On Football Part II

Hello! It’s currently Round 3 in the 2011 AFL season. Excite.

I thought this would be a suitable time to talk about my changing perspectives of various teams, AND add Gold Coast into the mix. Since I last posted Gold Coast now have their logo, colours, players and team song. Let the judging begin.

Here’s my old team hierarchy:

There are categories and then lists in the categories, (this is basically how my head works). So, for example, the gap between Carlton and Richmond is much bigger than Adelaide and Carlton. CONFUSED YET?
ANYWAY, HERE IS THE LIST (CAN CHANGE IF PLAYERS ARE DICKHEADS, MICHAEL JOHNSON)

2010 LIST

1. The boganest and most amazing team ever
   Geelong Cats
2. The teams that are awesome and many people that I know like
   Fremantle Dockers (mum’s/Ben’s/most of my amazing friends’ team)
   Adelaide Crows (relatives’ team/where my family is from)
   Carlton Blues (dad’s team/where I was born)
3. The “non-dickhead Victorian teams”
   Richmond Tigers
   Melbourne Demons
   Essendon Bombers
4. The “I’m indifferent” teams
   North Melbourne Kangaroos
   Brisbane Lions
5. The “teams that I just don’t like for different reasons, even if they are really OK”
   Hawthorn Hawks (2008 – you fuckers)
   Western Bulldogs (My family seems to think they’re no better than Collingwood so that’s rubbed off a bit)
   Sydney Swans (mostly indifferent but I just hate Sydney)
   St Kilda Saints (the main threat to Geelong plus I just don’t like them and I don’t know why)
6. The “the main rivals to group #2“
   West Coast Eagles (I don’t really mind them but my brother and sister go for them and it’s fun to create sibling rivalry so I’m going to put them down here)
   Port Adelaide Power (A fucking joke/booo!)
7. The scum of the world
   Collingwood Magpies (fucking die)

NB: When the new teams come I am anticipating that Gold Coast will be in indifferent, unless they start winning because Freo needs a few flags first, and Greater Western Sydney will be in the new “I don’t like you because you’re from Sydney” category (which will be a new sub-group of #5 for the two NSW teams).

Quite a lot has changed since then. Let’s see what’s going on now:

2011 LIST

1. The boganest and most amazing team ever
   Geelong Cats
2. The teams that are awesome
   Fremantle Dockers
   Carlton Blues (spot pending kicking out Chris Judd because he’s a fucking tool)
3. The “non-dickhead Victorian teams” that you can’t really hate
   Richmond Tigers
   Melbourne Demons
   Essendon Bombers
   North Melbourne Kangaroos (Promoted!)
4. LIMBO
   Western Bulldogs (promoted! I have overcome my prejudices but still don’t know where they stand)
   Adelaide Crows (mega-demoted but I can’t bring myself to hate them yet).
   Port Adelaide Power (mega-promoted but I don’t know if I can put them above Adelaide yet)
5. The teams that I just don’t like for different reasons, even if they are really OK I guess
   Gold Coast Suns (They have a stupid name, song and colours and their rugby players are douches)
   Brisbane Lions (demoted and I don’t know why. I just do not like them)
   Sydney Swans (They are from Sydney)
6. The druggies, rapists, wife-beaters and fuckheads
   Hawthorn Hawks (demoted because I hate them even more for 2008 now and Buddy makes me want to punch babies)
   St Kilda Rapists Saints (demoted for being rapists)
   West Coast Eagles (fuck they make me so fucking mad)
7. Ew.
   Collingwood Magpies 

    

So the main changes are to the Adelaide teams. Port Adelaide are starting to make me think of the SA version of Fremantle and Adelaide the SA Eagles. This loses a fuck ton of points for Crows and gives a lot to Port.

BUT. Port still have stupid colours, a retarded name, a fucking terrible song and some d-bag players.

We’ll see what the future brings.

On Wuthering, Wuthering, Wuthering Heights

Oh hey there.

So since September I have been trying to read Wuthering Heights.

I find it to be the most tedious and, well, shit book ever.

I have started it so many times in my life and normally only get a chapter or two in before I throw it away and scream “FUCK YOU, EMILY BRONTE! GET A LIFE.”

There’s just something about it. It is written well enough, most of the characters are pretty well fleshed out and it has some really evocative descriptions. I just can’t stand the arrogance of it.

Every second sentence I just picture Emily Bronte writing and either chuckling to herself

“Ah ha ha! I am so brilliant and dark!”

Or, someone has just upset her in real life so she makes characters randomly beat each other up/die.

“NOBODY UNDERSTANDS ME. LIFE IS PAIN. TIME TO DIE, CATHY.”

It’s literally like, 19th Century fan fiction and she is the Mary Sue (see below post for definition) that is Nelly. Some servant bitch who somehow is all fantastic and everyone loves her and she gets away with the most ridiculous things BECAUSE SHE IS RIGHT IN THE LONG RUN.

So yeah, the book makes me pretty mad, BUT, I have found a way to make it fucking amazing. With the help of Kate Bush.

1. Every time they say “Wuthering Heights” sing “WUTHERING, WUTHERING, WUTHERING HEIGHTS”
2. Heathcliffe is always read as “HEEEAAAAATHCLIFFFFFFE” and you have to imagine the Kate Bush dance, especially the movement she does while singing his name that looks like “The Crane” from the Karate Kid
3. Cathy/Catherine is always mentally read as a really high pitched squeaky Kate Bush singing voice
4. Moor/s is always read as “wiley, windy, moors”
5. Nelly is renamed to “woah, Nelly”.

Fuck yeah. Instant amazing novel.

Also I have this mug:

My friend, Demelza put it perfectly:

“You can’t pick Pride and Prejudice or an AMAZING novel because the other classics will get jealous. If you pick Wuthering Heights then they’ll understand that it’s a big joke and won’t be mad.”

So fucking badass.

PS: I am now halfway through! I am so fucking butch it hurts.

On why you don’t fuck with Elizabeth Bennet

Greetings whatever readers I have left.

It sure has been a while.

A strange thing happened to me a few days ago and it inspired me to start writing again. A somewhat insignificant event that has cascaded through my attitude to everything. Like the monkeys in A Space Odyssey, something slowly dawned and then led me to some crazy murderous robot and the meaning of the universe.

I forgot what it is that I love to do because I was too caught up in making sure I didn’t die. I betrayed the Little Prince. I started counting the stars that I owned for the sole purpose of knowing how many belonged to me and how many more I could have.

Upon realising this I kept trying to force myself to write again. It never happened until now.

What I did do was read a blog by a successful, modern author who is rather controversial. I am not naming this author because I do not want to make this personal. I don’t want this to be “this woman is shit and her books are crap”. Instead I wanted to examine why I do not like books that I have never read and never intend to and why characters that I have never experienced irritate me.

When I completed reading this woman’s blog I could only think of one thing to say:

“Bitch, please!”

What this author had done was compare her characters to some literary giants and made hers out to be the better. I may not like all the characters she undercut but they are still good characters. Wuthering Height’s Heathcliffe is pretty fucking amazingly complex even if he is a jerk who only knows how to rage. Romeo is a fucking tool and Juliet started out so promising but then she stabs herself for no reason (sorry forgot the spoiler alert, hope I haven’t given it away to anybody). Even so, there’s something about their parts that give me goosebumps when they are done right. The characters are perfect.

Bitch even dared touch Elizabeth Bennet.

GIRL DID NOT GO THERE.

You do not fucking try to compare anything or anyone to the Elizabeth Bennet.

Remember how we all hate/hated Kiera Knightley so much for butchering the role? She didn’t. I am sure if I watch the movie again now I will actually like it. It’s because our standards were way too high to be upheld twice in 20 years and Jennifer Ehle already smashed her (and Colin Firth smashed Mr Darcy).

I love how I’m deflecting my opinion onto everyone.

Anyway. Enough about amazing characters. On to shit ones.

If people are unaware of what a Mary Stu is, in general terms, it’s a character that’s  essentially a projection of the author’s self twisted into their dreams (an anti-sue is an amalgamation of their fears).

The characters will typically be described as well liked except by people who are obvious antagonists (and who are usually jealous) and they always seem to end up being right. They have no flaws, or their flaws are endearing or beneficial

For example:

Being clumsy (flaw).

Being clumsy at times when it’s hilarious because “oh that character’s always SO CLUMSY LOL” – endearing (no longer a real flaw)

Being stubborn (flaw).

Always being right so being stubborn means that even when it’s annoying, it is OK because you end up being right and everyone loves you and your stubborn nature (no longer a real flaw).

In the shall-remain-nameless work mentioned above, the main character is a typical Mary Sue.

If one of the character’s flaws is “she’s unattractive” she should not be named something that basically (both literally and evocatively) means “beautiful woman”.

If one of the character’s flaws is “they are clingy and love too much” they should not be given a relationship early on with another character who’s flaws are “I am too beautiful and it’s a curse and I am clingy and love too much”.

What the fuck even is that?

Where is there even room for character growth?

Having a modern day woman pine after her man and want to kill herself if something would happen to him is not a good image to portray. Not even Catherine was that fucking idiotic, especially not considering the period setting of Wuthering Heights.

Modern books that I may not necessarily have liked, such as the end few novels in the Harry Potter series, still have amazing, strong characters that have a sense of purpose (although some of the newer or minor ones became a bit stagnant they were still all pretty good).

The best example would be young Hermione in Harry Potter. She’s about 17 when the boy she loves leaves and she doesn’t mope around or kill herself. She simply says “oh this is shit but there’s more important things to worry about here”.

I guess the whole misogynist Mary Sue shit is my main issue, not having read the terrible literature in question. I can’t really comment further because of this but I have one final thing to say in the hopes that people who read this idiot’s blog will now learn something.

Sense and Sensibility was not about Marianne Dashwood ending up with Willoughby. If this upsets you please re-read the novel.

Wuthering Heights was not just about Heathcliffe and Cathy being together (or how “evil” Heathcliffe is). I’m trying to grasp this and the novel now and it is hard but I will get there.

Romeo and Juliet is not about the two of them ending up together, or even being “in love”. It’s actually about the fleetingness of life and the pointlessness of love. Please see a theatre production next time it rolls into your town. Even an art house one would work because it would make the themes are lot more obvious and depressing.

Pride and Prejudice is certainly not just about Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy ending up together, even though they do. The ending is probably my least favourite part. You HAVE to read her rejection of Mr Colins. So fucking incredible.

So to try to destroy classic literature, liked or not, by saying “my characters are better because they would kill themselves if the other died” is not a healthy thing to say and certainly not a healthy theme to have circulating to young adults.

This is why when people tell me what books they like and a certain series crops up, I judge them. It’s because they not only helped contribute to the death of modern, young adult literature (especially the sci-fi and fantasy genres) which has been amazing for so long, they have contributed to a poison which is now starting to have repercussions in our classic literary past. That is a fucking shame.

25 Point Movie Summaries => PREDATORS

PREDATORS

1. HOLY SHIT I AM FALLING WTF?
2. Hi token team of stereotypes including ninja, latino badass, black guy who is mystical, psycho prison guard, Russian tank, nerd and girl.
3. Wtf @ cages full of bark/skin. Is this Dungeons and Dragons?
4. -SUBTLE foreshadowing involving paralytic poison and the nerd/russian guy-
   
5. OH JESUS MUTANT DOG THINGS
6. OH JESUS LATINO GUY GOT FUCKED
7. OH JESUS SOMETHING IS HUNTING US
8. OH JESUS WE’RE ON AN ALIEN PLANET
9. OH JESUS WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT THING AND WHY IS IT A HUMANOID? SURELY EVOLUTION WOULD NOT WORK LIKE THAT? ALSO IT HAS A BIG UGLY FACE
10. OH JESUS WE JUST GOT FUCKED ON AND LOST THE TOKEN BLACK GUY
11. OH JESUS A WATERFALL
12. OH JESUS SOMETHING IS COMING AFTER US
13. OH JESUS MORPHEUS JUST APPEARED AND SAVED THE DAY
14. OH WICKED WE FOUND A HOUSE
15. OH JESUS IT’S A TRAP
16. OH JESUS THE PREDATORS ARE THERE
17. OH JESUS MORPHEUS DIED AND NOW RUSSIAN GUY HAS GONE BACK FOR THE NERD
18. OH JESUS THEY JUST BLEW UP THE ENTIRE COMPLEX
19. OH JESUS PSYCHO PRISON BITCH JUST GOT OWNED TRYING TO SHANK A PREDATOR
20. Ninjas killed each other. Sigh.
21. Nerd just got owned by a bear trap. Girl goes back for him
22. Nerd poisons girl. She nearly dies. Boy saves girl.
    
23. Predators fight for some reason.
24. Guy tries to be Arnie. Somehow wins after girl saves him.
25. Girl gets stabbed but lives. Cop out.
    

On Politics, or why I hate Tony Abbott so much

I  promise to try to make this interesting!!

Now I can’t and won’t claim to be an expert on politics but that doesn’t mean that I can’t use reason to make conclusions based on the facts as I see them.

Main issue one: The Resource Super Profits Tax. (One of the main reasons why Kevin Rudd’s popularity dropped and he stood down)

FIRSTLY. It is called a “Resource Super Profits Tax”. Whoever coined the phrase “Super Tax” is a propaganda spewing genius. It is a tax on profits that the mining companies earn. They earn a lot of profit. There is a large increase in the tax rate, yes, but they have significantly reduced royalty taxes. Royalties were a flat rate. Companies could bust on projects or earn essentially no profit but still be taxed highly on their EARNINGS. It is policy like this that helped Australia, relatively, stay clear during the financial crisis and it is a safeguard against the collapse of the mining industry if another market crash occurs.

The proposal for these tax reforms have been around since late 2008. It isn’t news. Even I knew about them and I do not read finance or mining news, ever. Think about what you were doing in August 2008. That  is long time.

My favourite part of this whole debacle are the people who are staunchly opposed to it saying things like this:

“It has been misrepresented that companies aren’t paying enough tax that they’re making super profits, that is a lie, that’s nothing more than a lie if you look at the facts.” (Reg Nelson, Beach Energy)

We all know that “if you look at the facts” is political speak for “I can claim this because the facts are going to be so vague and the average Australian will not look up the facts they will just trust me based on how “Australian” and therefore “trustworthy” I appear to be. Call me out on this, if you disagree, but every time someone says stuff like this I cringe. The government does it, the opposition does it, every political person does it. It’s essentially an attempt to make the people who don’t know feel stupid about not knowing and therefore cause them to trust the person who clearly “does know”. Clever and means you do not have to explain yourself. In this instance; the Government has done a lot of explaining and the opposing parties have done a lot of “No?! Because… because NO.”

Also, side note. These mining big wigs have spent tens of millions of dollars on an advertising campaign against the proposed tax. Tens of millions of dollars on something that may not even eventuate. Without blinking. If they can afford that then surely they can afford the tax? I would much prefer the Australian Government to have that money than some cashed up bogans. Speaking of tens of millions of dollars. These adverts are like “WE ARE PAYING MILLIONS(!!!) OF DOLLARS IN TAX”. Bitch please. You are billion dollar companies.

Next major issue! The refugee/asylum seeker/boat people/illegal immigrant “crisis”.

These four terms are synonyms in this example. It is the people who come from poverty or war stricken countries on tiny boats to Australia, while trying to avoid the authorities. You can tell what someone thinks of them by what term they use. Obviously “refugee” is a lot more sympathetic than “illegal immigrant”. So, my favourite sped in the world, Mr Tony Abbott (the opposition leader) has said he thinks that any boat that is seaworthy enough should be turned around. GREAT POLICY. SURELY THERE ARE NO FLAWS LIKE BOATS BEING SABOTAGED AND A FUCKTON OF PEOPLE DROWNING!?

If you read or look at the news it is apparently a terrible issue/crisis every time an Australian dies in unnatural circumstances. The teenage boy who committed suicide this weekend from bullying, the bigwigs who died in a plane crash, the Australian soldiers who were killed in Afghanistan (admittedly that warrants vast media attention and respect). You get it all the time “three hundred people were killed INCLUDING AN AUSTRALIAN, GUYS, HOLY SHIT!” Quite frankly I think that these REFUGEES should be looked after. I do not mind paying tax for that. Just because, as long as Australia is awesome (and where they come from is shit), they are going to keep coming no matter what we do. It becomes a humanitarian issue, not a political or a national one. Guess which of those is the most important?

I do not even want to get into the racial issue but I do not see why where they come from should matter, at all. However, pretty sure if they were from Europe (the further west in Europe, the better) then nobody would care. Australia just has a long, long history of racism and neglecting human rights. So this isn’t really a surprise.

NEXT ISSUE: JULIA GILLARD vs TONY ABBOTT.

Ok so as of this morning, Australia has it’s first female Prime Minister. Also it’s first non-sped Prime Minister in almost longer than I can remember (we’ve only had Kevin Rudd and John Howard while I have been conscious enough to ‘get’ politics).

Why this is good:

• She is smart. I thrive on calling politicians speds. It is my favourite thing to do. Julia Gillard has not (yet) given me reason to
• She is eloquent. When she speaks it is clear and understandable. I could understand Kevin Rudd but a lot of people have no idea what the hell he’s saying.
• She is slightly more left wing. Thus the being branded a “communist”. She, personally, may be one but she can’t change the direction of the party to rabid left-wing policy. She CAN however, influence a more left wing Australia WHICH WE NEED PRETTY BADLY. (See humanitarian issue above, for example)
• “She is not known for putting conservative religion prejudices ahead of legal equality and fundamental human rights.”
  (reference) Notice how she emphasises that it is a “Government” decision and also notice that she appears to sound rather bitter about it.
• She was born in Wales AND is partnered (not married or any of that shit) to a hairdresser and she has no children. This = awesome (slash really lesbian).
• She has been acting PM before
• She is not Tony Abbott.

Why this is bad:

• She wasn’t elected by the people (yet). While we theoretically just elect party members and they CHOOSE the PM, it still feels a bit sour
• If she fucks it up, Australia is fucked to remain some right wing shit hole where nobody but white men have any rights
• Communism is not cool. Ask the rest of the Micenkos. Oh wait. They’re essentially all dead from bullets in the ex-USSR
• Australia is mysoginistic and racist and conservative and SO MANY PEOPLE will be trying to get her to fuck up or APPEAR to have fucked up.

Tony Abbott

Why I hate Tony Abbott so much:

• He is anti-abortion
• He has claimed that women should save sex for marriage. Women specifically. Clearly men are OK having as much sex as they like
• The whole ‘turn asylum seekers’ boats around if they are seaworthy” bullshit
• He said he “felt threatened” by the LGBTI community. HE SAID THAT. Now he’s trying to claim he loves LGBTI… FFS
• He has called climate change “crap”
• He has scary ministers from John Howard’s era
• He always is topless or being a media whore by wearing silly outfits. You are not Lady Gaga
• He admits that we should not to believe anything he says unless it is written down. THANKS
• He literally and admittedly has no idea about economics. He’s going to fuck up all of Kevin’s work which was planning for the future and then blame Kevin when things go to shit. If he gets in I can guarantee that this will happen.

The End.

Again, please feel free to clarify and/or disagree with points that I have made. If you want evidence to my claims I can look them up. I haven’t linked to articles because some of them will be a few months old and hard to dig up and I’m lazy. BUT IF YOU LOOK AT THE FACTS YOU WILL SEE THAT I AM RIGHT (sorry, it felt necessary).

PS: Vote Greens.

Imaginary photo album

Captions from photos that Alia took last weekend. I’m writing the captions from memory of some photos and you get to be intrigued by their content until she uploads them.

• WHAT AM I DRINKING AGAIN?
• I FUCKING GUESS
• WTF! MY FRIEND IS A GAY BAR?
• SHE’S GOT A GUN
• BENT
• I DON’T WANT HIM TAKING THE PHOTO, WE’LL CATCH UNATTRACTIVENESS
• HUNG OVER CRACK ADDICTS LIKE SOUP
• MY GAY BAR RESEMBLES A DYKE
• ABBAWORLD
• BATMOBILE
• I AM OLD AND THEREFORE NOT IMMATURE AND THEREFORE DON’T REALISE THE SEMEN JOKE.
• FUCK YEAH, SPORT!
• CLONES AT THE FOOTBALL
• INFLATABLE ROADKILL
• TAKE THAT, ASSHOLE
• IT’S NOT WORTH IT, MATE
• I DIDN’T KNOW YOUR MOUTH COULD OPEN THAT WIDE
• NACHO TACO?
• THAT IS ROUGHLY THE SAME SIZE AS MY…
• CHOW DOWN, WHORE

Part of my kindof hopes that you take it upon yourselves to draw “photos” and submit them for comparisons to the real ones. If it helps they all involve me and/or the following people:

1. A foxy, butch, bossy, bitch (I’m in denial about her not being a lesbian)
2. A mature, sensible person who always questions why he is hanging out with dickheads and gays and APPARENT non-lesbians
3. A male model if you imagine that instead of being emaciated and posing for advertisements he drinks lots of beer and plays video games.

NB: WE ARE EITHER DRUNK OR HUNGOVER ALWAYS.

NB: OK MAYBE A COUPLE ARE JUST OF FUNNY SHIT AND NOT OF US

The end. Thanks for pretending to care about me and my friends.

You can close this tab now.

On Butch Part Two: The Sequel.

This is simply a list of things, people and characters that are butch. In no particular order and with glaring omissions based on what funny shit I could think of in 5 minutes.

• Coffee
• Brian Molko
• Aaron Sandilands
• Scarves
• Yoshi
• Shirley Manson
• Elizabeth Bennett
• Jimmy Bartel
• The Internet
• Facebook
• All the members of No Doubt except Gwen
• Darth Vader
• Tegan
• Converse
• Shane
• Emily Deschanel
• The A Wing Pilot that crashes into the Super Star Destroyer
• Sara
• Jenny
• Mary Shelley
• Dorian Grey
• Cameron Mooney
• Red Wine
• Burritos
• Pizza
• When that bitch falls down the stairs in Gone With The Wind
• “STEPH”.
• Milla Jovovich
• Merlin
• The Asian Y Wing Pilot who’s all “There’s… too many of them! AAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaah”
• Scotch
• Zealots from Starcraft
• David Bowie’s crotch
• Beer
• Chewbacca
• Nachoes
• Jimmy Bartel
• Dolores O’Riordan
• Hydralisks from Starcraft
• Melquiades
• Bruce Willis
• Anyone named “Bruce”
• Ironically, NOT Butch Vig
• The rest of Garbage
• Lucy Lawless
• Lucy Lawless
• Lucy Lawless
• Jimmy Bartel
• Xena: Warrior Princess
• Gabrielle (season 4 onwards)
• Callisto
• Tiny Fey
• Roger the Alien
• Valerie from V for Vendetta
• Valerie from 90210
• Mean Girls
• Jesus Jimmy Bartel
• The Elder Scrolls
• Lady Gaga
• Susan Sto Heilit or however you spell it DEATH’S GRANDDAUGHTER
• Jane Austen
• Kenzaburō Ōe
• Gao Xingjian
• Elfride Jelinek
• Doris Lessing
• Whoever just googled all those people
• That one Alien in AvP that actually behaves like the canonically established Aliens and not some pussy bughut piece of crap.
• Michael Barlow (possibly “butchest teenager ever”)
• Willow
• Buffy
• Tara
• Not Warren
• Anya
• Whoever is actually reading this list
• Obama
• Julia Gillard
• The perverted scientist in The Fifth Element
• RUBY ROSE. ALMOST AS BUTCH AS RIPLEY. HOLY FUCK.
• Captain Jack Sparrow
• Elizabeth Swan (first movie only!)
• Virginia Woolf
• Joel Selwood
• Nobody who likes any of the Bronte Sisters
• Except, ironically, the Bronte Sisters.
• Alanis
• Especially the butchest song ever written: “You Oughta Know”
• Roast pumpkin and savoury cheese
• Tank.
• Girl.

THE END THANKS FOR WASTING YOUR 5 MINUTES <3

On “Butch”, or, The “Butchest” Movies Ever

The history of “Butch”.

So in the long autumn of 2009 there was a production by the name of Lit By Limelight: The Story of a Little Tin Soldier and it pretty much ran my life from February to June of that year.

Within this production there developed, between the backstage crew (who didn’t have a hell of a lot to do during rehearsal except paint things) some inside jokes. One of them was “Butch”. For about a year I knew, in my heart and in my head what I meant when I called someone this new butch. It did not specifically mean a large, lesbian on a motorbike with or without a mustache. It was simply a positive thing, they were awesome, they were possibly slightly masculine but not in a testosterone loving way.

The other day I re-watched, for the seven billionth time, what is possibly my favourite movie ever made:

Alien (1979)

For those of you who do not know Alien, this post is basically the biggest spoiler on the planet. Note that it spoils horror/action movies so it’s not such a big deal. Also notice the date of the movie. IF you haven’t seen it then I doubt you care enough about it being spoiled. Anyway, it features Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley, a Lieutenant on a space miner rig thing. By lieutenant it is important to note that the generally accepted cannon in Science Fiction is to treat space craft  and their occupants in a similar way to real world ships. So there are captains and officers and such but they are still civilians. They have absolutely no military training unless it is their hobby. It is not Ripley’s hobby.

Anyway after an emergency signal from some creepy desolate planet, a strange, parasitic creature latches onto one of the crew’s faces. Ripley, (who is in charge of the ship because the captain was one of the people on the planet), is the only person smart enough to refuse to let the landing crew back on board with an unknown alien being (the technical term for this is ‘xenomorph’).

“WHY DON’T YOU TRUST ME?

There is a mutiny of sorts (plot involved!) and the infected crew member, the captain and that bitch, Lambert, are let back on board.

Then everyone dies.

“LOL, YOU’RE FUCKED.”

Except Ripley. Who blows the fucker out of an airlock (Guess which one she is).

In Aliens she does things like charge into a nest of the creatures (the same creatures that have just slaughtered an entire squad of trained, experienced marines). She does this to save a young girl (Newt) who may very well be dead. It’s like a 50/50 chance. She goes in anyway, despite having only been taught how to use guns properly about an hour ago. Then she uses gaff (the god of tapes) to attach TWO guns to each other. Also she has a fuckton of grenades.

Screenshot from the film Aliens. © 20th Century Fox

Note! Her haircut makes her look like a lesbian and thus the ‘traditional’ interpretation of butch but it is from the 1980s, when everyone dressed like massive fags. So it is OK. You should see Vasquez if you want a lesbian.

Hudson: “Hey Vasquez have you ever been mistaken for a man?”
Vasquez: “No. Have you?”

ANYWAY! BACK TO RIPLEY. I LEFT YOU AT A CLIFFHANGER.

After charging into the nest and kicking the shit out of the Aliens within (we never doubted you!), the Queen gets pissed off and rips the only other able-bodied, “adult” survivor to pieces. Then heads for Newt, who is so totally next. Until.

“Get away from her, you BITCH!”

Ripley charges at the Alien queen head on in what is essentially a forklift.

Big deal? Why is that so great?

THIS is the Alien queen:

Screenshot from the film Aliens. © 20th Century Fox

Who’s seriously going to fuck with that thing? Ripley. That’s fucking who. Nobody else would last half a second, let alone yell insults at/taunt the thing. (AvP DOESN’T. COUNT. THE PREDATOR ESSENTIALLY DOES ALL THE WORK.)

PS: Ripley is the only survivor again. Yup. The young girl dies. That’s how butch Ripley is. She defies the laws of Hollywood which states that children will inexplicably live just because every tragic circumstance needs a symbol of hope. Bullshit. If there are Aliens around then every child is fucked straight away. Pretty much the only thing AvP 2 did right.

This brings us to the next, epic, installment of the series. ALIEN 3. AKA Ellen Ripley is simultaneously Jesus, Mary and a skinhead. Also she kicks just as much arse as before WITHOUT EVER HOLDING A GUN (OR REALLY ANY SORT OF WEAPON).

Ripley has an alien inside her; she is pregnant without having sex. OK she does have sex in the movie but it doesn’t put the alien inside her. Anyway she’s fucked now. She knows that it is a queen and everything will die if it gets out. Also there is no way to stop it from getting out. Also there is another Alien on the loose anyway. This one is the dog version. The previous ones were human (OK maybe the queen came from the space jockey, it’s unclear). You know how in zombie movies it is the zombie dogs that are the scariest because they are the natural predators. Imagine the natural-est predatory animal you can and then times it by another natural predator. That’s essentially what the alien dog is.

Guess what happens? Ripley kills it. Of course. How, you ask me, even though you know what happens in the movie or you wouldn’t be reading the spoilers. SHE SUBMERGES IT COMPLETELY IN MOLTEN LEAD AND THEN MAKES IT EXPLODE BY SPRAYING IT WITH COLD WATER WHEN IT JUMPS OUT OF THE LEAD AT HER.

“SCIENCE. IT WORKS, BITCHES!”

Right then, in order to deal with the alien queen that is inside her, Ripley dives into the molten lead herself (or the furnace that she threw Newt and Hicks’ carcasses in? It isn’t quite clear… POINT IS: TEN BILLION DEGREES). That’s right. Ripley died for us. She died for all of us. That queen nearly got to Earth.

Oh guess what. The Alien burst out of her chest before it was incinerated by the fire. Oh snap! Nice try, Ripley, we still love you but I guess it got away after all.

WRONG.

She fucking grabs it and drags it down to the firey death with her.

Let’s channel the movie “Speed” for a second…

POP QUIZ! ONE OF THESE, THE SIZE OF A HUMAN BABY, BURSTS OUT OF YOUR CHEST. WHAT DO YOU DO?

1. Die horribly because something the size of a human baby just burst through your ribcage AFTER you’ve exhausted yourself running and climbing.

2. Have the reflexes and skill to grab and hold something that has enough force and speed to burst through your ribcage.

PS: If you are not Ripley, option 2 is not available to you.

IN CONCLUSION.

When I say “butch” I do not mean some lesbian and/or tomboy with short hair, muscles and attitude but that does not mean that those attributes are excluded. Often, butch people will have these qualities, making the description twice as valid. When I say “butch” I mean “Ripley-esque”. Or even “Sigourney Weaver-esque”.

On football and then music gigs

Long time, no update.

THE REASONS:

1. I couldn’t think of anything
2. Long weekend (hilarious, given I’m essentially a housewife, that ‘holidays’ are when I’m the busiest.)
3. I installed “Spore”

BUT DO NOT WORRY! FOR I HAVE FINALLY COME UP WITH SOMETHING TO WRITE ABOUT!

You may remember, back a few lines, that I mentioned that it was a long weekend. Well, how about I tell you all about my long weekend?

Firstly, football (AFL to you foreigners/unbelievers, none of this rugby or soccer or grid iron shit… for now). If you do not care about sport skip to the big, bold block of text now.

My side has quite a few injuries, from pretty much every position imaginable (as in starting position in the sporting sense, you sick fucks.)

• Joel Corey (EPIC MIDFIELDER)
• Marcus Drum (Wait isn’t he a Fremantle player? Oh right hasn’t actually played for us yet…)
• Tom Hawkins (Really tall, pretty-boy forward! Now who’s hair will I laugh at?)
• Cameron Mooney (ROAR, Sad. Come backkkkkkkk)
• Steven Motlop (indefinite, fucking sad)
• Brad Ottens (our the amazing ruckman)
• Max Rooke (Did his knee. Fucking worst thing)
• Matthew Scarlett (The best defender in the competition, PERIOD). <== (and then a second period there for good measure).

Anyway DESPITE this, we still flogged Essendon because

1. Our rookies are amazing, even if one of them is actually pretty much the oldest member of the team
2. Jimmy Bartel is magic
3. The team is so fucking solid that they have replacements for the injuries so the only bad thing is that they are hurt, not that the team will also suffer.

Also Fremantle lost, which sucks. That reminds me to post my “football team hierarchy” (aka, the pecking order of teams that deserve my support)

There are categories and then lists in the categories, (this is basically how my head works). So, for example, the gap between Carlton and Richmond is much bigger than Adelaide and Carlton. CONFUSED YET?
ANYWAY, HERE IS THE LIST (CAN CHANGE IF PLAYERS ARE DICKHEADS, MICHAEL JOHNSON)

1. The boganest and most amazing team ever
   Geelong Cats
2. The teams that are awesome and many people that I know like
   Fremantle Dockers (mum’s/Ben’s/most of my amazing friends’ team)
   Adelaide Crows (relatives’ team/where my family is from)
   Carlton Blues (dad’s team/where I was born)
3. The “non-dickhead Victorian teams”
   Richmond Tigers
   Melbourne Demons
   Essendon Bombers
4. The “I’m indifferent” teams
   North Melbourne Kangaroos
   Brisbane Lions
5. The “teams that I just don’t like for different reasons, even if they are really OK”
   Hawthorn Hawks (2008 – you fuckers)
   Western Bulldogs (My family seems to think they’re no better than Collingwood so that’s rubbed off a bit)
   Sydney Swans (mostly indifferent but I just hate Sydney)
   St Kilda Saints (the main threat to Geelong plus I just don’t like them and I don’t know why)
6. The “the main rivals to group #2“
   West Coast Eagles (I don’t really mind them but my brother and sister go for them and it’s fun to create sibling rivalry so I’m going to put them down here)
   Port Adelaide Power (A fucking joke/booo!)
7. The scum of the world
   Collingwood Magpies (fucking die)

NB: When the new teams come I am anticipating that Gold Coast will be in indifferent, unless they start winning because Freo needs a few flags first, and Greater Western Sydney will be in the new “I don’t like you because you’re from Sydney” category (which will be a new sub-group of #5 for the two NSW teams).

*I HAVE STOPPED TALKING ABOUT FOOTBALL NOW, IF PEOPLE WERE BORED/SKIPPINGTHAT BIT.*

So Saturday night was my first review job in Melbourne. I say job but I didn’t get paid, if anyone was wondering, but that does not matter/wasn’t why I’m doing it.

It was for the band “Cassette Kids” and I slightly toned my style down (just a bit!) because I wanted to make sure that everyone in Melbourne knows that I can actually write seriously when I try.

Here’s a shiny link!

I won’t bother repeating myself too much (count those 700 words as part of this blog so my comeback post seems long!) but it was really fun and Bec was doing photos (for fasterlouder, so they are here instead: 

http://www.fasterlouder.com.au/gallery/16802/Cassette-Kids.htm

(there’s a photo of me in there!)

I think that’s all for now. This was mostly about football but if you also read my review/looked at Bec’s photos then it will appear be bigger.

On Not Being Crazy

“…and I may be romantic

and I may risk my life for it

but I ain’t gonna die for you
you know I ain’t no Juliet
and I’m not gonna watch you

while you burn yourself out, baby
no, I’m not gonna stop you
‘cause I’m not the one that’s crazy…”

‘Ampersand’ – Who Killed Amanda Palmer (Amanda Palmer) – 2008

ATTENTION: I talk to myself lots. Especially in the shower/bathroom because of the same principle as singing in the shower/doing the occasional stupid thing in the bathroom like pulling a face at the mirror. That principle is that you are in an isolated space and you believe that nobody can see or hear you. I was wrong. The sudden, dreaded realisation that people actually can hear me talking to myself in there was the motivation for this post.

NB: This is also applicable to car singing/doing embarrassing things in your car. I talk to myself when I’m driving alone, too.

I don’t even know what I’m saying half of the time. It is strange. Words just come out and they probably mean something and they normally make coherent sentences or phrases but they make absolutely no sense to me at all. I believe that the cause is stress (in this case about being poor and not having a job).

SUBTEXT OF THE ABOVE:

“ATTENTION, PLEASE, PEOPLE I LIVE WITH: I AM NOT CRAZY.”

I used to hear voices, four very distinct ones, I gave them labels based on what they said to me; “good”, “evil”, “right” and “wrong”. I still get them when I’m mega-stressed out about something. That hasn’t been since first year uni when I thought missing one class was a bad thing. I have had counseling and was eventually told that I wasn’t “crazy” anymore. BY PROFESSIONALS! (Extreme, emotive formatting powers activate!)

AW YEAH!!!

Actually, thinking back on it, the concept is pretty offensive (If you haven’t read all my previous posts you may not realise that I get offended by everything!).

The reason why these things bother me is because of a societal norm that classifies these personality traits that I have as being “crazy” or “mad” and then classifies being those things as bad. Maybe I just have a super-conscience? Maybe my imagination runs riot in my subconscious (if you KNEW the dreams I had… wtf) and this effects my thought process.

In any case whatever it was, it is gone now and I automatically fight it off when it does come back using the most frustratingly powerful anti-logic ever of “you aren’t real”. Yes they are or I wouldn’t be writing a blog about it but hey: at least I’m not crazy!

The amount of times that I have said that I’m not crazy in this post is really starting to make me think otherwise.

Photo courtesy of Ashley Allen (http://www.flickr.com/photos/missashaley/)

UGH STRANGE COINCIDENCE! I was just talking to someone that I know (they do not read this blog so it is clearly OK to bitch about them) and they were all “ugh I have depression”. They’ve been saying this since forever but they don’t DO anything about it and they just tell everyone as if it’s some free pass to be an unpleasant, whiney, attention seeking bitch.

NOT. COOL. GUYS.

This reminds me of my friend, “D”, (not for David, I’m not talking about myself through an alias because I’m not crazy) who constantly gets angry at slutty female bitches? girls? PEOPLE who are sad so they say they have “depression” or who hate their weight so they say that they are “anorexic”. Um, pretty sure the point of anorexia is that you don’t admit that you HAVE a problem? Maybe? I’m no expert. Anyway these dumb moles? morons? girls? people? living constructs of what is wrong with western youth culture pretty much achieve the amazing feat of trivialising immensely serious, powerful and, life changing (normally for worse) DISEASES. So, to paraphrase “D”: No. I will not write ‘love’ on my arms, how does that help? It doesn’t, it tricks stupid, overly emotional people who are vaguely sad for wahtever reason into thinking that some word is helping them and it makes light of the problem. I focussed on depression here because I think that’s the most common but it is applicable to lots of things. Also vaguely related are the fake bisexual people. Or “trendsexuals” as I like to call them.

NB: AMAZING ORGANISATION THAT DOESN’T DO THE ABOVE AND IS ACTUALLY AMAZING:

Beyond Blue

If you are actually worried about depression and think you might have it and aren’t going to admit it because you actually have it and thus do not tell every person you meet about it so they give you attention, then go there and it should help you get on the right track (they also do boys, *face*. Male depression is even worse because MEN DON’T GET DEPRESSED. THEY MAN UP AND GET OVER IT).

NB: woman? frustrating cunt? Girl I was just talking to who inspired this post (if you do read this) slash anyone who may act like her. You are just sad, tell people that you are “sad” and, if you actually want to be happy, they will be able to cheer you up. (Eventually). Or call a hotline about it. I know people who have been crippled by this disease and you are spitting in their face and making their problems seem trivial and that is a really rude and wrong thing to do.

NOT. NICE. AT. ALL.

Side note tying in with the “regrets” post from yesterday; I think  I maybe acted like this as a1 teenager? I’m not sure because it was pretty freaking serious to me at the time but in hindsight it totally wasn’t that bad. Maybe? Who knows, I probably just regret it because it wasn’t “normal” and social pressures have got me this time. Anyway, this “regret” motivates me to talk to myself.

WHAT THE FRICKEN FRACK? WHEN DID THIS BLOG TURN INTO “DAVID’S LIFE STORY”? BORING!

I PROMISE I WILL BE BACK TO LIGHTHEARTED SOCIAL COMMENTARY SOON!

PS: REMEMBER THAT I’M NOT CRAZY!

PPS: I have confronted the anonymous girl about the issue so you don’t have to think that I am a bitchy, backstabbing, talking behind peoples back person.
PSPSPS: Even though I totally am one of those.