a big one – there’s a basic need for a high level of fitness obviously (at 32 weeks long it’s the longest and arguably the hardest infantry training course in the world), but more than that is a pig-headed determination to push on regardless of what they throw at you.

In a nutshell the first of the two testing days is to see if you’re fit enough, and the second day tests to see if you’ve got the balls to push through when the pain sets in. I blitzed through the first day, scoring consistently in the top 20 of 60 guys in everything they threw at us – 3 mile run, push ups, sit ups, chin ups, beep test, everything. Second day started off with jumping out of a 50 foot tower and using a short length of rope to slide down the main rope at a million mile an hour – fucking awesome. From there it was onto the obstacle course: charging over water traps, swinging on monkey bars and climbing 12 foot walls, ect.

Jesus I’m sobering up already – need to hurry and post this before more sweet, sweet alcamahol
As soon as we finished the obs course, it was time for the determination test – with wet boots, heavy jackets and pants, and rooted from the obs course it started. It began with push ups, sit ups and burpies. Then they started us running up and down hills. Then more pushies, sits and purpies, Then through the water under the monkey bars. Then more runs up the hills. Then more pushies/sits/burpies – you get the idea.

I was rooted, but I certainly wasn’t pissing and moaning like some of these pommie fucks – I’ve never heard a grown man cry for his mum before, it was genuinely embarrassing. If we’d gone on for a few hours, I might have understood but this was 20 mins into it. About 30 mins into the determination test, they decided we needed to pair up with people of equal size (being a pygmy I wound up with someone 6 inches taller and 10kg heavier), and drag them on our backs for a hundred meters. Once one got to the end, we swapped over and the other dragged them back. THAT was fucking tough work – you could feel the legs burning and couldn’t breathe. But the second drag was with the dragger walking backwards and their arms under the other’s armpits. Pure pain. It was halfway through that I asked myself if I really wanted to do this. When the answer came back that I wasn’t going to let these limey English fucks beat me after I’d traveled so far to to do this, I knew I had everything I needed to finish it off. We finished the drags and it was all over - we'd passed.

I’ve hiked the tallest free-standing mountain in the world and reached the summit in -56 degrees, climbing a 45 degree hill (you could reach out and touch the snow standing upright) with a foot of slippery snow under foot in a fucking blizzard. I’ve dived in pitch black water to nearly 90m, breathing mix gases that would kill you in an instant at the wrong depth. But until that second drag I’ve never questioned whether I could do something before - whether it's all just too hard. It’s a hell of a feeling to be forced to ask that question, and come back not just with the answer of “Yes I can” but “Yes I fucking will do it, and I’m going to do it faster than the moaning bitch next to me”.

May have gotten a little angry with myself for thinking of quitting...

There wasn’t so much excitement as contentment when they handed me my pass certificate this morning – I knew I’d passed the moment I decided to drag that weak willed momma’s boy across the line the day before (he started saying he couldn’t do it at one point – I started screaming in his ear that if a ginger Oompa Loompa could drag him there, he could find some fucking balls to drag me back).
For some of the guys it was their second time around, having failed the PRMC previously and sent away for 9 months to train up. Some others got through but will never make it through the 32 weeks – totally the wrong attitude. But at this stage it’s just a test of whether you’re fit and determined enough, and they were.

-------------
The Next Day
-------------
Okay so yesterday was pretty wild.

The PRMC went half a day longer than I was expecting, so I had a mad dash from the train to the hostel in Exeter to pick up the rest of my gear, charged into the local recruiting office to tell them I'd passed and ask when could I start training, and try and make another train to London all within 30mins. Obviously missed the train, and had to buy another at an absurd price. Add to that my phone dying and being unable to let Cian know what was going on, my hostel being in the distant colonial outpost of Greenwich, not knowing WHERE my hostel was once I was in Greenwich, and carrying more than my body weight in backpacks - the first celebratory drink was looking better every moment.

Finally got settled into the hostel, had a well earnt shower, had a Bundy and coke, and called Cian - to have the piker pike-out on mucho drinkys with me. In her defense though she had been "working" all day in an "office" and was "tired"; whereas I'd only been sleep deprived and tested to my absolute physical and mental limit for 4 days straight.

Little Miss Pike-Alot :
"Hmmmm, do I go out and drink with Red or do I stay at home like an old nanna?
Well I DO have alot of knitting to do"

So I started drinking in the bar below the hostel, and had some random Canadian chick drag me to where all the stragglers were drinking together. Cut a long story short: I got obscenely drunk with a guy from the old home town, chatted up this stunning American, but then somehow wound up passed out in the hostel's common area with no pants on - which is where the bar staff found me. And so far today I've had a late breakfast, went for a short walk that ended with me nearly throwing up said breakfast, and have been recovering and trying to type the last of this in the comfort of the common area's air con.

I fly to Vancouver on Tuesday for Boeta's last week there - he's pulling the pin after his plans went rather askew. Hopefully he'll go back when he's got some more money and things are more stable for him, but we're going to destroy Vancouver before he leaves. Going to tick a bunch of things off the 101 things list while we're there too, and hopefully leave all the women of that fine city emotionally scarred. It'll be freaking awesome.

NEWS JUST IN

Just got on Triple J back in the land of Oz, with the dreamy Paul Verhoeven on the phones and the Yeti-like Dave Callan in the studio, talking about my distinct lack of pants when the bar staff found me passed out in the common room last night. Also had them refer to me as "The Mighty Ginge" on air, rather than give my real name. Ended a little awkward though - I ran out of credit halfway through the call and got cut off.

My awesomeness, however, knows no bounds.

Down with the rural charm, in the country

2009-06-18T22:25:00.003+08:00

So I've been in ye olde Devon for just over 2 weeks now, and I thought it high time to give the rest of you uncultured heathens a taste of life in the old country.

The Good
Straight out the greatest thing about the UK is that every day seems to be "Tits Out Tuesday". What other first-world country has several high-distribution national newspapers that feature the likes of Lucy Pinder and Michelle Marsh cuddling topless staring you in the face as soon as you open the front page? And what the fuck are they feeding these women? The average nork here is GARGANTUAN.

Lucy Pinder - Relative under-achiever in the
UK mammary stakes

The Monday I arrived in Exeter was sunny, warm and mind-blowing. The walk from the St David's rail-station was like a magical stroll through an erotic jelly factory – there were jiggly bits as far as the eye could see. I started getting really excited, thinking the UK might be so progressive that they celebrate Tits-Out Tuesdays a day early – turns out it was just a warm up, because Tuesday was a whole other league again. By Wednesday, I honestly started expecting to start seeing topless Valkyrie wearing white-flowing skirts riding around on fucking unicorns, because I'd clearly died in a train wreck on the way here and had instead arrived in Valhalla.

Unfortunately the valkyries never eventuated, and the norkage has died off a little after a few rainy days – seems limey fun-bags are fair weather fighters. But whenever the sun comes out for more than a few hours, so do the weapons of mass destruction. And we're not talking flabby jubblys either. Sure, a lot of the more boob-alicious girls are a little “cuddly” too, but given the number of bicycle and foot paths around, plus the restrictive traffic control - the general rule is growth hormone-induced super boobs (thank god they force feed battery hens steroids) on quite athletic women.

I'm going to destroy this town once my marines
application process finishes

The Bad
The one risk living here in Exeter though (besides suffocating under a breast of a Page 3 model) is the prevalence of jail-bait. Since the average hooter here is big enough to be used as a three-seater couch, it's impossible to tell if a girl is only 15 or she's brought shame to her family for only being endowed with double-D's. Combined with my complete inability to judge people's ages and I'm having to be especially careful.
Even so, I was very nearly trapped in my first week here. Started chatting up an absolutely stunning girl at the recruiting office here when we'd both headed in to do our aptitude test. Got talking about what we were both applying for, what she was doing for work, where I was staying; all the while flirting horrendously.

And then the comment "When I finished school last year..." came out.
She's was 17

Now I knew ALOT of girls from high school that regularly went out with guys who were 6 years older than them. Hell, I knew alot of girls who went out with guys who were 10 years older than them. But I vowed back in school to never to be one of those guys. Partly because it destroyed any chance I had in school with the girls myself, but mostly because 17 is 3 years younger than my sister and that makes it fucking creepy.

The Ugly
It led to an interesting indication of the guys of Exeter though - or maybe just of the weirdos staying in this hostel. When I told them about hot underage recruiting girl, their collective reaction was "Awesome dude, did you get her number?" and "If there's grass on the wicket!". Very creepy.
It's been a real struggle to write ANYTHING with these assholes hanging around too. Since I've been here blogging, emailing, book writing, anything, has become nigh on impossible because every one of these failed human beings seems hell-bent on stopping me (or any other member of society) from contributing anything to the rest of the species. I've automatically become the most interesting person here because I'm trying to work on my laptop. The moment I sit down to write something, some troglodyte is hanging around to;

Find out what I'm doing,
Stop me from doing it,
Read what I've written over my shoulder,
Tell me some inane story about them abusing a council worker,
Piss and moan about the hostel owner, or
Have the hostel owner tell me to go outside and get some exercise

Initially I thought listening to music might have stopped some of the conversation, but buying massive headphones and wearing them all the time doesn't seem to have done shit - suddenly everyone thinks you're "rude" because you're not answering along to another one of their bullshit stories about molesting a farm animal. No no, they still talk to me when I'm typing, wearing headphones and staring at a screen - they just think I'm ignoring them (which incidentally is true).

What part of "leave me alone" are
you not getting here?

Oh and of course because I'm here to join the Royal Marines, every one of these flabby white poms suddenly either has decades of operational military experience or are a hardened gangster. I never realised a quiet little hostel in some backwater of the English country-side could be the central meeting place for every former Ranger, Commando, SBS, SAS, Recce and modern-day Al Capones that's ever existed. The funniest thing is though, none of them are travellers. None of them are on a world-trip, meeting new and exciting people, seeing the world. Instead these guys are mid/late 30 local dole-bludgers who are staying in a hostel because it's cheaper than renting. I thought I was being weird for staying in a hostel for a month during my application. One of them (the "ex-Ranger" who loves telling me he was involved in the real "Black Hawk Down" over and over and over again) has been staying here for over 18months now - he's a "rock band photographer" now (read: groupie with a camera).

Andy Warhol - A monumental asshole, even during a firefight

Since I've been here, we've had just 2 other "travellers" come through - a pair of lovely Canadian girls on a working holiday who I chatted to quite abit. But they only stayed for a night then moved on. Which strangely enough is what people in hostels do. They were fun, but eventually I'd love to meet some other actual backpackers in this backpacker hostel.

The Conclusion
Quite simply, the south-west of England is full of over-sized breasts on bicycles, under-age supermodels and neanderthals. I don't know whether to cup my balls, punch them or marvel at their staggering relative size.

A Belated Celebration

2009-06-12T01:57:00.012+08:00

Well it's been a week now and no one else has said it, so I'd just like to be the first to say,

Congratulations to Swine-variant H1N1 on hitting the big leagues!
It's officially a pandemic!

Swine-flu has also received the auspicious honour of getting Afghanistan's only pig locked up. It's only the start though - swine-flu only has 163 on the board so far, paltry in comparison to some of the all time greats of the Pandemic World Series - legends like The Spaniard, The Yellow Menace, Jackie Chan and of course Jew Hunter. We should also note some other living record-holders in the pandemic championships, like Love Machine and The Shit Monster.

H1N1 has a long way to go, but a big round of applause for getting this far - here's hoping we have a new future champion on out hands!

Ill-informed slander [Movie Reviews]

2009-06-05T04:14:00.018+08:00

Given that on the monumental Perth-Dubai flight (aka Logan's Run 2: Escape from Perthawitchz);

The sound crapped out on the entertainment system while I was watching "Bolt",
The flight attendants on board refused to admit there was anything wrong with it for an hour, and even when it was restarted the silence was just replaced with static, and
I have the attention span of a 4-year old at the best of times, made considerably worse by being jacked up on enough caffeine to kill a racehorse

I ended up reviewing not just Bolt, but every film playing on that god-forsaken 10hr flight in complete silence. And since I didn't watch many of them for more than about 30 seconds, that's the extent of the review for each.
Enjoy

Frost Vs. Nixon
First thing I flicked to after cracking the shits with Bolt. Only recognised it because I've been wanting to see it and knew the actors. However after 30 seconds I was just left with the impression it was about two grown men sitting around discussing how Nixon used to drown kittens.

Frost: Mr President there have been unconfirmed rumors that after the breaking of the Watergate scandal, you began drowning kittens in the Oval office to help relieve the stress - any comment?

Nixon: Yes I drowned kittens, it was a wonderful release to hold their adorable little heads under water, watching the life slowly drain from their eyes. Sometimes I'd let them get a breath, just so I could hear them scream.

Frost: Awkward. You realise of course that this will outrage animal rights groups all over the world, and is undoubtedly illegal?

Nixon: When the President does it, that means it's not illegal! People should be drowning kittens everywhere!

Frost: .....I'm sorry?

Valkyrie
Wound up watching this again on a later flight, but I could have saved my time since my initial silent assessment was surprisingly accurate - 120 minutes of sub-par Nazis sucking so much at being Nazis they either killed themselves or got lined up against a wall and shot. Also, it appears Tom Cruise has sucked so much cock so hard, his left eye has imploded.

$10 for a gobby, $50 for bareback no kissing

Confessions of a Shopaholic
The crazy ranga bitch from "Wedding Crashers" (the one Vince Vaughn couldn't get rid of) gets her own movie - only this time she plays a delusional crazy ranga bitch that runs around tripping balls and imagining that mannequins are convincing her to buy more bullshit clothing. This whole thing offends me on a range of different levels - not just because she feeds the "all hot gingers are meth users" stereotype, but because it tries to legitimises shopping addiction.

If you think you're addicted to shopping for the sake of shopping, trust me when I say you don't have an addicition.

You're just a moron

The snow leopard you skinned for that had a family, bitch

Bride Wars
Anne Hathaway can make most things pretty watchable, but this looked particularly shithouse - almost as if Kate Hudson wrote a film she then starred in.

Oh wait, that's exactly what this is.

Marley and Me
Over-grown, rude-headed beefcake wags it's tail and knocks shit over for 2 hours. Jennifer Aniston and a Golden Retriever also feature.

Owen Wilson recalling the taste of dog shit

Mrs Doubtfire
Finally got to the Emirates "Movie Classics" channel, only to find it was showing a "classic" case of Robin Williams being boringly family-friendly. I thought Mrs Doubtfire was funny as hell when I was 8; now watching a man having to change quickly back and forward between being an old Scots woman and a homeless guy (sorry, "out of work voice actor") 15 times in 15 minutes gets old very quickly.

Brendan Fraser in "Something so mediocre it should have gone direct to DVD"
Exactly what it says on the label

Transporter 3
Since any film Jason Statham stars in is about as dialogue intensive as a car ride to an abortion clinic, I was pretty sure the lack of sound wouldn't detract from the cinematic experience. Then I realised I was watching a Jason Statham film, and that there was nothing to detract from in the first place.

The only actor with less expression
than Keenu "What if I can't, what if I fail" Reeves

This film was made even worse by the fact that when I flicked over to it, some scraggy-looking skank was making Statham strip really awkwardly while she remained painfully clothed. Since these films are generally aimed at adolescent boys who are still checking for their first pube, I rightly assumed that any scene involving a bloke stripping would be a precursor to a particularly awesome sex scene, made even better by not having to hear "Bald and Surly" grunting while he bent Miss Venereal over the BMW's bonnet.

Of course that would have helped relieve the frustration of using an entertainment system with no sound, and Emirates wasn't going to allow that. Instead, I patiently endured 5 full minutes of male stripping, only for it to cut straight to the only downside to sex - cuddling afterwards.

Cuddling and cats drove Nixon to Oval-office psychosis

So in conclusion, make sure your mp3 player is fully charged and your headphones working before you board an inter-continental flight. Otherwise you'll wind up imagining dialogue for a political history film head that involves euthanising family pets.

I'll Never Be Allowed to Work with Children Again [Movie Review – Bolt]

2009-06-02T17:35:00.011+08:00

About mid last year I was sitting in a cinema with my girlfriend at the time - enduring the monumentally poor advertising CineAds forces on movie-goers in Perth, waiting for the film to start (clearly the feature left a lasting inpression on me given I don't even remember what we saw). However, once the static image of two dipshits cuddling to the accompanied voice-over (by a guy who sounded like he was recovering from having just been hit in the face with a shovel) advertising some cut-price funeral home was finished, I witnessed something so fantastically awesome I had dip my balls in liquid nitrogen to prevent a cataclysmic nad implosion.

WARNING: The movie trailer below should not be watched by anyone who –

Has a heart-condition or pace-maker,
Willingly watches “Packed to the Rafters”,
Spends more than 5 minutes in the shower and uses conditioner (Unless it's because they're having a wank ofcourse, in which case FAP FOR GREAT JUSTICE!),
Doesn't believe Commando-trained hamsters could be an effective weapon against the Taliban

And with that out of the way – Ladies, Gentlemen and Hamsters, I give you the movie trailer of the the millenia.

Now that you're mind has been sufficiently by Bolt's life-altering trailer, I will attempt to review this cinemagraphic masterpiece.

Context
********
Before we get into the guts of the review, the one thing Mighty Ginge movie reviews always have, besides spoilers, is context – this one's context is a story in itself.

Rewind to 3 days before I actually saw it – last Friday was completely consumed doing the last of my packing and getting my house ready for my send-off party. I was running around moving furniture, eskys, firewood and digging trenches for the old man. Needless to say, when 5:30pm finally rolled around I was already rooted. Then the drinking started – Kiran was the first to rock up around 7pm and I was already plastered when he did. More people trickled in, and we finally finished up around 3:30am.

Most people would sleep in, but since Mum was heading away for the weekend it was my last chance to see her before I left, I was back up at 8am (4.5 hrs total sleep in 24hrs). More packing and more last minute errands, and then gorgeous high school/metal chick (henceforth “GHS/M Chick” for short) calls me up to appologise for not seeing me at the send off, and whether I'd like to come out to see a band and each other before I left. And while the band didn't happen, I did drink 3 cans of Mother (that's a 1.5L) on an empty stomach, and didn't leave GHS/M chick's mate's place till 2am. Race home for the very last of the packing, and at 3am decide to lay on my bed for “just 15mins” before Dad was to wake me at 3:15am.

When I woke at 4:30am (6hrs total sleep in 44.5 hrs) we both shat our pants, dumped everything in the back of the ute and flew to the airport. And I say "sleep", because it was more like shivering unconciously while my liver started shutting down from the Mother. Luckily the flight was near empty so there were no lines when we got to the airport. After clumsily checking-in, saying goodbye to Dad, then shivering and hallucinating my way through security because I had 3 times the recommended maximum daily intake of caffeine, taurine and guarana in my system (I was sweating and freaking out enough to get a explosives swipe test and a full bag search); I managed to board on-time and the plane flew out.

And once the flight was settled in and seat-belt signs came off, around 7am Sunday morning, that's when they decided to start Bolt.

So in short: I watched and reviewed a Disney film that features a delusional talking dog with John Travolta's voice, and a psychopathic hamster with a taste for adventure; all after I'd had no more than 6 hours sleep in the previous 47, and was hallucinating to the point where I thought I could taste the colour purple from drinking enough energy drinks to re-animate Stan Zemank.

It was truly one of the most terrifying experiences of my life

Review
*******
First up, the character Bolt in the first hour of this IS a total badass. This film has more slow-mo in it than 300, just so you can actually see his badassery in action. He stomps on random hencemen, blows up helicopters and kills fucking EVERYBODY. Also, he has a black lightning bolt in his fur.

A BLACK MOTHERFUCKING LIGHTNING BOLT

And even once he's off the show and into real-life he's still a badass, just no longer a super-powered badass. He literally headbutts himself retarded on a steel locker trying to escape; he swings onto a moving train from a bridge; at one point he holds the cat over a freeway till she tells him what he needs, another he knocks out the whinging cat then drags her unconcious body around like he's some kind of canine Sam Fisher. Paticularly the 10 minutes right after Bolt arrives in New York, which is essentially 10 minutes of Bolt running into fences, he's a total badass. Some might descibe Bolt in the first hour as “the boss”. Other's might say he's “totally sweet” - it's hard to say who's right.

That's a live mine Bolt's running with there - he jumps over
the chopper and sticks it to the roof.... seriously

Unfortunately though, this is a Disney film and hence has to be fucked up by the weakening of the characters to fit Mickey Mouse's bullshit “feel good/happy endings/family friendly” horseshit. After the first hour of badassery, Bolt suddenly turns into a whinging pansy, pissing and moaning about how hard it all is, sooking after his owner Penny, and generally being a fucking sad-sack. He winds up being the only emo I've ever seen who a) wears a white sweater, and b) has it permanently attached to his skin. Plus he develops this look which is errily similar to what one of my uncles permanently has plastered on his face – constant bewilderment, with just a hint of retardation. And as with everyone that suffers mild retardation, he lives out the rest of his now boring life with his family and friends.

Very disappointing character development.

His owner and TV show co-star, Penny, has an equally good start, only to fall victim to becoming a minor character when she's convinced to let Bolt go and move on. Now I don't want to say anything I'll regret here, so I'll simply say that Penny is the finest piece of animated jail-bait I have ever laid eyes on.

I will make Miley Cyrus my whore, just so I can
shut my eyes and pretend it's Penny

Other potentially great characters (although none as tasty as Penny) that get the minor character treatment from Disney include: the New York pidgeon that's dropping feathers and looks like a long-time methamphetamine user; Penny's manager who after a hollow attempt to comfort her over the losing Bolt, tells her “I bet Bolt would want you to do the Tonight show interview”; the fantastically sarcastic cat that's also in the TV show that mind-fucks with Bolt through the sunroof of Bolt's trailer; and ofcourse - Rhino the hamster.

500 grams of pure psychosis

Oh Rhino – you were the reason I wet myself seeing the Bolt trailer all those months ago. The sheer concept of a psychotic hamster in a glass ball trying to kill people and cats alike is enough to give me a rather inappropriate chubby. Unfortunately, just minutes before Rhino's appearance on-screen, the Emirates entertainment system decided to have an aneurysm and lose all sound – no sound for movies, music, nothing. It wasn't my headphones or the seat I was in - it was plane wide. Unfazed though, I pushed on soundless.

Now this may come as a surprise to many of you but watching a Disney film with talking animals, while sleep deprived and tripping balls on caffeine, and then having the sound drop out is a rather interesting insight into your suppressed unconscious - you start to naturally fill in the conversation with all the depraved shit in your head. Now I obviously missed the sound to this next clip, but you wouldn't want to hear the dialogue I imagined in it's place.

And this was just unnerving

Rhino slips into stealth mode,
winning the "Creepiest Hamster of All-time" award

On the whole Bolt is a Disney film. I should stop getting my hopes up that Disney will actually release an animated film that features a truly demented character that doesn't get nerfed to become family friendly - I reacted the same way when I saw the "Lilo and Stitch" too. The trailers had Stitch running around fucking up every classic animated film Disney has ever made (Aladin, Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King and The Little Mermaid), only to be reduced to lameness and family values in the actual film. Bolt is a good clean laugh for everybody, it's just a shame the family values side of things was shoehorned in for the last 20 mins about as subtley as Lindsay Lohan climbs out of a car.

See it for the Rhino scenes but don't expect him to actually kill anyone, even with quotes like "I'm going to beat your pancreas with your spleen" or "There's a guard, I'll snap his neck". Also, probably skip the last 10 to 15mins - you already know how it's going to end, and Bolt really is pathetic toward the end.

Overall: 3 out of 5 Ginger Teabags

Oh, and if you don't watch any of the videos above, arn't interested in Bolt, or despise Youtube in general - please, make an exception for this one video. I'm pretty sure it's impregnated me from just watching it.

The Ginge World Tour

2009-06-01T17:32:00.015+08:00

And Australia breathes a collective sigh of relief.

Cranky Customs wench at 5am Sunday morning was certainly thankful I was atleast leaving her desk. And ticket skank tried to punch me in the balls when she violently tore off the ticket stub - a fitting final farewell from the people of Perth to the guy who sent the break-up letter some months ago.

Even more hiliarious was the total reluctance of the Simon Pegg impersonator at UK Immigration to approve me - sweating like a pedophile at a Wiggles concert, I wound up making up some bullshit about visiting my grandparents in Exeter so they wouldn't deport me. It's not an issue since I've no intention of working here and the Royal Marines application removes any visa requirements; but apparently saying you're staying for 3 months, putting the address of a hostel as your UK contact residence on the immigration form, and saying you're unemployed raises a few eyebrows.

Who'd have though?

Headed to Exeter in a few hours by train, and once there I'll settle into about a month of fitness, interviews/aptitude testing, security clearances (medical and fitness assessments, and the violation of any attractive female backpacker between the ages of 20-25 year old. The 20-25 thing is flexible though, as is the attractive backpacker bit - I'm a big fan of equal oppurtunity, but corn-holing men not so much.

Obviously big changes going on with the permanent move to UK (eventually), but the Mighty Ginge blog will survive in one form or another - it's too much damn fun. Like a mythical ginger firebird, it's going to burst into flames and re-appear somewhere else; fresh, new and a little different. And in keeping with that, I've decided to set yet another ridiculous task for myself - taking the "Yes Man" One month challenge.

The Yes Man Challenge -It'll almost certainly involve something like this

I'd wanted to see it for awhile (and since it's something I genuinely liked enough to get on DVD, I won't be reviewing it here), and finally getting the chance to do so has only inspired me to be more of a Yes man myself - sure I've jumped out of planes, learnt random languages and generally run amok for nearly 24 years; but while I'm pretty open to experiences, people still scare the fuck out of me. I flick back and forward between laughing gleefully at humanity, and being openly spiteful about my belief we're headed toward a global Idiocracy - like an autistic kid playing with the power supply on his grandfather's life support. So in order to stop being such a negative Nancy when humanity fucks itself retarded again, I've going to show a little more faith in you all.

Readers would be shocked, but those that know my real-life counterpart are painfully aware the last 18 months have knocked his confidence in people around alot. And in typical Mighty Ginge fashion, I've convince him all people are indeed fucked, but it shouldn't stop him from being awesome or approachable. So he's going to be dedicated to accepting EVERYTHING that comes his way for the next month, plus all the usual insanity. And, he's going to be forcing his rude ginger head into atleast 1 conversation with randoms each day. Maybe if he talks to people, he'll realise he's actually one of them too. Not the Mighty Ginge though - I'm NOTHING like any of you.

And yes, I just pretended we're different people - crucify me.

Probably going to see a few changes around here soon too - or more likely, changes somewhere else! At my send-off Firday night the ever generous toothsoup offered me webspace and setup assistance (read: 'Doing it for me') to shift the Mighty Ginge to a toothsoup domain. It's been something I've thought about for awhile, but had never actually gotten around to asking him about. Shifting away from Blogspot would allow me run seperate sections of material (rants, movie reviews, "101 things to do before you die"/book updates) all under the Mighty Ginge banner. The other option ofcourse is to start my own domain, something certainly worth considering if I'm serious about this book - at a $180 a year it's a small price to pay for the post and page design flexibility it'll bring.

Also the banner is going to get an update too - big thanks to Ser for the time and effort that went into the awesome banner that's greeted everyone here for so long (time she probably should have used to update her blog more regularly) - but it's a new Ginge, and hence a new banner. Submissions are more than welcome, but chances are I'll end up copy/pasting something offensive together in MS Paint.

So after a false start, let's try the whole "escaping Perth" thing again - this time though, it's a slightly more serious effort.

It's really not that difficult

2009-05-25T23:24:00.010+08:00

There's a fantastic scene from the movie "Falling Down" that's been locked away in my head since seeing it in my early childhood (that probably explains a few things actually).

William Foster (played by Michael Douglas) has gone totally off the deep end, winds up with a bag full of automatic weapons after a drive-by shooting attempt goes wrong, and decides to walk into "Whammy Burger" for breakfast after a rather psychotic morning. However after waiting in line he's told that the breakfast menu finished 3 minutes before, and he will have to order from the lunch menu. Understandably upset by this turn of events, Foster proceeds to pull out an uzi and blow holes in the ceiling. After eventually deciding to go with the lunch menu anyway, he's then enraged further to find the burger looks nothing like the one advertised on the menu boards.

Fast Track to Monday night: I've gone to a monthly stand-up comp, and been voted off within seconds of getting onstage. Partly because I was first up and the crowd was still cold, and partly because I walked onstage with a bible in hand hoping to read a verse where kids make fun of a bald guy, bald guy curses the kids in the lord's name, and then BEARS maul 42 of them... this is also right after the MC had finished telling the audience how he was a pastor at a public school.

Once off stage though I found the kitchen was already closed, so I couldn't get any dinner and instead had to sit through other people getting laughs for much weaker jokes than mine with an angry, empty stomach. Night finishes, I say my goodbyes and bolt deciding to get McDonalds on the way home to ease the pain. The nearest 24hr McD's is miles out of my way, but I know it'll be a treat worth the effort.

It's not until I pull up at the drive-through speaker box though that I realise just which McDonalds I'm ordering from. This is the Maccas near the Leach highway and North Lake Road intersection - the same store that after 5 visits in the last 12 months is yet to actually serve me the food I order. Knowing this, I check through the speaker box that yes, it is a double quarter-pounder and a medium coffee thickshake. At the register window I check again, only to discover I've been misheard - the drive-thru lady says "Ohhh, you want the thick one!" and fixes the order. I drive forward to the pick-up window, gleefully take the bag with the Double Quarter pounder, turn back to the window for the drink and what is the window-bitch trying to pass me?

A RASPBERRY FLAVOURED FROZEN FUCKING FANTA
At what point does the confusion between this and a coffee shake begin?

If I were William Foster, I would have shot window-bitch in the face. Instead, I'm left trying to work out whether,

The speaker box is broken AND the store has an "immigrant only" policy for employees on Drive-Thru
The manager refuses to stock coffee flavouring after an unfortunate incident involving a casual employee, four bags of flavouring, casual employee's penis and the McFlurry making machine
It's a special McDonald's that prefers to focus it's efforts away from customer satisfaction, and more toward serving the Dark Lord; or
They really hate ginger kids.

Quite honestly, all are very legitimate options.

1. The "Immigrant Only" Policy
I don't want to sound racist, but I will anyway - why in the name of Zeus and Judas would you put people, who's shoes are still wet from the Indonesian fishing boat they just stepped off, in the Drive-Thru booth? And the craziest part is whenever I get up to the window where I get my food, window-bitch is always some skinny white boy who speaks better English than I do. Giving everyone a fair chance I can understand, but every fucking time I go there the ordering is handled by someone who only just learnt how to pronounce "Happy Meal". There is no doubt their English is much better than my Pashtun, but then again I'm not taking orders for Chicken McNuggets in sunny downtown Kandahar, am I?

2. No Coffee Flavouring
Have you ever seen the McFlurry machine in action? Have you ever gotten an unmixed dollop of pure coffee flavouring in your shake (my parents finally managed to pry my off the ceiling 3 days later, when it finally started to come out of my system)? And ever wondered how someone could be such a waste of oxygen that they only get offered casual work at McDonalds?

I suspect a combination of all three would result in-

The casual employee losing the ability to effectively contribute to the gene pool, because his junk now resembles one of those "crazy straws", and
The manager realising pure coffee flavouring is like the "One true ring", with far too much power contained inside each of the bags of brown liquidy death.

Girl's love girth, but not when it's girth from
having your junk tied into a pink Gordian knot

3. Fuck Customer Service, appease the Dark Lord
You may smirk at this, but it's only among Satan-worshippers and John Farnham fans have I ever witnessed the level of contempt I got from the manager and window-bitch. Maybe it was the look of absolute disgust on my face, maybe it was the inflection in my voice when I politely asked "What the fuck is this?" when window-bitch tried to hand me the frozen raspberry fanta. I'm not sure, but something I did obviously offended this pair of bottom-feeders when I explained I'd ordered a coffee shake and not a raspberry-flavoured polar bear's period.

Plus the look of utter disdain from the manager was priceless; like I'd molested her dog and made her watch. OH! I'm sorry, I didn't realise I needed to establish some sort of long-term relationship with you and your store (where I tolerate your managerial short-comings and staff incompetence) before you decide I've EARNT THE RIGHT TO BE SERVED THE HALF COOKED, HALF PREPARED SHITPILE YOU CALL FOOD THAT I'VE ALREADY PAID FOR.

4. They really hate ginger kids
This basically feeds off #3, but I'm pretty sure the manager's hate was amplified just a fraction by the fact that it was some shaven-headed ranga that was telling her how incompetent her staff were, and how ordering a coffee shake from Drive-Thru shouldn't be harder than re-taking Pointe du Hoc. It's not like they made a mistake in the heat of the moment, placed the wrong order while they were inundated with customers and were sorry about it - it's was 11:30 at night and I was the only one there. It might be too early to call, I'm sure that while they weren't rushed at the counter, they were definitely rushed out of the womb.

In the end the manager was that flustered and confused by what was going on, she grabbed the medium thickshake that was on the counter and practically threw it at me, then slammed the window shut. I was that pissed off and hungry I just drove away, so desperate to finally eat I nearly spilt my thickshake all over myself in the process...

... a CHOCOLATE thickshake.

When the monkey apocalypse comes, I will tell the monkeys your store has started
selling fucking bananas as part of your "Healthy Choices" menu, you pond scum.

Humanity - Can't live with it, can't sped the spider monkey uprising any faster

One of Kevin '07's loyal fans starts to waver...

2009-05-24T18:26:00.012+08:00

I had a stroke today

I have no memory of it happening, but somehow - through all the dribble and seizures - I spontaneously navigated onto the NineMSN News website. It seems like a bit of an unusual thing to do during a potentially fatal brain trauma, but a massive stroke is the only way I can possibly explain reading anything on NineMSN. The chances I would willingly navigate to there without a blood clot the size of a golf ball lodged in my Hippocampus - hence forcing me to forget just how much I despise it and everything it stands for - is about as likely as Chewbacca riding into my room on a fire-breathing ocelot to take me on a magical trip through Narnia, then together we burn C.S Lewis and his entire imaginary kingdom to the ground.

Those shitty, whinging kids from Narnia and their oversized pussycat are
no match for a fire-breathing Ocelot ridden by Chewbacca and the Mighty Ginge

In short, I'm not exactly a fan of the heinous, 6-headed Siamese mutant that is Channel 9 and Microsoft. But I did infact find myself there today in search of some amusement and blogging material. And like all truely fantastic amusement, the best stuff I found was at the expense of the Australian Liberal party.

Now while regular readers may be painfully aware that I am far from a left-wing communist pinko, there are few things on this planet that shit me more than pretentious Young Liberals who think that because Daddy paid for their Law degree and their BMW, they're entitled to lecture me on politics (ofcourse fully-grown Liberals, Young Labor and NineMSN News are right up there on the list too). Regardless of the situation, gear a zealous young Lib up on something remotely political and you can sit back for hours, confident in the knowledge you'll have a constant stream of background noise while you read a book or do the washing.

Just shut-up, please. Shut your mouth before I feed
you your own revolting cashmere sweater

I DO however have to swallow some of my bile for Washington based Lib Tim Andrews - if you read what the guy has to say through-out the rest of his blog it's clear he's a complete douchbag. But I have to thank him from the bottom of my heart for this stunning contribution to the blogging trash-heap. The post itself is currently cached by Google because the sheer amount of conservative wank (the bad "talking" kind) in the comments caused the original post to implode on itself and form a blackhole - for the love of Christ, please read the comments, particularly anything by "Ralph" or "Henry".

Now there are obviously going to be those that disapprove of Tim's post (eg. Ralph, Henry, most women and left-leaning eunuchs), but for the rest of us, a casual scan over the main post is enough to make even the most die hard Commie consider a berth in conservative student politics. Go there.... NOW!

VP of the Macquarie Uni Liberal Club -
I think Gemma Brooks's suspenders just made me a swing voter...

Here I was thinking Natasha Stott Despoja was as good as it got, while Alana "I think I threw up in my mouth a little" McTiernan was par for the course - turns out all the hotties are keeping their politics conservative and their dress sense "liberal".

Tim claims "Hot Lib Girls - Vol. 2" will be posted soon, and I fear my fiercely protected political leaning won't survive the conservative onslaught: if I see one more lingerie-clad Young Lib super-fox I'm sure I'll start wearing pashmina sweaters, discussing the benefits of VSU/free market politics, and chewing the ear off passers-by when I interpret their lack of shoes as hippy worship of free love/thought.

In the mean time though, I'd recommend visiting libhotties.com in the US and allowing "Tiffany" to question your political ideology further.

Kreative Blogging (Epilogue)

2009-05-23T12:10:00.003+08:00

Since I posted the previous post at 3am this morning (after the gorgeous metal chick I went to school with unexpectedly rocked up at my front-door, all dressed up and asked me to come out on the town) I managed to completely forget the central focus of any meme/chain-letter/spam: passing it on to other people.

Now supposedly I'm meant to get 5 of you to blog about the 7 things you love, but since I'm curious to hear from all of you, I'm throwing the switchboard open. Try and avoid being quite as emo as mine though*. If you don't have a regularly updated blog (looking at you @boeta77) or only follow me through twitter, please share your 7 in the comments of this post.

If you do post to your own blog, leave a link to the post in the comments too. I'm interested in getting an idea on how many people actually read this in general, and what kind of people might also read a short-story collection of my escapades.

Cheers,
The Great Rangry One

*Cut me some slack, I'd walked off a section of the Bibbulmen track a few hours before during a severe weather warning. I may like cold, hard weather; but Kevin Costner's "Waterworld" was still a really shitty movie

Kreativ Blogging

2009-05-22T13:24:00.008+08:00

"Creative" is not a word I would use to describe what I write here. Abusive, obnoxious, ego-centric, poorly updated and mildly unhinged - definitely. But certainly not creative...

Others seem to think otherwise however, and as such I've been tagged by Philbert to share 7 things I love. For a tiny angry ranga banshee, finding 7 things I love may be a struggle - but let's give it a shot.

1. Good movies/books/music
Before you get any ideas, I'm far from a literature buff. 99% of fiction writing bores me to tears, David Bowie looks and sounds like the kiddy-fiddler that used to drive around my primary school in a white transit van, and by the end of Schindler's List I was cheering for the Nazis. But every now and then something comes along that makes an impact. It usually has a little to do with the literature itself, but more often than not it's about reminding me of what was going on when I read/heard/saw something.

Everclear's "World of Noise" isn't a fantastic album, but it reminds me of a fairly brutal couple of weeks I had a while back around new year 05/06. I hated "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" the first time I tried to watch it, but a year later it gave me a reason to keep living. "Raising the Dead" by Philip Finch will sit on my bookshelf till the day I die, simply because it's the story of a man who knew what he needed to do and ultimately died doing it.Seems the stuff that digs me out of the darkness often gets a special spot in my head, while some other things just speak to who I am.

2. Diving
I was lucky enough to spend a few years growing up on the Red Sea in a third-world shanty town; a place where snorkelling and diving were the only things you could do without the local kids chasing you around with sticks screaming "Red Satan" in Arabic. At the ripe old age of 8 I earnt my PADI Skin Diver certification, and my junior Open Water a month after I hit the minimum age of 12. Diving sat on the backburner for years during my teens, but ended up being my light at the end of the tunnel when I was escaping from the mining industry.

For anyone that has never tried scuba diving - do it. You're weightless in an alien, yet familiar, environment; a whole world that's slower and quieter. It's called "Innerspace" for a reason - it's so quiet and surreal. And depending on your experience/confidence/adventurous nature, you can take diving to your limit. From the safe and clear shallows of Hook Island on the Great Barrier Reef; to decompression diving on a closed-circuit rebreather into the pitch black of a remote South African cave - 7/10th of this planet is water, why arn't you out there exploring it too?

3. Rifle Shooting
Call me a gun nut, but rifles have long been a part of my life. Much like diving it's something I grew up with, forgot about in my teens and have occassionally revisited since. Also like diving, you enter another world that's much slower and quieter. Both are very Zen-like activities. You focus on your breathing, everything is slow and deliberate - totally absorbed in the moment without concern for the result. It's just a shame oppurtunities to display my shooting have been few and far between.

Last I heard, I still hold the recruit record at the Army's boot camp at Kapooka. I know if I made the decision to do it, there's little doubt I could represent Australia at an Olympic level - that's not to say I ever will, but if that's the direction I chose to go I can honestly say there is enough natural talent there to compete at the international level. Maybe once I leave WA and it's current attitude to firearm laws things will pick up, but it's been a logistical nightmare to try and shoot competively here for me.

4. Comedy
I'll be honest and say making people laugh is not entirely alturistic. I get a real kick out of knowing I've brightened someone's day by making them laugh, and knowing they've given me their attention for long enough to hear something funny or random. Stand up gives me a chance to make people laugh AND force myself to see the funny side of some of the shit I get myself into. Onstage it's also very visceral, very "here and now".

And seeing comedy that makes me laugh lets me see someone else's warped view of humanity too. If I didn't laugh at humanity, I'd cry - my challenge is to frame things so people laugh with me without the crying too.

5. Night time
Being afraid of the dark has always been something that's amused me. I never felt afraid of the dark as a kid, but it wasn't until I left school I learnt to like the night. Your eyes adjust to the darkness and everything around you takes on a new perspective. Given how my Dad helped raised me I've always been very good at sneaking around, and darkness only makes it easier to do. If I had a night job in a society that facilitated, I'd probably live nocturnally. Again, everything is quieter and slower at night.

6. Cold, hard, wet weather
Sunshine is the natural enemy of the ginger kid, so it goes without saying I like overcast days and night time. But really cold, hard, wet weather makes it so much better - it doesn't matter if you're frozen and drenched to the bone, you can still only be in awe of nature's awesome power. It's probably why I love the ocean so much too - like Lt Dan in Forest Gump, all you can do is scream "Is that the best you've got" and try to push on .

7. Pushing my boundarys
An ex-girlfriend once complained to me that "You're always trying to improve yourself, why can't you just be happy with who you are?". I didn't have much of an answer back then, but now I know there is so much more to life than where I am right now. I am happy with who I am, because it's what I've got at the moment. But if I stop here, if I don't try to squeeze every drop out of life, push my body and mind to breaking point, I see it as short changing myself because I learn more about myself every time I do push my boundarys. I'm in awe of people my age who say know who they are and what they're capable of - I still find things out about myself every day, and suspect I will till the day I die.

One of a very few posessions I consider irreplaceable is "101 things to do before you die" by Richard Horne - a book I've mentioned many a time on this blog, given to me by Boeta quite a few years ago now. It's become both a record of my boundary pushing AND a guide for experiencing life further. I've done a fair old whack of the 101 things, but there is still plenty there I'd like to do (and alot of other stuff not on the list too). The other thing I've realised working through the 101 things is I'm so often chasing the next high, I don't stop to take stock of what I've done. So while I fully intend to keep the pace up, procrastination will now hopefully be re-directed towards writing a book on all my adventures.

That's right - there's a book in the works. I reckon if that goofball can write a book about working on an oil rig, I can write a book about some of the epic adventures of the Mighty Ginge. And the more I think about it, I'll be more motivated to try even more fun and crazy stuff if it means writing about it and sharing it. And the fantastic part about writing under a pseudonym is I get to leave in all the fantastically illegal/horrid/terrifying details!

Stay tuned...

Micromanage... Promote Synergy... Hit on Debra...

2009-05-07T15:56:00.016+08:00

Had dinner with an old mate last night, a guy I haven't seen or heard much from since he swapped to another university a few years back. Very talented guy, he's now busting his ass working ridiculous hours at a geophysics modelling firm here in Perth - making good money but seriously earning it. And after the run down on everything he's been up to and talking about the stupendous hours he's been putting in, he asked the one question I dread from anyone in the workforce;

So... what do you DO all day?

It's been fairly common question over the last month or so, with people curious to know what I'm up to after the Navy decided to gang-rape me with a pod of angry Orcas. And since it's always been my childhood dream to travel to travel the world, experience exotic cultures and kill little brown people, I share with questioners my plan to escape Perth and play with the big boys. But while the paperwork is being processed and arrangements made, people still ask what I'm doing in the mean time. The stand-up stuff has been great fun, but that only consumes the nights (also, it now makes this post seem even bitchier than it was at the time).

So in answer to all your questions, I give you an example of a day in the life of The Mighty Ginge...... what I did today, infact.

0600 - Clock radio kicks on, listen to morning news in bed
0605 - Doze back to sleep with the radio still playing
0630 - Clock radio turns itself off again; Ginge is fast asleep
0700 - Screaming bedside alarm goes off, get up to turn it off, back into bed
0701 - Lay in bed contemplating the god awful dream I'd been having involving hairy elephants.
0705 - Suddenly come to the stunning realisation that the dream was about how my boring and socially-awkward split personality, Bob, doesn't trust anyone anymore and has been subtley taking over my other personalitys (and my life) for the last 2 years. Bob has become a bitter, untrusting and paranoid shell of a man.
0706 - Another realisation that now we know Bob's weakness, the other 2 of us in here can finally KILL HIM...

Pooh acted quickly before Swine Flu became Donkey Flu

0707 - Finally, realise I should probably stop eating so much MSG right before bed
0708 - Out of bed with a renewed love of life knowing Bob's finally going to die. Boot up the laptop and jump in the shower
0715 - Clear email, facebook, forums and twitter.
0730 - Breakfast time: Bacon and Egg Sandwich with BBQ sauce, orange juice and a coffee
0745 - Mum's home this morning, so we talk about how I just realised I don't trust people much anymore. She asks if I've started taking ice
0840 - Notice my downloads have kicked into high-gear during the "off-peak" period, so I set up 6 episodes of Robot Chicken to download. More facebook and twitter
0900 - Look into accommodation in London for the royal marine recruitment, and flights over there.
1030 - Decide to finally clear my room of the last of the excess shit I have
1100 - Room now looks like a human might even inhabit it. Start on all the washing I've been ignoring for a week. Mum asks if there's anything I want picked up while she's out; I say a tube of Selley's All-Clear... she never asks why

Creepy, isn't it?

1145 - Washing 75% done. Charge inside to stop downloads before midday "on-peak" shaping starts, find Robot Chicken is all done.
1200 - Start watching back-to-back Robot Chicken episodes. Lay down rubber sheet on bed in case I wet myself
1300 - Lunch: Left-over bangers and mash from night before
1330 - Inspired by The Real Paul Verhoeven quitting a soulless corporation, I decide today is the day I'm finally going to post my "Request to Discharge" letter to the navy, effectively ending any final connection to the Australian Defence Force. Only envelope I can find is bright yellow - an idea is born.
1345 - Go and see if my sister's scooter will work because I've been left without a car; battery is dead.
1400 - Write the address for the Navy Reserve cell as neatly as possible on the bright yellow envelope, fit the letter in, then put the gayest stickers I could find in my mum's Creative Memories stuff all over the outside.

I wonder if they'll get the subtle message on the back?

1430 - Check scooter - still dead, guessing I'm riding.
1500 - Rode the 12km to the nearest Post Office to buy stamps and "tiny star" glitter.
1530 - Filled discharge letter with starry glitter and mailed it off. People looked at me weird as I filled a letter with glitter then took photos of it.....

I wish I could see my CO's reaction when this baby turns up

1600 - Ride home again; I'm sweating like a whore in church here.
Spend rest of the day/night blogging today's activities and planning tomorrow

So as you can see, I'm going at it LIKE A BOSS. If anyone else would like to ask what someone who's currently unemployed, their internet shaped and without a car does during the day, I would suggest reading the above again.

Screw it, I'm calling the marines now - I'm losing my fucking mind here

Wow, she managed to get her whole fist in there...

2009-05-02T22:07:00.010+08:00

Got back in last night from a fishing trip up north, and I've brought back the worst case of blue balls with me. Not because the trip was particularly arousing (although that would add a whole new level of awkward to staying in a wool shed with 12 middle-aged men), but because I spent 10 full days running around boats, pulling up anchors, free-diving up to 6 hours each day, and then collapsing into a sleeping bag mere inches away from other men.

Not much of an opportunity even for a sneaky fap

And then to top it all off, on the way home I'm stuck in the back of a ute for 12 hours with nothing to do but read Zoo magazines. Serious withdrawal symptoms were kicking in - you know things are getting pretty bad when you start to hallucinate and get stomach aches. Atleast I had something to use as a pillow though - the old man just assumed I was leaning on a flesh-coloured beanbag.

Faye Reagan and her schoolgirl outfit; the source of much
crab-walking from my room

I think "addiction" might be a strong word, but I have to admit that there is certainly a long and loving relationship between the Ginge and adult films. Most men I know treat pornography like their dog's pooper-scooper: a handy tool to make a "dirty" job a little easier, but not exactly something you want to bring out at Sunday lunch. This view of pr0n is tragically medieval (medieval porn..... hmmm, buxom wenches..... whoa! getting distracted). Classy poon is more like a Ferrero Rocher with strawberry ice cream - a tasty treat to be enjoyed after dinner and shared with friends at fancy parties.

Sure, I don't jam pink bits in the face of your bible-bashing aunty - but most who know me are well aware of my encyclopaedic collection of skin flicks. Some might suggest a connection between my porn vault and my current lack of girlfriend: my old housemates will assure you that the presence of another half didn't effect my viewing habits in the slightest. And when my old external hard drive died late last year it wasn't the loss of four years of uni work and music I went into mourning over; it was over the destruction of a truely epic fap archive - like an awesome modern day version of the library of Alexandria, except for titty-flicks.

There was porn for every occasion on there - everyday run-of-the-mill shorts; a fine selection of feature films catering to all tastes, for those special "dinner for one" nights; a shush folder exclusively for sharing at LANs (why let poon go to waste just because it's not YOUR cup of tea); and a range of "comedy porn" (have a giggle while you jiggle). There was even porn renamed and kept quarantined until just before a LAN - stuff you could drop into the general folder, then sit back to watch the reactions. I can proudly say my malicious use of porn has scarred an entire year group of uni students who all now fear going to sleep, least they see another horse wang in their dreams.

Blowjob... blowjob... big boobs... nurses... HOLY MOTHER OF ZEUS!
DO NOT WANT! DOOO NOOOOT WAAAAANT!

So long, fair hard drive - your loss was ball breaking. There is an interesting upside to being so hard on the horn though: randomness skyrockets. The amount of random shit coming out of my mouth in the last 24hrs has been astounding. Maybe I'd been binging on "Ferreros" abit much before, and it left me drained and boring... who knows, but I'd be surprised if you're still reading this anyway. Regardless, I'm back again and systems can resume their usual operation.

Which means I'm off to see if the pirate wenches of "SS Brabuster" and the mighty Lesbos armarda can defeat the defenceless crew of "Pinky's Revenge" and their trusty leader Captain Stabbin'.

My money is on Captain Stabbin' coming out on top.
See what I did there?

Pirates II - The 4 Disc Collectors Set
Because 3 discs of pirate porn simply wasn't enough

Goddamn I need to let off some steam...

More than a candle for the fallen

2009-04-17T21:37:00.019+08:00

As many of you will be aware April 17th was a solemn day for many.

It is a day when we reflect on the tragic loss of life that has continued unabated since it first began on that dark day in 1993. The body count steadily climbs each year, and yet there are many in our society that refuse to acknowledge the threat - blinding themselves to the undeniable danger, and in turn risking the lives of themselves and their friends and family through their naivety. It is a tragedy so often repeated by those touched by the ever present threat we acknowledge every April 17th.

I speak ofcourse, of Velociraptor Awareness Day

But while candle lit vigils have been occurring across the globe, one intrepid group of students decided it was not enough. Taking their lessons from documentaries such as Jurassic Park, the eternal wisdom of xkcd, and citing the intensive and ongoing experiments being conducted into raptor attacks - these fine young Samaritans decided to try and make a difference. And like all good academics suffering from this unique form of clinical lycanthrophy, they ran a full-length seminar series to tell everybody about it.

Courtesy of The West Australian, Inside Cover - 17th April, 2009

Abstract submissions covers all major facets of the global velociraptor threat, with in-depth analysis in lectures such as "A brief history of the Raptor Jesus", "Necesary Modifications to Zombie/Velociraptor contingency plans in the event of catastrophic hybridization", "Mathematical Derivation of Velociraptor Inescapability", and our very own toothsoup kindly presented his research regarding the use robots, David Bowie, a labyrinth, and dino porn to protect our cities from flying feathered velociraptors.

Raptor Jesus - An entrepreneur of biblical proportions

Ofcourse, always eager to lend my name to a worthwhile cause, yours truly presented the opening lecture of the seminar series entitled "More than a 6 foot turkey: An in-depth analysis of the global Velociraptor threat" under the pseudonym of Proffessor Teabus McBaggus. I discussed the various impact velociraptors have on humans, such as:

Their role in the hyper-inflation of Zimbabwe's economy,
How they now run our national telecommunication companies,
Disguise themselves in top-hates & trench coats,
Can only be identified by making them watch Titanic to see if they cry

NB: Only robots and velociraptors don't cry at the end of Titanic, in which case you should destory them before lest they enslave your world or evicerate your family.

The full series of lectures should be available on YouTube in the coming week (and subsequently posted here), but in the mean time be dazzled by the majesty of my powerpoint skillz below, only to then cringe in horror at the truly tragic stop-motion film screened during the mid-seminar interlude.

Just remember kids - Don't fall asleep, the raptors will get you

English, motherfucker - do you speak it?

2009-04-16T23:38:00.003+08:00

I don't think my vocabulary or prose is anything special. Sure, I write alot of stuff - but i'm certainly not going to become the next Hemingway or Hunter S. Thompson. Juggling words and crafting text into a fluent and coherent form is far from my forte. Instead, I tend to opt for the shotgun effect - throw out a random scattering of arguments and ideas in the hope the audience pick up the overall outline of things.

True wordsmiths hone and develop their art over many years, to the point where a single line can turn a text on it's head. Proof-reading for these people is not about picking up basic spelling or grammatical errors - it's about testing how the text sounds. They are a truly rare breed who use words like a master painter uses his brush.

But on the other end of the literacy spectrum however we have a very different type of "person". A unique group of individuals who seem consumed with bending the English language over the bonnet of their Commodore station wagon and violently raping it. Another common trait amongst these people is their incredible ability to reproduce, and it is for this reason they are commonly known as "Breeders". And this leads us to our first proverb of the night,

"If you can't read, you breed"

And while I've been quietly joking about it for the last 6 years, it now appears that 90% of the people I went to school with have infact turned out to be Breeders.

"Well done, son - now you go take that ravernous snorlax home
and make a dozen little miracles to run around the trailer park.
Just don't let them read!"

I saw the signs in school, I first passed comment around graduation, and I tried to distance myself from them at university. But alas in a town this big, and with the viral out-break of Facebook, it was inevitable the illiterate masses would come back to haunt me. In honesty I certainly didn't help the situation either, by adding dozens of them on Facebook purely with the intention of stalking them to laugh at their dismal lives.

Ofcourse the downside of stalking potentially brain-damaged, illiterate baby-makers is that you're exposed to their unfathomable stupidity with an incredibly debilitating regularity. And to compound the entire lobotomising experience not only is their entire existence mis-spelt, it's deliberately mis-spelt. Now I don't expect everyone to have perfect spelling and grammar by a long shot - I regularly make typos and fuck up my grammar. But to show such outright contempt for the English language makes me went to piss blood.

Some examples lifted (unedited) from Facebook status updates in the last week. I wish I was making these up:

a rota is lik a virgin goes pop a sr20 is a slut u get rid of afta she broke a 2jz is a prositute u make that mistake once rb26 wife reliable 4lyf
is wondering why ppl have to be that stupid seriously
is wantin to buy an emu .. n soo cnt wait for my bday :) emu plz??

Why people have to be that stupid indeed....

I had to cut and paste each of those quotes so I didn't become infected with stupidity from typing them out. But let me paint you a picture: If I somehow decided to befriend a chimpanzee, I'd first carefully gain it's trust, then try to teach it sign language. There would be set-backs, tantrums and disappointment, but after literally years of intensive work we would be able to communicate. I would probably see the chimp as one of my closest companions, a friend who I'd grown together with.

But if I ever taught my chimp to type, and it wrote anything even vaguely resembling the quotes above, I'd blow it's fucking brains out

Business chimp does not have time for your shit today

Reading back through the quotes now though, minus my trusty chimp companion, I have a single simple question for you all: What did vowels do to you that makes you hate them so much? Did they steal your car? Did you catch them molesting your dog? Did they try to sell you dodgy life insurance?

I only ask because they've clearly done something to upset you, and you're making yourself sound retarded just to spite the building blocks of our language. I'd like to help you all work this out, because once we've resolved you vowel issues we can then start on your problem with punctuation.

I'm not a grammar/spelling Nazi, but I've seen first hand where this leads if left unchecked. A bit of light text-speak dropped into the conversation at high-school, next thing you know you're in your mid 20's and everyone you went to school with has three kids (all to different fathers), smokes "Winny Blues" and work part-time at McDonalds.

My school dux, and winner of "Single Mother of the Year, 2002"

Jesus christ people, we all went to a rather well-off private school - you didn't grow up on tour with the fucking blue collar comedy club. You actually had a solid education that didn't involve shooting squirrels, comparing who had more teeth, or trying to rape your sister.

And I'm sure religion has a major part to play in all this: everyone of them is convinced God has blessed them to birth another little fucking miracle. News Flash Pork Chop - God wants you to put velcro between your gargantuan thighs so every time you hear that ripping sound you stop and wonder "Do I really need to make it a baker's dozen?". Ofcourse, you'll go ahead and "rock up the big stuff" anyway, because there's nothing good on TV and because they're all little gifts from God, arn't they?

Fuck 500 years in the future - the Idiocracy is here now, and it's spawning in my backyard.

I'm moving overseas.

The "101 Things" Update

2009-04-15T22:14:00.003+08:00

Well this never turned into a regular thing, but should I make the move off from blogspot there will definitely be a dedicated section on completing the "101 Things To Do Before You Die".

Or the other option I'm seriously looking at is writing of of this up into the autobiography of the century (to complete #1 on the list)... maybe after I clean up all the other shit on my plate. I've also worked through the list to see how I'm going to achieve the things on the list - so as long as I keep reminding myself about this, I'll be able to keep ticking off parts of the list.

I'm looking at doing a trip through North and South America purely to damage the list too (and visit Boeta in Vancouver). I'll be writing the best-seller while I'm travelling and working the rest of the list.

Anyway, the slightly updated list stands at 42 of 101

Write a Best-seller <--- work on "The Life and Times of the Mighty Ginge" starts soon
Swim with………
Win an Award, Trophy or Prize
Catch a fish with your bare hands
Make a discovery <--- ???
Throw a house party when your parents are out
Be Part of a threesome <--- Dwarfs + Lube + ???? = PROFIT!!!
Realise your childhood dream <--- This is so damn close, I can taste it.
Learn that instrument
Leave your mark in graffiti
Storm chase a tornado <--- Go to Kansas in tornado season for the Americas trip
Get a piece of art into an exhibition <--- I'm going to do one of those bullshit "Abstract Expressionism" pieces that look like a 4 year old's finger-painting
Meet someone with your own name <--- Phone book stalking
Ride the world’s biggest roller coasters <--- Americas Trip
Stage dive or crowd surf
Get into the Guinness Book of Records <--- Want to Organise a LAN to break the continuous First-Person-Shooter record of 24hrs
Own a pointless collection
Study the Kama Sutra and put theory into practice
Master Poker and win big in a casino <--- Ehhh, really can't be fucked
Get backstage and get off with a rock god <--- Need to go to more concerts
Be a human guinea pig
Go up in a hot air balloon <--- Either before I move to the UK, or when I get there
Get arrested <--- Keep blogging
See a space shuttle launch <--- Americas Trip
Capture the moment in an award-winning photograph <--- Keep submitting photos to Underwater photography competitions
Bungee Jump <--- Americas Trip
See an erupting volcano <--- Go to Hawaii on the Americas trip
Sky dive
Meet your idol <--- So many options here, they all involve binoculars, bushes and hiding from the cops
Stay in the best suite in a five star hotel <--- Americas Trip
Experience Weightlessness <--- Do the Vomit Comet on the Americas Trip
See the Aurora Borealis <--- Either head North on the Americas Trip, or do the "Diving in Antarctica" trip
Get to score a hole in one <--- Golf has AIDs
Design your own cocktail
Play a part in your favourite TV show <--- Definitely Americas Trip
Visit every country <--- Americas Trip and "Diving in Antarctica" would be every continent
Make fire without matches
See these animals in the wild
Go to the dogs
Get a free upgrade on a plane <--- Americas Trip?
Be friends with your ex
Hit your targets
Throw a dart into a map and travel where it lands
Attend a film premiere
Do a runner from a fancy restaurant <--- This is already planned out, for when I'm leaving Perth
Scuba Dive
Milk a cow <--- Fuck knows, anybody know a dairy farmer
Be present when your country wins the world cup <--- Either Rugby in 2013 or Cricket in 2011
See both solar and lunar eclipses
Write your name over a star on the walk of fame
Learn another language
Read the greatest books ever written <--- Still working on it
Complete a coast to coast road trip across America
Make at least one huge purchase you can’t afford <--- Probably the Americas and Antarctic trips
Score the winning goal/try/basket
Gatecrash a fancy party <--- Keh?
See the all-time Greatest films <--- Getting close
Live in the place you love <--- This is very close, and closely tied to #8
Leave a job you hate
Take part in a police line-up <--- What do I have to do to get NOTICED in this town!
Get away with the perfect practical joke or hoax
Join the mile-high club <--- Americas Trip, baby! God I feel dirty.......
Make the front page of a national newspaper <--- Hrmmmmm
Drive a car at top speed
Shout “Drinks are on me!” in a pub or a bar
Be part of a flash mob
Visit………. <--- Americas Trip
Save someone’s life <--- No idea
In various languages learn to………..
Invent a word that makes it into the dictionary <--- I'll have to start submitting shit
Have adventurous sex
Have enough money to do all the things on the list <--- Meaningful full-time work: I can see you now
Stand on the international date line <--- Americas Trip?
Learn to fly a plane
Get a tattoo and/or piercing <--- Ummmm.....
Invent something <--- I should have done this already
Learn astronomy and read the night sky
Drink a vintage wine
Answer a personal ad <--- Hehehe, I should have done this already too
Spend Christmas on the beach
Get barred from a pub or bar
Build your own house <--- BRING ON THE ECONOMIC DOWNTURN!
Skinny dip at midnight
Sell your junk on eBay and make a profit
Visit the world’s tallest buildings <--- Americas Trip
Run a marathon <--- I'd nearly run one now... Perth Marathon July 6th? Next year's London Marathon?
Conquer your fear
Get married unusually <--- I'm sure I could think up something suitabley awkward and obtuse
Throw away the Instant Noodles <--- I'm not that bad a cook, I should just do this one night
Join the 16-mile high club <---Part of the trip to Russia, probably when I climb Mt Elberus?
Publish a cult website
Own an original piece of art <--- Need to start visiting amateur galleries
Complete the monopoly board pub crawl <--- As SOON as I get to the UK and have time off
Get something named after you <--- People actually have to admire me to name something after me
Get revenge
Be an extra in a film <--- Americas Trip
Live out of a van <--- Americas Trip, or Wicked Campers trip somewhere
Go on a demonstration
Confess*
Reach 100 years of age*
Continue your gene pool <--- Any sexy gingers out there? Wanna destroy all humans?

*Note - P(99 or 100 being achieved) <0.00002

Cool Your Jets, Turbo

2009-04-14T23:41:00.002+08:00

Ohhh no, Hans Blix!
Don't you know how fucking busy I am?

I have some epic shit in the pipeline right now, and it's all going to come down this week - the velociraptor awareness seminar is complete, and as soon as this short film on the evolution of the velociraptor into a soul-less killing machine is complete there's about three posts worth of material backed up.

Add to that the weekly threat of new stand-up material, and even working occasionally - you might say I'm stretched abit thin.

Bare with me till Friday - words cannot describe how blown your mind will be

And this time, I'm truely sorry...

2009-04-02T21:20:00.003+08:00

I'd like to say sorry again.

I'm sorry to disappoint

I'm sorry I'm still here - and will continue to be here - to abuse and belittle you all.
I'm sorry you have nothing better to do than read this dribble
I'm sorry I'm a middle-class white boy with a penchant for violence and social non-sequiturs.
I'm sorry I failed to develop the basic social skills to tolerate the fantastically "normal" people I interact with on a daily basis, and instead have to spew out my randomness and rage in a blog.
I'm sorry none of you will ever be as awesome the "Mighty Ginge".
I'm sorry the final episode of Battlestar Galactica is degenerating into a spiritualistic hippy love-fest
I'm sorry that, even with the hippy love-fest, I'm finding the writing of this painfully sarcastic apology far less interesting than said episode.

I'm sorry I got so far up my own ass with my act that people honestly thought I'd give this all up, just because I might have hurt the feelings of a few sad sacks.
I'm sorry people believe I give a shit.

And I'm sorry but I can't be fucked typing "sorry" anymore.

Here's my card

April Fools, biatches - I'm not going anywhere.

My Deepest Apologies

2009-04-01T11:01:00.008+08:00

"The Mighty Ginge" has been a work of pleasure of mine for over a year now, and I'm proud of the time and effort I've put into it. It's been half rant, half meaningless dribble, and half random shit I find on the internet. All up, it's come to more than a blog - it's come to one and a half blogs of un-adulterated ranga.

But alas, with all the other chaos going on in my life and a few recent incidents regarding the content of this blog, this shall be my last post. Quitting my 8th job in 2 years made me realise that I finally need to grow up and embrace adulthood - I can't keep sponging off my parents, wasting hours on the internet watching stupid Youtube videos, and acknowledge that every job has it's good days and it's bad - now I just need to find one that pays well and is respected by my friends and family.

I essentially said goodbye a few months back when I joined the navy, only to return nastier and even more rangry. I left feeling full of hope, only to have everything I'd worked toward destroyed by burocratic incompetence. At the time I was really hurting, and I used "The Mighty Ginge" as an outlet for that. In the process though I targeted subjects and groups that didn't deserve my unbridled rage, and it's upset the people I care about.

I'd like to offer my most sincere regret at offending the incredible sailors that make up our clearance diving teams in the Royal Australian Navy, and more generally all of the members of the Australian Defence Force. I've said and written some pretty unfair stuff about all of you over the years, and it was wrong. Australia has been blessed with an outstanding defence force, and I'm sorry for the offence I've caused and the disrespect I've shown.

Words cannot express how sorry I am to all of the residents of the fine city of Perth for the things I have said about them. Perth is a fantastic city, filled with vibrant, friendly and exciting people. My parents chose to raise their two children in this beautiful city because of the relaxed and safe nature, knowing that both my sister and I would have access to some of the finest education in the country, and would grow up in a clean and spacious city. I lashed out at the residents of Perth because I saw my return as a confirmation of my own professional failure with the defence force, and it left the people I love and care about here confused and upset. I love this city, and I look forward to settling down and raising my own children here one day.

Perth - A great place to visit, live and raise kids

I want to apologise to all old people, and to the people who tried to save those 80-odd whales in Hamlin Bay recently. The things I said about you (and the creatures you were trying to save) were insensitive, obnoxious and unnecessary. In fact, I'd like to offer my apologies to anyone who has ever been offended by any of the posts made on this blog - I'm not looking for forgiveness, I merely want to say I'm sorry for being the sole creative force behind such an awful stain on the internet. I've attacked everyone from sun-sensitive Chuck Norris fans to mid-teens who make quizzes on social networking sites, and not one of them deserved it.

This world needs less hate, and from this day forward I intend to do my bit. Firstly I'm leaving this apology as the last entry on "The Mighty Ginge" for all to see; I'm going to start a job where I can contribute to society by teaching others, and I'm going to strive to be a more positive, helpful and friendly person.

Thank you all for the experience - now it's time to move on to a happier, brighter future!

Here's your weekly pension check

2009-03-27T19:55:00.010+09:00

My folks always encouraged a healthy respect for my elders. They wanted my sister and I to grow up learning from those that had done it before, seen it before and lived it before us. Mum and Dad expected us to visit the grandparents willingly, give up your seat on the bus for those older than you, and generally help and pay respect to the elderly wherever we interacted with them. I wouldn’t sit in a bus priority seat as a kid, even if the bus was full and there were no elderly onboard – just incase someone who needed it got onboard, they wouldn’t have to ask.

But a few years out in the workforce, a few years out from under the folk’s roof, and I’ve had a dawning realisation. The “elders” – the people I was taught to admire and see as role models – are a very select few, and are distinctly different from another group they are commonly confused with.

A group I like to call “old people”

Try giving me the finger when I break your arthritic hands with your own Zimmer frame

“Old people” are the absolute bain of my existence. While “elders” share fascinating and thought-provoking stories of another time; “old people” wont stop repeating the stories about how they last ate mud crab in 1967, how the road to Armadale used to have 3 less traffic lights, or how the speed limit for house boats in South Australia has been dropped from 7km/hr to 5.

NEWS FLASH GRAMPS – NO ONE GIVES A SHIT

You might think I’m just making these examples up, but after 3 weeks with my grandparents staying with us, I’m genuinely ready to start hunting an endangered species just to watch something precious die. Mindlessly reading a news article on the web last night I zoned out for about a minute, thinking about another bullshit story my grandfather had told me at dinner - some garbled crap about how they used to buy apples for 5c from a guy in a horse and cart on the side of the road. And in that mere 30 seconds, I managed to subconsciously navigate onto a site about the movie “Logan’s Run”.

Coincidence? I think not.

Jenny Agatta - probably the real reason for my subconcious navigation

Just a tiny selection of the classics I’ve heard recently:

“This suburb hasn’t changed much since we were last here in 1973” – passing through a suburb that didn’t exist till 2005.

“No, no – this is definitely the road to the airport” – driving along a road I took every day to school for 5 years.

And ofcourse the coup de grace,

“Yes, well I think everybody is an outside person, except for those people that like the inside” – discussing work in an office environment.

The truly sad thing is you don’t need to be old to be an old person – you know that annoying Chemistry major you always bump into in the café, the one that always wants to dribble on-and-on about the latest precipitate they produced in the class? You know the chick at your local service station that wants to tell you what the petrol prices have been since you came in the week before? And the guy at work that has told you the same joke every day for the last week?

Guess what – their stories and jokes don’t get better with time. They just get older and more repetitive. They’ll just keep telling everyone the exact same stories they’re telling everyone now – except in 60 years time it’s even less interesting or relevant.

And that's why we need a breeding-licence system….

Murmaider

2009-03-25T20:37:00.007+09:00

Maybe it’s just a by-product of my 80’s childhood, but I’ve always had a soft spot for whales. Peaceful nomads that cruise around the oceans, singing to each other in magnificent harmonies, and feeding on the weakest of all sea creatures (how do you like the bottom of the food chain, krill?). They even like to play around and have fun - jumping out of the water and warming the hearts of 10 year old fitness video stars and aging unicorns everywhere.

FUCK YOU KEIKO! DRAAAAGON-PUUUUUUUNCH!

So it pains me greatly when I see a small group of whales giving everyone else a bad name. Every section of the community has its extremists, and whales are no exception. The globally-aware among you almost certainly know, but a radical issue-based terrorist organisation of the magnitude of S.P.E.C.T.R.E has been operating unchecked for centuries, waging a bloody war on humanity based on their own misconceptions and self-hatred.

I speak of course, of “Land Rights for Sexually & Spatially Disoriented Whales” or the L.R.S.D.W.

These poor misguided mammals - frustrated by being a girl-whale born in a boy-whale’s body, and lacking even rudimentary flipper-eye coordination - lash out at a world that refuses to accept them as the clumsy transsexual cetaceans they are. Many decide to retreat to online games, where they can pretend to be 200ft long and covered in magnificent barnacles. Others decide to dye their baleen black and start listening to My Chemical Romance.

A few however decide to take the path of violence, and it these enraged leviathans that are recruited and become the foot soldiers of the L.R.S.D.W terror campaign. The hate-mongers at the head of the L.R.S.D.W. fill the minds of these impressionable whales with lies and stereotypes about humans, telling the young ones how the whales are the one true masters of the ocean, how it is the human’s broadcast of “Queer Eye” into the seas that has made them renounce their sexuality and want girl-bits, and what gall these flipper-less humans have to be dominating and corrupting the media above and below sea-level.

A killer whale silences a queer-eye kayaker

raving about how good his hair looks with highlights

Specially selected and trained whales are trained to be part of the L.S.S.D.W’s elite “Moby’s Dick” special forces battalion. These elite animals are trained to attack the human shipping, impale themselves on the harpoons of unassuming Japanese fishing boats, and paint themselves white for long-term psychological campaigns. It was a Moby’s Dick member that was involved in the assassination attempt of David Attenborough.

The most common attack however is also the most heinous - filled with L.R.S.D.W rhetoric and a new sense of whale-pride, these vertigo-suffering behemoths attack the very fabric of the human condition by beaching themselves and dying, preventing people from 4-wheel driving on the sand. The most recent attack has been down at Hamlin Bay, south of Margaret River in W.A, where 80 of the L.R.S.D.W’s finest hefted their blubbery carcasses up onto the beach. And while the humans fought back resiliently to get 10 of the whales off the beach, even recruiting school-children to the cause, the whales ultimately had the last laugh - all but two of them rebeached themselves less than 24hrs later.

Remember though – not all whales are evil. While the L.R.S.D.W continue to attack our people and our way of life, they do not represent the whales that have lived amongst us, peacefully integrated with decades. Only through understanding and a joint effort against those few bad pods, can human and cetacean co-exist in harmony.

[Movie Review] Who Watches the Watchmen? Comic Book Guys....

2009-03-20T10:59:00.015+09:00

I've been working on a post about how much I hate old people (my grandparents are staying here at the moment) butI thought I'd try my hand at this movie review business - simply because I've seen a couple of good movies in the last few weeks, and because I recently discovered it's okay to put spoilers in a movie review.
So after finally seeing "The Watchmen" last night, I have this to share:

THE COMEDIAN DIES

Ummm..... *begin spoilers*

Before we bust out with the full-blown review of the movie itself, let me set the scene. I rock up at the cinemas, buy my ticket, grab a coffee from Dome and wander into the theater. The Watchmen has been on for a few weeks, so it's playing in one of the shitty little back theaters with a center isle so nobody gets the best seats. I'm there about 10 mins early though, so the place is empty while I chill out and drink my coffee.

A few minutes later and no one else has turned up - I might be in luck, might have the theater all to myself! I close my eyes and sip my coffee, half-dozing till the ads start. Alas it's not to be; some weirdo with more hair in his mullet than I have on my entire body, and wearing his watchmen t-shirt and flannel overshirt, has decided to talk to me about "How empty is this cinema, eh?".

Great, I've managed to made friends with a comic book reading, mullet-wearing bogan from Canada without speaking or making eye contact.

But he's not the end of it - as I watch the rest of the audience trickle in, I realise a movie like The Watchmen isn't quite as accessable to the public as I'd previously imagined. I'm in a theater full of RL versions of the comic book guy from the Simpsons; all carrying on about how incredible the graphic novel was, all carrying on about how this could never live up to it. And the only "couples" in there were brothers & sisters....

Comic Book Guys - Worst..... audience..... participants..... ever

Is this what I've become? Does reading one of Time magazine's 100 best novels suddenly make me one of them? The graphic novel is incredible (having only read it a few days ago), but has my geek-dom now finally hit a point that I find myself purely in the company of walking/talking geek stereotypes? The old physics department had it's fair share, sure - but we also made efforts to keep that shit in check, tried to maintain some basic degree of social skills.

This was a little scary...

Anyway, the movie itself. Having only just finished reading the novel for the first time, it was still very fresh in my mind, so seeing where Zack Snyder had literally lifted cells from the novel was fantastic. Hearing the same dialogue from the novel was a boost too. On the whole he's been incredibly true to the graphic novel, and in many ways that's the downfall of the film - it served only to highlight where he'd been forced to stray from the original story, or drop backstory.

LIKE WHERE THE FUCK IS THE GARGANTUAN PSYCHIC SQUID?
Did I mention there were spoilers in this?

I know, I know: time-constraints and transfer to the silver screen and blah de blah blah - at nearly 3 hours long though, the least you could have done is thrown in the damn squid. The time issue was a big one - to cover the ground of the novel a lot of material had to be condensed, reduced, brought forward in time and (in the case of the final act) outright changed. Which would have been fine, if they'd still managed to develop the same level of character depth.

As it was it all felt forced - when I read Rorschach appologise to Nite Owl II for being difficult in the novel, I knew Rorschach had so completely lost touch that Dan was the only connection to the world he had left. When the same scene occured in the film, it felt weird and out of place. It was the same for Dr Manhatten and Silk Spectre II's conversation on Mars, when Laurie discovers who her father is - awkward and weird

I loved the development of Rorschach though - staying true to his inventive killings and bleak outlook on what the world had become. If only he hadn't been so much like Clint Eastwood - seeing Gran Torino last week probably didn't help, but it seemed like Jackie Haley had envisioned Rorschach as some kind of masked version of Dirty Harry. My vision of Rorschach was as an expressionless, monotone sociopath who showed his creative side through killing scum; but a man who'd developed that way out of a life of abuse and exposure to the face of evil.

Who'd have thought my favourite character would be the sociopathic ginger-kid?

Seeing Rorschach out of control though - losing it with a meat cleaver on a guys head, or flipping out when he's been framed in Moloch's apartment - didn't add up. As far as I could tell in novel he only lost it or showed any emotion at all was when he was first stripped of his mask, or when Dr Manhatten tells him he can't allow Rorschach to tell the world of Ozymandias's act.

One problem I always have with novel/comic to movie transfers is character voices - as you read a mental voice for each character develops, and then hearing them sound "different" on film irks me. And this was particularly apparent with "The Watchmen", given how long it was and the visual component of the graphic novel - the Comedian and Silk Spectre were pretty close, Rorschach sounded like Dirty Harry as I said, and Nite Owl II sounded exactly like the bird-obsessed paedophile I'd envisioned him as. The one that pissed me off though was Dr Manhatten - he sounded more like a confused kid, instead of an emotionally-detatched superbeing - and I never got over it, right till the credits rolled.

Speaking of voices and sound, Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are a Changin' " was perfectly suited as an opening track, backing up the incredible imagery that provided tons of backstory. But Leonard Cohen needs to be fed to a pen full of starving Velociraptors for his version of "Hallelujah", which suddenly started playing when Nite Owl and Silk Spectre started getting it on in the Owl-mobile. Not only is it the shittiest cover of a song that should only be performed by Jeff Buckley, the song itself was so inappropriate for the scene. The entire soundtrack was pretty hit and miss: some of the songs were a perfect compliment to the story and added to the tone of the moment - others were so jarring and poorly chosen I wanted to cover my ears and scream "LALALALALALALA" like a 4-year old.

And yes, I know the "Owl-mobile" is called "Archie" - screaming fan boys/girls are invited to eat glass instead of filling my email account with poorly spelled hate-mail.

The costume updates were fantastic - they all captured the essence of the originals, while removing the "cheese-factor" the old ones had. One of the best things about Rorschach and the Comedian was that their costumes were as hard and distinctive as they were - so Zack Snyder kept them unchanged! Nite Owl had a few minor changes, but was essentially the same. They didn't shy away from Dr Manhatten's nudity (although the blinding blueness certainly helped hide his super-wang).

Silk Spectre and Ozymandias were the most important costume changes though. The revealing nature of Silk Spectre II's costume was updated to be as scandalous as the original was in 1987 (does the term "cameltoe" offend anyone? It does? Good, it was meant to) and Ozy's costume lost all the original purple skirts and golden headbands for something more in keeping with his idolisation of Alexander the Great and Ramses II, without the character losing the obvious homosexual overtones.

Old vs. New Silk Spectre -
Hrmmmm, PVC thigh-highs you say?

On the whole? For all it's faults I liked "The Watchmen" - sure I would have done a few things differently, but on the whole it is incredibly faithful to the original graphic novel. Many directors have tried and failed to bring this story to the big screen before, and I think Zack Synder has walked a fine line between offending generations of comic book fans and making a movie that's even remotely accessable to the general public. I also found the film filled in minor points of the novel I'd missed, or highlighted connections I'd missed.

So for anyone interested in the Watchmen, I'd say take the time to read the graphic novel, and then see the film for what it is - an excellent adaptation of an original masterpiece.

Overall: 4 out of 5 Ginger Teabags

And for those of you that have read the graphic novel, I'm sure you'll all appreciate the humor in this....

An Open Letter to the City of Perth

2009-03-12T13:24:00.005+09:00

Dearest Perth,
We've both seen the signs for sometime now, but we've both been too scared to admit that special thing we had was slipping away. I know that both of us have worked so hard to keep it together over this last year, but there comes a time when the pain of staying together outweighs the fun times we have. I wanted to write this letter to you to try and explain why I don't see us having a future together anymore.

It's not that I mind the new Ferris wheel, or the Bell tower; but it just an example of you going ahead and doing something major without asking me. I for one would have gone with a totally awesome rollercoaster, or maybe giraffe rides along the foreshore. Instead it just looks like you're trying to be a dodgy version of London, only without the class or the opening hours.

And while we're on opening hours - I used to think your old fashioned approach to business hours was quirky and endearing. But as we've both grown it's become an increasing nuisance. Want to go out for a night on the town? "Sorry guys, Perth goes to bed when Fat Cat tells her too". I'm not really the type to go out partying all night, but I would like the option. Being a Ginger effectively precludes me from doing anything during the day as it is, much less enjoy your beaches that everyone else seems to have an aneurysm over. It's honestly only been out of a misplaced sense of loyalty to you and your medieval lifestyle that I didn't turn completely nocturnal years ago.

By now I'm sure you know I've been seeing other cities on the side, so it's not right to keep leading you on. My time with Melbourne showed me how much fun I used have before we met, before I started growing old too early in this over-sized country town. While things haven't necessarily worked out with her, she certainly made me realise how much more fun my life could be. She helped me remember what life was like before I took up "residence" in you - roaming free, being an epic man-slut, hanging shit on random people to their face rather than storing it up and posting it on the internet, and generally being too awesome for puny human words to express.

Barney Stinson - Stopped being sad, started being awesome instead

I gave that all up to be with you, but now I know it was a huge mistake. Your football teams are shit, and the self-absorbed sports reporters that jerk off over them every night deserve to drown in their own sleaze. I used to tell people I lived in Perth but I stopped, because now living in Perth is kind of like having a scooter - it was fun to ride till my friends found out.

Epic Suspension - He probably should buy some

Please don't get upset - we both saw this coming when you knocked back daylight savings for the third time and I forced it on you anyway. I was just trying to bring you out of the 18th century. I know you'll miss me - part of me will always miss you too. But I can't go another day crusing down the freeway to be cut-off by another one of the dementia patients you've issued a driving licence. Everyone says the drivers in their city are the worst - trust me, only the drivers in Amman are worse than your's, and that's only because they're trying to keep the goats in the backseat at the same time.

I'm sorry it's come to this, but we couldn't keep going the way we were. I'll be around for a little while longer, just to pack up my stuff and then I'll be gone. I'd still like to come back and visit you occasionally, but it probably better if we leave it just at that.

Good luck with your future ventures, whatever they may be.

Kind Regards,
The Mighty Ginge

Like I had anywhere better to be....

2009-03-08T14:10:00.008+09:00

So I'm back in Perth.

Perth - The fat autistic kid talking to the monkey bars in the
school yard of Australian capital cities

My honest intention was to never return to this cultural cesspool, but lady luck and the Navy have decided either I;
a) need to be here for something
b) wasn't meant to be where I was
or
c) some enormous douche bag decided to have a battle royale with a Bull shark in Sydney harbour, and effectively butt-fucked my chances of having a career diving for the Navy any time in the next decade......

........ not that I'm bitter about it

In the mean time though it means a lot more Mighty Ginge, the occasional dodgy stand-up attempt, maybe train some muppets to dive, more awkward moments trying to explain why I'm still lurking around my old uni years after I graduated, and whatever else comes my way.

Expect the rant-level on the Ginge to go up to 11 too, as I start trying to find things to do instead of drowning puppies in my backyard.

Enjoy

You Can Sail the Seven Seas!

2009-02-08T08:42:00.011+09:00

Well it's finally rolled around - I'm flying into Melbourne this afternoon, being trucked down to HMAS Cerberus this evening, and start my four week Navy acquaints course at 0730 tomorrow morning. Needless to say, the Mighty Ginge isn't going to be getting updated much in the next month. And if things go the way I want to them too, it may not get updated for a lot longer than that - the Clearance Diver course is 9 months long, and if you've got time to write a blog post during that you've got time to be doing more push-ups.

I'd apologise for not updating in the last week or so; but between getting ready to go, dealing with random shit, preparing for the popping of my stand-up cherry, and having a utter sense of disdain for my readers - I couldn't be bothered.

I had plans to write up a break-up letter to Perth, but since there's a chance I'll be back here come March, I didn't want to be hasty. I had plans to write a piece on the stand-up gig, and how I'm now an empty husk of a human being for doing so. I might still do it, but if I do I'd want to put the video of it up - and then I'd have to deal with the paparazzi and hysterical fans in the street cause they'd know my face.

But I haven't yet - and your lives are emptier for it.......

Anyway there won't be alot of activity on here for awhile. In the mean time, I'm off on the equivalent of Steve's hunt for the Jaguar shark. And in the words of the great man himself,

I'm right on the edge - I don't know what comes next
Steve Zissou

Seven little Lt. Steven Hauk impersonators

2009-01-25T23:52:00.002+09:00

Well I had to come back for a little while, even if it has just ended up being me moving back into my old room and paying some bills. And while my temporary return to the Wild West has been for the most part terminally boring, I have been able to revel into some truely terrible stand-up comedy.

Okay, so comparing Tuesday night at Lazy Susan's to Carrot-Top might seem be abit extreme. But for someone going to a comedy club for the first time, it certainly felt like my first time. There were no fireworks, no ringing bells, a fair bit of bleeding and alot of tears. Just like a de-flowered 16 year old girl, what I dreamt would be an exciting and wonderful experience instead left me feeling hollow and covered in the kind of unclean you can't scrub away, no matter how much boiling water and steel wool you use.

Kind of like looking at this picture....

Carrot-Top: Your existance is a disservice to all comedians,
Gingers, and humanity as a whole...
Also, your nakedness brings tears to my eyes

There are always diamonds in the rough ofcourse, and last Tuesday was no exception. There was the lanky dude who got side-tracked during his routine and then decided to have a complete psychotic break on stage, losing it at the guy sitting next to me because he had a beard, screaming "ARE YOU HAVING A GOOD TIME THERE, BEARDO?! HA?! ANSWER ME! HAVING FUN ARE WE?!" for about 5 minutes while "Beardo" smiled nervously. There was the dude playing some kind of generic foreigner, analysing the 6 catagories of comedian. And ofcourse there was the adorable blonde chick who gave us all a stunning musical-rendition of what she though "Scat Porn" was all about, before she discovered it infact has nothing to do with scat singing. Ofcourse, my opinion of her is probably tainted by the fact she was essentially dressed up as a Swedish milk maid.

Swedish Milkmaids - Implausibly funny to men the world over

Alas they were but 3 acts from stable of 10 for the night....... A 30% hit-rate isn't something anyone should be proud of. I'm still trying to work out why we had one guy gibbering into the mic for 10 minutes about how his ex-girlfriend broke up with him because he admitted he had a dream about having sex with Shakira. Or why, when things started to come unstuck on stage, almost every male performer turned into a sexist asshole infront of a largely female audience.
Strange.......

I'm incredibly tempted to try stand-up there myself, knowing that any effort I make will a) probably lift the general comedic standard, and b) not hang over my head for long because I'm escaping back to Victoria. There's no way in hell I'd try it in Melbourne, the veritable home of Australian comedy. But I suspect the standard here is low enough that I could make a good go at it.

Stay tuned Perth-based Ginge fans - there may just be cracks about eating babies and clubbing harp seals coming soon (for one night only) to a comedy den near you.

PETA - Preventing Everyone from Tasting Armadillo

2009-01-22T22:55:00.009+09:00

Now given the number of references made on this tiny piece of electronic real estate to various animals dying violent deaths (often involving Chuck Norris or Sarah Palin), or eradicating entire species based on the absurd idea that they may have fascist tendencies; you may have incorrectly assumed that I don't like animals.

I love the narrator in the final seconds - "Poor Bambi"

And while I do warn people not to trust penguins, it's not like I'm running around saying "fuck whales, they don't have souls". All animals have their place, and that place is directly under me on the food chain (particularly fresh Manatee - there's something about being shaped like a big grey Twinky that makes them taste extra sweet). But I do get conservation groups - they love animals, they want to save species from extinction, maintain biodiversity, ect, ect. And I commend most of them for what they do. WWF, Greenpeace, Sea Shepherd - they're all out there raising awareness and trying to protect our planet and the animals on it.

Unfortunately there's one group of people out there that seem to have disconnected with reality, and forgotten that animals are not, infact, human. And given their latest campaign, have also forgotten that no one actually gives a fuck about kittens - unless they're speaking pidgin english.

LOL Cats: Single-handedly reducing Queen's English
to some sort of half-aborted love child of Madonna and Jon Heder

I'm talking about the militant fem-nazis from PETA ofcourse.

PETA have recently started a campaign against people eating fish, claiming that if the word "Fish" was replaced by "Sea Kittens", people would be less likely to eat fish. Now I don't know about the rest of you, but when I look at a fish (an actual fish) the last thing I think it looks like is a fucking kitten. But maybe that's the point......

Maybe I'd eat more fish though if they did look like kittens. It's not been mentioned before but while I'll never smoke, I am a social kitten-huffer (only when I'm drinking). It's not a common practice here in Australia anymore, but it is making abit of a Renaissance. For those of you new to kitten-huffing though, it is the ancient practice of consuming a kitten's soul - generally by cupping your hand's around the kitten's head and sucking the soul out through it's mouth/nose.

This dude has been hot-huffing WAAAAAAAY too many Bengal kittens

Long-time huffers will tell you that there are side-effects, but as long as you play it safe by sticking with garden variety kittens and don't try anything too experimental. Be careful with huffing cheetah (fastest huff in the world), and Chuck Norris is the only person to ever survive the fabled "Lion huff". But stick to common browns or even the treasured orange kitten, and it's is a fun and relatively safe way to get high.

So, my question is - Will PETA's campaign lead to an increase in kitten-huffing? Or will it instead spawn a whole new underground movement of "Sea-kitten-huffers", trying to escape the clutches of reality by snorting a sea bass, then chasing Ariel and Sebastian into their underwater wonderland.

What's blue, has 6 arms, and will fuck up
your day at the beach?

Stay off drugs kids - you'll wind up sitting pant-less infront of a laptop, sucking the souls out of kittens and embedding Disney movies into a blog.

Drink MINOTAUR instead - TASTE THE BEAST!

Episode 3 - Gu Gu strikes back

2009-01-16T12:35:00.000+09:00

Just a quick warning: I finally picked up a newspaper for the first time in about 2 years, so expect a flurry of "hip" and "topical" posts as opposed to my usual poorly informed abuse of things normal people forgot existed.
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When are people going to finally learn to fear Pandas? Sure they're furry and look adorable, like big greyscale teddy bears. But have no doubts: given the chance, a giant panda will beat you like a red-headed step-child then rape your dog. I've tried to spread the word on how deadly a properly trained panda can be (I hope you snort rat poison, Jack Black - lethal ninja Pandas were my idea), but it seems people still aren't getting the message.

Here's a handy hint - don't climb into the enclosure with the Panda
that has already developed a taste for human blood

Funniest thing is they had to pry the panda's jaws off the guy's leg with tools, because the furry one was so locked on. I'm guessing Gu Gu feels pretty cheated: he was sure that after two previous attempts, third time would be a charm and he'd get a proper meal.

Don't mess with pandas people, or they'll mess with you.
Even when you're drunk.

True of Eye, Straight of Limb

2009-01-16T10:02:00.006+09:00

Was halfway through writing a post on killer panda attacks when I heard the news on Triple J.

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The PM and Governor-General called a press conference to announce a "historical national event" this morning, releasing no further details until the conference at 11:30am AEDT.

Image courtesy of Dept. of Defence

This morning Trooper Mark Donaldson became the 96th Australian solider to be awarded the Victoria Cross, and the first in nearly 40 years. Quoting the Governor-General's official secretary;

"As the battle raged around him he saw that the coalition force interpreter was lying motionless on exposed ground. With complete disregard for his own safety on his own initiative and alone, Trooper Donaldson ran back 80 metres across exposed ground to rescue the interpreter and carry him back to a vehicle. Trooper Donaldson then rejoined his patrol and then continued to engage the enemy while remaining exposed to heavy enemy fire."

The last Australian awarded a Victoria Cross was WO1 Keith Payne, for his actions as part of AATV in May 1969. Warrent Officer Payne's Vietnamese training troops were surrounded on three sides by a significantly larger NVA force, and Payne found and either personally rescued (or coordinated the rescue of) over 40 of his wounded men. He then lead the survivors back through enemy-controlled ground to safety.

I'd just like to share how proud I am to be an Australian serviceman, and an Australian in general - particularly today.

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And now a return to our regular programming...............

Why did you leave Jerry....... WHY?!

2009-01-15T20:12:00.006+09:00

The childhood of Ginger kids is generally traumatic at best. Spurned by their peers and bringing shame to their parents for birthing a red devil, the Ginger kid is almost certain to hit adulthood with some significant form of emotional scaring. Some of them even start blogs about it.

Fortunately for you, dear reader, the Ginger ninja was too busy to acknowledge his cultural pariah status. Between hunting down defenceless animals with my bare hands, giving my year 6 teacher a nervous breakdown (easily one of the primary school highlights), or just being completely awesome; things were fairly busy back when I was a tiny ball of ranga fur.

But just to mix things up a little, the folks decided to pick up the house and live in the Middle East for a couple of years. Seems they suddenly developed the urge to house their young family next to a live minefield - work that shit out.

My backyard only less grassy, more "Lawrence of Arabia"

Now as you might expect, Ginger kids show up in the Middle East as often as dingos take babies - about once every 20 years. And walking outside either meant being pelted with stones, being molested, or being scorched alive by the desert sun.

Luckily for me, one of the best things about living in a third-world country though is the incredible selection of TV shows. You have Arabic soaps, Arabic news, Arabic talk-shows, Arabic cartoons, Arabic action movies - everything you could ever want should you speak Arabic. Don't speak Arabic? That's okay though, we lived close enough to the Israeli border (hence the minefield) to get half a dozen different TV channels from there....... in Hebrew instead.

But for the rest of us, the show selection was slightly limited - generally a nauseating mix of "Happy Days", "Remington Steel", and "Little House on the Prairie". We were occasionally blessed with some home grown television though - "The Bushtucker Man" would come on once a week, and if we turned the volume up enough we could just hear those sweet nasal tones of Les Hiddins under the awful Russian dubbing (yes, Russian - God knows why).

Oh dearest Les - I always knew you should have been MacGyver

There was one beacon of civilisation though; one faithful lighthouse in the maelstrom of electromagnetic boredom - Sliders

John Rhys-Davies : the only man I've ever seen wearing
a bow tie without having a conviction for sexual assault to go with it

Sliders was one of the few shows we got regularly in English - sure there were both Arabic and Hebrew sub-titles covering half the screen; but my sister and I still got to revel in the wonder of Jerry O'Connell fighting dinosaurs, being fondled by strange alien women or trapped in some bizarre alternate-reality prison while the token black guy, the token scientist-fat guy and the token pretty girl watched on as "Cue-ball" got them out of yet another bubblegum crisis.

I only bring up the legendary Sliders because I got a hard drive full of TV shows for Christmas. Besides the Mentalist, Dexter and Big Bang Theory, it was stocked with all 88 episodes of slider-lovin'. Looking for a bit of a flashback, I loaded up the series pilot and started from the start. Well half flashback, half already seen everything else on the drive except Dr Who..... and I had to force myself to say no to the Doctor.

No - I will not get in the back of your Tardis,
regardless of how much candy you claim to have

A week later and I wish I'd never gotten any Christmas presents.

Don't get me wrong, I loved the first four seasons of Sliders - I could the handle terrible acting, god-awful special effects, and nonsense plots because it was all fun and occasionally thought-provoking. Even after they completely aborted Wade and the Professor in season three, the fourth season still managed serious awesomeness. But Jesus Christ am I glad I never saw season 5 as a kid.

Besides dumping the O'Connell brothers from the line-up and replacing Jerry in the clumsiest plot turn in the history of television ("Look! It's still Quinn Mallory, he just looks completely different, has the intellect of house brick, and we call him Mallory instead of Quinn"), the entire season had no purpose. Every season previous, the sliders were searching for someone's homeworld - first to get back to where they started, then to Quinn and Colin's real homeworld.

Season 5 - Quinn and Colin are gone, and none of the remaining team can return to their worlds....... SO WHY THE HELL ARE THEY STILL SLIDING? The entire season is spent jumping the fucking shark.

There was one upside to season 5 - it was a launch pad for two of television's greatest assholes.

I'm sure there are federal laws against
bearing the children of either of these two

Both the Janitor and Dr Kelsoe play minor characters in different Slider episodes - and neither of them are recognisable. The Janitor got forced into a shitty little role as a security guard in some alternate world where motorcycles were illegal (?). Kelsoe got an episode long role, but still had to play a limp-wristed palaeontologist that discovers an ancient stasis chamber with someone still in it, only to get driven off the dig by a bunch of illiterate, unwashed Mexicans claiming to be "protecting the spirits".

No wonder these two play the characters they do - Ken and Neil, we here at the Ginge salute you.

Xmas Shenanigans

2008-12-27T20:38:00.005+09:00

People say I get abit funny around Christmas.

I'm either running around in an elves hat acting like a four-year old at work; off in some god-forsaken hell hole for work/funsies; or worst of all- stuck with the extended family and trying to avoid participating in a calculated and well-planned homicide dressed as Santa. Yes, I know it's supposed to all be about family and togetherness, but damn it - if your good Christian aunty is killing the cheer with yet another whinge about how even her kids don't like her, I don't personally think "Mary, grow up - you're acting like a fucking child" is out of line.

Strangely, I didn't get a card this year.....

Thanks aunty - a lump of coal is exactly what I needed to
warm your cold dead heart

"Christmas lunch with the relatives" has always been (and probably will always be) something to be avoided at all cost. I'm not saying my immediate family and I are a picture of normality, but these people are bat-shit crazy. Even ignoring the entire half of the family that joined some bizarre kind of cult that become posessed by spirits and speak in tongues; we still have a convicted drug dealer, an uncle who - without a word of a lie - married a woman who's real name was "Fook Mii", and an orthodontist....

Okay, so the orthodontist isn't that bad.

But by escaping to the old country for a few months I managed to dodge the worst of it, and have Christmas with someone else's extended family. Gotta say getting smashed at Christmas lunch (with a family that's not trying to conduct an exocisim) over some great food is the height of awesomeness. Can't say helping to hook up the PS2, only to have them play "Singstar Disney Classics" was such a good idea though.

Also can't say I didn't then get up and attempt to sing "Just can't wait to be King" from The Lion King - it would appear I'm as tone-deaf as my D in year 9 music said I was. Didn't stop me singing everything from The Jungle Book though......

I can't say if there was Ginger ass-wiggling
to this - nor can I deny it

So, in short kids get out there and start drinking with strangers, instead of your own family....... it leads to spilt drinks in front of other people's grandmothers, struggling to complete sentences when speaking to other people's uncles, or singing "Under the Sea" from The Little Mermaid with someone else's cousin. Drinking with other people's family also often leads to even more intoxicated Boxing Days, the likes of which I doubt I will live down for weeks to come.

Let's just say there was a day at the country races, more Singstar Disney, and an above-ground pool involved...........

Who throws a shoe? Honestly...........

2008-12-16T14:01:00.005+09:00

I can honestly say that even though I've been struck down by some kind of mega-malaria/death-dysentery super-bug over the last few days, watching this video on repeat still makes me giggle painfully every damn time.

Just you wait super-bug: I'm going to find out your real name, find out where you're infectious disease of a wife works and where your tiny microbial children go to school, and then I'm gonna drop so much bleach down on them your going to think "White King" have moved into WMD research & development.

And then I'm going to come after you......

Velociraptors ain't got shit on Pingu

2008-12-05T16:14:00.013+09:00

My room, circa 1990 - 2000

I'll be honest right from the outset: dinosaurs gave me the world's biggest pre-teen boner. When I was a kid I was subscribed to magazine on dinosaurs, had dinosaur posters in my room, collected glow in the dark dinosaur skeleton models - the works.

And when Jurassic Park came out in 1993 I literally wet my pants in anticipation. The folks said I couldn't see it at the cinema because they thought the scary monsters on the big screen would damage my fragile psyche (but regularly having me hunt down and strangle wild rabbits with my bare hands while I was 7 was somehow okay - good one Dad), so I had to wait for the VHS rental release before I could watch my favourite animals systematically hunting down those pitiful humans.

And within minutes of finally popping the tape in I knew I had witnessed the greatest movie intro in cinema history...

I still scream "SHOOOOT HER!" at people, 15 years
after Jurassic Park was cool

And even today, a decade after I gave away my dino posters and donated my entire "Dinosaurs" magazine subscription to my dinosaur-denying Baptist high-school's library (a subscription which I'm sure was burnt the day I graduated, since I couldn't keep checking it was still there anymore), I still love my dinos. So when Jurassic Park came on the other night I decided it was time for a trip down memory lane.

I settled in for the night with coffee, icecream and icemagic and flashed-back to my childhood the moment that black guy starts lifting the gate and winds up as raptor shit. But in the back of my mind I knew something wasn't right. It was still Jurassic Park - it hadn't changed one bit (except when they raped the francise by going back for number 3, and soon number 4). But seeing the Velociraptors again I couldn't get this total sense of dread out of my chest that had never been there before.

I'd never been scared of the raptors as a kid, but looking into their eyes now scared the shit out of me. And then I worked out what it was - I'd seen those eyes just days before, staring out unblinkingly from the one animal I now truly do hate and fear.

They wait till you fall asleep

Melbourne Aquarium recently opened their new penguin exhibit, and I was lucky enough to see these beady-eyed little bastards before the general public smeared their themselves all over the glass to the exhibit. No one else there seemed to see their tiny black un-blinking eyes staring out through the glass, or their goose-stepping around in formation like some kind of tiny penguin Schutzstaffel..... oh no, it was all "Ohhh, arn't they adorable!" and "Look at their little feathers, they all look like they're wearing tiny suits!"

I fucking hate penguins - they're creepy, covert little footballs of terror, waiting to strike when we ignorant humans least expect it. They run a damn good PR campaign too, with a variety of different movies, documentaries and TV spots showing how "adorable" and non-threatening they are.

Fuck you La La - I will hunt you, and the people who
saved you, down like the dogs you all are

One of my bosses here even jokingly suggested we start running penguin dives to complement the shark dives we're already doing at the aquarium - besides it being a balmy 4 degrees in the penguin tank, I'd rather face-off with a pissed off honey badger than jump in a tank full of these little assholes. Penguins have also been the mascot of one of the most annoying groups of people on the planet for over a decade now - Linux users. And even then, the guy behind Linux chose the logo just to appease his penguin masters after one of them bit him.

So congratulations penguins, you managed to fuck up a cherished childhood memory and make an enemy for life. Atleast the ones in the aquarium exhibit will be fairly easy to get rid of - flame throwers were designed for clearing out tightly enclosed places. In the meantime I'll go back to looking for more pictures like this -

Shredded penguin - Taste the rainbow, bitch

Stock trader? Kill yourself...

2008-11-23T18:59:00.011+09:00

Unless you've been living under Casey Donovan you should know that the financial world has burst into flames, frozen alpacas are falling from the sky, rabid giraffes are porking penguins, and anyone even remotely connected to the stock market have torn off their own faces.

Casey Donovan ate capitalism

And while our beloved Ruddy may be "ahead of the curve" in this economic shit-fight, the yanks will have to wait till the Dark Knight himself is sworn-in on Jan 20th before anything happens. Why can't they do anything before? Seems everyone's favourite Texan dipshit is convinced that the only way out of an economic crisis caused by abuse of free-markets is to maintain a free-market - kinda like throwing petrol on a fuel fire.

But what would I know, I'm a Communist. Though even with my clear left-wing pinko tendencies I can admit that there is only one true solution to the current crisis, one obvious way to kick-start the world economy...........

SACRIFICING CHRISTIANS TO THE MIGHTY GOD OF CHICKEN KIEV

Westboro Baptist Church -
capable of spoiling even the most perfect chicken kiev

Only through the power of tender chicken kiev can we climb out of the pit of economic despair, and through the ritualistic sacrificing of fundamentalist christians the kiev will grow to it's most tender and soft - I say we start with the Kansas School board first, then working our way through the Westboro Baptist Church, saving Fred Phelps for last.

Whatever, I'm going to sleep - the Kiev compels you

"Flying with Qantas" starring Kiefer Sutherland & Julia Roberts

2008-11-19T06:53:00.013+09:00

Australia's national airline Qantas have been celebrating their 88th birthday this week - and just like a season of "24", the party started months ago, there were computer malfunctions and explosions, someone got addicted to crack, a black man became president, and the cleanup is still going on now.

Some party animal decided to kick things off back in July by rigging an oxygen cylinder to blow mid-flight from London to Melbourne - while the guys in maintenance initially thought it was the best prank ever, Jack Bauer was soon down there breaking hips and shooting out knee-caps. The party has only picked up since then, with the number of aircraft incidents almost too numerous to list. It all peaked though this week when the plane that had the oxygen cylinder explode got towed into another plane on the ground, grounding them both. They'd just about repaired the asploded one, and then they smashed it into a perfectly good aircraft for lulz.

Even this morning there's news that a Qantaslink in Queensland caught fire and had to make an emergency landing. As the "Rain Man" said Qantas has never had a crash (well, not recently anyway), they do love to keep their passengers guessing! But while Qantas like to keep things interesting for all the action fans out there, our national airline is also looking after the romantic-comedy fans too.

The Rain Man schitzs out after Ralph Fiennes touched him
in a Qantas business-class toilet

All rom-coms begin with some kind of misunderstanding between the two main characters, but eventually they end up in love and together. Everyone knows about the air hostess that got fired for porking Lord Voldermort in the toilet on a flight to Darwin, but she still managed to rock out the big stuff with the dark lord another four times in a Mumbai hotel for that rom-com "happy ending". However there have been several other heartfelt Qantas stories of men looking for love that have not had such fairytale endings.

Turns out Ralph Fiennes is actually just a hand-puppet
with a strategically placed wand - who'd have guessed?

Stories like that of the lonely baggage-handler, who was recently imprisoned all because of a little misunderstanding over his collection of pubic hair from women's luggage. He was just looking for love in the wrong places! And what of the poor man who wore too-tight jeans on the plane and had to adjust himself for over 4 minutes in-front of a mother of two, only to be charged and found guilty of commiting an indecent act on a plane.

People may not get romance anymore, but it appears Qantas certainly does.

So if you're hearing everyone in the media going nuts over "off-shore maintenance" and "safety records", spare a thought for the maintenance engineers, baggage handlers and air hostesses of the flying kangaroo that are going that extra mile to make your next flight a memorable one.

Welcome to the (urban) jungle

2008-11-12T20:18:00.005+09:00

In case any of you had your doubts of my total awesomeness, I present to thee.....

The Mighty Ginge : Bitch-slapping harmless species of shark since 1997

I've escaped the clutches of the West for awhile, returning to the old homeland in order to work at a dive store and guide shark dives in the Melbourne aquarium. I'm here for the summer, back home for a few weeks, then back here again when the Navy takes possession of the ginger ninja Feb next year.

In the mean time though I'm burning the candle at both ends working at the shop, running tours, training for the navy and generally being a sex machine. It doesn't leave alot of time for the blog though (plus my tiny opposable orange thumbs are straining at the effort to type right now), so I apologise in advance for the sporadic updates in the coming months and also for this.............

YOU'RE DEAD TO ME CAN-OPENER!

And the polar bears rejoice........

2008-11-05T12:54:00.002+09:00

Drawing a pasty white ass in MS Paint - my work here is done

Ahh McCain's - you've done it again

2008-11-03T23:33:00.003+09:00

"They may not know it, but the Mac is back! And we're going to win this election," he added, to deafening cheers.

I expect to see this man running around the White house with no trousers on come November 4th, because he's about to get a total PANTSING by this sexy beast of a man....

Sure Obama's a socialist terrorist-loving arab (seriously people, why not say he murders baby harp seals with his bare hands too?), but he's soooooo adorable when he talks about hope.

I am the Mighty Ginge, and I approve this message

One more reason not to watch commercial TV

2008-11-02T16:41:00.009+09:00

It's become bleedingly obvious to me that the ABC has (sadly) becoming the final bastion of quality television; Double the Fist, awesome documentaries, and highly smash-able news presenters - it really isn't anything worth changing channel for anything else.

Jacinta Tynan - The point ABC news peaked

Sure , I'll admit that if my illegal download of "Heroes" or "The Mentalist" gets held up because my housemate is streaming gay porn, I might turn the tube over to Channel 7 or 9 and watch the "fast-tracked" episodes - more likely I'll wait the extra 20 mins and watch it without ads and without having to stand up.

Thankfully though the ABC embraces people downloading and watching their shows, and so I've been partaking in the great love that is government-supported television. Like some kind of internet Che Guvera, I'm out there liberating ze intarwebs of it's precious and freely available resources while pretending to be some kind of ranga revolutionary's revolutionary.

I really do hate all those Che-shirt wearing squeezers...

Anyway there's a new addition to the ABC's harem, a new character in the whorehouse of free-to-air TV

Review with Myles Barlow

David Stratton and that awful mole he
presents with can both go to hell

It's high time we had critical review programs informing our everyday lives, rather than analysing movies we'll never see or books we'll never read. Covering the full spectrum of human experience, each week Myles reviews everything from bushranging, paying for sex, to murdering the newsagent boy because he short-changed him 80 cents (change he found later in his back pocket, well after he'd buried the bodies of the victim and the two witnesses).

So watch out for Myles this Thursday night, and if you're eager for more download the previous episodes (or in my case, download the current week's a few hours before it screens to avoid...... all the ads...... on ABC..... whatever) or visit the Myles Barlow channel on Youtube.

Review with Myles Barlow - 5 stars

Just when it couldn't get more absurd........

2008-10-27T18:49:00.008+09:00

"Sometimes I hear God speaking to me,
but that just because I'm a maverick"

......... crazy bitch has finally decided to go really crazy. And no one wants to be around a crazy bitch

**********

UPDATE: It would appear everyone's favourite Alaskan Governor has had her nude likeness used in both a portrait and some equistitely hardcore pornography

Just as well no anal was required,
because Palin's been butt-fucking Alaska's wildlife enough already

Keep an eye out for this summer's big blockbuster from Hustler, "Nailin' Paylin", which also features Hillary and Condaleezza look-alikes.

Classy, classy stuff.......

The Rapture(TM) has unfortunately been delayed to 2012

2008-10-25T11:54:00.011+08:00

Hands up who's been to a high-school reunion?

Anyone else?

I'll be honest and I'm one of these people that looks forward to them - always kinda considered it like the coming Rapture(TM), where I could return to the old stomping ground, confuse and startle the plebs I went to school with, remind all my teachers why I was "difficult to teach", reconfirm that I'd still fail my religious education exam if I did it again today (I had to visit the vice-principal over that one: apparently my religious ed teacher didn't appreciate my sense of humor), and generally cause total havoc for the good christian school I terrorised for 5 years.

Fortunately for me I still have another four years to plan my shenanigans and outright lies, but last night I got a chance to trial-run some of the obscene behaviour I have in store, because last night my old school celebrated "10 years of existence". No, they couldn't wait till their first year group (mine) had their 10 year reunion in 2012 - they wanted to celebrate the fact that none of their current or former students had bombed the school in the 10 years since it opened.

Being part of the "Pioneer year", it was inevitable that there would be a bunch of my old teachers waxing lyrically on about the good old days when the school opened in '98 - back when the place was covered in sand and the "playground" was the local bush. Unfortunately they failed to mention how having only bushland to play in eventually lead to a full blown re-enactment of "Lord of the Flies" (I played the role of Roger)

"Would..... would you ... punch my dick again.... please Jack?"
"Sure Piggy"

We built cubby-house fortresses out of the trees we cut down, covered our wooden citadels in nature's barbed wire, and then built weapons like it was some kind of lumberjack Cold War - a cold war that one morning turned very hot after someone dropped a smoke bomb into a cubby and it burnt to the ground. Ahh the memories: I built my first crossbow during the Cubby Wars, and narrowly avoided turning out like Butters when a steel fan blade was thrown at my head.

One much loved story that was brought up though was how I blackmailed the head boy into breaking into a teacher's classroom after school, abducted a soft-toy teletubby, held it ransom for a week, then blew it up and sent the pieces back to the teacher in a little box with this video:

Sad to say no one has done anything even closely comparable at the school ever since. Actually the entire affair last night was pretty sad in general - there were probably 30 people there, half of them were teachers from the school, and no one got to see my bad ass mid-80's Commodore station wagon turned into "Ecto 1" car from Ghostbusters.

The New "Ecto-1" - seriously, this is what I'm driving at the moment

How many of you can say they turned up to a school reunion in a dilapidated 4-speed with flashing lights, rad "Ghostbusters" logo on the bonnet, and a siren strapped to the driver's door that blasts out Ray Parker Jr's Ghostbusters theme song? Ha? ANSWER ME! About the best I got out of anyone was when we were leaving and some mole snorted "Oh my god, is that your car?" - No I decided to break into and steal someone else's ridiculous wannabe-movie prop for shits and giggles, dumbass.

Telling everyone I trained sea lions for a living was a night highlight too - I thought about going Martin Blank-style, telling people I'm a professional killer, but they'd probably believe it. At the end of it all though the whole reunion thing felt exactly like high school all over again (except everyone was wider) : most of the teachers tried to avoid eye-contact with me, people from my year were simply older versions of high school, there was always this random silent dude hanging around like he was lost (and just like in school we called him Pedro), and I paid $30 for an hour and a half of cold fingerfood and socially awkward company.

Bring on the proper 10-year reunion baby, cause after last night's effort I'll have to burn down the whole school before starts getting exciting.

2012 - The year one baptist school learns to love
the smell of napalm in the morning

I am all that is efficient and streamlined - like a Leopard seal

2008-10-24T09:33:00.008+08:00

I've been carrying this letter around with me for literally days now, waiting till I saw a postbox while I was out. Sure, I could have taken two minutes to walk down the street and just dropped in at the box there - but I refused because I'm a master of efficiency (either that or I'm sociophobic, your choice).

If I have to go somewhere, I'll do a million other little jobs at the same time. Gotta visit the folks for dinner? On the way I'll probably,

Drop off two dozen overdue videos at the video store
Pick up some Kentucky Fried Chicken (for lunch sometime next week)
Call past Bunnings to pick up supplies for my next "doomed-to-half-build-then-give-up" DIY project
Drive to the beach and build obscene sand castles to reconnect with my inner-child,
And, dump the body of some douche (who laughed at my car) into the river

Mail is usually pretty low on my priorities list, so it's rare that I do a "Mail run". This particular letter though was starting to piss me off enough (and it was marginally important too, being my acceptance letter to the Navy) that a "single letter mail run" was becoming a distinct possibility.
However today fate was to intervene, sending me on an amazing religious journey of self-discovery, with some espionage and intrigue thrown in too.

My morning in a picture : Sam Fisher shooting that shitty little kid from Never-ending story,
then blowing out the brain of that stupid "Falkor" dragon-dog thing

I was on my way back from the pool when I started digging around in my bag for my mobile, when low and behold that fucking letter was still there in the front pocket teasing me for not having sent it off. Forgetting about the mobile I pulled up at a set of lights seconds later, watching the usual stream of traffic going passed when suddenly an apparition appeared before me!

A floating ethereal being composed of pure white light whisped silently passed me and turned onto the road I was heading along. It was the rarest of deities - the Messenger Post van

Knowing that surely this messenger of packages, this tool of Gabriel, would be naturally drawn by the power of the boxes that post (even though they're couriers and have nothing to do with the regular post), I decided to follow said courier till I found a post box. Never mind that I knew exactly where a postbox was just down my street - I was "in the zone".

There is no zone, I was just acting like a crack-addict.

I maintained a safe distance from the post van, careful not to tip him off he had a tail. The problem with staying about 3 cars back is that it gets harder and harder to stay with your target, especially when you throw traffic lights into the mix. After a few close calls, I was still with him and certain he'd lead me to the dead-drop.

But suddenly, out of nowhere, a silver Sportage pulled out in front of me! Four cars behind, this was not good. And something didn't seem quite right about this car either - functioning tail lights, no dents, driven in a safe and normal manner: surely this was just another car! There was one give away though: a pink personalised number plate with "Chez Nous" on it.
Ah ha! Terrorists!

This was a concern: were they leading me into a trap? Would I discover their post box, only to have it explode in my face? Was this "Chez Nous" trying to warn me, or part of the terrorist's elaborate plan. I noticed other signs of an ambush: a crane blocking off a side road, a guy using a leaf-blower on the footpath, a mother walking her children to school. This was surely a trap, but alas I had to go on for God and Country (note: I have no god nor entry-status to any country, except maybe Sierra Leon).

Just when I felt like I was being funneled into a killing ground, a red painted messiah - a lone postbox on the corner of the local whore house that's disguised as a Thai restaurant. The fears of a trap were still there; but something about it's rounded top and gentle lettering were comforting, safe. So leaving my trailblazer of Aries behind, I pulled up at the restaurant and cautiously approached. "Chez Nous" disappeared into the distance as quickly as they appeared, and I gingerly dropped the letter in and dived to the Ginge-mobile, speeding away (I did a commando roll too, but it didn't turn out so well)

All the way home I knew they were onto me - there was a mosquito in the car tracking my every move, and a black guy watched me drive passed as I hid behind the steering wheel. I screamed into the driveway at home, bolted inside and hid under the blankets, waiting for them to come for me.............

Why are you all still reading this dribble? Jesus Christ, my life is not fucking fan-fiction - piss off and do something constructive with your lives

Why 15-year old girls never amount to anything

2008-10-21T11:40:00.004+08:00

Ahhh, facebook - we've discussed it before, but everyday it brings me new adventure. And today, it's decided to bring me discrimination-based quiz applications!

Now a question for you all: who a) has the grammer and spelling ability of a brain damaged chimpanzee, and b) would dedicate the time and effort required to build a 30-something question quiz on "How White Are You?", or "What exactly is wrong with you?".

The Answer: Racist, illiterate 15-year old Paris Hilton clones on Facebook

Paris Hilton - Even more retarded than this picture

Ever wondered "How long you would survive in the scariest horror movie?", "How board are you?" (for those of us that weren't home-schooled in a trailer park, this translates to "How bored are you?), or even what your parent's should have called you (in my case, it should have been Paige) - now Facebook can help you find out!

Oh, and if you're wondering how white I am (being a daywalker afterall), I'm "Barak" Obama - apparently enjoying writing and having a degree means you're "married to a black woman" and hence "clearly unsure your race". And my girlfriend thinks not being an American citizen will stop me being President? The Obama connection was confirmed again later when I completed the "What exactly is wrong with you?" quiz, and was greeted with this fascinating little nugget of apartheid:
But I suppose what do you expect when the average quiz question is something like this (bold bits for increased brain damage);

Why do you go to church?
- because I'm truly religious
- to have a better social status
- because my parents make me
- I don't not attend church (I'm going to hell)

Oh also, my true age is 7 and I'm the Red Power Ranger...... Seriously people, beat the stupid out of your children

*What tiny wisp of hope in humanity the Ginge might have had just vapourised in a minuscule cerebral aneurysm

Maybe there IS hope for you all

2008-10-20T21:22:00.004+08:00

God knows how I even came across this, but after so much rage reading about Sarah Palin trying to violate Belugas, I needed to know that there are some people out there trying to make things alittle better - that there is some glimmer of hope for my rapidly deteriorating faith in humanity.

Well I found it, and so I present to you the best of the Popular Mechanics "Top 10 New World-Changing Innovations of the Year"
- An awesome ultra-low drag electric car (do want)
- Sugar Cane: Good for making the perfect diesel, and Bundy rum (The secret organism is actually the Bundy Bear)
- Solar Power on steroids (why weren't we using this shit in 1816 when it was invented?)
- The dude who invented the Super Soaker just designed and built the most efficient heat engine physically possible

Bio-Engineers - Not exactly photogenic

There's a bunch of other stuff like all-terrain wheelchairs and water-purification powder, but all that crap is totally lame compared to the possibility of running your car on Over Proof Bundy rum. And maybe, just maybe after a long drive through the night, you'll wake up the next morning to find your car wrapped around a toilet bowl cursing polar bears everywhere.

My faith in humanity hasn't been completely crushed.................. yet

Treat the kids to Polar bear steaks after hockey!

2008-10-14T16:52:00.014+08:00

Now I've deliberately avoided discussing the American presidential election before, simply because nowadays it just shits me. Any country stupid enough to re-elect clinically retarded "My Pet Goat" mega-fan who thinks he has a personal hotline to God, deserves everything they get - war, economic depression, global pariah status - the whole nine yards. I can kind of accept Bush weasling in the first time through some very clever electoral fraud - but to be elected again?

No wonder the "stupid American" stereotype is so strong.

"Hey soldier, this View-Master is broke"

A quote from their illustrious leader himself:

"There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."
—Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002

Well it would appear they were fooled again George.

I followed American and Australian politics all through high school and uni until the 2004 US election, but Georgie Jr's re-election was so off-putting I've barely paid any attention since. However the newest addition to this three-ringed circus the yanks call a presidential election has rejuvenated my interest: The Lipstick Pitbull

Sarah Palin -Not completely evil, just misunderstood

Trust me, I get it: Bible-bashing hicks have clearly over-run the US, and the only time they're going to leave their trailer parks is to hunt and wall-mount animals/pro-choice activists, or to vote for people who seriously think that "dinosaurs and humans walked the Earth at the same time should be taught in schools" just 6,000 years ago.

And Palin is their cheerleader. I totally get why she's so popular and exciting. I have to commend her for making American politics interesting again too - I never believed you could fit this much crazy in one person.

And while I may not appreciate Sarah's belief that rape victims should pay for their own forensic test kits, or that Creationism (no, not Intelligent Design - good old fashioned Creationism) should be taught in schools, she is the only US politician discussing the greatest threat to democracy and freedom today:

Neo-Nazi Polar bears

And I bet you you thought all the Nazi's escaped to South America

Palin is the only one to recognise the dire threat posed by the furry fascists and their insidious agenda - deliberately living over low grade oil reserves, in order to deny oil companies access to what little oil there is in Alaska. Together with those power-hungry Belugas, the evil SS-like Alaskan Timber Wolves, and ofcourse the militant Grizzly bears; Alaskan's and their oil derricks have every right to be fighting back. And Sarah Palin is the one out there doing her best to make sure these white-furred bullys are stopped.

Palin has led the charge against the Nazi bear threat - she's trying to sue, with the American Petroluem Institute, the US government for providing protection to the bears by listing them as endangered. She's also targeting the supporters of these quadrupedal terrorists: offering a $150 bounty for the left leg of freshly killed wolves, legalising and running campaigns to encourage aerial hunting of wolves and Grizzly bears, and ofcourse opposing the listing of those damn noisy Cook Inlet Beluga whales as endangered.

White Belugas, the ultimate white-supremacists

And true to her motto of "Drill, baby, drill", Sarah's out there looking after the little guys at the same time: guys like Jeroen van der Veer - the CEO of Shell, who only just manages to put food on the table for his family with his meager 2.5 million pound salary.

Go Sarah! I know you've got everyone's best interests at heart, plus people can easily relate to you as a beer-guzzling, moose-shootin' hockey mom! Oh, and by "people" I ofcourse don't mean me: I mean the beer-guzzling, moose-shootin rednecks of the country you live in.

So stick with it, good luck in the election, keep that pitbull charm and never give those damn dirty bears a chance to threaten democracy and freedom.

God Bless Alaska!

Hell grows Buffalo grass

2008-10-01T15:28:00.009+08:00

So, being too busy to wipe my own ass has meant the Ginge Cave has been in a total state of disrepair lately. Luckily, being back home again has allowed the great cleansing to begin. So far I've managed to get the desk clear, the kitchen table is visible again, and I'm able to walk into my room again without needing a tetnus shot.

Unfortunately, our last house inspection was evidence that a tidy living shelter isn't sufficient to appease the rental overlords - apparently the "garden" needs to be better "maintained" so the place "doesn't look like a refugee camp". Bullshit, it's fashionable.

East African Refugee Camps -
This Summer's must-have addition to your home's outdoor furniture

However threatened with the disapproving looks from little sour old ladies with nothing left in their lives that they reduced themselves to becoming rental inspectors; the decision was made to try and get the jungle in the front yard sorted out.

Alas I live with an arts and two science students - unless we had a research grant to develop a new biological weapon that selectively eradicates noxious plant species and/or lovable pet hamsters, or were planning a series of lectures on how maintaining a home garden violates the post-modern principles of anti-racist mathematics, the great Ginger one would have to shoulder this burden alone.

So in an act of selfless charity (or possibly because I'm the only one in the house who knows how to use a whipper-snipper), I became -

The Lawnmower Man
Possibly the worst film ever made by anyone, ever....... right after Glitter

Now many of you whipper-snipper virgins may not know this, but the old brush fucker is a nasty piece of kit: 50cc of raw two stroke power bolted straight onto a tiny tube of metal with a whirling, spinning disc of death on the end. IT WILL DESTROY YOU

And taming these beasties means armouring up: combat boots, heavy duty pants, safety glasses, ear muffs, bullet proof vest, the fur of an endangered rhino - the usual. Managed to slip the headphones in past the ear muffs and the mime pants I was wearing on my head, so I could slaughter weeds while rocking out to some QOTSA. Then steeled against the threat of tiny flying chunks of wet grass, I began the great lawn cleansing.

Totally better prepared than this hippy

Ever wonder why people piss and moan about mowing the lawn? Why they make shitty jokes like "I wish my grass was emo, so it would cut itself"?

NEWS FLASH - MOWING THE LAWN IS COMPLETE BALLS

After two hours of swinging backwards and forwards on the end of the spinning death stick, the place finally looked habitable from the outside. I walked back inside looking like a fucking green yeti, covered in grass clippings. Don't ask me to mow your lawn, don't ask me to refuel your whipper snipper, don't even talk to me about gardening - after today, I wish Peter Cundall was dead.

Oh, and from now on I'll be taking the "A-10" approach to gardening........

Gardening with the US airforce - fast, efficient and burny

Whatever, I've babbled about mowing enough - do your bit for global warming and burn your lawn .

It's a medical condition.......

2008-09-24T17:46:00.008+08:00

Fake medical conditions -

Making beating animals and small children socially acceptable since 1923

I just discovered just how much I really hate kids.

Many of you that know me maybe surprised to hear me say such a thing, especially given how much of a loving , caring and fun-filled human being I am, with a sense of humor ideally suited to children. But it's true - I really do hate kids with an unbridled passion, a passion only exceeded by my hate for tiny defenceless kittens.

And I especially hate those surly shitty little asshole teenagers, who've decided that hitting puberty entitles them to an attitude. You all know the ones I mean - they sit up the back of the class, sass out the teacher to make their shitty little friends laugh, and eventually wind up "modeling" at the Doll House or doing burn-outs in their F250's.

Some would say that these kids are simply acting out because of learning difficulties; that they need additional care and support from educators to avoid falling behind and disrupting the class out of frustration. I say if you can't read, you breed.

Plus every snot-nosed, screaming little toddler shit that ever squealed "I wanna play AGAIN!" deserves to be put out an airlock into deep-space, and I want to be the one that pushes the button that vents their atmosphere (that way I can hear their tiny little high-pitched voices trail off as they freeze in the vacuum). Better yet, can all new parents do us all a huge favour and ensure you beat your kids.

Oh, and incase you didn't know - I just started work at Scitech

Being an instructor makes my pants fit reeeeeal nice

2008-09-21T21:43:00.004+08:00

So, I'm a diving instructor now...........

What, expecting more? How about this then "So, I'm a diving instructor now....... feel free to eat my holier-than-thou ass"

The Mighty Ginge - Sexy even while wearing red nail polish and giving you the finger

Just remember folks -
Mighty Ginge >> You

Maybe they'll let me near the childrens.......yessss.....

2008-09-17T11:48:00.004+08:00

Miss Johnson tried everything to convince the censors to keep the blogs PG-13 rating

So quick news update: I'm in the middle of my scuba instructor course at the moment and haven't been had a second to sleep (let alone blog), but I do have today off.

Not that that means full-sized blogging action-action, but it does mean enough time to pay those dogs at the DPI my car registration, visit that horrible old mole at the post office to pay my overdue speeding fine (I'm convinced she chokes down a "bitter-old-bitch" pill every morning along with her Alzheimer's medication - either that or she's finally realised she has worked in a post office her entire life), buy toilet paper (paper towels just aren't quite as soothing by the 3rd day).

Oh, and the day off has also allowed me to find some completely inappropriate images of "teachers" to put in a quick blog post on how I should be a fully fledged scuba instructor by Sunday night, and will probably be back raging about killing kittens again on Monday.

In the mean time I'd advise against ever googling "teacher" without safe search on, and I'll leave you to try and work out what's going on here -

Kiddy Fingers and Cream - my favourite

To all F-250 owners - I pray for your untimely death every morning with breakfast

2008-08-30T16:58:00.010+08:00

I recognise I had a fairly unique childhood - not everyone gets to grow up experimenting with high explosives, home-building railguns, or punching monkeys so hard they turn inside-out then wearing them as slippers for teh lolz. As a result of this unique upbringing, I'm sure I missed out on many of the other parts of childhood you plebs consider "normal" (read: boring).

And I'm quite certain I missed that all important father-son talk where my Dad was supposed to sit me down and explains why fully-grown men and pubescent schoolgirls both need fresh underwear at the mere sight or sound of any 4x4 with raised suspension.

Rejected by local whorehouses, Suzie turned to modeling cars for rednecks
- bet Mummy and Daddy are real proud now, aren't they Suzie?

It's always been something that confused the shit out of me - vehicles are there to get you from A to B, and if you can use the least amount of fuel possible getting there then even better.

Need to take the family somewhere? Get a people mover
Need to drive to work in the city? Get a small hatch-back
Need to tow a trailer or caravan while travelling? Get Hilux or a Landrover
Like off-roading and covering your car in mud? Get a proper 4x4

And it's not that I don't see the purpose of large or high-powered vehicles like F250's or F650's, but what possible reason could some douchebag - who works in an office all day then changes into his flannel shirt and truckers cap to drive home - have for driving one of these gargantuan displays of compensation? (ofcourse unless he had actually been diagnosed with cryptorchidism - then knock yourself out)

But don't think that rice-cooking sports cars are any better. Don't even get me started on street racers - the number of times I wish I was sitting on an overpass with a Charley G.

Street Racers - All I feel for you is the recoil

It might seem I'm singling out the Ford Super Duty series, but it's probably because they're the most easily recognised, and also because they're the most likely to be driven by rednecks who keep their wives at home in the trailer while she pumps out more little "miracles" who'll eventually grow up and buy their own leviathan lumps of horseshit with a Ford badge.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.....

The main problem I have with "Full Size" trucks is the market they've created - the few people who need these vehicles are fine (like tow-truck operators, fire-fighters and the fucking Power Rangers), but it's the dipshits who buy one because they want other soccer mum's to comment on "how big" their truck is that I hate - I hope you back over your own child.

But God help you if you try and show them the error of their ways. A cursory glance at the comments to this article on the costs of running an F-250 make it pretty clear that these are not your everyday petrol-sniffing hicks we're talking about: these people may have learnt how to read, and they think they have a basic grip on math. They also use big words like clinched and situation.....

"If people like Clayton would pull their heads from their tightly clinched rear they might understand the situation a little bit better..... You bash them for being self centered as you go along being a judgmental prick. Do you stalk these truck drivers?"

Yup, good job Alex (by the way, I'd rather drown my dog with my bare hands than name a kid Alex) . I'm certain the author is going to take your thoughts onboard now that you've shown just how well you can relate to each other. I'm also sure suggesting the guy is a stalker will encourage him to take your positive feedback and apply it to his next article. I bet your the kind of guy who puts a bull bar on your F-250 too, just to make sure you kill the passengers of the Honda Civic you drive over and not just permanently maim them.

Bull-bars on raised F-250's : for when you just have to you win that head-on collision

And so, before I leave you all again waiting with baited breath for my next post, I'd like to mention a little something. While I love getting my rage on, one of the downsides of writing blog posts on the Ginge is that I actually have to go out and research the things that piss me off, and occasionally I come across websites so retarded I feel a little brain-damaged myself just for having come across them, case in point.

Follow the above link, I dare you.
And if you do, I direct your attention to the vehicle description - specifically the quote "We are hard core and we don't take prisoners..."

Congratulations dipshit, you're hardcore. Let me know when you and your buddy decide to rejoin the human race, and I'll send you both a tailor-made letter bomb to make sure you don't ever share the same water supply as me or anyone else I know. In the mean time, do us all a favour: put down the digital camera, stay away from the local library's internet connection, and stop stealing my oxygen.

Oh, and for those unwilling to click the above link for fear of retardation, I recommend the video below instead. If you want, you can pretend it's just two machines playing tug-of-war, instead of two fully grown-men trying to see who's truck is more powerful.

Prepare for the ultimate war on weakness

2008-08-10T14:31:00.009+08:00

We discussed not that long ago that I don't watch TV very much anymore, being I can download anything I do like from the US or the ABC. What we didn't discuss was why I made the move away from TV in the first place, since I said I didn't really care.

That was a lie, since the truth was too difficult to deal with at the time. The truth is that while my trust in TV broadcasters was never at an all time high, it was broken completely by a single programming choice made by those weak dogs at the ABC back in July 2004;

Canceling of "Double the Fist"

If you never saw it, I pity you and your pathetically empty life. I myself only ever saw a few episodes live on ABC before it was cut, but I can assure you every second I did watch converted me from a weak fist-less dog to the pumped up, panda-adoring ginge-a-licious I am today. The show revolved around a group of characters, each using their own special abilities and skills, to achieve the tasks set by the most extreme man on the planet - Steve Foxx.

Steve Foxx rallying the pandas for battle

Not only was Double the Fist the greatest television series ever created in any universe, dimension or theoretical membrane, it gave humanity the most epic scale of true awesomeness - the full fist. The Full Fist meant strength, power, knowledge and more importantly, pain. Each week Rod, Memphisto and The Womp would jump off cliffs, feed schoolgirls into lawnmowers, become possessed by Aztec demi-gods, or be chased through an abandoned warehouse by flying sharks.

Rodd running from the cloned panda loggers that Memphisto created in his pyramid, while he was possessed by an Aztec demi-god.......
......seriously

And in between the serious competition, the fist team would also present small features to educate the masses on everything from history...

Iceberg - we salute you

...to arts & crafts

I actually did this to a guy I knew from high school - we don't talk anymore

With such a clearly epic show is it any wonder that it paid off it's backers inside the first few episodes, was syndicated all over the world, and that it beat those whiny slags from "Kath and Kim" to the 2004 AFI award for "Best Television Comedy, Sit-Com or Sketch"? And yet those weak, spineless filth mongers from ABC programming decided the show wasn't "compatible" with their "over-55's target demographic". What those bottom feeders didn't realise was that the oldies love this shit -

Rod Foxx doing his bit to engage the ABC's
"target demographic" while playing "Super Bowls"

Luckily for all you fist-less pond scum ABC TV had a change in management, and so the greatest event in mankind's history is set to occur in just 3 days - just like the coming Rapture, Steve Foxx is returning from 4 years in outer space to once again wage war on weakness and personal hygiene.

That's right folks -

DOUBLE THE FIST SEASON 2
STARTS THIS THURSDAY NIGHT

Prepare for the end of weakness

In preparation for the coming planetary falcon punch, Steve Foxx has started the official Double the Fist website to help all those yet to be blessed by DTF and it's majesty to embrace it. They may have relegated them to ABC2, but I can assure you that digital set-top box sales will explode after this Thursday's 9:30pm premiere.

And so with the news shared I leave you with one of Memphisto's classic moments of wisdom from Season 1, and a link to the original secret DTF page on the ABC's website.

Be Afraid - Be Very Afraid

Broadcast Resuming in 5.....4.....3.....2....

2008-08-08T09:52:00.009+08:00

If I ever felt compled to justify myself to any of you why I haven't posted in 6 weeks (and I'm pretty sure I don't), I'd say that Telstra owns and operates the icy bonds that hold the devil in the ninth circle of hell; any telecommunications company that take 4 weeks to transfer a phone number, 2 weeks to transfer an ADSL exchange modem, and are run by a man of the name of Solomon, deserve to have their golden temple of cash razed to the ground by a zombie Nebuchadnezzar for the third time.

Also, I hope every Telstra shareholder is molested by a herd of Ebola-infected spider monkeys.

Violently molested

It was only when George answered the front door to face the monkeys that he finally admitted that buying Telstra shares wasn't such a good idea

And if the hemorrhagic fever, or the simian rape doesn't kill them; maybe being pushed off a balcony will.

So the broadcasts may have been temporarily halted, but the Mighty Ginge certainly wasn't. Inspired by Phil's culinary experimentation, I've been engaging in some of my own -

Firstly, an experimental creation I like to call "Humpty Goes to Hell in the Cheese Volcano";

Take a pita pocket and cut down one edge halfway. Fill the pita with handfuls of shredded cheese, but push the cheese to the edges to leaving a hollow in the center of the pita bread. Crack an egg into the middle of the pita pocket so the yolk is trapped in the hollow made by the cheese "wall". Microwave on high for 2 mins or until the egg is no longer runny, and eat!

"Egg, Bacon, Peanut Butter and Cheese Rolls" (a close-cousin of Phil's "Egg and Peanut Butter Toast", but in a bread roll with bacon);

And ofcourse my coup d'etat on cooking,

Easy Fried Rice and Garlic Bread.

Boil a cup of rice. While it's coming to the boil, dice and fry up some bacon rashers, then add this to the now boiling rice with an egg. Stir the bacon and egg through, ensuring the egg's yolk is broken and mixed through. Put garlic bread in oven for 10 mins at 220deg. Serve.

I'm a regular Gordon Fucking Ramsey!

Also, new "Protein Toast" - Everything you never wanted in a loaf of bread

I also recently visited what the kids these days call a "bar". Expecting to be aurally sodomized all night I steeled myself with a few drinks before hand, only to be pleasantly surprised by the choice of music. Later in the evening they started to put on some dance crap; however I discovered the real reason people like that repetitive shit, when I saw the music video playing on a projector behind me..........

Yes - the "soft-core" comment has already been made

And so I'm back online and firing fine again. I've also started another blog but (unless you're interested in technical diving or shipwreck hunting) it might not be for you. There's a serious back-log of Mighty Ginge posts from the last 6 weeks waiting to be researched and typed up, so hopefully we'll get them all in the next week.

May you be touched by his noodly appendage
RAmen

This post is so awesome it doesn't need a title, blogspot you fascist!

2008-06-27T19:36:00.016+08:00

Atleast a hundred years ago, Valve software released Half-Life; the greatest, most ball-draining game of it's time. Half Life spanked so hard that old people had heart attacks, pregnant women had their water break, and grown men shat their pants - and that was just when they decided to send it gold. The uncircumcised product was well over 9000 - even better than punching Gerri Haliwell in her enormous flabby minge. Morticians used to play Half-Life in morgues, and it brought car-accident victims back to life; we now know these creatures as "PS3 owners". Pop stars threw themselves in front of buses, knowing they could never compete for people's attention against Half-Life and all it's majesty. Family members ate each other so there was less competition for the computer.

In a word, it was epic.
For fear of re-sparking the terrifying "HL Riots" of '97, I tentatively so you some images from this world-changing game. First off we had the squealing Chux Super-Wipe with legs,

"WHY DOES DO MY CHICKEN NUGGETS SCREECH AND HAVE LEGS GODDAMMIT!"
Houndeye Babies - Lovingly cooked at a KFC near you

These evil little bastards would hunt in packs and sneak .............. SWEET MOTHER OF CHRIST WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT! I just tried making plunger coffee for the first time, and having no idea what the hell I was doing, I think I got half of the ground coffee in the bottom of my cup - which I just accidentally drank. Tasted like a panda jacked up on crack shat in my coffee and stirred it in - although I am feeling the jitters from the unprocessed crack though.
LETS GET ANOTHER CUP, BIATCH!

Tonight, capslock be my friend......

Anyway Half-Life had bat-shit crazy monsters, a commando physicist that donkey-punches the universe, and black people losing their wives and their legs. It was the greatest thing since patriarchal hierarchy.

And just after the planet had started to recover for the wide-spread famine, disease and psychological teabagging that was Half-Life, the prophet Gabe Newell warned of worse things to come - a video game so great that pitiful humans would have to kill themselves and play it in hell, for nothing so powerful could even be released onto Earth itself without the magnetic poles reversing and the Raptor Jesus returning to OH FOR THE LOVE OF ZEUS HOW DOES THIS BROWN SLUDGEY SHIT GET IN MY COFFEE?! Who the hell invented this plunger crap anyway - where is my bloody instant? I'm going to go out and fly-kick a Puerto Rican for picking this shit, blending it up and packaging it so that my gay housemates buy it. There is only one type of coffee, and it comes in a half kg tins with "Blend 43 rapes other coffees" on the front.

Bow before it's majesty puny humans!

So Valve released Half-Life 2 and the planet went into another ice-age, Al Gore's brain imploded, and Raptor Jesus ripped Evanescence fans in half.

And the lord said "Thou be thy raptor, and ravage thy mother unto dust I shall"

Most recently Valve has decided to pass down another civilisation-spanking piece of software, one that has been in the wings since the first Half-Life apocalypse - Team Fortress 2. Some might say that Team Fortress was originally a Quake mod converted to the Half-Life engine - I feel this lie is much like people saying Pat's mum was once abit difficult to get to put-out ; even if it once WAS true, reality has moved on so far that the sheer concept of TF being anything but a Half-Life mod is unimaginable. The original Team Fortress wasn't too bad, but we all knew it could be so much more. When TF2 was released in the Orange Box, it came with such a bang that I personally felt emasculated.

Simply ball-tearing

There was ofcourse one massive downside to all this planetary turkey-slapping: just like everyone who watches Australian Idol, anyone who played TF2 and uses teamspeak, is automatically turned into a 13 year old girl. Can everyone on a pub please sprout a pair and drop it down by about 4 octaves. Otherwise I'll cut out your voice-box with a butter knife and use it as a filter for this shitty coffee.

Wow, totally need more of that panda-shit tasting crack coffee..........I'm starting to trip out and hear shit going on around me, and I'm the only one home JESUS CHRIST THE OOMPA LOOMPAS ARE COMING MAN! THERE COMING OUT OF THE FUCKING TREES! SWEET MOTHER OF NEPTUNE TELL MY MOTHER I LOVE HER - TAKE THAT YOU GREEN HAIRED FREAK, TASTE THE BACK OF MY CHAIR! TASTE IT! YOU WANT SOME OF THE GINGE? YOU WANT THIS? I'M GONNA COME AT YOU LIKE A SPIDER MONKEY BITCHES!

So, ummm........ maybe plunger coffee is not for me. FUCK OFF ITUNES I'M BUSY. I think I'm going to start a few other blogs, cause I'm enjoying writing, but some of this shit is waaaay too much effort when I'm not in the right mindset - if I get the "I have a split-personality called Dot trying to bust out of my pants" crazy going on I don't even read what the hell I'm typing. But sometimes I'd like to write about stuff that Dot doesn't give a shit about, and then it all just comes out sounding weird.

Not that any of it matters with the coming Mudkip-Rapture anyway.

In Soviet Russia, Mudkip dry-humps YOU!

I would also advise against using Google Image search to look for "Mudkips", lest you find Mudkipron - and yes, it got through Google's content filter. Actually scratch that - don't even type mudkips into Google at all.

Okay, we're out of panda-crack so I'm gonna go lay down for awhile now.....

If I had a soul to lose, Steve Jobs would have just taken it

2008-06-23T19:58:00.003+08:00

Well I finally decided to go over to the dark side and buy an iPod.

My mum wanted one for her birthday a few weeks ago, so I got one of the new Nano's through Corsair while he was still enslaved to the big yellow monster. And after my trusty Sansa finally died, I saw how good the Nano looked, and knew I could finally get the Nike+iPod running kit with it - it really was inevitable.

So when Gerbil Girl asked me if I wanted anything from JB's; the call of the Nano grew too strong and I was over-powered. Unable to handle the shame of purchasing an iPod myself or even having it appear on my bank statement, I instead had my defenceless girlfriend to do my bidding and bring back the beast. And sitting here with it nestled quietly in my hand, I can sense the evil throbbing beneath it's matte black exterior.

And so with the full knowledge that I'm about to become another soul-less iPod zombie; draining the blood from the faces of my loved ones with labourous diatribes on how incredible Apple is, or gibbering to myself in a corner about how I want to have the Woz's babies; I henceforth document my rather (expectedly) expedient downward spiral into iHell.

Due to the rather unique nature of a ginger kid's soul (eg. their lack of one), I have instead tracked my progression toward iHell with a calculated loss of "Ranga Ectoplasm".

-----------------------------------------------------------------
19:57 - After some inital fiddling, I finally decide to read the quick start guide in the box
Remaining Ranga Ectoplasm- 96%

19:58 - Quick Start commands the installation of the infamous "iTunes" - the Ginge's initial hesitation to install this soul-sucking software is tempered by the recognition that he's actually a day-walker.
Remaining Ranga Ectoplasm - 93%

20:01 - The Ginge has broken down in tears after typing "www.apple.com" for the first time.
Remaining Ranga Ectoplasm - 67%

20:01 - iTunes download located, but unable to click the download click.
Remaining Ranga Ectoplasm - 64%

20:52 - After getting extrodinarily drunk at his loss of "Ranga Soul", the Ginge trips and accidentally clicks the iTunes download link as he falls. All higher-order cognitive functions have shut-down.
Remaining Ranga Ectoplasm - 49%

20:53 - Too inebriated to use the mouse to cancel the download, the Ginge makes a valient and drunken effort to pull the computer's power plug out of the wall.
Remaining Ranga Ectoplasm - 44% and dropping

20:57 - The Ginge has passed out with his fingers wrapped around a chair leg instead of the power supply - the download continues.
Remaining Ranga Ectoplasm - 42% and dropping

21:02 - The download is complete - life as the Ginge knows it is over.
Remaining Ranga Ectoplasm - 7%

21:03 - Controlled externally now by the zombie king Steve Jobs, the Ginge has no choice but to install the downloaded file.
Ranga Ectoplasm is depleated, the Ginge's final words are "I ....... never got ...... to Falcon Punch..... Brittany Spears".

-----------------------------------------------------------------
END TRANSMISSION

40 days under the board and counting - A study in electronic oppression

2008-06-12T23:04:00.016+08:00

As a midget orangutan monkey-boy, the deck is already pretty heavily stacked against me when it comes to body image. I try and stay reasonably fit, but other than that I generally don't give a damn what people think of what I wear or how I present to the public. So I tend to go the whole hog and forego shoes, shaving, clothing without holes in it, personal hygiene and all of the other social norms associated with cultural uniformity.

Robin Williams displaying the culturally accepted appearance of a paedophile

So when people pulled the piss out of me for buying a Wii, I told them to rape a chicken and get bird flu. Instead of competing with Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo has decided to make gaming more physically interactive to draw in gamers and non-gamers alike, making the Wii a truely unique gaming console. Maybe it's best to highlight just how unique Nintendo's approach is to the current console mentality, exemplified by the PS3.

"I am large and in charge"
"I'm just PEPPY!"

And it's fantastic - the Wii is alot of fun and it's great to see a breath of fresh air into the console market. A new approach intended to bring a much wider audience to gaming. All the games I've played on the Wii make good use of the motion-sensitive controls and they're alot of fun too.

So if the Wii is so bloody fantastic, why the hell am I posting about it?

It's because I recently added a darker member to my harem of Wii games - an insidious little critter that seems harmless enough at first, even an extension on the Wii's fun and unique approach to gaming. But then it slowly poisons and wears you down. It draws you in, compels you to work harder and harder for new high scores, to play every single day, but also tells you you're useless while you play.

Never before have I played a video game that makes you feel guilty for not playing it, guilty of your performance while playing it, guilty for not forcing you friends and family into it's electronic servitude, and guilty about how you live your inferior human life in general.

I speak, ofcourse, of WiiFiit.

WiiFit - Fascism for the new Millenium

The intention is to get people to incorporate semi-serious physical activity into gaming to develop improved balance, core muscle strength and have "fun" at the same time.

WiiFit is a fantastic concept - just like Communism.

But if that fucking Wii balance board gives me one more of it's bullshit lines like "Don't forget to take your daily Body Test" or asks me if I'd "like to review my recent sleeping habits"- I'm going to snap and throw it under a bus.

Being hassled by my personal WiiFit trainer (who seems determined to turn it into WiiLovin', to the point where she even gives me a target ring to aim for) doesn't help the situation, but that little white lump of plastic needs to be smacked upside the head. It's such a sarcastic piece of shit too - I'll be damned if I'm going to dob my sister in to that insidious little lump of concentrated hate either.

And since when did I have to justify my weight to a peripheral?

"Now, try to think about the cause of your weight gain"
Where is the "WiiFit can eat my overweight ass" option?

With such a hateful core, WiiFit could easily be weaponised and used to combat childhood obesity - fat kids would either start shedding pounds faster than a priest chasing a naked choir boy covered in honey; or they'll be throwing themselves off buildings so often that people will start marketing heavy duty "Chunky Deflectors" to protect all the skinny kids from the hail of flubber. Either way, it means less childhood obesity.

A Catagory 5 Chunkmeister - The "Fatty Boom Batty"

I honestly thought WiiFit would be a fun, easy way to stay fit and a great way to put my Wii to more use. What I got instead was $150 worth of hardware, software and Nintendo's unmitigated bile. And so it's turned me into a self-conscious calorie counting bitch with high blood pressure and stress-induced dementia at the grand old age of 22 - all in the time some people abstain from meat for lent.

Underneath WiiFit's cartoony and family-friendly veneer is a black heart of hate designed to crush the spirit of even the most battle-hardened couch warrior: I'm living proof of it's destructive potential.

And now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to keep trying to lose the 10% of my body weight that WiiFit demands of me or it'll shoot my dog.

The Anderson Transform

2008-06-12T10:45:00.004+08:00

I don't watch alot of TV anymore.
With the few TV shows I like to watch available online from the US or on the ABC, any documentaries I like usually floating around on bit torrent, and three separate news feeds on my Google page to stay up to date - I really have made a complete jump from the tube to the intawebs.

The poor old wide-screen TV now really only gets to warm up when I "choose" to "play" WiiFit.

I really don't care why I made the move, it's just something that happened. (A notion that will almost certainly unsettle some of my more culturally aware colleagues). There is however one obvious downside to this shift - less exposure to advertising.

What?

Damn straight - I miss adverts. Sure, the intawobble has advertising (and some of it is pretty bloody intrusive, even with firefox - I'm looking at you AdSense), but nothing like the realm of television. While I was never one of those kids that sat in front of the TV for 12 hours a day (my ADHD is au natural), I'll be damned if I didn't learn every bloody word and jiggle to an advert. I discovered in high school when I started listening to music that this wasn't limited to advertising, but all the same - I could see/hear in the background any advert once or twice, and then know every word of it.

I've always seen the TV ad as an exceptionally short film - it needs abit of structure; you have comedies, tragedies, romances; and a half decent director goes a long way.

So when I visited my folks; sat down with them to watch the news like old times and then saw the Australian version of this; they couldn't understand why I initially started laughing then sobbed uncontrollably.

Who invents this crap? "Easy Off Bam" - has advertising really fallen so far that we need to resort to using "BAM" in our product's name? I remember when ads made me laugh, cry or think - this gives me a headache. Oh, and "unique foaming action formula? It's not even a "specially formulated" cleaning compound - it's 99.5% Sulfamic acid in a bottle.

I bet I'd look retarded if I were cleaning
with a Class 3 Health hazard too

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of retarded products out there - there's nothing special about this one. It's just the advertising that offends me. It's like they're not even trying anymore.

So it was with great delight that I discovered another occupant of TV air time that made it all better - The Gruen Transfer.

I'm no fan Wil Anderson's "comedy" - once he left Triple J and started doing more stand-up I just couldn't bear to hear the "I was drunk and decided to make a melted cheese sandwich by turning my toaster on it's side" joke a 30th time. But he's gotten rid of his ridiculous black nail polish and stopped being a total nob - plus the Gruen Transfer itself is very very clever stuff. It's also pissing alot of people off in advertising, because the two regular panellists with Anderson are both executives of advertising companies talking honestly about what they do.

Actually, people are just pissed off because everyone is speaking pretty bluntly about advertising. The Chevy Tahoe fiasco is something I was totally oblivious to, but the videos are brutal. Look it up on Youtube, - many of them take the environmental line, but I think the best ones are just pulling the piss.

Because Daddy didn't love me

And "The Pitch" - the advertising challenge" they set to two rival advertising companies - is hilarious. I'll leave you with one of last week's ads, trying to sell holidays to Baghdad. Don't miss the Gruen Transfer next wedsnesday night (or just download it)

The 101 Things To Do Before You Die

2008-05-28T15:09:00.004+08:00

Just for posterity, I thought I'd share the full 101 things to do before die list.
Completed stuff is in bold, and I'll add links to the future posts on each completed thing.

Currently Completed: 35 of 101

Write a Best-seller
Swim with………
Win an Award, Trophy or Prize
Catch a fish with your bare hands
Make a discovery
Throw a house party when your parents are out
Be Part of a threesome
Realise your childhood dream
Learn that instrument
Leave your mark in graffiti
Storm chase a tornado
Get a piece of art into an exhibition
Meet someone with your own name
Ride the world’s biggest roller coasters
Stage dive or crowd surf
Get into the Guinness Book of Records
Own a pointless collection
Study the Kama Sutra and put theory into practice
Master Poker and win big in a casino
Get backstage and get off with a rock god
Be a human guinea pig
Go up in a hot air balloon
Get arrested
See a space shuttle launch
Capture the moment in an award-winning photograph
Bungee Jump
See an erupting volcano
Sky dive
Meet your idol
Stay in the best suite in a five star hotel
Experience Weightlessness
See the Aurora Borealis
Get to score a hole in one
Design your own cocktail
Play a part in your favourite TV show
Visit every country
Make fire without matches
See these animals in the wild
Go to the dogs
Get a free upgrade on a plane
Be friends with your ex
Hit your targets
Throw a dart into a map and travel where it lands
Attend a film premiere
Do a runner from a fancy restaurant
Scuba Dive
Milk a cow
Be present when your country wins the world cup
See both solar and lunar eclipses
Write your name over a star on the walk of fame
Learn another language
Read the greatest books ever written
Complete a coast to coast road trip across America
Make at least one huge purchase you can’t afford
Score the winning goal/try/basket
Gatecrash a fancy party
See the all-time Greatest films
Live in the place you love
Leave a job you hate
Take part in a police line-up
Get away with the perfect practical joke or hoax
Join the mile-high club
Make the front page of a national newspaper
Drive a car at top speed
Shout “Drinks are on me!” in a pub or a bar
Be part of a flash mob
Visit……….
Save someone’s life
In various languages learn to………..
Invent a word that makes it into the dictionary
Have adventurous sex
Have enough money to do all the things on the list
Stand on the international date line
Learn to fly a plane
Get a tattoo and/or piercing
Invent something
Learn astronomy and read the night sky
Drink a vintage wine
Answer a personal ad
Spend Christmas on the beach
Get barred from a pub or bar
Build your own house
Skinny dip at midnight
Sell your junk on eBay and make a profit
Visit the world’s tallest buildings
Run a marathon
Conquer your fear
Get married unusually
Throw away the Instant Noodles
Join the 16-mile high club
Publish a cult website
Own an original piece of art
Complete the monopoly board pub crawl
Get something named after you
Get revenge
Be an extra in a film
Live out of a van
Go on a demonstration
Confess*
Reach 100 years of age*
Continue your gene pool

*Note - P(99 or 100 being achieved) <0.00002