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.

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 “The Internet” and “Maturity”

Google This! *motions to crotch*

I started with a penis joke. This blog is doomed.

OR MAYBE I WAS SETTING UP AN ENVIRONMENT WHEREIN I COULD DISCUSS MATURITY AND THE INTERNET!
(Because, you know, the title of this post TOTALLY doesn’t account for that)

Anyway, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking (while refreshing facebook and applying for every job on seek.com.au) and I have noticed that the vast majority of my friends act like twats on the internet, compared to what they are like in person, anyway.

Clarification: By “twat” I don’t necessarily mean “unpleasant” or “unlikeable”, I’m just referring to the fact that, whether it’s in an email or on MSN, Skype or some other chat, or even on facebook and the like, the people that I know will say stupider things (usually to be funny), be bigger bitches, and just generally act a hell of a lot more immature.

Now usually I would not write a post like this based only on the experiences with my friends because that is not scientific! However, I fell as though this is an area that my context qualifies me to discuss. I have a hell of a lot of friends that I have met on the internet and have never actually met in person, a handful that I met on the internet but now know in person, a slightly smaller handful that I met in the real world but now only ever talk to on the internet and even fewer still that I actually met in the real world and I’m actually still friends with in the real world (aka I’m a loser). THIS MEANS THAT I HAVE PERSPECTIVE!!

…(For once).

Anyway, within these four groups of friends, there are people that I know very well, and it is  these people to whom I will be referring from now on.

There are people that I have known since forever who are really quiet and mature and nice in person and will go on facebook and say “LIKE OH MY GOD, DAVID!! YOU, LIKE, HAVE TO SEE THIS VIDEO CLIP! SOME DRUNK MOLE, LIKE, HELL FALLS ON HER UGLY FACE.”

This person doesn’t even say “like” in real life (unless they are discussing something that they actually, you know, like).

It makes me wonder what it is exactly about the internet that causes people to act in this manner. For a long time I thought that it was simply a forum without consequence, people acted immature because they could get away with it. There’s no judgment or repercussions on the internet because everyone is essentially anonymous, (even if they are a well known “screen name” or posting on Facebook) because of the separation of “reality” and the cyber world. However, because I am never content with anyone’s explanation for anything, including my own reason and because I always feel the need to periodically challenge ideas, even if it’s just to make sure that they continue to be reasonable, I noticed flaws in this explanation.

For one, if it is the fear of judgment that motivates maturity, then the construct of maturity is inherently false. The true, free self, acting without fear, is the ‘real’ person, even though it exists in only in a cyber-reality. For example, the idea that toilet humour is lowbrow is programmed into society, yet the internet is swarming with this so-called smut. I can’t spend one session online without reading at least one lowbrow joke, but I can go for multiple “real” days and never hear it muttered. The fear of judgement, that comes from another social construct (the moral compass), is something that I believe comes with intelligence. Children don’t know right from wrong until they are taught it and learn the human way. Humans, as a species, are one of the few that can feel guilt. The power of this emotion is infinite (just look at Organised Religion and name one doctrine that isn’t based on doing good out of fear of judgement, even if that isn’t necessarily in the original teachings of that religion’s philosophers).

This explains why the people I talk to mostly online appear to be more immature than my “real” friends, but it doesn’t account for my real friends acting “immature” when they’re online. I believe the explanation of this again lies in the social construct. The cyberworld has its unspoken rules, just as the real world does. There’s a cyber-norm matrix that is prevalent, just as “real” society is dominated by the heterosexual-norm matrix. When people log into the cyber-world, they change to adapt to the cyber-norm, out of fear of judgment. I usually do not even try to be eloquent on the internet, the vast amounts of trolls and the dreaded phrase “tl;dr” make the exercise almost pointless. If I could somehow manifest a compilation of everything that I’ve ever said online, I am positive that there would be a downward trend in my maturity as I “learned” the new, normal way to be.

Thoughts?

I mentioned in a previous post that I always feel as if I look like a moron or awkward, even though apparently I’m educated. I believe that this is why. By spending too much time online, as is the norm with my generation, my “real life” self has suffered a lapse in maturity. I am losing my eloquence because, these days, all my conversations are in

really short

phrases

with enter pressed

as much as possible

so that while I am chatting

I give the impression

of a flowing conversation.

This is probably also why

my grammar skills

have gone to hell.

Another project doomed to failure

So welcome to the very first LITERALLY THEORY blog post.

“What’s going on?” You ask with inquisitive desire.
“Well, I will tell you once the self-narration ends.” He said, seductively.

Basically I’m jobless (and looking!) so I have a lot of free time to think. Recently, that culminated in a blog about TV that wasn’t particularly well written (or interesting). What it lacked in literary aptitude, however, it made up for with “being fun” and “taking me a long time”. What’s that? Two things that I am in dire need of in my days alone at home (actually there’s usually between 1-3 other people in the house at all times but don’t ruin my story with technicalities).

Thus my desire to blog again was born because, well, the world TOTALLY needs more English Majors without jobs writing blogs, drinking Soy Chai Lattes and googling “How to be a pretentious, arty type writer” in between refreshing facebook. I mean twitter. Twitter is obviously more “arty”.

After several name ideas I decided to go for a terrible pun! Why? Pretty much I’m the person who assumes that everyone is stupid and they wouldn’t “get” the other names I came up with (these super-intelligent names included “Blog THIS!”, “Discuss THIS!”, and “Lit. Please”). Guess what, guys! I’ve been mega-organised for once!! I have actually totally already made a “Literally Theory” email, Facebook page, Twitter Account AND the blog and I still haven’t run out of my desire to be organised.

See, normally what happens is, I’ll come up with an AMAZING idea (examples: Do not fail at life today, actually go outside, finish your assignment BEFORE it’s due .etc) then get really excited about getting my act together and actually DOING something about it. Unfortunately getting excited about my new attitude and/or idea will burn up all my energy so I lose interest pretty much straight away (normally after I’ve bought a whole bunch of shit). Quite frequently, I will only survive the walk/drive/bus/train/whatever to the shops, wherein I buy some wicked-sick, amazing stationary or accessory for the project, normally spending more money than I have on awesome things like a calendar with colourful stickers, planners and files that match my wallpaper, $5 pens that are pretty but have 1/3 of the ink of a 50c ballpoint, get home, go on facebook and then never look at or think about the idea again. So do not hold you breath, the three of you who I actually managed to pester into reading this. I AM TRYING TO MAKE SURE THAT I KEEP AT THIS BUT I AM A NOTORIOUS FAILURE AT LIFE.

So, keeping positive, this time I went to K-Mart and bought 50c pens and a mega-cheapo notebook (with holes in it so that it can go in a file later, if I actually need one!) and I put all my neat cheap stuff in my PREVIOUSLY BOUGHT Kikki K. organisey shit. THEN I ACTUALLY WROTE NOTES AND PLANNED STUFF so that I will had some future post ideas so I might actually be motivated to keep going with this whole “do something productive or at least creative” thing (seriously my Vlog last year had one video and it was all “HEY I’M HELL STARTING A VLOG. STAY TUNED”, my photo of the day for a year thing lasted maybe 2 months and all I had to do was click a button on my webcam and put the result on flickr).

More than likely, however, my supercool/ultra-cheapo, amazing blog notebook will turn into what all of my lecture notebooks from uni eventually became. Two or three pages of incomprehensible notes, (with way way way too many arrows) then page after page of song lyrics and playlists that I think would be “thematically appropriate”.

Actually. I’m pretty sure the margin of the SECOND page of my amazing blog notebook reads “FOR WHAT IT’S WO-OOOO-OOORTH”.

Fml.

See you soon.

PS: The TV character thing I mentioned? I’m only halfway through doing that. Yeah. I’m a quitter. What are you going to do about it?