Newspaper killed the Twitter Star

After a time of yelling repeatedly at friends getting louder each time we finished playing Pictionary on the weekend. We were in high spirits and drinking other spirits as well and will, most likely, quote idiocy from it for years to come. I, personally, think we’d had more fun than cramming us all onto a dance-dance revolution to tap dance.

And, after this, I still think board games still can go the distance against there computer compatriots despite the death knell indicated in every article written about them. Every article written about them since the start of television will tell you that in the future no-one will crow over their family at Monopoly or cheat decisively at Cluedo. No-one has mentioned twister yet, though I think that has kept its high usage by children’s parties and drunken teenage drinking games (I make note that the second has never been exploited to its full availability by its parent company).

So why do media outlets think that for every new invention out there some industry should be wearing black, hanging up closed signs and deciding to form a band. Why, at every available opportunity, do we here about the iPod killer, the replacement for books and the end of radio? What real purpose can be seen by alluding to these pieces of plastic being compared to Jack the Ripper for sensational purposes.

I am still to see the death of radio, the end of children reading books, the replacement of television with the internet and all other visions of the future reporters seem to be bound to mention in their articles. Are we really relying on these reporters to give us our ‘vision of the future’? We seem extremely sceptical of a seemingly elderly crone crouching on a milk crate in a tepee telling us our future but should the writer from Newville Chronicles mention that helium balloons will replace the conventional automobile we bow to this opinion and nod over cups of tea at our next mad hatters tea party.


I am yet to see a train without a single person carrying one of the flimsy papers known as newspapers that has been said to disappear ever since the wireless came along. The wireless itself has still been on the ‘endangered species’ list on everything since the cathode ray made a name for itself. Who argued, in the 80’s, with the sentiment that video killed the radio star. I personally can’t think of any nightclub where a VJ (Video Jockey apparently) can make enough money to be called a starving artist.

So why is it only mediums that are already on the wanted list are the ones that are reporting these things? Why are there blogs out there telling everyone that no-one will be Twitting and not blogging. Is there such self loathing in the reporting industry for there personal medium? We should really be worried about this entire profession if they think that nothing they do is worth the paper it’s printed on. Maybe we need to have mandatory anti-depressants for these reporters if they hate their jobs that much?

Still, I think the best option is to slowly wind back a little and become technophobic again. This technological development may not be all that helpful. We need to look at what we’ve done in the past and try it over again. I’m going to start chipping away at some stone tablets for my next blog and get a personal slave to carry them to you.

It might not be next week though.

An 'Emotional' Message

I love living my life by moderation. If people ask how I am I might say 'good', 'bad', 'tired' or even 'where's the coffee'. It seems that that really covers my lifes feelings, wants and gives back about as much information as the asker requires or wants. And despite english stunting emotionally direct communications, the tone of my answer will give away more about my actual feelings than anything else.

The tone of all my answers is, in fact a highly relevant supporting the use of the wonders of sarcasm, the wit of irony and the humour of a movie like 'Wayne's World'. All these things that are then lost in the wonders of the net. And that comes at a point. If you think I'm serious with the first comment of this paragraph you can't hear the tone of my voice dripping with sarcasm. You may be waiting to see if I'll insert a winking emoticon to check I'm joking otherwise you could, possibly, watch a feed of my webcam as I gaze, glassy eyed, into the glowing box of a screen in front of me. I can't see much emotion being conveyed through 36 alphebetised characters plus punctuation or at intently gazing at a flickering screen while people watch me from a plastic egg.

So can we get past this barrier of only putting straight flat lines down on a screen with little to no emotion. Does a :) really convey that I have ambivalent feelings about my cat's employment choices or that :P will show my heightened disapproval of the business plan for the matchstick world builder set. So what options does this leave us, Maybe we can start to have a colour variations to indicate anger(red) sadness(blue), envy(green), shallow(pink), Peachy(peach) or even Pissed Off(Yellow). Personally I like to think that emotion is all about pressure and the keyboards, in all there innovativeness, should be able to the pressure your pounding into the keys. So if you're hammering nails into a concrete wall or lightly brushing a speck of dust on the keyboard the letters should change in size. Apparently, the chinese language, has five different tonal variations but the English could not have over 128 different points of pressure. It might make it a little harder to see the vary light touch people have when typing lightly but punch the keyboard and some letters should sit there for days.

But just to be clear I'm quite happy to see you all reading this. It's just annoying for you, the reader, that you can't tell if I'm sarcastic or not.

What's in a name?(What's their name?)

Have you ever asked yourself what is really in a name?

What defines you to someone else?
What makes them remember that your name is not Fred or Antoinette?
Because often, if you're in this fair country of ours it's not the name that people will refer to you. I mean what is really in the use of a name. It's whole idea is to give you an individual persona but it's real usage is only to identify you in documents, across a crowded room and by the police should they ask your friend who it was that drove them from the scene of the crime.

But the real heart of your personal moniker is the nickname, especially in your local neighbourhood and workplace. With such a diverse creative flair in most people Darren can become anything by shortening from D to Dazza to D-ren then to lengthening it to something like Dublin Darren even if he’s from Bangalore and has a liking of Gridiron. And with our current trend of expanding nicknames Dublin can change to Ireland and be Irish in a blink of an eye.

So this very Australian method or renaming people, places, animals and any other noun within sight probably has a lot to do with the fact that few Australians speak clearly enough for you to understand there name. If they happen to be from somewhere like Melbourne. They tend to speak with speeds akin to a Japanese bullet train whereas up north near Cairns the vocals are so drawn out that by playing there words back at double the rate it still takes a minute to say the name Bob.

So the fallout of such a movement inside this country is that no-one actually knows the real name of a person that they talk too and the ‘AKA’ line in the Police report looks more like an internet phone directory. Many a friend gets into a conversation with another on a street corner only to start referring to them as Walker, for walking around all the time.

Still, you can take heart in the fact, that when your parents failed miserably in attempting to give you an unshorten-able name that they didn’t call you Moses or Apple and expect you to go through a playground without any minders.

I like my reality with fantasy on the side

I was having a discussion recently musing over the thought of setting up a themed restaurant, a version of a standard eatery based on a forensic science style. Toe tags being a standard, zip lock bags with pieces of food inside, chalk outlines for the cutlery and microscopes to inspect the meal. Waiters wearing full body jumpsuits would end up saying profound, but annoying phrases in gravelly voices while looking into the middle distance. And that would be perfectly in line with CSI : Antarctica whenever it happens to be conceived.

And that is when the major issues hit me like a lead balloon.

That, while this would work based on the TV setting, the real forensic science is nowhere near as exciting. In fact the distance between the television version of reality and actual reality is so far that they wave at each other as though on differing magnetic poles.

It is, unfairly I believe, indicated that the media is glamorising the dramatic side of these jobs and that in reality, apparently, the whole case cannot be solved by the half centimetre of glass with an ants fingerprint on it.

And the problem with this whole issue is reality.
Reality, right now, isn't that exciting......yet.
Reality, should be a lot more like TV; glamorous, dramatic, riveting, sexy and all over within an hour.

This is the problem that we should go to our politicians, local council and radio shock jocks about. If we are truly entering into a nation dependant on the TV, computer and other fictional mediums. Can we really exist in such boring lives that we live in right now.

We should have police who can't enter a room without a diving role, forensic scientist who work alone to perfectly syncopated music tracks, delicatessens to meet with friends that do not smell like bad pastry's.
We should have some home lives where people don’t pay attention to living costs or budgets and hand over their credit cards without a care in the world. The fact then is that you get to have a new marriage/affair/kid/divorce every three months and the possibility that if you do seem to die you may be, saved at the last minute, resurrected, or have an evil identical twin.

If we really want to believe in the television lives we should make them real, in every way possible. We might get sick of the theme song every morning when we wake up, but our flashbacks would seem like we’ve just looked into a pool of bad stereotypical 80’s music videos.

Sure, it would mean that most towns would have incredibly high murder rates, security guards should keep up there life insurance policies but police would be invincible roundhouse kicking cowboys.

But until that day happens I'm going to work on my own life getting more 'dramatic'. Considering that I'm a photographer it should mean that I'll have to start investigating a large multinational corporation illicit happenings, get killed off in the first ten minutes so a friend of mine can investigate the case and shoot the head of HR in another 40 minutes before driving off in a sports car with a blonde sitting next to him.

Damn.

21 is not always a card game

Birthday parties are meant to be the most fun you can have, with or without your clothes on. (At the early years it is a lot more acceptable that at the later ones) And they often are with the exceptions happening when people start to get depressed or compressed by thoughts about age, especially if it changes the last number from a nine to a zero.

Often when you start off being the most excited about getting past the age of ten, every age question is not a matter of how old you are, but how old you will be. If a child happens to be turning twelve in June, five years from now, he’ll adamantly say he’s turning 12.

And I have to congratulate the children on wanting to get to the teenage years so quickly. I enjoyed my angst-ridden years of wearing black outfits and complaining that everyone was out to get me. Who wouldn’t want to step back in time. And it’s not until you turn 18 that it starts to get a little better. The world is your oyster, which at the time you hate due to the fact that you’ve become a vegetarian.

But 18 leads you happily onto 21, the magical figure where the party is probably the best you’ll ever have, the presents are only matched by wedding gifts and the speeches people make actually make you proud of your achievements up till now(which include being the chip fryer manager at the local unrespectable eatery).

After this date, everyone now starts to fret about being old. Regardless of there actual age, people still live as though they want to be 21, and compare there lives to this magical figure as though it will make the flab they happen to be holding in there pinched fingers magically disappear.

But you are only as old as the verbal abuse you send out. To give you a fair idea of how this system works, you are about ten years older than anyone you want to tell off in a condescending fashion. If you hate school kids on the train and tell them that they should wear their slap bands correctly. If you complain about the young executives for talking loudly on their phones or not letting you sit down, you’re probably at least pushing mid 40’s. If you start complaining about elderly people over 90 you probably should be classed as an idiot and locked up especially if you’re under 30.

So don’t worry, just use the same stationary as you’re 21’s birthday. Don’t stop being 21, just never let your actual age past it. In that way, even when your children are 40 you can trundle out in your three wheeled scooter as people hand you happy 21st cards. It’s a foolproof plan. I’m still following it.

Friends, Romans, Countrymen. Lend me your emails.

In my years of surfing the Internet, checking emails, watching bad viral videos and even making some money on the side, I have been amazed by the stupidity of the Internet and the fear of the unknown people are when they enter into this world of negotiable knowledge.

I am meaning, of course, about the proliferation and scourge of the chain emails.

Chain letters, once the social outcast of the physical mail system managed to get from one communication option to another. Bouncing around the red letterboxes of life until one, if not all, were scanned, typed and dictated into a computer to be sent on an endless quest of annoyance(If you can't tell, I'm not a fan). I am an opponent to them in all senses, in fact I have got to the point of sending chain emails back to "friends" of mine threatening wanton destruction of property, but that is taking the whole hate aspect a little too far. These fearful people, friends and acquaintances among them, are only worried about their health and safety. I think it only natural that you believe that a south American orphan will kill you if you don't send the email onto 12 of your closest friends, especially as that orphan has now got access to a computer. This orphan, who might or might not be a spirit has enough time and worry to want to look through email logs on her computer, just in case you sent the email off to a dead end of some sort or do the opening of emails emit a placating spiritual essence to fend off such a spirit.

As well as the gory warning about such a happening there are also the luck emails that inspire you to send them on 'as luck will follow' if you send them to 25 of your friends. Each one contains a wealth of testimonials, each about a person in a long distant location who has benefit ted with finding enough gold or winning enough money to give their dead wife's prized gold fish a heart transplant. A tear comes involuntarily to my eye as I read such badly worded drivel but I think it can be assumed that only the 'unlucky' ones are the smart ones. The unlucky ones are mentioned that fail miserably in life over the next 20 years, or lose their entire family in a freak golf ball incident if they do not send on the emails. I'm still waiting to be attacked by golf balls and, short of walking through a driving range wearing a target I have my doubts.

But, and this is the important thing, if these people are right then we should really be worried. If, at current trend, people are sending these emails out continuously with spirits, luck, poltergeists and curses attached to them we may need to rethink our application of computers in the home. Internet fridges were just a warning but I'm worried that in the future our toaster's could be imbued with the spirit of a cranky pirate who only will cook toast if you call it a scurvy dog or the light switches hexxed to flicker when certain people walk through the room imbuing them with .5% more UV radiation than anything else. Who knows how many items will now need to be exorcised to keep them from being harnessed. We may see it as beneficial if our alarm clock bounces emails around making luck shine from it's bright red LED's but do we really need it to turn evil and not wake us up in the morning for work.

Anyway, that's enough of a scare campaign from myself. I can't think that this docuement is providing you with zero luck whatsoever. But should you not send a message out about this blog to anyone a rock will fall in the Andes in Argentina that will roll into a snowball, be flung at a poor defenceless orphan who will make a vow of revenge to start a revolution encompassing the world that will destroy all computers and electronic devices.

Wait a minute. That might not be such a bad idea.

The Office Jungle

In many ways the world of the office can be compared with life for a wilder beast in the, well, wild. Some might say that it is a little too uncanny that offices are like a desert with only the kitchen and water cooler as the veritable oasis (that aren’t always safe, they just contain supplies)

But this was brought to my attention by the role of the work Meerkat or, to the uninitiated, the habit of peering over the edge of cubicles with both hands on the edge checking out the surroundings. After observing the cubicle habits, over many years, of the average office worker this isn’t that far off the truth and, unfortunately, these are not the most dangerous creatures roaming the walkways of your carpeted halls.

The first creature that springs to mind is the parrot, a role that should not be confused with the vulture. In the jungle of the office the parrot, whether female or male, often wears bright outfits that scare the living daylights out of any predators and perch on the edge of a cubicle or on a door frame. They’ll repeatedly ask you about last weekend or next weekend before laughing about things you say that aren’t even really funny then move to the next office to have the exact same conversation. Infuriating people with their repetition they may laugh in a fake manner throwing a hand around like a grenade to ward off any other parrots. No one actually knows if they do any work.

The next character is the elephant, not the worst kind of creature, but not really the greatest. Often it’s a larger or taller person but characteristically they move through the office bumping into everything and grunting excuse me occasionally, and the most obvious trait is that they only want things from the furthest destination. At this point they will reach past whatever is in their way, including other people, and pick it up lightly while apologising the whole time. Often hard working they can be useful to know if you want to get anything without personally upsetting people. They also can clear a path to the cakes on the breakfast morning tea.

A third is the vulture, a creature similar in nature to the parrot but without the conversational tone. They might tend to mingle around offices of those people who, in this time of upheaval, decide or are pushed to leave there jobs. Don’t try to get too close because they’ll swoop on anything left in the office, such as chairs, coffee cups, even administration staff. Best advice is to put out bait for them, maybe leave the occasional unowned coffee cup glued to the desk and watch them try and surreptitiously try to get it off with a staple remover.

The last, for this short list, is the alligator. Not really known as the highest of workers they tend to hang around the safe places of an office; the kitchen, the water cooler and even the toilets. But these can be seen as the most dangerous of all of the office wildlife. They’ll latch onto you, often with bad hug greetings, to get you to help them with some favour or other. Sometimes it can be a quick ‘toner replacement’ for the copier but it can verge on the ‘helping them move house’ to take you entirely away from your day. And they will drag you under if you give them half a chance. Better to struggle back, pulling yourself back with the all important lie ‘I have a meeting with finance’.

So all my advice would be to move in packs, to keep these creatures away from you, but if you want to be really sure best keep a blunderbuss at your desk and find a good safari guide to get you out of there.