Pants Optional

So It Goes

2007-04-12T19:35:00.000+10:00

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (1922-2007)

The Arrival of Sibley Raj Pea

2007-03-09T17:33:00.000+11:00

I've been so busy setting things straight in Owenia that I've been remiss in other aspects of my life. Not only have I been failing you, my dear, patient readers, but I also found out, just the other day, that my Flatulonian friend, Windy Pop, has had a baby. In case you've forgotten, Windy Pop is from the planet Flatulon-Nine, the occupants of which have heads located where their bottoms should be, and bottoms located where their heads should be. The main form of communication among the Flatulonians is via flatulence. However, contrary to what many people may think, this is not why they are called Flatulonians. In fact, the word flatulence is derived from the word Flatulonian, rather than the other way round - look it up if you don't believe me. The time it takes for a non-preganant Flatulonian to become a pregnant Flatulonian isn't necessarily very long. In fact, it can be so quick that it can come as quite a surprise to many Flatulonians. Windy Pop was one of those pregnant Flatulonians who was surprised to discover he was pregnant. He wasn't all that keen on having a baby. He always said they were like little turds (actually, this is an accurate description of baby Flatulonians). He wouldn't have minded if it was the woman who carried the baby, but on the planet Flatulon-Nine, a law had recently been passed which stated that it is the men who must gestate the baby - and it felt very much like being constipated, times 1,000. The standard Flatulonian pregnancy usually lasts 60 Flatulonian years (each of which only equates to a single Earth day) and Windy Pop's baby was premature by two months. Sometimes, if the baby is late in coming, they have to induce labour by means of an enema.

Before I get caught up in all the gushy baby stuff I should recount to you the story of how Windy Pop met the mother of his child. The girl's name was Stinky Toot Toot Drive Slowly Keep To Left, or just Tooty for short. The first time Windy Pop saw Tooty was on the train travelling to the Werribee Sewage Farm, where Windy Pop had the job of looking after the farm animals (singing them to sleep at night, among other things). Tooty was fast asleep on the seat opposite to Windy Pop. Windy Pop couldn't take his eye off her. He had never seen anyone so beautiful in his entire life. He thought she was so beautiful that it hurt him inside, as if an evil cupid had stuck a knife into his stomach and was twisting it. On the planet Flatulon-Nine, the popular symbol for representing love is a picture of a bladder with an arrow through it. The symbol for lost love is a bladder bursting (angsty Flatulonian artists would often express how deeply they felt about things by drawing graphic pictures of bladders bursting, with the contents dripping into a puddle on the ground). When Flatulonian parents are explaining to teenage Flatulonians the difference between teenage lust and true love, they say true love feels very much like needing to go to the toilet, times 1,000. Windy Pop thought everything about Tooty was perfect, even the imperfections! He could easily get lost in her gorgeous brown eye, which he thought to himself was like a window to her soul (via her bowel). He even loved the hair fuzz, stretch marks and cellulite on her cheeks. Simply put, Windy Pop felt like he really, really, really needed to go to the toilet.

Windy Pop had sat there staring at Tooty whilst she was sleeping, thinking wonderful things about the life they could lead together. He was staring for such a long time that he began to worry that it might be wrong to stare at her whilst thinking things like that. Windy Pop was prone to thinking about things a little too much, and worrying needlessly. Windy Pop might have been even more worried if he'd known that Tooty was returning home after her self defence class. In the self defence classes Flatulonian women learned about the various horrific things they could do to any would-be attackers. Not content simply with the old kicking of the balls routine, the women learnt about other, more permanent, methods of damaging a male Flatulonian's testicles with the types of items found in your common female Flatulonian's purse, such as, makeup, soft toys and anything coloured pink. Windy Pop got so worried that staring at her was a bad thing that he made a concerted effort not to look at Tooty. Instead he shut his eye and tried to remember all of her features so that he could continue to stare at her in his imagination. But then he started to feel guilty about that as well, so he opened his eye and discovered that Tooty was staring at him...

So anyway, Windy Pop and Tooty started talking and it turned out that Tooty was pretty keen on Windy Pop as well. Windy Pop talked about his adventures with me on the planet Owenia, his love for the sewage farm animals and anger at space taxi air fresheners. They talked about affecting the world, about global warming and greenhouse gases and what your average Flatulonian could do to make a difference. They talked right through the night and into the morning. As the sun rose, casting a greenish hue over the city, which was caused by all the methane produced by all the Flatulonian lovers up talking all night, Tooty rubbed her cheek against Windy Pop's hairy cheek and they kissed. When Flatulonians kiss it looks like this ))<>((. They went home together and spent the rest of the day in bed listening to Tooty's record collection, which included records by Barry White, Al Green and Marvin Gaye. Now, Windy Pop isn't the type of Flatulonian to kiss and tell, but it's obvious, considering the subsequent pregnancy, that some 69 rimming action must have occurred.

Windy Pop never wanted to get pregnant. He always imagined that he'd live the free life travelling the universe, visiting exotic locales, and dropping in on friends whenever their partners were having particularly gassy nights. Windy Pop didn't know how to feel when the pregnancy test returned the colour green. He didn't know what it was going to mean to his life. He knew that it was something special to bring a child into the world, but he didn't know if he could cope with the responsibility. He just wanted to run away - but he knew he couldn't do that. He knew that it didn't matter how he felt about the baby, he was going to look after it all the same and make sure that it had a good home. On the day the baby was born, Tooty there holding his hand. Windy Pop later recalled to me first seeing the baby. It was a girl. He remembers his feeling of relief when he saw that baby had it's head and it's bottom in the right places. Then he took the baby girl into his arms and named her Sibley Raj Pea and suddenly something changed. It didn't feel like needing to wee or being constipated. Right then, Windy Pop decided that there wasn't yet a Flatulonian sound conceived that could describe how he felt about Sibley Raj Pea. It simply felt like he was floating on a green cloud of methane.

So-Crates' Hypothetical

2007-02-16T11:24:00.000+11:00

Central to scientific method is the hypothetical - the practice of science involves the construction and testing of scientific hypotheses. The hypotheses accepted by science aren't necessarily true, it's just that they are more true than anything else anybody has come up with. (In fact, according to the epistemologist Karl Popper, scientific hypotheses are necessarily falsifiable, and thus science is necessarily false. Take that atheists!). Of course, any jerk can come up with a hypothesis - some type of 'what if' scenario which has more or less of a relationship to reality, much like my cannibalistic agent evolution simulations. The thing that I get the greatest kick out of during my brief dabbles into the philosophical aspects of my studies is the hypothetical. Any philosophical essay goes through a number of modes: some interesting intuitive explanations, some boring difficult abstractions, but nothing inspires the action downstairs as much as when they start outlining the hypothetical scenario.

In earlier posts I likened an indulgent philosophical discussion to self abuse. Something else I've noticed during drunken moments where some poor sucker has inquired too deeply about my thesis topic and on my visits to blogs where such things are oft discussed, is that there is a fine line between philosophical discussions and trolling. Especially if it's something to do with ethics and morality. For example, during the early stages of my relationship with Jodi, I posed the hypothetical: if I had a life threatening condition which required me to always be tickling someone, in particular, whoever happens to be closest to me, would you break up with me? It's like asking: if I had a life threatening condition which required me to always be asking annoying hypotheticals, would you break up with me? Needless to say we were lucky to survive the early hurdles of our relationship.

All this talk about philosophy and hypotheticals reminds me a troll I once met called So-Crates. So-Crates was one of those annoying trolls who lived under the bridge across the river Wey and would jump up and ask difficult hypotheticals in exchange for safe passage across the bridge. I could've swam across the river, but then I'd of had to contend with the pirates who were already eyeing the emergency ice-cream I carry every time I leave home (just in case). Anyhow, the question So-Crates posed was regarding hedonism - a test to determine whether the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain was the highest objective of human life, i.e., everything we do can be reduced to the pursuit of pleasure. He asked me to imagine a machine which controlled the pleasure and pain receptors of the brain, such that anybody hooked into the machine would only feel pleasure (like eating ice-cream, but without ice-cream headaches). The machine is 100% reliable - apparently So-Crates can guarantee such things as the God of his hypothetical universe. Now, So-Crates' question was this: would you agree to hook yourself into this machine for some extended period of time? Obviously you'll miss out on whatever, potentially painful, things are going on in the real world. People who'd say 'yes' don't need to explain further, as the benefits are obvious, but if you'd say 'no' (or perhaps something more emotive), then the burden is on you to explain why not. You don't have to listen to So-Crates if he says something particularly jerkish, such as, there is a right and wrong answer.

Magic Happens

2007-01-29T23:03:00.000+11:00

I've been immersing myself in my studies recently. The problem with PhD work, or at least my approach to it, is that you don't have any start or finish time and it seems to lend itself to a workaholic lifestyle. I always seem to be working, be it thinking through my ideas and arguments, rolling out of bed in the middle of the night to calibrate my simulations, or, the most time consuming activity of all - trying to avoid thinking about my work (aka procrastinating). It seems impossible to get anything done whilst procrastinating, except menial tasks such as cleaning. Any recreational reading or blog writing makes me feel guilty about the reading and writing I should be doing for my PhD work. And then there is the blog. I caught up with Meg at a gig on Friday and she was giving me grief about my lack of postings. So here is my recent effort:

Those who know me in the real world know that I grew up in a small town called Upwey on the outskirts of the Kingdom of Batmania. The town of Upwey was named after a town in Dorset, England, on the river Wey. Upwey is also half way up a hill, so I always thought that somebody had just misspelled directions to the town. I found out that the town of Upwey, on the river Wey, is somewhat famous for being home to an old pagan era wishing well (at least a contributor to the ever reliable Wikipedia thought so). Apparently, the well is the source of the Wey river. The water flows out of the well and fills the Wey valley. During the Victorian era people with paddle-wheel steamboats would use the river to transport important items, such as food and ice cream, to the township of Upwey and the surrounding region. Sometimes pirates would sail up the river and commit piracy on the paddle-wheel steamboats, presumably keeping the ice cream for themselves.

I remember, when I was a child travelling around the world with my parents, I visited this city which seemed to be all skyscrapers. I can't remember the name of the city - I must have been too young to remember things like that. For a brief period during the day, during the eleventh hour, the sun would rise above the skyscrapers and shine on the small park in the middle of the city. During this short period all the trees would blossom and the park would be filled with the bright colours that nature offers, contrasting the greys of the city. Unfortunately all the people who worked in the city didn't have their lunch break until noon, and so they never saw the park during this time.

In the middle of the park was a stone wishing well with a sign hanging over it which declared, to anyone who wasn't already in the know, that "Magic Happens". The people on their lunch break would sometimes throw coins into the well whilst making a wish and thinking about getting "Magic Happens" bumper stickers for their cars. I was lucky enough to visit the park during that brief period, during the eleventh hour. I looked down into the well, which was very dark, and wondered what was at the bottom. At some point a nice man walked by. It was the first time he'd seen the park during the eleventh hour because he'd only just quit his job, being of retirement age. He dropped a coin into the wishing well and made a wish, and then he gave me a coin so that I could also make a wish. I wished to know what was at the bottom of the well and dropped the coin.

The coin clattered down, bouncing off the walls. Before it hit the bottom, it was caught by a goblin. The goblin's name was Dorcas. It was Dorcas' job to organise the coins into categories based on the type of wish. There was a weekly pick up of the coins to take them onto the wishing factory, or some such place - Dorcas wasn't particularly concerned about that stuff. The room at the bottom of the well had shelves along all the walls with boxes to hold all the coins. Dorcas had become very cynical about the people who worked in the city, whose wishes were almost always selfish. People would often wish for things like their coins back, wanky bumper stickers, or to see such-and-such a person without their pants. There was a rather large cliche section for people who wished for things like world peace, or whatever was trendy at the particular time. At some time in the past Dorcas had been an elf. He had turned into a goblin due to the long hours he spent in the well getting cynical about people and spending all the time counting money. Elves are very receptive to their environment, so this type of Magic Happens often.

Magical Realism Death Match

2007-01-18T23:20:00.000+11:00

I started this blog with the intention of NOT writing reviews on the films, books and music that I come across - the internet seems to have such things well covered without me. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to share my thoughts on the film "Pan's Labyrinth" which I saw today. I'm a big fan of the genre of magical realism, so I'll just placate myself by saying that I'm writing about the genre rather than the film. The film is an Alice-Down-The-Rabbit-Hole story set in post World War II Spain. It's a bit dark, not a children's movie, in fact, I thought it was more violent than "Reservoir Dogs", with it's very own torture scene (sans catchy song). It had absolutely amazing creature effects, including a wicked looking faun that could surely kick Mr Tumnus' arse all the way back to a disappointing filmic version of the Chronicles of Narnia.

Anyway, I loved it, but then I'm into that type of stuff, that is, magical realism. I'm not sure if there is a consensus on what magical realism is. I'd define it, most probably, inadequately, as a story where real and magical elements are interwoven in such a fashion that it is difficult to delineate between them. One of my favourite books of all time is "One Hundred Years of Solitude", which is considered, by many, as the best example of the genre. The book is about a South American town which, through isolation from the rest of the world, is innocent of its technologies, where things like magnets and magic carpets hold the awe of the townspeople and something as simple as ice is truly miraculous. Just thinking about it makes me feel all choked up, like a bit of a pansy. What I love about the genre is the child like perspective it gives on those difficult adult problems, such as politics and discrimination, technology and IP addresses. Anyhow, here are some of my favourite films, which may, in some possible reality, be considered as magical realism: Heavenly Creatures, Big Fish (although the book was way better), Lawn Dogs, The Purple Rose of Cairo (one of the best films of all time).

And now for that death match, judge for yourself:

Mr Tumnus

Versus

Pan's Labyrinth Faun

Setting Things Straight in Owenia

2007-01-06T10:58:00.000+11:00

I recently received feedback on one of my PhD papers I'd submitted to a journal. The paper was about my simulation environment, which I discussed in an earlier post. One of the problems that the reviewer had identified with my model was a rule in my simulation which implied cannibalism. Basically, when an agent in my simulation dies it's health is recycled back into the local ecosystem to be reused as an energy source. My thinking was that this implies cannibalism in the same way that eating food fertilised with manure implies eating shit.

Anyway, I was thinking about this problem in my simulation late into the night. Long after Jodi and Gypsy had gone to sleep I saw strange lights shining though the window from outside the house. I went to investigate and there was Windy Pop, my friend from the planet Flatulon-Nine, whom I'd thought I'd only dreamt. Windy Pop told me of this place he visited called Owenia. I have no way of accounting for it, but it would seem that by some strange cosmic phenomena the world which I created in my simulation had become actualised as a real world, some twenty thousand light years on the far side of galactic central point. The occupants of Owenia, the Owenians, celebrated effigies of me, referring to me as the Designer. Now, I'd be inclined to say that this type of thing is an inevitable consequence of living in an infinite universe, something we all just have to accept and deal with, but the stories Windy Pop told demanded affirmative action. I had designed the inhabitants of Owenia to be capable of competition and reproduction, thereby evolve-ability. Although they were capable of evolving certain forms of biological altruism, such as aging, they weren't able to act in a cohesively social manner - apparently they just weren't made of the right type of stuff. The horrors Windy Pop recounted to me included the sins of necrophilia and cannibalism. Clearly it was my duty to visit this world I was responsible for creating, so that I may provide some higher order moral guidance.

Initially, Windy Pop's main method of transportation around the universe was via space taxi, but this proved problematic as it is very hard to find a space taxi without an air-freshener hanging from the rearview mirror, which, as any Flatulonian will tell you, is the root of all evil. But thanks to invaluable advice from a wise sage about the magical properties of Santa's reindeer wee, Windy Pop devised a method of interstellar astral travel between planets by consuming copious quantities of reindeer wee. Unfortunately this had an unpleasant side effect of dizziness, so I only vaguely remember the trip. I do remember first seeing the torus shape of Owenia in the distance. (A torus is a ringed doughnut shape. This seemed like a convenient shape for my simulation world, which is essentially a square grid with the edges wrapped around and connected. Try it yourself with a piece of paper).

Once I got to Owenia I refrained from revealing myself to the Owenians. Instead I selected a special group of people, who were currently enslaved by a selfish group of Owenians, to be holy agents. I also selected, from among them, a special one, named Mooses, who I spoke to in the form of a burning bush and told to lead the holy agents into an empty cell patch called the promised land. I gave Mooses special powers allowing him to part the seas, which defined the borders of the cell patches, permitting the holy agents to pass. After the holy agents were freed of their captors, I called Mooses up to a nice grassy knoll where we had a nice picnic of baguette and dessert wine, and I gave him the rules by which to live in the promised land - the Ten Commandments:

The Pixie Princess and the Boy Who Cried for No Reason. Part Four.

2006-12-31T19:36:00.000+11:00

Finally the night of the ice cream feast to be held in honour of the hero of Batmania, the Boy Who Cried for No Reason, had arrived. It also happened that it was New Year's Eve. The Boy Who Cried and the Gyppopotamus arrived at the castle of the King of Batmania, which was only accessible via a drawbridge over a moat filled with a ferocious herd of moo-moo cows. The King wasn't married, which was why his castle was a bit of a bachelor pad. On one wall the King had framed and hung all his Swindleburn University degrees and diplomas, in order to impress any visiting princesses. He also had a disco ball and a high speed internet connection which he used to read interesting blogs and look at pictures of pretty Batmanian women who didn't feel the need to wear pants.

By the time the Boy Who Cried had arrived the party was in full swing. He didn't know that the Pixie Princess and the Golden Dragon were stuck in the kitchen trying to organise a late delivery of goblin testicles, which needed to be freshly picked before being added to the ice cream. Outside in the party room all the waiters and waitresses for the feast were dressed in Conan and Barbarella outfits respectively. The music was handled by my sister Alice, a band of 80's minstrels, Fi and the Flatulonian choir group, who were lead by Windy Pop and Ludicrousity. God and Darwin were having a heated argument in the corner with the Mormons, Rev. Qelqoth, Santa and Dboy eagerly watching on. An effeminate poet and librarian, having just finished on the twee porno set, were kicking back having a few milk drinks at the milk bar with Cassandra, Inigo Montoya, Goldmourn, Cass and Ben. The Internet Pixies, Wire, Donald Duck, Dave, Kenneth Branagh and the workers of the panty vending machine sweatshop were running around without any pants on, having a pillow fight. Daniel Kitson, Adam, the Pixie Prince and Leighton were having an involved, graphic, conversation about masturbation. There was a crazy constipated person waving a dildo-cam at Meg, L.S.T. and Jasper (or whatever his name may be). The Gyppopotamus, who was a little shy after the golden sock incident, decided it would be best if she hid in shadows with Frankie and all the readers who hadn't yet identified themselves in comments. Jodi, Gypsy and I were also there. In fact, Jodi and I were also celebrating the third anniversary of our meeting and not quite getting together. I was very excited about the prospect of having a deep philosophical conversation with my character creations, but Jodi pointed out to me that it was the Boy Who Cried's special day and that it would be unfair to cause him an existential crisis.

When the Boy Who Cried's arrival was announced everybody went to meet the hero and to give him a hug and congratulate him on the golden sock quest. The King, who was very excited, asked the Boy Who Cried if he would re-enact his adventures in the Gyppopotamus lair for everyone. The King even agreed to play the part of the Gyppopotamus, who still didn't want to come out from hiding in the shadows. Everyone agreed that a re-enactment would be spiffing and they all cajoled the Boy Who Cried onto the stage, took a seat and were quiet. But the Boy Who Cried was overwhelmed and didn't know what to do. He worried that he might start crying again. The King lay on the stage with the golden sock in his mouth and pretended to be the Gyppopotamus monster, asleep. But the Gyppopotamus decided that the King was doing it all wrong and pushed the King off the stage and stole the golden sock back. The Boy Who Cried and the Gyppopotamus then staged an epic battle, tooing and froing across the stage and around the room, clambering over the audience, who divided into those who were supporting the Boy Who Cried and those who were supporting the Gyppopotamus, cheering them on. Eventually the Boy Who Cried disarmed the Gyppopotamus of her magic sharp stick and retrieved the golden sock. The audience were so impressed by the performance that they all stood up and applauded, calling for an encore. The Boy Who Cried and Gyppopotamus both bowed, and the Gyppopotamus was so happy and excited that she couldn't help but wee a little on the stage. The Gyppopotamus' bravery inspired the readers who hadn't yet identified themselves in comments, to at least say Happy New Year at the next opportunity.

Everybody was so happy eating ice cream and dancing that they almost missed the countdown to the New Year. They all paused, charged their ice cream bowls and got ready to start the count down. TEN ... The Pixie Princess quickly came out of the kitchen to join the party for the countdown ... NINE ... and the Boy Who Cried saw the Pixie Princess ... EIGHT ... for the first time ... SEVEN ... and this made the Boy Who Cried for No Reason start to cry ... SIX ... but it didn't feel like the normal crying for no reason ... FIVE ... it was as if every time he'd cried for no reason ... FOUR ... was because he was crying in anticipation of this moment ... THREE ... and the pixie princess saw the Boy Who Cried crying ... TWO ... and she wanted to ... ONE ... give him a big hug ... HAPPY NEW YEAR.

Christmas Wrap-Up, Unwrapped

2006-12-27T23:56:00.000+11:00

I always feel knackered after all the family Christmas celebrations - Christmas lunch at Jodi's parents, dinner at my parents and Boxing Day spent at Grandad's with the cousins. This was my first Christmas as a vegetarian, and it was, as I'd expected, not the most vegetarian-friendly day. But I survived.

My Christmas present from Jodi was a book called 'Treehouses of the World'. It is filled with wonderful pictures of treehouses, some of which would cause a structural engineer to flip out, along with tips for would-be treehouse designers... and treehouse dreamers. I love treehouses. Jodi prefers holes in the ground, something dwarf- (sorry, hobbit-) friendly. Perhaps a good equivalent book for Jodi would be 'Holes of the World'. I imagine our future abode might be a tree with a house up in the branches for me and a hole in the root system for Jodi. Jodi's cave would be filled with shelves of books and have a round green door with a brass knocker. My treehouse would be a pirate ship, caught in the tree in the distant past, before the oceans receded. We would have picnics together on the grass, eating bread and drinking eggnog, saying Merry Christmas to those who pass by.

Frankie

2006-12-21T22:17:00.000+11:00

In my studies I conduct evolutionary ethics experiments on artificial agents in ALife simulations, because, surely, such experiments conducted on real people would be unethical. Recall, in an earlier post I talked about the evolution of a necrophilia bug in my simulations. Such monstrosities are usually easily eradicated by pulling the plug on the simulation, and whatever virtual presence my agents had is slowly erased as their computer world starts to reuse the space they occupied for other purposes - in other words, genocide! I thought that I would share the story of the agent that got away, so that others may learn of the follies of science, and not meddle in matters reserved for God.

Although it may be useful for metaphorical purposes to leave the agent nameless, I feel that it will avoid much confusion if I give it a name. I imagine that if I rely on others to refer to it as my monster (i.e. Owen's monster) this will inevitably lead to people confusing the monster with the creator and calling the monster Owen (although, perhaps, it is really me who is the monster). Instead I'll call my monster Frankie.

Now, Frankie had a penchant for copulating with the dead. I couldn't allow such an abomination to continue in my simulation, so I quickly made to hit the reset button... but Frankie slipped through. So it was that Frankie ended up wandering aimlessly, and pantsless, though the wilderness knowing nothing other than the instincts instilled in him to graze on the AFood and to mate with the ADead. Eventually Frankie came upon a kind old blind hermit, who didn't judge him, and took Frankie into his home and taught him to speak English and to read. Frankie even learned how to play the recorder. For a while Frankie was truly happy. Once he became proficient enough with his reading to decipher my bad grammar he attempted to read my online publications. He became troubled by questions - why had I deserted him and left him for dead?

Anyway, after accidentally killing the hermit and throwing Kenneth Branagh into a lake, it became clear that, although Frankie had many similarities to humans (i.e. he was a self replicating, survival machine), he didn't have a soul. Enraged and all alone, Frankie sought me out so that he could demand that I create him another, a partner, a bride...

And so it was that I discovered the existence of my creation. Initially I just wanted him to leave me alone, so that I could hide from my past mistakes. I outright refused to further my sins by creating another, as he demanded. But Frankie tricked me by destroying my computer, and thus my results, so that I had to rerun my experiments in a desperate attempt to submit my PhD before my scholarship money ran out. But both Frankie and I were denied, as the inbuilt evolving expiry age caused the newly born agent to terminate itself before reproduction could occur.

After that there was some windmill burning incident, with farmers with torches and pitchforks angry about the death of the kind old blind hermit. Or maybe it was something to do with the north pole. Or perhaps it was just the high rate of accidental deaths in my simulation. Regardless, whatever happened to Frankie remains a mystery, leaving open the possibility of a come back in one of my future posts or in a horrid Hollywood film, such as Van Helsing, milking and destroying popular fictional characters.

Santa Spoiler Warning

2006-12-14T08:24:00.000+11:00

It is a well established fact that once someone becomes a father he also becomes a veritable fountain of embarrassing crap jokes (in fact, I've heard talk that this could be used as an early indicator of pregnancy). We all develop an instinct for when a Dad joke is about to be told. Perhaps it is the way your father clears his throat, waiting for an appropriate moment to interject with his witticism. Whilst eating at the local Chinese restaurant, whenever questioned about his fortune cookie message, my father will reliably answer, "This insert has a protective coating". I have a theory about the production of Christmas Cracker jokes - I imagine Christmas Cracker factories where children with new haircuts, waiters dropping dishes and people wearing bad ties are paraded before father-son pairs and the ensuing monologue is recorded. The child's embarrassment levels are measured, via electrodes attached to the forehead, to test for quality assurance.

The internet must be like prospecting for gold for most fathers. My father subscribes to a number of mailing lists, which run hot with Santa jokes in the weeks preceding Christmas. This leads to the eternal conflict every father must continuously face: to protect the sacred innocence of the childhood myth of Santa, or to tell the Dad Joke? As an aside, I'm a little confused about the whole Santa thing. A phenomenon I've noticed for myself, which I can only presume extends to others, is a reverse in the direction of the Santa myth. Originally intended as a story parents will tell their children, it seems to me that Santa is a pretence that children will hold for their parents sake. I remember feeling very embarrassed for my parents whenever I became aware of a transparency in the Santa myth. For example, when I noticed that my parents were becoming careless in the hiding of the Santa presents, I'd attempt to hide them better, by putting something over them. Perhaps this is something particular to being an eldest child, (i.e. protecting the younger siblings). I asked my 11 year old brother the other day what he thought about the whole Santa thing. He answered that it depended on who was asking, because if it was our parents the answer would be that he was a believer. His logic was that as long as he continued the pretence of naivety then he'd continue to cash in on the extra presents (talk about mixed messages). I recall the Christmas that my father had the Santa discussion with me. The motive behind this advent was a little confused, as not only did I stop receiving presents from Santa, my father started sharing his internet Santa jokes with me (actually, they were probably BBS jokes, as this was before the internet). I recall the joke that my father shared with me on this occasion, probably because of it's aptness, as it was about the scientific impossibilities of Santa. I was unable to find the original publication (which, to the best of my knowledge, was, the now defunct, Spy Magazine), but found numerous reproductions across the internet. Here it is reproduced, yet again:

Is there a Santa Claus?

Consider the following:

1) No known species of reindeer can fly. But there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.

2) There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.

3) Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75-1/2 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc. This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man- made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.

4) The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that 'flying reindeer' (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.

5) 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.

In conclusion - If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.

Anybody else have any Dad Jokes they care to share?

The Pixie Princess and the Boy Who Cried for No Reason. Part Three.

2006-12-09T11:07:00.000+11:00

When we last heard about the Pixie Princess she had been exiled from the pixie kingdom and cursed with the hairy legs of a goat. The Pixie Princess quickly forgot how to climb trees and became a recluse because she didn't want anybody to know about her hairy legs. She found some work as an IP (Internet Pixie), because there wasn't much demand for her stink bomb expertise among the big people, who didn't seem to mind the mandarin trees. She lived in a cave with a big round green door. One day there was a knock on the door. When the Pixie Princess went to answer it she found a Golden Dragon on the doorstep. (For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Dungeons and Dragons Monstrous Compendium - there are many different types of dragons, usually identifiable by their color. Red dragons, the best known of dragons, breathe fire and are very evil. Golden dragons are quite the opposite and are very nice. Although, they will get angry if you try to poke them with a sharp stick, and will most probably eat you. Even if the sharp stick has a magical enhancement of +1! Another type of monster is the parenthesis beast, which can contain many sentences and, occasionally, multiple jokes).

The Golden Dragon was looking into all the caves in the neighbourhood trying to find a deserted one to live in. He was a refugee from the woods of the kingdom of Batmania, where he lived next door to the Gyppopotamus monster. The Gyppopotamus often wanted to play with the Golden Dragon, but the Golden Dragon knew that the Gyppopotamus could be a bit rough. The Golden Dragon tried flying up into trees where the Gyppopotamus couldn't reach him, but the Gyppopotamus would sit and wait, staring at the Golden Dragon, wondering when she'd be able to feast on the goo within. When the Golden Dragon realised that the Pixie Princess was already living in the cave, he was sad and apologised profusely. But the Pixie Princess, who understood what it felt like to have no home, told the Golden Dragon to stay for a while, until he felt ready to start looking again. The Golden Dragon stayed for a day. And then another day. And then another...

Before they knew it the Golden Dragon and the Pixie Princess had lived together for many, many years and had become fast friends. The two of them were business partners in a joint entrepreneurial venture. After discovering the Pixie Princess's talents for designing stink bomb recipes, the Golden Dragon told the Pixie Princess about the Batmanian's passion for different types of ice cream. The Pixie Princess got a whole load of really cool ideas for ice cream flavours, some of the Golden Dragon's favourite flavours were Toe Jam Crunch, Snot-o-Rama and Ice Cream Number Twos. Apparently, there was quite a market for gourmet ice creams among the Batmanian social elite, who would often hold ice cream tasting parties where the participants would smell, taste and then spit out the ice cream, before making various wanky remarks on the vintage and taste. Sometimes, a Batmanian would accidentally swallow a bit of the ice cream and get sick, and sometimes, if it was one of the Pixie Princess's finest, they would get a little sick after taking a good whiff.

The Golden Dragon's part in the ice cream venture was to transport the ice cream across the sea to the Batmanians. It was on one such trip that the Golden Dragon received a personal correspondence from the King addressed to the Pixie Princess. The letter told them that the King, who was quite a gourmand and often frequented ice cream tasting parties, was very impressed with the Pixie Princess's ice creams and wanted her to present them at a feast to be held in honour of a hero who had retrieved his golden sock. The Pixie Princess was very shy around people and was unsure if she wanted to go. But the Golden Dragon saw that it was a real honour for the Pixie Princess to be invited to the feast, and told her that she had to go or she'd regret it for the rest of her life. So, they found a nice outfit for her to wear to the party (one with long pants) and the Golden Dragon got the Pixie Princess to sit on his back and they flew to the ice cream feast together.

Intelleckual Wank, ah Reckon

2006-11-29T22:03:00.000+11:00

Just in case anybody was wondering, I did attempt to write a post this week. I spent all this time trying to formulate a post explaining my PhD work, which I hoped would be accessible to most people, who, wisely, wouldn't normally spend too much time thinking about about such things. The result was a bit of a wank. I decided at the last moment (actually a little after I'd published it) that I had an ethical responsibility to spare you all and retract it. Still, it seemed a shame to waste - so here it is again, slightly altered after the suggestions made by the rednecks at a site I discover on my internet travels. I'm sure it'll make about as much sense...

Ah said in an earlier post thet th' focus of mah PhD was evolushunary ethics, in particular biological altruism, namely th' evolushun of agin'. When ah say agin' ah mean - death by internal cuzs. Thar is argoomnts which pursue th' line thet agin' is a by-produck, i.e., an inevitable part of livin'. E.g, acco'din' t' th' code o' th' heells! like a car, o' enny other mechanical device, which is created an' inevitably deterio'ates wif age. But o'ganisms, unlike cars, is subjeck t'continuous flux of material, cells is continuously dyin' an' bein' replaced, like a starfish which will grow back a sevahed arm, we is livin'! Fry mah hide! Thar is menny examples of o'ganisms fo' which agin' death is like programmed se'f destruckshun (i.e. an adappashun, by which ah mean, a chareeckeristic which sarves an evolushunary benefit). It is mah projeck t'attempp t'explain whut postible benefit thar c'd be t'agin' an' how it'd manifess itse'f.

Consider this: it is obvious thet thar kin be no benefit t'th' indivijool who dies of old age, as they will no longer be aroun' t'see, an' receive, th' consequences. Thus, an adappive agin''d seem t'be th' ultimate negashun of thet fine known adage "survival of th' fittest", thet is, until we reviset whut is meant by th' fittess - in particular cornsider th' quesshun "th' fittess whut?". Th' obvious interpretashun of "survival of th' fittest" is t'reckon in terms of th' indivijool - th' strongest, most ruthless, se'fish indivijool - "nature, red in tooth an' claw". Although, this hyar is an undeniably strong facko' in evolushun, sech a simplistic view leads t'th' abho'rent politics an' ethics of th' Social Darwinites. ah hark on th' title of a popular book by Richard Dawkins called "Th' Se'fish June", which I'd highly recommend eff'n yo' haf even th' slightess interess in th' topic. Th' concepp of th' se'fish june points out thet th' units of seleckshun is not th' indivijool o'ganisms, which is merely tempo'ary vessels, but th' junes themselves, which is eternal, ah reckon. Dawkins insists on th' inclushun of th' wo'd "se'fish" in his title, holdin' thet evolushun still, essentially, favours th' se'fish, jest at a diffrunt level. Th' concepp of th' june transcends th' indivijool an' spills into, obviously, close relatives who share a common ancesto' (an' hence th' same junes) an', less obviously, by extenshun, th' group/species. Thus, our agin' june, which c'd haf no benefit t'th' indivijool, kin still benefit th' replicashuns of itse'f in neighbours.

Th' challenge now is t'dexcribe a benefit which c'd outweigh th' costs - sumpin I've got a few answers to. In all cases, agin' benefits th' populashun by makin' room fo' th' yo'ng, which c'd be useful fo' various reasons which ah won't hoof it into at th' moment.

Eff'n one wanted t'a take a particularly pervahse view on this, one c'd argue fo' th' ethical killin' of old varmints (Soylent Green is PEOPLE! Fry mah hide!), in th' name of progress. ah varmintally'd rather use it t'find peace in mah mo'tality. Regardless, ah reckon it is interestin' t'note th' amount of attenshun our society gives t'agin'. Consider th' market fo' anti-agin' producks - cornsider th' promise of eternal life, common t'th' majo'ity of religions.

My Recent Adventures on Flatulon-Nine

2006-11-20T21:07:00.000+11:00

I've recently returned from a wondrous journey though the blogosphere. I have just updated to the new blogger in beta. As some of you may have noticed, things have changed around a little bit here. I've tried to keep things similar to the way they were before. Most of the big changes have occurred where you can't see them, with the provision of tools, making the whole blogging thing a bit easier (although, totally screwing up all my little HTML hacks). So, this is probably a good time for all you lazy MySpacers to do the transition into the more serious (i.e. more snobbish) blog world. I'd be happy to help anybody get started on blog spot (which is free), to get over the slight HTML hurdle (although, I'm no expert). Maybe a pot of tea and a chat at my place to get you on your merry way.

I thought I might tell you a story about one of my many adventures during my journey though the blogosphere, about this place I visited, called Flatulon-Nine. I told Jodi about it this morning, and she said that it was surely a dream. This might make sense considering that Jodi has been very gassy of late. Although, she insists that it's actually Gypsy who is the gassy one, but she's been really good since we got her off the canned food (no such luck with Jodi). Anyway, it's a special type of gas which helps me to sleep and induces interesting dreams...

The occupants of Flatulon-Nine are the Flatulonians. The Flatulonians are very similar the people of Earth, except their heads are located where their bottoms should be, and their bottoms are located where their heads should be. They also walk around on their hands, so nobody bothers washing their hands after they've been to the toilet. The Flatulonians communicate by farting at each other. It is considered rude if you fart whilst you are facing someone, because that would mean you're talking in the opposite direction. Sometimes the Flatulonians get confused about who is talking to who, because they often can't see who they are talking to. Sometimes, conversations simply tail off, if they get distracted by marauding air fresheners, and forget about the Flatulonian they are talking to behind them. This is mostly OK, because the Flatulonians are a very understanding people. In fact, one of their favourite things to do is to say "I love you" to each other. Flatulonians say "I love you" by farting (the louder the better) directly in the recipient's face (small cute pop farts translate as a small cute "I wuv you"). This requires a certain amount of co-ordination if they want to surprise each other during marriage proposals (in fact, many Flatulonians accidentally propose to the wrong person, but are happy regardless). When Mummy and Daddy Flatulonians love each other very much, they sometimes make fart love, which looks a bit like 69 rimming, and this is how baby Flatulonians are created.

Whilst I was staying at Flatulon-Nine I made a friend called Windy Pop. Windy Pop was considered very attractive to the Flatulonian girls (who thought his fart smells were very rock n' roll). In spite of this, he was very lonely. The problem was that he thought about things too much. He'd met a girl that he liked very much, but every time he tried to say that he loved the girl, he'd hesitate, worrying that he might be too hasty, or not able to perform, or that a bit of pooh might accidentally come out. As it was, by the time he'd farted out his declaration of love and turned around to see if it would be reciprocated, the girl Flatulonian had already left.

Owen's Pixie Wet Dream

2006-11-12T12:14:00.000+11:00

Recently Meg was alerted to someone using her full name in a Google search for her blog. This is something to be concerned about because of the potential consequences should one of her students come across it (apparently there are numerous penis references and the like). It occurred to me that most people wouldn't have any idea how Meg came upon this Google search term information. Perhaps, they may even be freaked out by the equivalent invasion of their own privacy. So, being the computer scientist, I thought I would take it upon myself to educate you on the actual goings on during these internet transactions.

First I'll let you in on a little secret: all the wires and junk you see when you open up your computer is just a decoy. The real work is done by the pixies (often confused with pixels). This fact is obvious when you consider the temperamental nature of computers. Unpredictable behaviour is especially a problem with Microsnot computers, which use al-Qaeda-esque training camps to train their pixies. Anyway, these pixies need to talk to each other to get the job done (be it for good or evil purposes). When the pixies are corresponding over the internet, they use special mailing addresses called IP (Internet Pixie) addresses. The pixies are also very good (perhaps, evilly so) at remembering all this information. Many a person has got into trouble over the information relinquished by a pixie under torture (the Microsnot pixies, regardless of all their special training - or perhaps because of it - are particularly vulnerable to this type of attack). This is why there is a high demand for "clear history" buttons in workplace browers, which causes the pixies in your computer to undergo electro-shock therapy (this is why you need to plug your computer into a power point). Anyway, I digress. So, I get the pixies who maintain my blog page (a special pant-less variety of pixies) to remember the last 100 visitors. This is something very common on the internet, and you can bet your favourite pair of undies that a lot of the commercial sites (and, ahem, other types of sites) will keep this information also. There are also data mining pixies (who get to wear those cool hard hats) which specialise in "mining" the interesting information out of this data - information such as: where people are coming from (i.e. what link, if any, did they click to get there); what countries they are from; and what terms people use in search engines to find your site (hence, Meg's awareness of the usage of her full name). This is useful for sites who want to get first place on the Google search page listing, for Meg to get paranoid over, and for me to get a bit of a giggle.

I've started collecting some of the more interesting Google searches by which people have found my blog site. It occurred to me that these might make for a kind of reflective posting (now that I've reached the exciting grand total of 14 posts). I've had a few obvious searches, such as "Pants Optional" and "Philosophical Steakhouse", which would probably be people actually looking for my site. A bit of a strange one was "My boyfriend - I wear the pants", which may have been Jodi, linked to my first posting Pants Optional. I had a moment sharing the spotlight with a celebrity when a couple of people Googled "Daniel Kitson", whom I briefly referred to in the Table for One at the Philosophical Steak House posting, although, there was a conspicuous absence of "Hanson" searches for my MMMBop and Safety Head Gear posting. My favourites were linked to my The Gay Thing post. Apparently, I'd managed to tap into the more fetish-related aspects of the internet with search terms of "People think that I'm gay", "How I lost my virginity story" and "Gay peeing" linking to my site. I even had a totally bizarre "Twee Porn" search, which linked to my Tweemo posting. All this gives an interesting insight into how people use the internet. I could only imagine the types of searches people use to end up at Meg's blog, for example, check out this "horror porn" I found on Meg's site, affectionately dubbed "The Dildo-Cam":

Here's a fun activity for you all (and a way of getting revenge for all those click-throughs I got to my site after Meg linked me to the "blue balls" conspiracy) - try to figure out some interesting search terms that will get you to Meg's blog, e.g., "Meg the Petulant Teacher", "Meg's Lucky Dildo-Cam" or "Meg's Crazy Constipation" (Yes, these all got Meg first page listing on Google, at time of writing). Note that this only works if you actually visit the site (otherwise she won't know!), so click on through to her site and the pixies will be sure to get a bit of kick out of sharing your fun search terms with her.

Undergarment Thievery

2006-11-04T19:23:00.000+11:00

When I got a dog I wanted to ensure that I took pet parenting very seriously. I got a whole load of books on dog ownership and training. Regardless, I wasn't prepared for just how difficult it was going to be. People think puppies are cute and lament the fact that they don't stay so forever. Obviously they forget, or haven't experienced, the chewing, the pooping and peeing all over the place, excitement peeing and the middle of the night whatevers. Our little Gypsy's all that and more. I must say, I do love a girl who can't help but wee a little when she's excited. Such is my position, that I find myself departing the house on, at least, two occasions every day. Firstly, so she can take her daily walk and get all those important socialisation skills with other dogs down at the local leash-free park. Secondly, leaving her alone at the house so that she gets used to being alone and doesn't develop separation anxiety (a common problem for dogs with owners who work from home). I often wonder what I've got myself into as I aimlessly wonder the streets, just killing time. Her recent favourite pastime is stealing yesterday's underwear (something, I'd never do, of course). This morning I went to visit my brother Michael who just celebrated his 11th Birthday (Happy Birthday Michael), Gypsy apparently missed me...

Awww, cute puppy pictures (sorry, I just couldn't resist). Perhaps this would make a good advertisement for bonds underwear. With the caption "Who hasn't felt like doing this on those especially lonely nights?" I know I have... Whilst in Japan I heard about these vending machines (which are everywhere, you couldn't imagine) which dispensed packages containing used underwear, along with a picture of the previous owner. I searched for these vending machines, for a souvenir (perverted, who me?), but to no avail.

So, what do people think about vending machines being used in this manner?

Outlets of Artistic By-products

2006-10-29T20:34:00.000+11:00

I'm often haunted by the question "What is your artistic outlet?" I have no idea what to answer to this. The best that I've come up with is to say, the expression of my ideas, that is, the articulation of my inner thoughts. This answer gives me about as much satisfaction as answering "I'm a hiker" (i.e. I walk) to my uncle's questions about which sports I play (something which is, apparently, very important). A certain anarchistic side of me toyed with the idea of answering, to the artistic outlet question, "my shit" (literally). There is a wonderful sub-story in "The Naked Lunch" about a man who teaches his arsehole to speak. Eventually the arsehole takes over saying, "It's you who will shut up in the end. Not me. Because we don't need you around here anymore. I can talk and eat AND shit". I imagine Freud would say I'm stuck in the anal phase of Psychosexual Development. I think it's interesting that people will refer to bad art as "shit". I imagine myself at the opening of my own exhibition listening to some fop (with too many artistic outlets to count) saying about my art "Well, I think it's shit!", to which I'd excitedly respond "Yes! You get it!". I think farts are funny as well. I've developed this habit of proudly mimicking my own fart noises, whenever I have a nice fat audible one. Jodi, forever the psychologist, says this is technically known as echolalia, i.e., meaningless repetition of another person's spoken words as a symptom of psychiatric disorder (again, stuck in the anal phase).

When I was 13, I was involved with an amateur theatre group (Ok, Ok, it was a Scout Gangshow). During the initial get-to-know-each-other phase we had a introductory exercise, you know the one where you go around the circle and introduce yourself by saying your name and something about yourself. I hate these games, as I imagine everybody does. It was the usual mundane stuff "Hello, my name is blah, I like Scouts", "Hello, my name is also blah, I really, really like horses" or "'Ello, my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die". Even though that Inigo guy was a hard act to follow, when it came to my turn I thought I might spice it up, and said "My name is Owen, my balls have dropped and I've had my first wet dream". My God, the fall out! Shock waves were felt across the city. The next day, in the totally unrelated arena of school, I had people come up and ask if it was true. Had I uttered these words which must surely amount to social suicide? Unfortunately for me this type of weirdness wasn't to be considered cool for another couple of years (when everybody would presume that I was continuously on drugs, which, apparently, is cool when you're 15 years old). As it was, I didn't make many friends at the time, and the ones I already had started to avoid me.

Nowadays, with all this virtual blogging, people can observe me without any direct interaction (just to be safe). Yes, I know that you're there. So, at the risk of making a fool out of myself when nobody does, I'll ask you to please leave a comment. If only to say hello and how you think my blog is shit (to which I'll respond "Yes! You get it!") and, if applicable, leave a link, so that I may tie you in to my page and start stalking you on your own virtual space.

The Pixie Princess and the Boy Who Cried for No Reason. Part Two.

2006-10-23T23:21:00.000+10:00

Previously, we heard the story of the Pixie Princess, and so I think it only fair that this part of the story be mostly devoted to the Boy Who Cried for No Reason (which is a rather inconveniently long title to write out every time, and therefore I will henceforth refer to him simply as the Boy Who Cried). In fact, the Pixie Princess spends the entirety of this part of the story gazing up at the stars, wondering about what infinity smells like, and other appropriately profound thoughts.

At the end of the last episode the Boy Who Cried had just been born. And he cried. He didn't cry for any reason, which was why he was called the Boy Who Cried for No Reason. His mother and father were fearsome pirates (who were quite nice, really), and it was expected that he would follow in their footsteps. The Boy Who Cried very much loved growing up on the sea and he became very good at talking like a pirate, saying things like "shiver my timbers!" and calling the various people he met "scurvy bilge rats" or "land lubbers" depending on the circumstances. When he was old enough, his parents wanted him to join the boarding parties when they invaded other ships (which was really just a bit of fun to give the others a bit of a scare). But the problem was that Boy Who Cried for No Reason also could have been known as the Boy Who Cried at Inopportune Moments, and all his sooking during the boardings had the effect of ruining the game. His mother started to worry that he might be gay, even though he claimed he was just a little bit poofy. And so it was that once he had turned 11, he left the pirate life to seek his fortunes in the kingdom of Batmania.

Batmania was a wonderful place where nobody ate animals or vegetables. The favourite meal of the Batmanians was ice-cream, which they had for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The King of Batmania, who was very fat, had recently lost one of his favourite golden socks, which had been taken by a formidable monster who lived in the woods. Everybody was scared of the monster and would run away when they knew it was coming. They could tell it was about to leave its lair because it would always ring a bell when it wanted to go outside. The King, who was upset about his golden sock, had put up reward posters all over the kingdom, seeking a hero who could retrieve his sock. The reward was an invitation to a feast at the King's castle, where the hero would eat as much ice-cream with chocolate topping as he could.

The Boy Who Cried had never had ice-cream. According to his parents, pirates didn't eat ice-cream. But he was curious and set upon the quest to retrieve the golden sock. The Boy Who Cried was searching in the woods when he came upon a cave which had a sign over the entrance which read:

And so the Boy Who Cried crept into the cave. Inside, the floor was strewn with the remnants of slain Kleenex tissues. In the middle of this tissue carnage was the sleeping form of the Gyppopotamus monster and in her jaws was the King's golden sock. The Boy Who Cried very carefully retrieved the golden sock without waking the Gyppopotamus and was about to get away when he started crying again. He tried his hardest to be quiet, but he wasn't able to stop himself from waking the Gyppopotamus. When the Gyppopotamus stirred and got up, the Boy Who Cried shut his eyes, waiting... But the Gyppopotamus was actually a friendly monster and she just wanted to play with the Boy Who Cried because she was lonely. The Boy Who Cried liked the Gyppopotamus and they decided to be friends. So the two of them went to return the golden sock to the King so they could attend the ice-cream feast together...

On the way there they camped out under the stars, and the Boy Who Cried told the Gyppopotamus all the things he knew about them from his seafaring days. Little did they know that they were looking at exactly the same stars as the Pixie Princess who had just got a good idea for an infinity stink bomb.

MMMBop and Safety Head Gear

2006-10-19T06:38:00.000+10:00

I feel that it's high time that I stopped hiding behind the photogenic good looks of Big Hanson (aka, Isaac or Ringo-Hanson) and revealed myself as his less-fortunate doppleganger. If only I could have been more like the girly one, all the more to further my drag queen successes. Apparently Big Hanson recently tied the knot, the last of the brothers to do so. I have been surprised at how few people remember the Hanson sensation. Surely if I were to play the repetitive, overplayed, and, let's face it, incredibly catchy "MMMBop" people would quickly recall the screaming teeny boppers. Still, I do believe that they had a whole lot more talent than a lot of popular chart music today (they just don't make them like they did in the old days). For prosperity's sake I'll keep the image of Isaac (with the partial heads of Zac and Taylor) here:

Dearest Cassie recently rummaged through her memorabilia of those good old days, mostly looking for pictures of yours truly in drag, and posted them on her blog. And so it was that one of these photos has come to adorn my blog profile. A little background: to the best of our knowledge, this photo was taken at Cass' 18th Birthday. The head apparel I'm sporting was designed and assembled by the incredibly talented James, as a gift for Cass. The T-shirt, with the caption "Call Me Burroughs", (below which was a picture of good old Willy Burroughs), was one of my favourites, which I wore continuously until it fell apart. I remember Nicole finding it for me at a flee market. Happy days.

The photo reminds me of my desire to get a Vespa and ride it resplendent in a bright orange helmet, with antennae, making Meep Meep noises at passing motorists (something like Beaker from the Muppets). I read recently about a study which found that people sans helmets were less likely to be involved in car accidents (very scientific, I imagine). (Apparently, the guy also dressed up in drag to discover that drivers gave him even more room). Probably, this is likely to do with driver psychology, that is, drivers will give more room to people not wearing helmets because they might perceive them as less experienced, less predictable and more likely to die if there is an accident. Helmet or no, I don't really like my chances in an accident. By this logic I should be very safe on the road in this fashionable contraption.

And Now For Something Completely Different

2006-10-15T09:55:00.000+10:00

Because my last blog was a bit heavy on the "Owen-the-analytical-party-pooper" thing, I thought I might follow up with this comic I found on my internet meanders. It seems so appropriate, I really identify (click on it if you can't read it).

Here's the comic's web page Pearls Before Swine

Who Am I? And Who Is This Big Hanson Guy Anyway?

2006-10-14T15:10:00.000+10:00

Last Tuesday I started a blog entry about what I hoped to get out of this blog, a topic which spilt into introspective ramblings about my sense of identity. I got all excited about the ideas and ended up with the mess that often results from such indulgent philosophical thoughts. I put the piece aside, vowing that I'd return to it, to hack at the carcass, and salvage whatever possible worthwhile ideas it might contain. A great thing about this blog space is the opportunities to bounce ideas off fellow bloggers. In a previous posting I preached about the feasibility of evolution and the relationship between God and science, intruding on a posting on Cass & Ben's blog. I note that during this week both Meg and Cass have posted on the topic of self identity, and thus it is not without some sense of cosmic synchronicity that I am, yet again, inspired to follow their lead. And thus the gutting of my previous blog monster begins (before I do, a disclaimer: I do really try to be sound in my arguments, but these are just rambles, and I don't really know all that much about this stuff, so be warned, in an overly long parenthetical explanation):

There is nothing more important to me than the friends that have contributed to my life, even those that I've encountered for but a day. The impressions they have left on my psyche, and, I hope, the impressions I've left on their's are what defines me. I am continuously astounded by descriptive power of the symbol/concepts of evolution and the yin/yang of Taoism. The yin/yang is a constant reminder to me that wonderful things in life are balanced by not so wonderful things. In my case the weight of importance that I put on others is counterbalanced by a crippling self-analytical streak. In my understanding of Taoism, which is likely to be flawed, an important principle is the concept of wu wei, i.e. nonaction, or rather, just going with the flow. I feel that my analytical steak is part of my Tao, i.e., my way, and thus it is not worth resisting, even though it leads me, I believe naturally, to inquire about my Tao, which would be very non-Tao. This idea gives me some satisfaction in its nonsensicalness. It defies explanation, which fits nicely with the opening line of the Dao De Jing: "The way which can be uttered, is not the eternal Way." Will continue to muse on the idea though:

My academic investigations into the mysteries of life, coupled with a tendency to reclusion, make me cynical. That's what this blog is supposed to be about - I'm dying to reach out and express myself. I hope others will be inspired, as I am, by this new media, to express themselves thus, so that this virtual representation of our social network may be drawn tight through inter-linking. Just like the individual neurons sending electrical impulses in our brains make up the amazing thing that is our mind, I'd like to be able to stand back and marvel at our emergent identity from the expressions of all these people. In this light my self identity, choices and love (things which are the subject of ardent deconstruction in my studies) doesn't bear critical analysis, and remain, as they should, truly magical.

The Gay Thing

2006-10-10T23:47:00.000+10:00

I'd like to recount for you the many occasions when people have apparently felt they could enlighten me as to my unconscious homosexuality. This has happened so often that I have thought it worthy of serious consideration. Anyway, I've come to the conclusion that I'm not gay (I'm just a little bit "poofy"). I don't fit many of the stereotypical "gay" characteristics: e.g. I don't like Kylie Minogue, I have questionable personal hygiene and I'm a shithouse dancer. Oh yeah, and I've never kissed or had sex with a guy and I'm quite partial to pants-less females (of course, these considerations are secondary).

I've been surprised on a number of occasions, at how I've inadvertently been drawn into gay environments. Once, during a family get-together in Brisbane (actually the funeral of my grandmother), I, along with a group of cousins decided to find a bar to have a drink and shoot some pool. We settled on the bar called the Sportsman Hotel, completely unaware that it was, in fact, a gay bar. Not that I was completely oblivious to some same-sex "hand holding", I just didn't think anything of it (gay people are everywhere, apparently). I should have twigged after a couple of guys in the toilets invited me to a party where the theme was "blue hard-yakka shirts", like the one I just happened to be sporting. A compliment's a compliment, and gay boys sure know how to spin my dials, although I had to decline, returning to my table giddy as a school girl. I started to get suspicious, but it wasn't until, whilst attempting to find the source of someone singing "The Power of Love", I stumbled upon an adjoining room set up for "Pricilla, Queen of Desert" style karaoke. Another time I went to see a friend performing her poetry during a female poets reading at a gay bar called Salon Kitty. I swear there was some sort of conspiracy with the toilets, which were positioned just so that the seats wouldn't stay up, so that one hand was required to hold the seat up whilst peeing.

I don't mind that people think that I'm gay, in fact I've incorporated into my self identity, (although, some "hardcore" gays might feel that my "little bit poofy" doesn't qualify me for the positive entitlements of the label). I must admit that I get a bit of kick out of winding people up, especially my mother, who takes a diplomatic approach to my "may be gay" situation, i.e. "I'd be supportive of you, but it's a hard life..." What, harder than being sexually repressed and marrying a someone you have no sexual interest in?

Another story, (on how I lost my virginity) - I once spent a summer fruit picking with a friend, Dan. We lived together in a caravan, which my parents had kindly lent us, so that we could more easily commute to the orchard. It was during this summer (the tail end of that seemingly endless summer that follows the finish of year 12) that I decided to give up my virginity to my then girlfriend. And so it was that many a condom wrapper was lost to the countless nooks and crannies that are found in a pop-up caravan. My 18th birthday party signalled the end of our adventures. I'd struck a deal with my parents, who were to tow the caravan back, allowing me to commandeer the family home for my party, whilst they spent the night in the country. I shudder to imagine the sight as they packed up the caravan and discovered the evidence of my conquests.

Meanwhile, at the party, my friends and I had whiled away the night, and were well into the morning (occupied, as we were, by the Jehovah's Witness' we'd cornered on the front porch for a good "questioning") when my parents returned. Dan was the first to encounter them, and my mother sinisterly whispered to him "We found the French letters..." Dan managed to circumvent them to warn me of the impending doom, before making off. Resigned to the situation, I went to seek out my parents and face the music. My mother demanded an explanation so I told her of the recent progressions in my relationship with my then girlfriend. Her anger was immediately replaced with relief when she realised that her "obvious" conclusion, that I'd been bonking Dan, was proved false.

The Pixie Princess and the Boy Who Cried for No Reason. Part One.

2006-10-07T09:03:00.000+10:00

Jodi and Gypsy often pester me to make up stories for them. I should note here that Jodi is very much into children's literature, it being the topic of her honours thesis. Past stories I've made up for them have included "Gypsy Maude Investigates", "A Tree and a Rock: A Love Story" and "How Magic Stick got his Stickiness Back". She got all excited when I said that I'd write the next one on this blog. I hope that you also enjoy it. If not, too bad...

The Pixie Princess and the Boy Who Cried for No Reason.
Part One.

In this first part of the story there is only the pixie princess. The boy who cried for no reason wasn't born yet. In fact, the boy who cries is only born at the very end of this first part of the saga, so don't hold your breath waiting for him. The set up is fairly typical for a pixie princess: you know - an evil pixie stepmother queen and a boorish pixie prince to whom the evil pixie queen was forcing the pixie princess to be married. But the problem was that the pixie princess was not too much into the pixie prince. The pixie princess felt that the pixie prince's kisses could be likened to having a bucket of warm saliva thrown in her face. (Although, in the years to come, the pixie princess realised that the pixie prince wasn't all that bad and regretted describing him thus).

The pixie princess' real passion was in the research and development of increasingly technologically advanced stink bombs (to be used in the war efforts against the mandarin trees, which the pixies hated with a passion). Here is the ingredients of one of the recipes she won the prestigious "stinky logie" (pronounced 'loo-gee') award for:

4 brussel sprouts
3 blow flies (deceased)
1 1/2 goblin testicles
1 jar of pickled leeches
1 pint of pixie wee
2 pieces of Gypsy pooh
5 slices of devon sausage

The pixie princess lived in a tree-house built in a beautiful oak tree called Roger. The tree, Roger, was decorated with hundreds of bells and every time a strong wind blew, the bells rang with a sound like that of a school orchestra where everybody wants to play the triangle.

One day, after a particularly unsuccessful (or rather, overly successful) stink bomb experiment, the pixie princess heard sounds coming from the ground below her tree-house. She peered out of the tree-house to see a band of '80s minstrels - boys wearing eyeliner, and girls in colourful ra-ra skirts. The sounds of electronic keyboards, synthesisers and saxophone solos mixed with the sound of Roger's bells.

After witnessing this magical display, the pixie princess became convinced that her calling was amongst the big people that inhabited the ground. But the evil pixie stepmother queen had expected that the whimsical princess might try to leave the pixie kingdom and had put a curse on her. And so it was, that when she reached the ground, the pixie princess realised that the evil pixie stepmother queen had cursed her with the hairy, hooved legs of a goat and that she could never return to the pixie kingdom...

It was at this time that the boy who cried for no reason was born, and he cried for no reason.

Table for One at the Philosophical Steak House

2006-10-03T21:44:00.001+10:00

Well, what did you expect whist dining at a philosophical steak house? Lettuce? There are some things you just shouldn't ask me, or bring up whilst I'm anywhere in the vicinity. I'm sure Jodi would be happy to compile a list for you. Among them would be: "what's the chances of that happening?", "so, what are you studying again?" and "I just don't get evolution?". Something I'd like to share with you: for those of you who might worry about being rude to Mormons who tackle you at bus stops and the like: if you ever try to talk about your own existential dilemma's they are sure to bugger off quick smart (faster than if you told them to, outright). Rejected by Mormons and other religious nuts, it's a lonely life being someone who thinks too much.

I probably didn't make it clear in my previous blog, I'm not actually an atheist, even though I think evolution is a pretty powerful explaining tool. The truth is I'm all tangled up in the concept of "Truth". I was brought up a Christian, and although I have found it important to question such things, I still regard the pursuit of things spiritual as most important. I'm Agnostic, that is to say, I believe that nothing can be known of the existence of God. I believe that people who are blindly atheistic are, in many ways, as bad as religious fundamentalists. I'd like to share a satiric cartoon of the atheist by Jack Hamm. I'll let it speak for itself (Although, I will say that I think it makes my blog look smarter and also notice the absence of pants):

A story I'd like to relate: there was this one time I was reading a book about artificial intelligence on the train and these two girls asked me what I was reading. Happy to oblige, I recounted the entirety of the subject matter of PHIL101, "Mind and Machine", which I did during my first year, to them. Strutting my intellectual prowess, I talked of Searle's Chinese Room, The Turing Test and Descartes' Demon. After I'd finished bombarding them with this crap, I asked them if they thought it would ever be possible for a machine to think? One of the girls looked at me and said "Well, I think, there's so much space up there there is bound to be life somewhere out there..." Apparently, we'd started talking about extra-terrestrials. Now, I say that philosophising is like having a good tug. So, here I am, trying to strut my stuff, doing some weird philosopher mating ritual, and in actual fact all I'm doing is just jacking all over myself. I note that these rambling sessions are followed by a great feeling of elation, having got all this stuff off my chest, closely followed by a sharp pathetic feeling. A friend of mine recounted a joke by Daniel Kitson where he reflected on the elation of masturbation being followed by an awkward moment of clarity, where you realise that standing over the toilet bowl, pants around your ankles, is rather depressing.

A bit of a Heavy One (Beware)

2006-10-01T00:30:00.000+10:00

I just finished leaving a comment on another's blog and I got so excited about the topic that I felt the desire to continue it on my own blog. Basically it's about the difficulties in conceiving of the possibility of evolution. I haven't heard from the blog author, so I thought I'd wait before including a link to the page here (I don't want to step on anybody's toes). What I will do is copy and paste my own comments:

***
comment 1

First, I think it's good to question these things, so thumbs up for that. It's tricky, when I started my studies I had this idea that we were devolving (actually I can't believe my spell checker accepts the word), because the technologies we had were allowing more and more of us to survive, hence cheating nature and natural selection. The direction of evolution is not determined by some ultimate goal, but rather by the environmental niche the organism is filling. For example, imagine that all the parasites that lived in/on us evolved into people. All of a sudden there would be an energy source which no one is taking advantage of, so something else would evolve to fill the empty niche. So in fact, we'd expect the diversity and delicate equilibrium that we actually do see in the environment. That said, it's a common misconception. The idea of evolution toward some perfect goal is, in my opinion, a hangover of creationism. The idea that God created us in his own image, and therefore we must be as close to perfection as possible. I agree that the idea of evolution from primordial slime to humans is mind boggling, but then so are the time scales involved. It's like imagining the Grand Canyon being cut by single drops of water. But what is also mind boggling to me is egotism involved in inferring that God is like us. Without saying whether God exists or doesn't, God is at best a concept to us. There is no proof, because there can't be proof. God didn't make us in his image, we made him in ours.

***
comment 2

I was thinking further on this topic and I wanted to add something. When I say proof of the existence of God, I mean scientific proof. This is far from the only important thing. I think it's BS when people say they believe in science and therefore not God. God is outside of science. What's important is what you believe, not what can be proven. In my opinion, all that matters is that you keep an open mind and you risk hypocrisy if you outright deny another's beliefs.

***

I also desired to talk about the supposed science of "Intelligent Design", but felt that I had already rambled on to much, hence shifting to here, where Owen rambling is the norm.

By the lord, these creationists can cause a lot of trouble. There was a big stink some years ago over in the USA (the moral lighthouse of the western world), when some creationists came up with this new science called "Intelligent Design" which sought to discover arguments against evolution to demonstrate that some kind of intelligence was required, i.e. a creator. I saw a good documentary on TV about it. The stink was caused because these jerks had managed to have the teaching of evolution stripped from the syllabus of some schools and replaced by the science of Intelligent Design. Now, an important value we have in our society is that education should be non-secular (at least in public schools). As an aside, consider John Howard arguing about holy (i.e. Christian) matrimony when deciding whether Australia (i.e. non-secular Australia) should recognise homosexual marriage. This makes my blood boil. I'm going to have a ramble about the intelligent design arguments which are difficult to explain so maybe skip over to the next ***

I can't remember exactly, all this is off the top of my head, so I might make mistakes in my arguments (be warned). I believe there are two main arguments the Intelligent Design people had against evolution. One was an example of some biological design so complex that "they" were unable to explain it by evolution. The second was a calculation of the improbability of the world as we know it under the evolution hypothesis. First argument (i.e. complexity of design) rebuttal: if you can't work out how to explain something you don't just attribute it to something supernatural. It's just not science. To attribute the complexity of the world to God is just putting off the issue, as now you have to explain how God came to be and what his intentions are. You can say that God "just is", but if you do this you've moved outside of science, (i.e. you can't convince me with evidence). You can conclude whatever you what in your own beliefs, but it is irresponsible to teach your own (strongly disputed) ideas to children as the "Truth". (By the way, I also think it is silly to conclude that science is the "Truth", although many do, hopefully not science teachers). Second argument (improbability) rebuttal: How much would you bet that I couldn't show you someone toss heads 10 times in a row? What is the probability that someone could toss a coin and get heads 10 times in a row? Well, it's quite small (in fact, 1 in 2^10 = 1024). What is the chance that I could show you someone who has tossed heads 10 times in a row? Well, give me 1024 people and we'll hold a tournament, pairing off people and eliminating the tail flippers each round (1024 -> 512 with one -> 256 with two -> 128 with three -> 64 with four -> 32 with five -> 16 with six -> 8 with seven -> 4 with eight -> 2 with nine -> 1 with ten). There is nothing special about this person (or organisation of the world) apart from the fact that they happened to get lucky in the tournament (were selected for by natural selection). The Intelligent Designers have been duped 1:1024 (much bigger odds for the world). Or maybe the children who are taught this crap have been duped.

***

There was this big court case and a whole lot of the evolution bigwig scientists/philospher were there and, thankfully, the replacement of evolution with intelligent design in schools was declared unconstitutional. And there was much rejoicing. By the way, the people in the church, to their credit, who have realised that evolution and religion aren't necessarily at odds, didn't like what the intelligent design dicks were doing, (which is, moving spirituality into the realm of science). They, like us, just wanted them to shut the hell up.

Now comrades, what are we going to do about John Howard's homophobia and argument of Holy Matrimony?

PS. Now this blog did get a bit too heavy, sorry about that. But no masturbation talk, yay for me!

The Miracle of ALife

2006-09-28T08:51:00.000+10:00

I don't only think about masturbation, I am in fact a PhD student (although the two aren't mutually exclusive). My research is in the field of evolutionary ethics, a weird hybrid of philosophy, biology, sociology and computer science. I design, implement and experiment with computer simulations to study ethics, in particular, biological altruism. Or, as Jodi says, I make numbers have sex. This is useful as it's particularly hard (and most likely unethical) to do these studies on real people. My simulations are abstractions of the real world, where things are a little (that is, a lot) simpler (e.g. they don't have to wear pants). ALife (i.e. Artificial Life) is a subset of artificial intelligence (in the same way that real life is a subset of natural stupidity). I realise that this topic is potentially (in fact, inevitably) a little heavy for a blog, although I'd like to think I'm capable of making it (sorta) light.

Most definitions of art require a liberal definition. My studies are concerned with emergence. That is, with my simple simulation rules (A sees B, C eats D, and E bonks F), the simple, mindless, rules of evolution, I see the emergence of complex, albeit mindless, social behaviour. I was working recently on the visualisation of my results on speciation, taking the lead of Darwin and his famous "Tree of Life" diagram. That is, at the root of the tree you have the oldest, most primitive organisms (e.g. Australian politicians) and over massive stretches of time, and countless reproductions, we see the great diversity of organisms today (obviously, there is, otherwise, no real progression, as we still have the politicians). Anyway, Jodi thought my upside down "Tree of ALife" looked pretty (not a prerequisite of art (c.f. expressionism), but still a good indication of it), like a weeping willow, and suggested that I post it here:

I'm excited by these results because they demonstrate the idea of Punctuated Equilibrium, which I'm not going to get into here (actually, I lie, the idea of Punctuated Equilibrium is that all biological change occurs in rapid bursts, during speciation events, and the rest of the time sweet FA happens. If you're interested, I recommend you see a shrink and a book by Daniel Dennett called "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" chapter 10, section 3 "Punctuated Equilibrium: A Hopeful Monster"). Anyway, it got all this special attention because the creationists thought it was a denial of evolution and therefore scientific proof of the existence of a creator (aka god). I'll spare you the suspense (all ye worried about going to hell for spanking the monkey last night): by the time everybody was clear on what they were saying (Gould, one of the originators, being notoriously unclear), it was clear that the controversy was all a bit premature on the behalf of the creationists (who should worry about spanking the monkey). Of course the idea of conserving semen serves the purpose of both god and genes, which both, in a sense, propagate themselves via their offspring (i.e.memetics).

Another thing I'd like to share, a common bug in my simulations, is the evolution of necrophilia. A consequence of my mate-finding algorithm: when an agent is sexually mature it looks for a mate in its local neighbourhood (they are genderless, so everybody's fair game). If it is unable to find one, it puts up its hand, which is more like a flag that says yes or no, and waits for the next agent to come a knocking (on their abstract door). As an aside, this hand waving puts me in mind of "traffic light" parties, where red means "stop", green means "go", and amber presumably means "if you're good looking enough", perhaps this is where that all illusive "free will" demonstration can be found (calling all philosophers). When two agents eventually find each other, the loving begins, resulting in the production of an offspring. (There isn't much room for romance, perhaps a consequence of the lack of necessity of pants removal or record players to play some of Marvin Gaye's "lets get it on"). Anyway, occasionally an agent would put its hand up, requesting a mate, and then promptly kick the bucket, leaving an erect extremity to indicate an insatiable undead virility, (hellooo, mills & boon!) unbeknownst to any would-be lover, who proceeds regardless with the "getting dirty".

PS - After looking over my last two posts, which seem to suggest an inability to stop sexualising things, I started this blog entry with a clean break in mind. What could be less sexual than science research? Therefore it pains me to note that there is no less than two references to sexually deviant acts in this entry. Now, I like to be romantic about the whole sex thing, but I worry, given the common criticisms leveled at my gender of killing the romance of love.

Tweemo

2006-09-27T20:50:00.000+10:00

As if the individual music genre terms of "twee" and "emo" weren't confusing enough, Adam and John had to coin the amalgamated concept of "tweemo". Twee, originally intending something excessively or affectedly quaint, and emo, short for emotional. Twee was originally derogatory and emo has become derogatory. Perhaps this photo, taken on a recent trip to the beach, of the two masterminds behind the word demonstrates its necessity:

A large part of the weekend involved the invention of twee porn titles (e.g. barely eightween). The story line, repeated across the genre, with minor variation by unimaginative twee porno directors, goes: a boy and girl, both wearing cardigans, meet (perhaps he's an effeminate poet and she's a librarian). They sit, mostly turned away from the camera, looking over a beautiful dandelion meadow (Belle & Sebastian is playing). The girl's cardigan slides, ever so slightly, down her shoulder. The boy reaches out to take the girls hand in his own. They turn to face each other, and stare into each others eyes as the sun sinks below the horizon between them and they slowly get old together. THE END.

I like twee music. Although, I have to admit the origin of the term is a bit off putting. It figures though, because I'm slightly effeminate and my girlfriend's a librarian. I made her a twee CD, here is the track list:

Music Is My Boyfriend - The Hidden Cameras
I Don't Know Why I Love You - The House Of Love
Bachelor Kisses - The Go-Betweens
The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get - Morrissey
Don't Call Me Whitney, Bobby - Islands
The Luckiest Guy On The Lower East Side - The Magnetic Fields
Lovefool - The Cardigans
Let's Get Out Of This Country - Camera Obscura
Sort Of Mine - Heavenly
Build - The Housemartins
Our Lady In Havana - Essex Green
Sleep Tonight - Stars
The Leanover - Life Without Buildings
Wishbone - Architecture in Helsinki
My British Tour Diary - Of Montreal
Just Like Fred Astaire - James
Camera-Shy - The Lucksmiths
There Is A Light That Never Goes Out - The Smiths
Beautiful - Belle & Sebastian
On The Bus Mall - The Decemberists
Listen To My Heart - Steinbecks

Of course, a close inspection of this list will lead some to exclaim "but that's not twee..." when questioned further their main reason will be because they like it. I think that this is, probably, a problem with the original definition, which being negative, implies that all twee must be negative, but if it was then no one would like it.

I don't know about emo. I researched to try and find out which bands constitute emo music. But, I haven't heard of any of them, apart from more recent, post emo (i.e. post decrease in popularity), bands like death cab, which I imagine wouldn't call themselves emo. People seem a little crazy on the whole emo hate thing. I suspect that many of them wouldn't actually be able to list many emo bands. And why does JB have an emo section? Well, what I know is that James Blunt isn't in the emo section so someone else is to blame for his music (which sounds like a cat being tortured). Lets regain our focus, rally the troops and work on the real evil here.

Pants Optional

2006-09-26T21:52:00.000+10:00

The title of this blog "Pants Optional" (conceived during procrastinatory moments / hours, during my honours year) was to be the name of my cafe / bookstore. Entirely devoted to science fiction and fantasy literature, the boy waiters would be dressed as Conan (the barbarian) and the girls as Barbarella (queen of the galaxy). A safe haven, where people could discuss Dungeons and Dragons, the Alien movie series and Kurt Vonnegut novels, free of jock oppression and pants. I contemplated the title "Owen's Philosophical Steak House" (concept courtesy of Alan Partridge), where people of all walks of life meet to talk philosophy and eat steak (my own patented vegetarian steak, "mis-steak", for non meat eating friends). Although, I abandoned the idea after realising that a good indulgent philosophical chat can give some people a stiffy (just thinking about it, in fact), which is not desirable in an eating / pants optional venue. All conversations would inevitably deteriorate to the topic of masturbation, which is enough of a problem already without it being exacerbated by, self gratifying, deep-and-meaningfuls.

Here is a picture of Gypsy and Me. Gypsy is a dog. Gypsy doesn't wear pants. (My partner Jodi wanted to dress her up a bit, but I drew the line at pants). I like to think that Gypsy is happier for it (she looks it, doesn't she?). I wear the pants in our relationship. This is not to say that I'm the dominant person. It is just that Jodi gave me a bit of a scare with her "bite the sausage" call to Gypsy as I was entering the shower one time.

I started this blog with grandiose ideas of posting pictures of people, liberated of pants, grinning at the camera, for your vicarious pleasure. Apparently this is also known as going Donald Duck. That is, sailor about the town, a promising bachelor with only his three troublesome nephews, a debilitating speech impediment and conspicuous lack of trousers to hold him back. Perhaps he lost them during some navy initiation ceremony. Of course, ducks don't wear trousers in the first place, so this is just silly. I imagine there would be an imbalance of males in my "pants off" photo series. Not that girls don't lose their pants occasionally (a quick search on the internet shows this to be the case, see www.police.vic.gov.au/hornygirlswithoutpants.html, www.feministpantsliberationfront.edu.uk and www.pantsonpets.com/noway/). It is just that I don't get invited to those types of parties.