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DesDownunder

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  1. DesDownunder

    83. Test the Blog

    By DesDownunder,

    The blogs are not looking as they should, so I am testing out posting a new entry in my blog just to see what it looks like.
    If you have been plagued by spam in your blog, I have adjusted the guest permissions which should stop that from happening.
    Please let me know about any spam in your blog and I will delete it.
  2. DesDownunder
    Firstly I offer my condolences, respect and tears for the loss of Heath Ledger, a great bloke and a fine actor.
    That anyone, especially a man professing to be a man of God, should ridicule a man at his death for not fitting in with their concepts of religion is to me down right abhorrent. To claim knowledge that the dead person is now in Hell is irrational, illogical and deplorable.
    Who would do such a thing? Fred Phelps, who else? See the link that TR has provided here
    Fred claims to have knowledge that Heath is in Hell, complete with flames.
    During all this, Phelps also claims that Australia is a land of sodomites.
    Then we have Trab's illuminating report here that Aussies are being warned to steer clear of Canada because,
    "An Australian government website lists Canada as a country where travellers need to be cautious about terrorism, dangerous winter driving and cold weather conditions."
    Obviously the government thought because it is too cold for us practise sodomy in such weather or while driving the car, that it would be terrible for us.
    On behalf of the Australian people I would make it known that we do not concur with any ideas that Canada is so dangerous as to warrant such a statement.
    Some Australia Day this is turning out to be.
    oh yes I suppose I should tell you that January 26th is our National (booze up) Australia Day.
    Similar to our US friend's July the 4th, except we drink more than they do.
    In the light of Fred Phelps' sodomite claims, I am wondering if he got it mixed up with our national food, Vegemite?
    Just what does Fred put on his sandwiches? Inquiring minds want to know in case his mentality is diet related.
    Fred also has a go at "Faggy England" but I will leave that for Camy to comment on.
    I am asking our Government agencies that they quickly offer apologies to our Canadian brothers and sisters for any insinuation that they are are mad terrorists hellbent on killing the touring sodomites from Australia.
    I will tell them we should offer package holidays to Canadians who would like to see our national sodomy games, perhaps even take part in them.
    You will know when you have met an Australian because we always greet people by saying "G'Day"
    short for "Gay Day". Some people have thought G'day was short for a welcoming, "Good Day"
    But no. It is actually short for Gay Day, and we always say it before we sodomise anyone.
    G'day, mate?
    Which also explains why we call each other "mate."
    Australia, land of the sodomites. I guess that explains our low birth rate.
    Australia, Land of the Sodomites, we live in hope, I wish.
    It's a wonder Fred didn't claim that Australia sucks.
    And we are very good at that too.
  3. DesDownunder
    Here is where the quote came from:
    Sanson: ...................Why are you poets so fascinated with madmen?
    Cervantes:................We have much in common.
    Sanson: ...................You both turn your backs on life?
    Cervantes.................We both select from life!
    Sanson:...................A man has to come to terms with life as it is.
    Cervantes:

    Life as it is.
    I have lived for over forty years, and I've seen...
    life as it is.
    Pain...
    misery...
    cruelty beyond belief.
    I've heard all the voices of God's noblest creature.
    Moans from bundles of filth in the street.
    I've been a soldier and a slave.
    I've seen my comrades fall in battle...
    or die more slowly under the lash in Africa.
    I've held them at the last moment.
    These were men who saw life as it is.
    Yet they died despairing.
    No glory, no brave last words.
    Only their eyes, filled with confusion...
    questioning why.
    I do not think they were asking why they were dying...
    but why they had ever lived.
    When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies?
    Perhaps to be too practical is madness.
    To surrender dreams, this may be madness.
    To seek treasure where there is only trash...
    too much sanity may be madness!
    And maddest of all...
    to see life as it is and not as it should be! from, Man of la Mancha. Film script.
    http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts...transcript.html
    For Man of la Mancha history of the playmusical see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_of_La_Mancha
    So you might think because the exact quote I used is not in these words, that I cheated. Yet I am not happy to claim the quote as my own, the sentiment is just so obviously what is behind the above speech.
    Thus I wrote:
    Madness is to believe that only reality is sanity
    Furthermore;
    To make it your quest, for life to be as it should be, is not an impossible dream.
    So I default because of my little subterfuge and you are all winners, everyone of you.
    But I think Rad Steven saw through it first.
    Your prize is waiting for you at my hosted page at Codey?s World, the next chapters of the Doors of Love.
    Don?t worry I won?t be sleeping alone.
  4. DesDownunder
    So I have been laid up with the flu. Was it Swine Flu? Well it wasn't all that pleasant. I still have a cough, but if it was the swine flu I least had something in common with Harry Potter actor, Rupert Grint. He seems to have got on top of it and I seem to have done the same, though I like the idea that either he or I got on top.
    As I say I still have a cough, but mainly my voice is husky; husky as in hoarse, not as in horse which if I got on top of, might mean I was in the play, Equus, which would be good except that it is too cold here for the nude scene and I wouldn't want to get the flu back. Hmm if I did that might mean I have some kind of horse flu.
    My voice being all husky might also mean I didn't have the swine flu, it might have been dog flu I caught from a husky. No that's being silly, I haven't been near a dog, except for some...no I won't go there.
    I did go to the doctor, who seemed quite surprised I was alive and walking. He listened to my lungs with his stethoscope and asked me to cough. If I could have given him one of my evil smiles I would have, but ever willing to do exactly what the cute doctor wants me to do, I began coughing and hawked up some flying phlegm which did a free fall on to the middle of his desk.
    The doctor just looked at it. "Do you need a specimen?" I asked batting my innocent blue eyes.
    "It's okay," said the doc, "I wanted a new desk, anyway."
    "You could always disinfect it," I told him.
    We both leaned over the table to inspect the 'specimen.'
    He looked at it and announced it was typical and didn't appear to be anything nasty, then he looked at me and asked if I felt okay.
    " I feel great," I said, "It looks like my throat just orgasmed on your desk."
    "Can we skip the description of your afterglow?" he asked.
    "Okay I said, anyway now it's your turn."
    "I think not," he said as he put his stethoscope away, "Come back in a fortnight and we'll see how you are."
    "That's it?" I asked, "Come back in two weeks, what if I have the horse flu?"
    "Horse flu?" he asked and I smiled to myself, I had him where I wanted him and he was going to be the recipient of my pun for the week, when he suddenly announced, "Horse flu is not like bird flu, it won't fly."
    "That's what they said about the pigs before they took off and flew," I triumphantly announced.
    "I don't have time for this," he said and handed me a script.
    "What's this for?" I asked.
    "Pain relief, " he told me, "In case you tell yourself one of your puns."
    The doc likes to get in the last word.
  5. DesDownunder

    80. Today-ing

    By DesDownunder,

    I hate being interrupted when I am doing something useful.
    There I was on a research project of some importance. I was counting the number of errors made on all the web pages on the Internet, when the phone rang. It was of course from a marketing firm who used a person whose native tongue was not English (or American). I of course had been counting the aforementioned web page errors without writing them down. So when the phone rang I completely lost track of how many errors I had counted. All that work gone forever.
    The person on the other end of the phone said something like, "Allo, out are you doing today?"
    Where did they learn to say that, The Yoda Academy of Jedi English?
    I replied of course that I was in.
    "Allo, out are you doing today?" the voice asked again. I wondered if the caller's gender had been deferred at birth, perhaps till sometime after puberty made it possible to make a determination.
    "Allo, out are you doing, today?"
    It suddenly occurred to me that this might be some stalker who despite being English-challenged was trying to confirm whether or not I had come out.
    "Do you mean to ask if I am out of the closet?" I inquired.
    "You are in cloths today?"
    "Well I usually am in cloths.
    "In cloths? Today?"
    What is it, with this preoccupation with...today?
    Why do people add 'today' on to the end of their sentences. You know, like the checkout operator at the supermarket tells you the total cost and then next thing she asks is, "Will that be cash or credit card, today?" See what I mean? I feel like asking her if I can pay tomorrow. When did she think I was going to pay, next week?
    "Allo, out are you today?" asked Yoda's top student.
    "I have been outing myself for many years. Are you out?" I ask ever so sweetly between gritted teeth.
    "Alloing Sir, I am suping visor, in charge of staffing, is problem being here, today?"
    Souping Visor? Stuffing? Is he feeding Darth Vader?
    "No problem, being here, I can't answer about being there though, -today."
    They've got me saying it.
    "I can being assuring you everything is fine here, today."
    "Why did you telephone me?" Stopped myself from adding 'today.'
    "Oh Sir we are just doing surveying to find out how you are doing today."
    "You're not trying to sell me something?"
    "Oh no, we just want to be nice and..."
    It was at that moment that the line went dead. I heard an awful noise and when I looked outside I saw several pigs had entangled themselves in the telephone cables as they flew past my house, today.

  6. DesDownunder
    We have our fair share of road rage. Nothing out of the ordinary, you understand, just the usual clubbing to near death with a tyre iron. Today I had the opportunity to witness a road rage event (sounds exciting doesn't it?) myself.
    I must explain, owing to the bloke who sets the timing for Adelaide's numerous traffic lights thinking that 3 seconds is sufficient to enable cars to move across an intersection, we end up with cars banking up for quite a while.
    The traffic today duly came to stop. The car alongside in the other lane screeched to halt as if he was late for an asshole anonymous meeting, with fists pounding on the steering wheel and then punching his dashboard. I couldn't tell what the dashboard had done wrong to receive such grievous blows from its owner. He gnashed his teeth at me as he gave me the finger. What had I done?
    I watched as the lights changed to green and the traffic slowly (its Adelaide) started to move when, the lights changed to red. I stopped my car as did everyone else, except the dashboard basher. He put his foot down, accelerating until he rammed the car in front. He had "lost it" and was patently venting his rage, without due care.
    Quickly he flew open his car door and then jumped onto the bonnet of his own car, bouncing up and down like an orangutan visiting a harem, shouting obscenities that could only be described as upsetting to the poor young lady in the car he had rammed. She wisely stayed inside her car.
    The lights changed and I had to drive off. The thing was he had done little damage to her four-wheel drive but his old sedan was steaming and looking quite crumpled if not upset.
    I watched from the rear view mirror as several people were attempting to restrain the man from his malicious wounding of his own vehicle.
    It was surreal to say the least.
  7. DesDownunder
    I was looking through the illustrious blogs here at AwesomeDude, when I had a terrible thought.
    I wasn't struck by the number of people all having various traumatic moments, myself included, as I was by the way we all rushed in, keyboard at the ready, to offer help, assistance and just plain good wishes to all of us who were suffering, having a down moment.
    Then I thought about the real world outside of AwesomeDude and Codey's World. The raging car drivers, the insane profiteers, the elite socialites fussing over inanities, the mindless robberies, thuggings, muggings and various other horrors of existence on Earth, all made me think an even more terrifying thought. What if we, few in number that we are, what if we are all that is left of the nice , the good, and caring human beings on the planet.
    Has it come to this that we are all that remains of what is good about human existence?
    Now that is a scary thought.
    Okay, I know it is not true. I know there lots of good people all over the globe, but we only get reports of the bad guys doing horrible things. Acts of violence and mayhem are everywhere.
    So I have decided to turn off the computer for few hours and go out there and see if I can be nice to someone, whether they want me to or not. Damn it, I'm going to go and love someone just for being on the planet at the same time as me.
    Or is that another scary thought?
    Peace and love, my brothers and sisters, are not scary thoughts.

    This hippie moment brought to you by DesDownUnder.
  8. DesDownunder
    As I promised, (or did I threaten? I can't remember) I have returned. (you there in the back row, stop groaning!)
    I have a new computer, a new fence and the B/f has a new clutch..in his car, and the Bank has a better return on the money it has loaned us, but most important of all, the local supermarket has installed a new donut machine, so we have donuts for breakfast again. The B/f is overjoyed.
    (It doesn't take much to keep him happy, but then you only have to look at me to know that.
    I managed to replace the fence for only a couple of hundred dollars more than fixing the old one. I found a handyman who is an excellent tradesman. He worked steadily away all day listening to a Left wing radio station whilst cursing our present Right wing politicians, all so he that could raise his kids. What a nice man.
    For those with the curiosity on all geek things, the old computer's motherboard mouse circuitry expired.
    I had been promising myself a new computer for September, but was holding out for the new AMD quad cores motherboards.
    Unfortunately they did not materialize here and the international reviews are still indicating the Intels as better.
    As it was a new machine, I could get Windows Vista OS at greatly reduced cost along with Office 2007.
    I am not happy. Oh the computer is fine 6600 Intel quad 4 core with 4 gig RAM plus 2x500 gig Hard drives. What I am not happy with is Vista.
    Now before you all go telling me I should have got a Mac, let me explain somethings to you.
    I am of the opinion that we humans have a genetic disposition to either Mac or Windows.
    Trying to tell me that I should use a Mac is like telling me I should sleep with a woman.
    It ain't gonna happen!
    And that is what is so infuriating about Windows Vista, If I had wanted a Mac I would have bought one.
    At the moment Linux is looking rather inviting as the most readily available OS that will allow exploration of the computer development and environment, as opposed to the Mac and now Windows pre-emptive control over for what and how we use our computers.
    To carry my sex life analogy a little further, I rather feel like I have woken up with a couple of transgendered persons (one of each) either side of me, each one trying to be like the other whilst vying to excite me, of course without success.
    So in case you haven't got the idea, I detest Vista and Office 2007 has, for all intents and purposes been neutered. I can't see that it will be productive or even reproductive in its present form.
    The free office programs are going to be very popular, seducing everyone with with their well known attributes.
    I would tell Mac and Windows to go do things to each other but I rather feel they already have.
    Oh well, fortunately (to a degree) Xp is more than adequate for my needs and Vista can sit on the other hard drive until Bill fixes it or replaces it, hopefully not with another abortion.
    So now I have the joy of rebuilding and installing lots of software.
    I just hope it is all worthwhile...
    Now if I can just train the b/f not to use my morning wood as a donut rack.
    err donut anyone?
  9. DesDownunder
    After ten minutes of writing and weeks of adjusting the words, I am pleased to
    announce that my new series, Doors of Love, based on my blog entries of the
    same title, has begun at my hosted pages at Codey's World.
    Chapters 1 and 2 are pretty much as they were posted in my blog.
    This week chapter 3 is up and is little more than a short bridging scene to the
    new story which begins properly (or improperly if you like) in chapter 4 due next week.
    There are 7 chapters in all and it is completed waiting only for my editor Blue to find time to work his magic.
    Please share your reactions with me. I love to know how you liked/loathed it.
    Open the Doors of Love
  10. DesDownunder

    (27) My Land

    By DesDownunder,

    I don't know how long this newspaper link will be available, but thought you might like to see some shots of my state of South Australia. I am tempted to say the photos make it look better than it is, but that could just be that living here we tend to take it all for granted.
    http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0...from=public_rss
    Photo Number 3 is not my house.

  11. DesDownunder
    So here I contemplate the meanings of blogging.
    Dear Diary...
    Dear Journal...
    Dear Dairy...
    I'll keep that for if and when I ever get invited to a farm again.
    Dear personal log...
    What was the name of the Captain in Star Trek?
    I will tell you, it was Captain Slog,
    because every episode started with a voice saying, "This is Captain Slog."
    Now where was I? Oh Yes,
    Dear Desmond's Log...
    Uh Oh that sounds a bit rude, doesn't it, or am I just writing things into my log?
    I suppose if I were to write to my log, I could thank it for all the good times it has given me, or I could tell it off for all the times it let me down, or even for the embarrassments it has caused in public places.
    No, You guys wouldn't want read to my logging adventures. Would you?
    I could call it "Boy's Own Log," or "Logs Long Gone."
    But then again writing on my log could be somewhat painful, might raise up some hairy memories and I might have to divulge the bones of my past. Better to avoid that I think.
    Dear Wet Log...
    "Don't I mean Web Log?"
    NO! "I'm Bloggin' in the rain."
    Dear epistle to myself... too formal. Perhaps I could use it on Sundays and while I write, I could sing "Blog of Ages,' or something.
    Dear written record of my thoughts and ramblings...you gotta be kidding me.
    Dear personal thoughts' file, posted on a website for the rest of the world to look at.. Yeah, Right!
    I know!
    Dear Blog,
    I was going to write something but I have run out of time and anyway I've forgotten what I was going to say, and I doubt anyone would comment anyway, unless they want to, Please?
    Blogging is so much fun.

  12. DesDownunder
    I haven't been blogging,
    Because I've been logging,
    A few sick days in bed,
    With a cough and sore head
    And no, I haven't had fun, flogging.
    Right so much for the poetry.
    I feel better now. Have you ever noticed how much better you feel after you visit the doctor.
    I have a great doctor.
    I turned up at the doctor's rooms ten minutes early.
    He sees me straight away. It pays to get the first appointment after lunch.
    I tell him all my woes outlining a plethora of symptoms.
    I hand him a sheet of paper I have typed up on the computer listing the degradations of my bodily functions with times and places of their occurrences.
    He glances at it and throws it aside on the desk. -Just throws it aside as if it was unnecessary!
    Doesn't he realise that the clues to making me alive and well again are contained in the detailed analysis I spent hours typing up for him.
    I could have been resting, sleeping in bed, but no, I am aware that his time is precious so I spent all of the previous night on the computer looking up my symptoms on the Internet; all to help him diagnose the hour of my demise and he just throws it aside like a piece of junk mail.
    He takes my temperature and blood pressure. He listens to my chest and then my lungs.
    "Say Ahhh," he commands, and he looks down my mouth, probably looking for tell tale signs of my sex life.
    "Aha!" he says.
    "What?" I ask.
    "You have a chest infection."
    "And?"
    "Rest up a few days and you will be fine."
    "That's it? I'm not at death's door?"
    "Not as far as I can tell," he says.
    I wonder about getting a second opinion. "As far as you can tell? Should I be concerned?"
    He laughs a boyish giggle and raises an eyebrow with an impish grin, "Just go home and rest. You'll be fine. Trust me I'm a doctor." We both burst out laughing at that remark.
    "Thanks Doc I feel better already."
    "Of course you do." He smiles as he holds the door open for me.
    I sign the medicare papers and walk outside. The sun is shining. I feel great.
    He is such a good doctor.
  13. DesDownunder
    Writer?s Blog
    By DesDownUnder ?2008
    Blog?s can be really great fun to write.
    No pressure, no meaning to requite,
    No Pulitzer Prize to win
    Just meandering words,
    Fooling around in sin,
    Looking for pity, or worse.
    So why can?t I find a way to deflect
    The horrors of my day in some subject
    With electronic pen
    To write and please, of course,
    All those who come to spend,
    Some time, looking at my curse.
    Alone I sit watching an empty screen,
    Patiently waiting for those words unseen,
    Yet this cannot be so,
    Some word not to be first,
    From all those that I know,
    Not to start, a new verse.
    Lurking in the back of my blanked out mind,
    Are all those needed words I cannot find,
    As they hide and huddle
    ?Fraid of my writer?s blog
    I realise my trouble
    Is really writer?s block.
  14. DesDownunder
    Have you ever noticed your own aging process?
    I saw myself losing hair on my head 24 years ago. I was alerted to this by the number of twinks that ran away from me, rather than towards me. I was almost arrested for causing stampedes in the shopping mall.
    It was the first sign that I might not be immortal.
    The second sign was the lines around my eyes.
    The third sign was when the lines sagged and became wrinkles.
    The fourth sign was when I developed hypochondria about the first three signs being imminent indicators of my need to smash mirrors in order to feel good about myself.
    The fifth sign was when people looked at me and lied. "You haven't changed at all," said friends I hadn't seen for 25 years as they held up their fingers to make the sign of the cross, in my direction.
    The sixth sign was when young children pointed at me and said, "Ooh, look Mummy, it's the evil emperor from Stars Wars." It didn't help when the mother said, "No dear, that is Darth Vader without his helmet. I should stop wearing black.
    The seventh sign I am told, is when you forget what the first six signs are. I don't believe it.
    The seventh sign I have just discovered is when your armpits go bald.
    Don't laugh!
    The hair in my armpits is thinning, almost threadbare.
    I wonder if I can get some of my pubes transplanted to my armpits, I have plenty of those, so far.
    I'll ask the doctor. He'll know.
  15. DesDownunder
    I sneezed.
    So I have been sniffling with an inflamed throat, and headache. I don't think it is swine flu or bird flew, but who knows? I'm not going to the doctor either, because if it is swine flu and he catches it from me then who will I consult if I get the Elbo virus?
    Hmmm wait a minute, that's the Ebola virus. Silly me, my elbow can't get a virus can it? Can it?
    The worst thing about a cold, I'm sure that's all I have, is sitting around waiting until you to feel better so you can then go and feel the bf.
    I suppose I could go and feel someone under 30 and if they start sneezing and die I will know that I have the swine flu.
    I know you can sit and watch TV until you feel better but it just makes me feel worse.
    I'd rather sit and read the stories at AD if I could stop sneezing all over the keyboard. Damn if the bf sees the nasal purge all over the keyboard, he will think I started without him. Well not so much started as finished I suppose I should say.
    kmfghoaslrvzb btt GSGJ,.IODXSxnne454642m-kp
    There, I have cleaned the nose spray off the keyboard. It looks so much better. The keyboard, not my nose.
    I just wrapped the keyboard in plastic cling wrap. That should solve the problems.
    Damn I just sneezed all over the monitor screen.
    I'm going to bed. Hope I don't sneeze all over the sheets.
  16. DesDownunder
    Okay this is a blatant plug for a great set of endings.
    You all like a good end don't you?
    Have you all read the Story at Codey's World that Codey started and no less than four authors all wrote different endings.
    Whose did you like most?
    Well you can let them know by reading them and voting for the one you like.
    Vote at: http://www.codeysworld.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=436
    No you don't have to vote for mine, vote for the one you like by 30th April. Do it now, then vote.
    Go on Now. Off you go.
  17. DesDownunder
    I have been researching background for yet another idea for a story.
    "Why bother" I hear you ask. "Just write the story and don't worry about its authenticity."
    That's all well and good if I was writing to satisfy a fantasy of my own, without regard for historical, geographic or psychological relevance. Not that any of these have to be the determining factor for the story, but they do have to at least not be violated by invalid references.
    One of the things that stands revealed is the incomplete and often corrupt histories of mankind's past. It wouldn't be impossible to write the whole history of an entire empire's rise and fall, as a foible of someone's imagination, let alone blow it up out of proportion to be an affectation on today's world civilisation.
    An interesting collusion of semi-historical figures that amounts to a world conspiracy would not be difficult to write except for the tedious evidence that such figures rarely understood the effect of their own actions in their own time, let alone the nature of their 'legacies'.
    Distortions of time and place can also lead to imaginative settings for stories that prove just a little too unbelievable.
    Psychological traits are not all that difficult to introduce to a story, but finding the archetypes, rather than just displaying a variation of a stereotype is considerably more draining and fraught with disputations of origin.
    It is this last phrase which is of most interest. If we do not understand the nature and thus its cause can we really construct a viable statement within our stories that will resonate with our readers' life experiences?
    Of course we can write situations that are believable, entertaining, even fantastical, all of which are satisfying to read as well as write.
    Yet if we want to touch on the human element of life's experiences, if we want to conceal within our story an expose of injustice, or aberrations of commonly held untruths, let alone describe the possibilities of human goodness, there seems to be not only a confounding variety of opinions, and incomplete factual records, but also an unwillingness at large, to entertain hypotheses which run counter to popular notions. The ability to reason, to observe with objectivity seems woefully absent in the presence of our social authority which demands we believe what we are told.
    Even that statement can be misconstrued by those who want to maintain the status quo rather than explore possible alternatives, whether in our stories or our lives.
    Good literature can make us think as well as entertain us.
    As for my story? Well I will just have to see if I can live up to my own expectations.
    I doubt it, but it is fun trying and that is important too.

  18. DesDownunder

    Finding A Good Movie

    By DesDownunder,

    Ah Winter!
    Yes I have another bout of flu like symptoms. :cough, cough:
    Oh I'm sorry did I spray my nose juice all over you when I sneezed? Let me wipe it off you with this used tissue.
    Really, I am so sick of this bug.
    Another thing I am sick of is the new video rental program we had to buy for the shop. It is preferable to the others we tried, but we still have had to work out what all these extra things are, that it does. Like, tell us how much tax we need to pay and what the cash should be, and how many customers we served. Then there are all the things we want to know but it keeps in secret places for which we have to go hunting. It's like going on a date with a coy slut who knows what you want but makes you take his clothes off.
    The customers are all very patient, which is just as well.
    "Hang on a minute, will you? I have to work out how to work the new software."
    "Oh you poor dear," says the middle aged man with two screaming kids.
    "Daddy, we found a better movie. Can we change it?"
    "Are they too late?" he asks me. Too late for what, I want to ask, abortion? As far as I am concerned the brats are too early for anything worthwhile, as they run screaming from one end of the shop to the other flipping DVD cases onto the floor as they go; and I know yet again, why I never wanted children.
    "To late to change the movie they want for this one?"
    "No, that's fine," I lie with a smile.
    I enter his membership and the DVD numbers and the program wants to know what amount of money he is tendering. I just push F10 to bypass the nonsense, and the transaction is completed. They depart, hopefully to another planet.
    Down the aisle I go to pick up the DVDs the boys knocked to the floor.
    I'm down on the floor when I sense someone is standing alongside. I look up to see a woman who obviously hasn't heard that handbags with matching gloves is a pretension from another century.
    "Are you all right?" she asks.
    "Yes, thank you, just tidying up the stock," I tell her. "Can I help you?
    "I want a movie."
    Why else would she be here? It's going to be a long day.
    "I don't remember the name, but it was very good."
    Yeah, like that is a help. "Do you remember who was in it, or what the story was about?"
    "Oh yes, it had that nice young actor in it with a girl I haven't heard of before, but I heard it was good. It's about a professor in a German university during the 1930s and how he becomes a Nazi."
    "Ah yes, I know that film," I tell her, "Now let me think...Yes Good, it's Good."
    "Yes I was told it was good," she says.
    "That's what it is called, Good," I explain.
    She changes her handbag from one gloved hand to the other. "That's what I said, I was told it was good, with that nice young actor."
    "Viggo Mortensen is his name," I tell her.
    "That's him," she says with surprise, "I really like his performances."
    Good, now we have determined who turns her on, but I don't reveal that I realise this, as it might lead to her describing what she does while watching him in his movies.
    "But what is the movie called?" she inquires,
    "Good, it's called Good," I explain.
    "Yes I told you that it was good." She is somewhat abrupt in her manner, and I realise I will have to either get pleasure from telling her that the movie is beyond the powers of her intellect, or capitulate in such a way that she will release the moths guarding the money in her handbag.
    I decide we need the money, the new software was not cheap. I take the DVD off the shelf and show her the title.
    "Oh it's called, Good," she announces to the multitude.
    "How much is that?" she asks with a voice that has only disdain for the worldly matter of money.
    So I tell her the rental fee, and sure enough she opens her handbag, no moths -they must be asleep; she reaches inside and gives me her membership card and a fifty dollar note.
    A small battle ensues with the software and I give her the change. She sweeps from the store in triumph.
    "I would have smacked her upside of the head. You are very patient," says the cute young gay guy at the counter as he puts his selection of gay movies on the counter. "Are these movies good?" he asks.
    "No sir," I tell him, "Good, just went out."
    And we both burst into laughter.
  19. DesDownunder
    Are Blogs Draining? The title for this entry occurred to me whilst I was putting the finishing touches to my new short story soon to be released at a Codey's World near you. (don't hold your breath it needs editing yet.)
    It seemed to me that just maybe, blog writing may drain the creative impulses away from the writing of a good story, or a bad one for that matter.
    If we put in a lot effort in the short term to make sure our cute insightful blogs are fun, interesting or just plain readable, does that deplete our creative energy? Does it concentrate our resources into the blog when they should be going into our stories?
    On the other hand, yes I have two of them, does writing anything, even a blog keep the impetus to write, alive? Is there a line of demarcation one should watch, just to make sure that the literary prize is not being hi-jacked by some frivolous but clever blog remark?
    Are our darkest moments revealed in our blogs actually the stuff upon which our novella dreams thrive?
    So perhaps the blogs should be simple statements of fact devoid of creative writing.
    How can an author lower himself to do that? We write and must write as best we can.
    So if the blog bogs down the creative drain
    then the blog shall be first to block the bog
    and we authors will need to be plumbers
    to unblock the bogs of our minds so that
    the s**t can flow freely once again.
    Or am I missing the toilet paper here?
    Goodness me, after all that, I feel quite flushed.
  20. DesDownunder

    Blackout.

    By DesDownunder,

    So we had a storm tonight. It blew over a tree somewhere, and rain was released in a deluge that lasted long enough to dump nearly an inch of water. Lightning lit the sky somewhere over the Antarctic and evidently struck havoc on the power lines to my neighbourhood -right as I was making a post about Windows 7. The computer died and the lights went out. The room was black, cold and very, very dark.
    I couldn't see a thing. I dismissed the idea I had died in a hurry. Perhaps I should rephrase that. I dismissed in a hurry, the idea that I had died.
    Anyway I blindly felt my way around the house till I found the emergency flash-light. Well something had died, the battery. I shook the flash-light and it came to life, sort of, with a weak beam that enabled me to see my way to the phone. The phone had died too. No wait a minute, it was the wireless phone I had picked up, and I realised that it needed mains power to operate. It's handy having been an electrician, we know about these things.
    Stealthily I made my way across the kitchen into the sun room. Sun-room? You have to be joking, it was pitch black outside , the sun light had died hours ago.
    And the overcast skies were too busy crying rain upon the earth. The sun room was as dark as a Mayan tomb in 2012. I pulled back the curtain and peered outside, but all I could see were black silhouettes of trees against a dark grey sky. No lights in the house next door, no street lights, no sign of Man's conquest of the night, nothing.
    What dark and evil place is this planet in its night, without even a star for a friend.
    It was as if I was the last man on Earth. Hurriedly I scampered across the debris of the modern demolition that represented my attempt at interior design. I tried the flash-light again and a weak beam, a little stronger than before searched the room looking for the hard-wired phone, the one I bought at a sale for $5. I found it under a newspaper that was trying to imitate a shroud.
    I lifted the phone and found the dial tone working. I pushed buttons until it rang a number and then I heard the voice of my darling. Quickly I warned him of the impending doom, that 2012 had arrived early, that life as we knew it was over. "What?" he asked. He never takes me seriously unless we are ...well never mind about that, this is not one of those episodes, it has a different climax.
    I warned him that the power was gone and we would have to cuddle to keep warm when he arrived home. "What?" he asked again as if we had never done anything like that during the time we lived in the house where we could actually see each other. "Just drive home carefully," I told him, "the lights are out."
    "er...er," he stammered somewhat quizzically. "The street lights are out, and our power has died," I explained. "Can you bring the spare flash-light home with you please?"
    "Oh, okay. I understand now," he replied, "see you when I get there."
    I told him okay and hung up the phone.
    I slid open the glass door and the strangely growing strength of the the flash-light beam died as it tried to find some life in the back yard other than the deluge from the skies. I grabbed the umbrella by the door and stepped outside. I swept mine eyes across the wilderness of my back yard. So this was what it was like before we discovered fire, oil and electricity. Shadows of trees lit by the moon diffused through rain clouds. How terribly lonely, frightening...lightning lit the sky and it was easy to believe anything. Rain avoided the umbrella and ran down my cheeks, and I cried for what might have been. (Well, I didn't actually, but it sounds good.)
    I was so relieved to see his car drive into the garage, that I ran down and closed the gates. Arm in arm we walked back to the house and sat in our darkened sun room.
    "I'll make coffee," I said.
    "How?" he asked, "There's no power."
    "The gas stove still works," I explained.
    Five minutes later we were sitting romantically, sipping coffee in the dimness of our once brilliantly lit sun room. I could tell he was smiling at me, enjoying the silence of what for all we knew, was the end of times.
    And then the lights came on, the power was back on. Civilisation has returned, we live, we live!
    I rushed in and switched on the computer, Windows 7 quickly booted and Firefox sprung to life with the page I was working on, text still intact. Amazing!
    Okay so what happened to the boyfriend? I cooked his dinner and he watched a movie while I typed this up.
    So I tell you the same as I told him, don't say I don't think of you, even if it isn't the end of the world.

  21. DesDownunder
    It's good news.
    Centrelink, the government agency that handles Aussie welfare rang me today and told me that my claim for the age pension has been granted.
    A very nice sympathetic woman told me that I would enjoy a full pension rate until July 1st when my "marriage like" relationship would be recognised and they would then pay me less. (How nice.)
    The lovely lady inspired me with confidence in the system as she informed me that my special senior's card would be posted soon and I would be able to claim concession rates on the phone bill, electricity, driver's licence, water and council rates, etc.
    She then went on to tell me that the government hoped I wouldn't live too long as my pension payment was a drain on the public purse.
    However they would prefer I didn't die just yet as when I do, they will pay my "marriage like" partner a lump sum to help with funeral costs, and as it is reasonable amount, they don't want to have pay it at present as they are running a bit short of funds.
    On the other hand if I would like to do some volunteer work in helping young people become skilled in my line of work, they would be happy to accommodate that. I told her I could show them how to keep being able to have orgasms after 40, but she said there were somethings people had to learn to do for themselves. That's what I meant, I told her, but she said she was referring to my job.
    I explained that my job was now done by computers and that nobody was interested in doing the job properly, she told me I shouldn't let that stop me from having a fruitful relationship with younger people in the community. hmmm.
    I resisted the temptation to ask her if that included showing guys how to use a condom. She did tell me her brother was gay and that was why she was working in the "same-sex marriage like" division of Centrelink. Again I resisted temptation by not asking for her brother's phone number of if he was a top or a bottom.
    She told me if I became ill, that I could go straight to hospital and receive free treatment as soon as the 3 year backlog of patients was cleared up. I had a vision of them sweeping cadavers out of the front gates into the street for collection on Tuesdays. In any case she assured me if it was something serious and I was at death's door, they would have a doctor pull me through as soon as possible.
    She told me too, that there was a home service for meals if I became unable to cook for myself. I told her my grandmother had that service just before she died. That made her laugh out loud, and she replied that the food was better now, even if she would rather starve than eat it.
    Before she ended the phone call she advised me that someone would ring to check up on me, if I lived too long, to see how I was going and if there was anything they could do to help me...presumably to drop dead sooner, rather than later.
    Happily she told me that the new law about people not receiving the age pension until they reached 67 would not apply to me as I was already on the scrap heap.
    Anyway I guess I am now a fully fledged member of that group known as cantankerous, grumpy, dirty old men.
    Perhaps I could get a job as Santa, next Christmas. Ho ho ho.
  22. DesDownunder
    I read Cato's entry at CW on his home being robbed and thought I would comment here rather than expose the horrid tale more publicly there.
    Violence warning: The following is a grisly tale which I have endeavoured to lighten. Yes I am on my soapbox in do-gooder mode. I would say bleeding heart mode, but as you will see it wasn't my heart that was bleeding.
    In January 1998, I opened my door to a knock and received a brick to the head for my trouble.
    With what little sense I had left I shut the door. The brick-layer was so upset that I had managed to lock him out that he started throwing anything he could find at the glass patio door in the hope of shattering the glass.
    I alerted the other half who was in bed watching a movie. I swear the Empire could strike back on our front lawn and he wouldn't hear it.
    I rushed back to the kitchen where the masonry expert was still trying to master his glass shattering skills and picked up the phone to call the police direct-line phone number.
    While the phone was ringing I could see drops of blood falling from my head on to the table in a most inelegant manner.
    Finally the phone was answered, "You have reached your police department, please hold, your call is important to us."
    I hung up and dialled the all service emergency number.
    I was connected to the police immediately and gave them the details and the address, just as the glass door finally shattered and the dreaded invaders (I could now tell there were at least four of them,) yelled out for me to give them all my drugs.
    "Drugs?" They want my vitamin pills? No wait a minute they think I take drugs. They wouldn't know I am allergic to the weed and that I am a control freak who hates losing self-control to some herb or chemical concoction of illicit origin. Gee, even the doctor has to threaten me with alternative punishments to get me to take prescription medicine.
    So I shouted back at them, "We don't have any."
    I grabbed my half-dressed, better half and ran out the door on the other side of our love-nest, we call our home, into the street.
    The police and the neighbours arrived along with an ambulance.
    One of the neighbours was holding ice to my head and I watched trickling icy blood run down her hand, my blood!
    One of my big butch heterosexual male neighbours went searching for the demolition crew. He was very concerned for his little gay mates as he calls us.
    As he was returning from his search I had to stop the police from drawing their guns on him, he truly looked an image of terminator proportions, lurching down street, baseball bat at the ready in his hands. When I explained who he was, one of the police officers said, "Just as well he didn't find them."
    I could hear the police and neighbours exchanging questions about how could these people, "these scum" do these things, about how difficult it was to stop the criminal element, when I heard myself exclaim, "You are asking the wrong questions. You should be asking how come we have developed a society where individuals attack others?"
    In other words, "the system is broke and needs fixing."
    The answers of deprivation, poor education, poverty, unemployment, social injustice and inequality of opportunity as a contribution to crime seems to be furthest from some people's minds.
    Yes, I know there are criminal cartels and drug addicted crazies out there who have abandoned any sense of right and wrong, but they would be less in number if our social structure ensured large portions of the population were not deprived of their basic human rights and self-esteem for the sake of profit that amounts to no more than "legitimate" business avarice.
    These are my thoughts on such matters only, I am sure you have yours.
    I vacate the soapbox.
    PS. I am okay and you can't see any scars because of my old age wrinkles.
  23. DesDownunder
    My personal thoughts on the US election
    It doesn't really matter what I think of the election result. Of course I am pleased Obama has been elected, but my reason for being pleased is both because I think the Democrats needed to be elected to adjust the balance away from the extremes of the right, and for a more selfish reason.
    Here in Australia our own "Left" wing party was elected to power not so long ago. The Labor party is our equivalent, in political terms, of the US Democrats. It is my fervent hope that the promises of the new US Presidency, will have some deep and meaningful effect on our government for the better, because they as a left wing party have strayed too far from their own principles of compassion.
    It is true that America does have a global influence, and the world is looking to see, hoping beyond all measure, that Obama lives up to his promises. If as may be expected, he operates under a policy of inclusion rather the ones of exclusion or collusion, then we may find that the fears some have about his presidency, will prove to be unfounded.
    Provided you can set aside the fear and prejudices of bygone manipulative eras, President Obama's election whichever way you look at it, gives the world, the hope of peace, a chance for change for the better.
    The point is not that he is black, the point is, that he is a human being who has won election on the basis of that change for the better.
    I think, we all need to work together in bringing about change for the better.
  24. DesDownunder
    Creation: a movie review by DesDownunder
    Creation, directed by Jon Amiel and starring Paul Bettany as Charles Darwin, with cinematography by Jesse Hall, is an outstanding movie made with great attention to detail, both in the personal life of Darwin and his family, as well as insight into the times in which they lived.
    The past limitations of writing, medicine and belief, the remains of which are for some of us, barely a lifetime ago, are carefully, brutally but honestly, and sensitively visited in a way that allows us to see the potential renaissance of our own existence, and be thankful we no longer need to use quill pens and ink, or take cold showers.
    Truly, one cannot help but feel the struggle of liberation for human awareness from previous captivities, for liberation also evolves, and does so in each of us if we will but allow it to occur.
    The film does not shy away from the nature of its own premise, or the impact that Darwin's work will have on the faith systems of his time (and thus ours,) but it does so in observation rather than be argumentative . The torment is in Darwin's mind and as such we can perhaps see it more clearly because we have had the benefit of Freud's work. (I cannot guess what the reception for this film is like in cultures restricted to doctrinal education, or where text books are censored.)
    The movie is a vision in itself, complete with human relationships, and also an objectivity befitting the subject and a cinematography of great beauty, both of which are, in effect a homage to Stanley Kubrick, at least it is for me, and as such, is its own interwoven revelation of grandeur and wonder of life.
    Anti-Darwinists, and those who oppose evolution, may not find their view being expounded in Creation, but they are surely in need of being encouraged to see it, if only to discover the sheer beauty to be found in this intelligent Creation.
  25. DesDownunder

    65. Hot Aussies

    By DesDownunder,

    It's official folks, Adelaide in the state of South Australia has endured its longest heat wave on record.
    Generally a heat wave is considered to be the number of days with the temperature reaching or exceeding 100 ?F or 37.8 ?C.
    Well, we just had 15 days over 35 ?C and believe me that was hot enough. I had to drive 22 Kilometres each day in a car with no air conditioning. I had a wet towel around my neck to survive. Yesterday I broke out into heat rash, but it has subsided with today's cooler weather.
    What was the world's longest heat wave?
    The record for the world's longest heat wave goes to Marble Bar in Western Australia. From October 31, 1923 to April 07, 1924 the temperature broke the 100 ?F mark setting the heat wave record at a scorching 160 days.
    Where is the hottest place on Earth? Temperature records from weather stations give that distinction to El Azizia, Libya, which hit a sweltering 57.8 degrees Celsius (136 F) on September 13, 1922, but there have likely been hotter locations beyond the scattered network of weather stations. (such as my bedroom in 1963 -1971.)
    Now if any of you kewl dudes want to come down here and help cool me down, please understand if I don't want to cuddle.

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