A Year of Books

2012 was the year I decided to read at least one book per week on average. Not as some new years resolution sort of thing, but because I bought so many books that I now have books stacked horizontally on books, and books stacked on top of each other on my desk. I have many books and I haven't read half of them. So I'm fixing that one book a week.

I read a few John Swartzwelder books:

• Dead Men Scare Me Stupid
• The Exploding Detective
• Earth vs Everybody

His writing style may seem simplistic and his characters lack depth but gosh darn they are hilarious books. He was the writer of 59 episodes of The Simpsons (more than any other writer) back in the days of classic episodes that everyone quotes and it shows why he's probably written one of your favourite classic Simpsons line. Brilliantly absurd, amazingly funny, they are instantly loveable short pieces of humour.

• Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson
• Crunk Juice by Steve Roggenbuck (a book of poetry, which I reread multiple times. It's funny, it's uplifting, it's strange)
• Watchmen by Alan Moore
• Excelsior! by Stan Lee

I read multiple Terry Pratchett Books:

• The Last Continent
• The Colour of Magic
• The Light Fantastic
• Mort
• The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents
• Witches Abroad

The Hunger Games trilogy (The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, Mockingjay) by Suzanne Collins. I had heard about it before and saw that it was being made into a movie so decided to read the books first so I could be adequately excited by the news. Little did I expect that they were published by Scholastic and actually written for a far younger audience. You know, books about dystopian societies about children brutally murdering each other and civil war is just the kind of thing you expect in a young teen book.

• Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now by Andrew Jordan
• If You're Happy and you know it... by Andre Jordan

Dark humoured or outright depressing. It jumps between the two and so becomes a heartfelt and beautiful collection of drawings that is endearing despite its simplistic style.

• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
• A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

To be honest, I really relied on the Nadsat dictionary I printed off from Wiktionary because the Nadsat is just so thick in the beginning. Though eventually I did rely on it less and less until I didn't even have to consciously think "word A means B in English" it was just reading it casually as if it was just part of my language. It was really cool this idea of conditioning the reader on how they read a book by making them learn part of a "language" in a book about conditioning someone on how to think.

Nearly EVERY JOHN GREEN BOOK EVER (that he is the sole author of).

In order of reading (I think)

• The Fault in Our Stars
• Looking for Alaska
• An Abundance of Katherines
• Paper Towns
• Will Grayson, Will Grayson (co-authored by David Levithan)

The Fault in Our Stars is my favourite book of 2012. I absolutely adore it. I read it in 2 days. It'll make you cry. Go read it now. I have yet to read Let it Snow: Three Holiday Romances, which is co-authored by Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle.

• Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
• The Children of Hurin by J.R.R. Tolkien
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Footrot Flats 9 by Murray Ball
• V for Vendetta by Alan Moore
• The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
• Umbrella Academy: Dallas by Gerard Way
• Spider-man J: Japanese Knights by Yamanaka Akira
• Spider-man J: Japanese Daze by Yamanaka Akira

Spider-man manga. Brilliant. It's so corny and ridiculous.

• Moab is my Washpot by Stephen Fry

By Tom Taylor I read:

• Star Wars: Invasion: Revelations
• The Deep

He's a pretty cool guy and I wish the Star Wars: Invasion series wasn't currently going nowhere because I really enjoyed reading it.

• Torn by Andrew Constant, (art by Nicole Scott, John James)
• The Antidote by Oliver Burkeman
• Machine of Death by various

By Justin Randall I read both Changing Ways book 1 and 2. The artwork is just astonishing and the story intriguing. I can't wait for book 3, but considering book 2 was released this year and the art isn't really simple it'll be at least a year or two before the next one. 

• Fight Club by Chuck Palahnuik
• Unlikely by Jeffrey Brown
• The Bermudez Triangle by Maureen Johnson
• The Scott Pilgrim series (1-6) by Bryan Lee O'Malley

I love Scott Pilgrim. I decided to reread it for the 3rd or 4th time. It's amazing. I love the magic realism, the video game references, the humour, everything. It is amazing. Scott is a cheating, rude, self absorbed and delusional moocher yet he's still loveable to us. And Wallace. Oh Wallace is the best thing ever. He's seriously my favourite character.

• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
• Vampire Breath by R.L. Stine

Oh man the nostalgia. I don't remember reading that particular one as a kid but it's great picking up an old Goosebumps book. They're funnier than I remember and wow so short. Back as a kid that was a reasonable read, now I look at it and go "Wow. It would've even take me a couple of hours..." and the chapters are a few pages long at best! There's moments of suspense every 5 minutes, it's great.

• Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

This book had moments where I wanted to highlight certain sentences or bookmark pages because of cool phrases or sections I enjoyed. Particularly there's one quote "peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God" that I really like. The Book of Bonokon is filled with interesting tidbits of scattered philosophy that aren't necessarily applicable to real life, but cool nonetheless. There's an odd structure to this book that isn't immediately unusual, but the chapters occasionally will end halfway through conversations. It's like they end on punchlines and the chapter was part of the set up for the "joke". Sometimes it's funny, sometimes I guess that's just a convenient spot to end. Anyway, it's an fascinating book and I do suggest you read it.

• RoosterTeeth comics Year 3 - Griffon Ramsey

I got these at Supanova. It's signed by Burnie Burns and Gavin Free, despite neither of them really working on it, just being inspiration for some of the comics within it. Good enough.

And that's it. That's what I completed last year. Though I did nearly finish The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers by Christopher Vogler and I started reading The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling, both of which are quite large so you can see why I didn't finish them.

This year I think I'll tackle Ulysses by James Joyce. Just because I can. It can't sit on my bookcase forever being ignore in favour of smaller books.

Preaching about Jesus on the Train

Train rides aren’t normally interesting. Today though, halfway towards Perth a man got up, an open bible in his hand, and stood in at the front of a row of seats. He spoke out, calling to us that he had something important to say. That’s when he began preaching about the good word of Jesus Christ and how we should all accept him into our lives. The young teens standing behind him scoffed and quietly mocked him before going back to their conversation. He ignored them as if they weren’t there and continued to speak to us.  He told us about how he is a Noongar and grew up near drugs and alcohol and how Jesus improved his life.

There was a passion to how he spoke. He was not a ranting lunatic; he did not rave or appear incoherent. This was not a hellfire and brimstone sermon like a preacher spreading the fear of God into those before him. All he wanted was to share the good word of the Lord to those who would listen and the thing is people did. There were only a few I saw before him (though I did not turn back) who turned their heads to ignore him. I was really worried that people would get offended and tell him with disdain to stop shoving his beliefs on others (though he did say he did not condemn us for our lives, but wished that we would consider how we dealt with sin) but no one did. A man who stood beside him shook his hand before leaving and he carried on. To be honest he was far more interesting of a preacher than the people at Church. He wasn’t telling people what they came here to listen to, he was there to win over hearts of non-believers and see the way he did, to see that there was glory in things through God.

As far as ways to convert people over, randomly starting to preach to a train cart is a bit unusual but I’m sure you could probably think of a stranger example. I was worried at first that people would jeer at him and try and boo him into sitting down but they didn’t. I didn’t hear any mutters of him being crazy or annoying, if people didn’t care they just didn’t listen.

I admired the man’s faith and commitment even though I didn’t agree that this was the best platform to spread his message. Although I disagreed with him as he moved through the seats I reached out to shake his hand.

As we reached Perth he told us all that if they wanted to accept Jesus they could talk to him and he’d give them a simple prayer to accept him into their lives. My journey continued on towards Murdoch station so I did not get off with him but I saw out the window that he was standing there waiting for passengers to pass him. A few that had been sitting not far from him stopped to talk to him and I was still worried he would be met with harsh words or criticism, but they seemed interested and shook his hand to congratulate him.

If you had asked me before today if anyone could start preaching on a train during the middle of the day and not got told to shut up by those around him I would’ve thought it absurd.

Getting Drunk on New Years Eve

First step is to go to a bottle shop for supplies. I'm not much of a drinker so I had my handy friend (who is younger than me) as a guide to what I might theoretically enjoy. I wish I could remember the name of the place we went to. It was this big place devoted to discount alcohol. You could get $3 wine. It was like the IGA of alcohol.

Next step is pausing to go for a swim because it's summer. The water was warm. None of that refreshingly cool getting in step by step because it's so cold sort of nonsense here. Nah, the water is just a little bit cooler than the air so is technically an improvement. My left ear got blocked up because of this. Spoilers: this is relevant to the story later on. Read on excitedly to find out how! (Then be disappointed when it isn't too amazing).

Then... onwards! To the middle of nowhere where the roads don't have curbs and just kinda fall apart into rough edges that turn into gravel or dirt and there's no street lights to show you the way if you were driving in the dark. Yep, we went into the country to get drunk. There were tents to sleep in! More on that later.

This property was huge. We explored barely a fraction of it. There was considerable space for parking near some rusted old greenhouses (well, I think they were greenhouses. They could've been sheds with the sides fallen off) that overlooked a bunch of trees that went off into the distance. Nearby was a room with flashing lights bound to cause seizures in anyone with epilepsy for the sake of dancing in. A path was paved through a garden, lit with christmassy lights and fibre optic lights, that led to the open area outside the back of the house where a karaoke machine stood playing nostalgic music from a decade ago, and some less nostalgic music from only a few years back too...

Then there was the tent area near the pool (a drink is to be taken every time the host said "no glass in the pool area", though I don't think anyone bothered with this drinking game). The odd thing was the grass squished beneath my feet, like the ground beneath it wasn't compacted at all. It was uncomfortably soft.

"It sinks when I step on it! IT MAKES ME FEEL FAT!" I yell out to whoever I was talking to at the time.

Later on, with alcohol in me, uneven ground that sinks when you step on it, and a problem with my left ear, I noticed that balancing was a gauntlet I had not prepared for! But I did not fall over. I got used to it eventually.

I didn't get as drunk as I expected myself to get. I'd brought a ridiculous amount of alcohol (vodka, red wine, white wine, margaritas, and some premixed cocktail stuff in a box because I'm classy like that) that I did not expect to get through. I think I did surprisingly well when it came to good decision making while drunk. I deliberately made sure I stopped talking to people I wasn't sure would be comfortable around me while drunk (and it's not like drunk me would pick up on that so safe bet is to let them be with closer friends), whenever I was approaching a small group of people I'd inquire if they were having a private conversation first to know if I should come join or walk away, I didn't make out with my friend who was strangely eager to do so, etc...  so good work drunk me for not being obnoxious or doing anything regrettable! Yeah!

We counted down to new years and then there were hugs constantly given to anyone nearby for the next 5 minutes.

Long story short (...er, it's been going on for 9 paragraphs so far) I didn't end up sleeping in the same tent I had originally planned. I had to find an alternative tent to sleep in, which ended up being Alex's. Thankfully wasn't too awkward sharing a tent with him and his girlfriend, though I wish I'd thought about bringing a pillow... I had brought a sleeping bag, but it was too hot to put it on, so I was sleeping on it with a bit of it scrunched up like a pillow but it was subpar. Everyone else was still awake and being noise so despite it being 4am, I was still awake.

It started becoming light and I realised I was still awake. I watched the sun rise on a new year...

Then collapsed and tried to freaking sleep. JUST SLEEP DAMN IT. The flies got into the tent and irritated my feet. Damn it. Sleep. Want sleep. So when it was 7am and I had woken up I wasn't sure if I felt worse because of the alcohol or the lack of sleep...

I feel good about this new year. Sure, it'll have the same problems and troubles as the last one probably, but it'll be better because I've learned a little from last time... Even though I don't believe in New Years Resolutions I know I'll find some way to try and improve myself.

Awkward Perils of Making a Youtube Video

So I make vlogs (I never stop telling people this apparently) and I also still live at home with my family. That is normally fine because I can sit down and talk in my room with the door closed and no one can see or hear me being weird. Problem is I was making a vlog today where there's a cut away joke to me in the kitchen banging a jar of peanut butter against the kitchen counter while yelling at it then sobbing...

And my mother is aware that I HAVE a Youtube channel but she doesn't know much more than that and I don't want to explain it to her... all she knows is that this is my "job" only I don't get paid for it but I in theory am "earning" money...

Anyway, to avoid being carted away for being crazy I decided I needed to tell my family that I was going to start yelling and it was OK, it was just something I needed to do... just... don't ask questions...

Also please be quiet... I need quiet on "set"... while I bang the peanut butter.

Filming was interrupted when my brother walked into the kitchen to make himself a sandwich using the peanut butter. It was OK though as I didn't have a particular schedule to stick to. I had the rest of the day to get a shot of me hitting the kitchen table with peanut butter... This is Youtube after all, not a big Hollywood production (though now it is a life goal of mine to have a scene involving peanut butter in a high budget film just so I can recreate this one shot). He walked away muttering something about me being strange.

"THIS IS MY JOB!" I yell at him.

It was intensely awkward and I waited until my mother had gone into a different room so I could close the door on her to increase the chance that she might not hear me.

I did the shot and Wesley yelled at me to be quiet.

It was even more awkward than the time I was filming John Green's Face and had to keep running up and down the stairs right next to my mother for the sake of having more than one take... then the microphone didn't work and I had to do it all over again.

And soon I'll be filming a vlog where one of the jokes involves me yelling about how I'm on fire (while OUTSIDE). That's going to be interesting to film...

Don't mind me neighbours... I'm just... a guy walking around with a camera... yelling about his socks being on fire when they actually aren't. It'll be done in After Effects I swear.

I'm not crazy, I'm just doing this for youtube.

I want to be someone’s favourite youtuber.

It doesn’t matter if I don’t have a million subscribers, or hundreds, or even tens of thousands. I just want to be so utterly entertained by me that I am their favourite youtuber. Making people laugh is what makes me feel accomplished as a person. Sure, I love it when I check youtube and find someone has commented telling me I’m funny, or cute, or adorable, etc but it is the best feeling when I see someone tell me their going to subscribe then search back through my older videos commenting as they go along. That’s the best kind of subscriber: the kind who sees an online body of work and isn’t content just to look at it every now and then but takes the time to consume it all and appreciate the effort put into every video. My old videos barely get noticed until someone who has seen my recent work decides to go through my uploads.

It makes me feel appreciated that I’m not just a hit and miss entertainer with one funny video that gets all the attention, but a myriad of work that brings back a person to keep watching.

That’s the kind of subscriber I try to be. When I started watching Vlogbrothers I made it a goal of mine to watch every single video of theirs. It took 3 months to work my way back through their near 5 year history of regularly updating but I did it. I did the same with Frezned (who is ridiculously funny). Right now I’m in the process of slowly making my way back through MorganPaigeLoves who is an amazing (and slightly underrated) American vlogger. She is funny, interesting, full of enthusiasm and her joy is infectious. She’s also pretty which isn’t really important to the viewing experience but is a bonus (don’t worry, you’re pretty too Hank, John, and Tom).

All these people have thousands of subscribers (Morgan having a humble 13,228 as of me writing this compared to Frezned's 73,073 and Vlogbrothers whopping 854,974) and I never expect to reach such huge levels of popularity. (Gosh no that'd be ridiculous that that many people would find me interesting let alone FIND my youtube channel to determine whether or not I am interesting) But if I can just get a few fans and keep them consistently entertained then I have done something important with my time.

So here’s to a new year of content creating and making people laugh!

For those wondering my youtube channel is Oneupdateatatime and can be found here.

Geese are Evil

Geese are just outright dicks. They are the dicks of the bird world. Let's face it... they are cruel and heartless beasts. They're also scary.

Seriously, just look at this goose.

It looks like it has spotted prey and is about to charge at me screeching in some kind of horrifying black speech (this is a Tolkien reference not a racial thing guys. Calm down).

Now I'm not trying to say that they're evil... but basically if birds had religion then Geese would be the personification of demons (and I suppose Swans would be Angels)...

Something majorly important about geese that I don't understand is WHY DOES IT LOOK LIKE THEY HAVE TEETH!? They're not even predatory birds and yet their bills have been serrated to have little sharp teeth like things. That's freaky and I suspect it is just a thing they do to themselves by filing down their bills so they look tougher, like a bikey getting sweet tats all over his body so people know they have a high tolerance for pain and you should back away if they glare at you. If too many people get accustomed to it they'll find new ways to modify their bodies to be more fearsome... maybe embed spikes into their wings so they can attack people just by flapping at them.

The hissing is just another way to say "f*** you, we're tough and you should fear us!" There's no reason a bird needs to hiss. That's a snake's job. Geese just enjoy instilling fear.

I went to a park by a river recently and there was a gang of 8 of them. They circled me. Literally they walked over and walked around me... and stared at me... they just... watched... waiting... so close you could reach out and touch them if you were so void of any sanity and no longer wanted a hand. Being the man that I was a grabbed onto the girl I was hanging out with and told her I was scared. I also told her that if I died fighting off geese to tell people stories of how I died, and to paint me as a hero.

But eventually after getting their fill of fear (which sustains them. Fun fact: they don't need food if they have a sufficient supply of fear to fuel them, just like Black Lanterns) they went away. WE SURVIVED! WE SURVIVED 8 WHOLE GEESE!

Turns out they use them in replacement of guard dogs in England because they're vicious. THAT'S JUST HOW EVIL THEY ARE! You can replace a Doberman with a goose. That's messed up.

If you're still not convinced that geese are messed up and evil just take a look at this:

Surely this is...

...the face of something...

 ...that wants to kill you...

...and eat ALL your babies.

Lock your doors, stay away from open rivers... and if you see a goose...

... RUN!

(photo credit goes to me. I nearly lost an arm getting you this)

My Sister's Doctor Who Wedding

My sister got married on Saturday! Woo! Congratulations to her and her wonderful husband Lyndon. They're very happy together and I wish them much more happiness in the future.

It all started months ago when I received this invitations inspired by The Impossible Astronaut, the first episode of the 6th season of Doctor Who:

Doctor Who wedding invitations! TARDIS blue envelops and inside there is a time, date, and GPS co-ordinates (blurred here so you can't go back in time and stalk the wedding). That was the beginning of the nerdiness.

The last time I was at a wedding I was... 5 probably, so didn't really remember what was involved. Turns out weddings are way shorter than expected. The face on Lyndon when Isobel walked down the isle was amazing. He looked stunned, amazed, like he could barely contain his happiness. When she stood in front of him it was like the rest of the room wasn't there and it was beautiful to see his big dopey smile. Gosh it was wonderful.

Then... reception time! Now I was the one who drove the bridesmaids to our local church with my car, but then it all shifted around and I was driving the newly weds in Lyndon's car. The thing is, Lyndon's car is an automatic which is... weird. And I'm not really used to them what with having a real license for a real car (real cars have clutches and I don't care if you say I'm body shaming cars). I'd only driven it once and ended up making a vlog about how Automatic Cars are for Lazy People.

Basically I wasn't really sure how to work the thing very well and after a little bit of figuring out what to do next I reversed. Facing the exit of the carpark I rolled down the window and yelled "I'VE NEVER DRIVEN AN AUTOMATIC BEFORE!" to the concerned faces that watched on as I drove off with the married couple.

"I sure hope you know where we're going because I don't..." I inform them (quite truthfully).

Don't worry we survived. In one piece too. Though they did start discussing how they could now have sex in the back of the car... That sentence sounds ambiguous. "Do you mean they were discussing, while sitting in the back of the car, how they could have sex now that they were married? Or do you mean they were discussing having sex in the back of the car while you were driving?"

The answer is yes to both.

THAT'S NOT WHAT I NEED TO HEAR ABOUT GUYS.

The reception was nice. The tables were all named different Doctor Who monsters (I believe I was on Nimon) like Dalek, Rutan, Sontaran, Cybermen etc... and Cardassian (to see who was nerdy enough to catch that it was a Star Trek reference instead of a Doctor Who one, but not everyone would recognise old school references like Rutan and probably assumed it was yet another thing from the 70s).

Then this happened:

These little Daleks were remote controlled and made their way to the dance floor in advance of the newly weds entering the reception. It was awesome.

Dad made a speech about how we have a bookcase of sci-fi at home and how when she heard that my sister had found someone who was into sci-fi they knew he'd fit in just fine with our family and he does. He's awesome. I approve whole heartedly of Lyndon, who has so many books that he has shelves attached to his walls where he can't put bookcases and still that isn't enough. Now I can say "come at me bro" at him and try and challenge him, despite the fact that he's taller than I am.

There, of course, was Gangnam Style played at the wedding because the playlist was not entirely programmed by the Bride and Groom but the DJ as well (so there were a few things that Isobel said "I would definitely not have picked this..." to). More appropriately in character was a Nirvana's Smells like Teen Spirit mash up with Rick Astley's Never Going to Give You Up.

Yes. They rickrolled their own wedding.

Then as the reception came to a close the guests made a tunnel by making archways with their arms by finding a partner. The married couple walked through it as the Red Dwarf theme played and it was awesome.

Remember When I was Funny?

This blog used to be considered humorous. It also used to be my main form of online expression but then I moved onto Tumblr and the majority of my time was taken up by that. It was simpler, I devoted more time to quick short text posts that were lost quickly down dashboards and became like diary updates because the format seemed to encourage that. Anything funny I decided to write there whereas this space was redefined for less of a diary blog and more of an opinion blog where I reserved updates for increasingly political and opinionated entries. Now if I have something I believe to be a funny monologue I upload it to my youtube channel. So what really is this blog left around for?

I've been thinking a lot about what I write online and how often. On one hand I sporadically ignore this blog whereas I heavily favour Tumblr to the detriment of the rest of my life. I've been thinking about how I choose to represent myself online and the person I want to be, though that last sentence implies I really should be thinking about addiction...

I'm not one for new years resolutions. They're a stupid idea. If you have something you need to improve upon you shouldn't wait until a new year starts to do it. Maybe that's why they fail... because people don't care enough to start them when they come up with them.

Well if I had one it should be this: find a use for this blog again. No regular updating because schedules stifle creativity. I inherently post longer posts than on Tumblr so it'll be interesting to get back into a longer form of written expression. Maybe I'll be funny again instead of posting political rants that have been done to death everywhere else online.

And I'd like to get off Tumblr more often. That may seem like I'm trading one drain of my time for another but Tumblr is fleeting and a post disappears into the ether in under a day whereas posts here still get traffic years onwards and so I should think more about what I put into it, why it should be interesting, and how it represents me.

So I'm going to write things that show off my sense of humour more. Hopefully. We'll see. Or I'll just make a temporary attempt to use this blog more often and write lengthy journal entry styled things. We'll see.

Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year.

The Singing Boy on the Train

While travelling on the train recently I was sitting only a few seats away from someone who was obviously quite mentally handicapped. They were being taken into the city by what looked like their mother, maybe to go shopping or eat, I don’t know. They had their phone out and were playing music through the speakers instead of earphones and normally that’d be an annoying thing to do but they were singing along with it. They weren’t being some obnoxious rebellious teenager who liked to crank their music to the ear damaging points on their earphones so the whole carriage could hear, they weren’t being deliberately disruptive, they just played music that was audible and sung along. They were just having fun.

Instead of getting annoyed at this guy for singing along shamelessly and off key to music I personally think is terrible, like Justin Bieber, I found it heart warming. He was so uninhibited and openly engaging in something that made him happy without worrying about how an entire carriage worth of train passengers were obviously judging him. I wasn’t laughing at him but with him.

As I looked around I could see the divide in the opinions of the train passengers. There were those who glared and tried their best to ignore him and thought of him as nothing but an annoyance, or a distraction that should go away. Then there were those who mirrored his happiness and took joy from seeing someone so unashamedly gleeful. People bobbed their heads in time with the singing.

It’s interesting to see how when presented with a situation outside of the norm where someone who isn’t “normal” doing something “weird” people react. It says a lot about their attitudes towards life. I personally think the guy was cool. He was not shackled down by what other people think of feel about him and that is a brilliant example of how to live life. Sure, I never want to be some random singing on a train to Justin Bieber, but I admire his carefree attitude.

But maybe we should sing on trains. Not necessarily literally, though a group karaoke session on the 5pm train ride home would make the whole experience a lot more fun and help us feel a sense of community and togetherness instead of being rigid individuals placed near, but distinctly apart, from our fellow humans. If something out there makes you happy and isn’t there to hurt other people but you worry that complete strangers might judge you then  maybe that’s cause enough to do it. Because maybe people will enjoy it in a good way.

That’s how I want to live.

Art Gallery Adventures

I went to the Art Gallery a while ago with a friend. I didn't plan to, in fact I didn't plan on spending more than a few minutes with them in the city because I was giving them back their external harddrive. But as we sat talking I looked at the Art Gallery and was moved by a sudden burst of impromptu need to relive childhood memories I could no longer grasp clearly in my head. We embarked on what could potentially be a nostalgic adventure armed with 3 years of Arts Major learning and a mindset moulded to fit.

I expected to walk in and see something artsy-fartsy and start raving about "the elegant simplicity in the brush strokes" and finding deep and meaningful symbolism that just wasn't there in a self-mocking parody of Arts Major discourse. Instead I discovered a few things: some abstract art is really cool. Some abstract art is so bad it infuriates me. And art galleries make you feel like you're in a library for upperclass people.

Seriously. You walk in and there is a shift in volume like someone has grabbed the knob and turned it way down. There were no signs that said "quiet", there was no previous set of rules or a social guideline that told me I was obliged to be quiet (and how would I know if there was anyway? I don't visit these sorts of places), there was no people watching me to shhh me if I spoke too loudly. There was just this sudden unconscious need to emulate the quietness of the building and whisper my praise or criticisms near my friend so they could hear.

Some abstract art is really cool. There was one piece that was a "self portrait" but there was no person in it. Instead it was of a cello. Well, I have met some talented cellos in my time but none that could wield a paintbrush with that skill. That was really fascinating that the artist had taken the idea of a "self portrait" to be shown in a different way. Instead of representing the physical aspects of who they were they emphasised the ideas, interests, and thoughts that make that person who they are. In this case they were a fan of playing the cello (other things were painted around and behind it but I can't remember what they were).

Some abstract art is awful.

Ralph Balson infuriates me. His artwork is just awful. It is a bunch of squares and circles with bland colours painted onto canvas. They're not even very good squares and circles. They're not well done enough to look good, but the edges aren't rough or curved enough to be deliberately or aesthetically interesting. It was literally the worst thing I'd seen in the art gallery. I was offended by how stupid it was. It was so distinctly bad that I saw another painting by his and didn't even read the name to know it was his.

Now I don't want you to think I hate abstract expressionism. It is not awful in of itself, but Ralph Balson is basically the kind of artist that makes people look at modern art and think "That's stupid, even I could do better than that" and they might be right. Which is really sad.

For example:

Right next to one was something that looked like it had required equal effort, but was far better. It looked like you could see a fish in its jumbled mess of colours and lines, or maybe a flower. That had meaning. That had aesthetic beauty. That was at least painted properly.

So in a video I will be making soon I decided one of the jokes could involve abstract art. Not a cruel one I assure you. So I sat down and I made some bad art with some paint my Dad had kept since he was in Year 8 (he's nearly 50 now) and painted random things. Didn't even go in with a plan for most. And I showed them to people and they liked them.

"No no!" I cried "You're meant to hate it! It's awful! I didn't even try!"

"But I really like them. They look cool."

I got told they could see my art being hung in an art gallery which saddened me.  It had literally taken me 5 minutes of effort tops on some of those paintings and people thought they were good. Only my brother told me they were awful and stupid but he doesn't care about anything.

So what if Ralph Balson was me? What if someone out there is like me only they're taking the joke too far? What if the world of Abstract Expressionism is just people out there making fun of themselves by painting random stuff and calling it "art" and laughing as it sells then going home and shaking their head in disbelief? What if people don't actually care and it really is just all a joke?

"I honestly thought if I tried doing this I'd die poor..." they say to themselves. "I mean, who even BUYS art these days?"

That'd be horrifying.

Let's all be abstract painters and never have to do a proper days work in our lives. Though admittedly most of us will die from starvation if we try but I'm sure some of us will make it.

American Politics is Melodrama

I really cannot comprehend the level of melodrama and exaggeration when it comes to how people treat politics in America. It baffles me. Everything is the freaking end of the world if your preferred candidate loses. I cannot react properly to things because it is just so absurd that it's funny, but people are so emotionally invested in their political beliefs (however misguided they are) that it should be sad, or at least horrifying.

Take for example the recent re-election of Barrack Obama. A massive victory against the odds. Not many presidents manage a 2nd term, especially not during a time of poor unemployment (which is improving I might add). Conservatives reacted by taking to social media to cry and moan.

Tyranny and darkness. It's almost as if Obama is a dictator and democracy is dead! What?

Now surely that's just one person overreacting...

I saw tons of people a while ago say on a social media site that they'd move to Canada if Obama gets re-elected (because Canada is notorious for not having any socialist welfare systems like healthcare). This got picked up by Tumblr and got turned into a joke. If I hadn't seen those people complain beforehand I would not have known that it was meant to be based off a serious idea because the way people react to Obama is ridiculous. I have lost the ability to distinguish between a conservative rant and an internet troll. Seriously. If you were to believe what Fox News has convinced people to believe then Obama is a socialist communist dictator liberal Muslim who isn't even an American citizen. (I KNOW people who say this sort of thing which is really sad). Now surely there is a system is place to stop illegal immigrants from running for office... if I was an illegal immigrant I wouldn't put myself in a position where I am CONSTANTLY under INTERNATIONAL scrutiny 24/7 in case anyone bothered to ask me for a birth certificate (which has been available online since 2008. Seriously people it is a non-issue to the point of absurdity to even question the validity of his citizenship).

It is so blatantly obvious that Obama is not a Muslim (he eats pork, consumes alcohol, doesn't pray, adhere to other tenants of Muslim faith, is a Christian, doesn't fast on Ramadan, is a Christian, and isn't a Muslim) and even if he was it would be a non-issue because there is a thing called Separation of Church and State.

Obama isn't going to tear apart your country, America. There is no massive downfall of society just because you have a President with different ideas to you.

This, by the way, is one of my favourite overreactions:

(For those who don't know: Australia doesn't have a president we have a Prime Minister, who is a woman, and is an Atheist who lives in sin with her partner. Fun fact: Australia has not descended into hellfire, we have not had our liberties torn from us, our country is not in ruins, and basically the only issue is her policy ideas don't please everyone).

Look up on Twitter and you will find a string of these tweets about how if Obama won they'd move to Australia or Canada... It baffles me. Do they not know anything about Australia? We don't have really conservative political parties for them to be comforted by. We have centre-right and centre-left parties and guess which one is the Liberal one...

Can someone tell me what liberties are being destroyed by Obama? What great atrocities are being committed? Last I checked her was a supporter of Gay Rights and if I'm not mistaken giving gay people rights ADDS to the overrall social liberties of the country, helps create a sense of unity, and allows its citizens to feel included instead of divided. You can't just throw around the word "freedom" as a buzz word to back up whatever you say. It doesn't work that way. I hear it ALL the time. "Our Freedoms are at stake!" What Freedoms? I never heard what freedoms. I have never heard a coherent argument as to why electing a Democrat = the end of the world... I understand why electing a Republican can destroy freedoms though: Mitt Romney opposes same sex marriage and civil unions. Already I instantly see a major way that Republicans have singled out a specific group of people and placed them as lower class citizens. Obama on the other hand is mixed race and had to work his way up in the world from humble beginnings. He understands the middle class plight. He has a tangible connection to different ethnic groups. I truly believe he cares about all kinds of people regardless of their sex, race, or orientation.

It really concerns me how some people (White people) in America react like an election is a disaster. It's... 4 years... of a guy who sincerely honestly wants to help his country. Ok, so you disagree with the method he wants to employ to do it (that is, Fox News will try their best to demonize him for everything he does, even if it has been supported by a Republican candidate because it's a good idea until the OPPOSITION has it - then it will DESTROY AMERICA AND TEAR FAMILIES APART!) but he is not a monster.

America will survive Obama... it will not only survive, but it will most likely thrive. There is no destruction of social values, there is no end of days... there is no need to mourn the loss of a once great country, and most importantly it is time to remember that America is a democracy.

More than %50 of people voted for Obama.

Therefore this isn't a disaster for the country, it is what the majority of the country wants. Conservatives are just so narrow minded that they can't understand any difference in opinion. If something goes wrong you need to yell and complain about it until someone consoles you like the blabbering child you are or tells you to shut up and takes away your internet connection. Speaking of blabbering children, here's Donald Trump's twitter:

Look. Just admit that you have difficulty winning an election through anything other than scare tactics, fear mongering, and trying to coax out the inner racist of some of the population (hopefully not a large amount of people, but every person you can convince is important when your party isn't very popular amongst Hispanics, Jews, and Women).

And here, to conclude, is my favourite overreaction to a lost election ever from the cincinnati tea party website:

It's so melodramatic I expect the webdesigner immediately placed the back of their hand against their forehead and fainted as they wailed "WOE! WOE! I WEEP FOR THE DEATH OF THE GREATEST COUNTRY ON EARTH!"

Dear conservatives:

Suck it up and shut up. It's 4 years and then you get a new President. It might even be one you voted for if the rest of your country is stupid it enough to agree.

Sincerely, everyone else.

How to get Lots of Views/Traffic on your Video/Website

Have you ever wondered "how do I get lots of views on my youtube channel?" or "how do I get more hits on my channel?" Well after having had multiple youtube channels and blogs over the years and with the help of Google statistics and keyword optimisers I've discovered a few things about getting easy traffic to a website or video:

Tag it with keywords that everyone searches for... like porn... or Justin Bieber. Justin Bieber sex tape XXX might even get more views. Or something animal related.

I have a video on my youtube channel where I talk about Fanny Hill and 50 Shades of Grey (two pornographic books) and I aptly call it Book Porn. (Found: Here) That gets lots of traffic because it has porn in the title, but it doesn't have many people who watch it for more than a few seconds into it because they realise it isn't porn. Why are you looking up porn on youtube? Are you 14 years old? Porn gets taken down pretty quickly and to find it you'd probably have to search through the millions of videos trying to get easy hits by tagging themselves accordingly.

And don't just scoff at the Justin Bieber thing. I occasionally use a keyword optimiser tool to try and see what I should tag my videos on youtube. Turns out the popular ideas are irrelevant to my video and I never use them but the recurring thing I noticed was regardless of the search criteria one of the most popular results was Justin Bieber (in the millions. Wow, Bieber Fever sure does cause a lot of internet traffic). It was weird because I was searching things like "drunk" and Justin Bieber would be massively popular. Now I'm not sure how those two keywords combine, nor do I want to find out the demographic who is googling that on Youtube whatever...

I find that my blog posts that have nothing to do with porn, as long as they contain that word ONCE in passing, get more traffic. If you ever get to look at what people are Googling to arrive somewhere you'll find that it is sometime the strangest things. My favourites include "whoa dude", (who Googles that?) "bilby harry potter", (how are they related?) "why is porn so homoerotic" (YES! IT SO IS), "pokemon from hell", "networking porn" (how does that work?) and my favourite... my absolute favourite search result which not only makes no sense as a thing someone would google, but confounds and confuses me as to how it directed to my blog as I tried googling it and didn't get me my blog, is...

+save her life +she performs fellatio

...WHAT? That... save her life because she sucks dick? Why the hell are you googling that and what kind of strange situation does this pose where a woman's ability to put a dick in her mouth is the most valid reason why she shouldn't be killed/left to die? That...

So really the lesson here is to just write things in your blog, add in Justin Bieber/Porn/cute kittens/otters somewhere in there and watch the traffic role in from very confused people wondering how they got there and why they should stay...

A Relaxing Night at the Beach

A few nights ago I was stressed so I went down the beach. It was night and so there were barely any people. I thought it'd be a bit odd to see others walking around along the beach like an ordinary day but they were, just no one was swimming. Faintly lit by the glow of the surf life-savers building I sat down in the sand and looked out at the dark ocean. The only thing I could see were the small waves as they broke against the shoreline and retreated into the black that had flashes of lights from what could have been a boat. Above me the clouds parted and the stars shone done brighter than they do when surrounded by the street lights of suburbia. I tried to find orion's belt and couldn't find it until I realised I was looking at the stars the wrong way and suddenly it all made sense.

There was a beautiful sense of serenity and isolation. I was alone with my thoughts and even though people were walking past occasionally they would quickly disappear in the darkness that stretched off into the distance in both directions. There were no distractions of the internet, no funny cat videos that stop me from doing work, no traffic, just the sounds of the waves coming in and out... Alone with the sounds of the surf and my breathing. I lied down between the clumps of seaweed and talked to a friend on the phone about the stars, lasagne, puns, and other such relevant things...

It was relaxing. The stress melted away and I was calm again. My problems no longer seemed insurmountable and torturous. This is how I want to relax in the future. Once I have finished this semester I will have a day of pure relaxation... I'll watch the sun set and then lie on the beach watching the stars until it is late and I am falling asleep. Maybe I'll even walk there... I live close to the beach because I used to go a lot, but now that I can see the ocean from my window I never go there... perhaps I should change that...

The Quest to Change my Desktop Background...

So turns out Windows 7 Starter (which comes on my tiny little Eee ASUS PC) doesn't come with the ability to change the desktop. I found this out the 2nd day of my quest to change the desktop background....

It took a lot of searching through the settings, trying to discover what I could or could not do... searching through the control panel, googling how to do it (which led me to a youtube tutorial for a DIFFERENT model that had more options than mine), searching for system settings, and discovering that I could change the desktop background from generic to "nothing" by clicking the "remove desktop background image" button somewhere deep in the settings...

... WHY IS THERE A REMOVE DESKTOP BACKGROUND IMAGE FUNCTION IF YOU CAN'T CHANGE IT TO ANYTHING ELSE?

It consumed me. I needed to know. I was in class half paying attention because I kept trying to find a way. I NEEDED TO KNOW.

Then I discovered that you needed to download a whole program specifically designed just for changing desktop backgrounds... so I did. I found it, and after going through the different download links that led to pages with MORE download links, I found the right program and installed it...

Success! After 2 days of searching and Googling I can finally rest knowing that I have successfully changed my desktop background to THIS:

(For those wondering it is of Meekakitty from this video)
(For those wondering where I got the program I used the Personalisation Panel program found: here)

Blogging has Replaced the Diary

Blogging is strange. See, blogging has replaced the culture of a hidden diary. Who out there still has a diary that they keep hidden in a draw to write in from day to day? As the internet becomes more commonplace, physical forms of recorded communication are being replaced. One day there will be no handwritten documents to discover under a bed for an editor to turn into the next diary of Anne Frank. There will only be archives. The archives of different sites copied and pasted into an order based off time codes to show the progression of a person’s life.

People like diaries. Diaries are a way to vent, to express emotion, to communicate. Communicating important events and expressing emotions helps a person psychologically. It is good for us and so a diary is a way of helping the self communicate, sometimes in place of actual human contact. Even if you’ve never kept a written diary you’ve had conversations that serve the same function as a diary.

So in place of a diary we have blogs these days. I like blogging; I’ve been blogging for years. I move from one blogging site to the next, updating them constantly if I can (sorry I have neglected my blogspot, but I will try to write more here). It has got to the point where I’m really comfortable being personal online where a bunch of strangers can see it. This poses a problem because it is blurring the lines between what is personal and what is impersonal... where is the distinction between what I can share to everyone, or what I should take to with only my friends or closest friends? At what point does a post become so personal on Tumblr that I should put a “read more” break so people don’t read it unless they genuinely care? The last year of my life has been a really interesting one, but also not very well documented on here unlike previous years.
I got drunk for the 2nd time this year. There were heartbreaks and joys. There were sleepless nights. There were moments of self doubt. There were stressful weeks where I wished to shut out everything and sleep. There have definitely been times where I needed to reach out to a person and whinge or vent and my blog tempted me with its impersonal audience of strangers... over 400 people on one site... 100 on another... post it here and write a few choice phrases and people will find it on Google looking for answers to their history homework questions (it is weird seeing how google traffic works). I have been known to write long blog posts and boy could I write a doozy of a post on my recent thoughts about who I’d like to be as a person but perhaps that’s not for you...

Do you ever stop to think about how you’re getting attached to your blog? Do you ever stop to think about how much of yourself is divulged?

Perhaps you’re sharing too much... I think we’re starting to live in a culture of sharing. The personal diary has been replaced by an online blog that is theoretically capable of being accessed by billions of people and Facebook allows us to tell hundreds of our “friends” where we are, who we’re with, and what we’re doing every moment of the day or night, and wi-fi and smart phones are ubiquitous.

Me sharing too much isn’t really a problem on this blog... but I’m going to make sure it isn’t on others.