As was (labouriously) discussed in the previous post, I’m not here anymore. You can find me over at Brain Stab, or http://brainstab.blogspot.com/ for the link clicking challenged.

More of the same from me, with some actual Good™ content from sundry others.

So lets see; All that remains is to turn off the lights, remind you that there are a pack of archives to amuse yourself with should the desire take, let the midgets out of their cages, and leave you with the most profound piece of philosophy I’ve yet come across on my twenty-seven odd years here:

"Good is better than evil because it's nicer"
-Milton Caniff

I’m not going away, I’m just going somewhere else. A couple of those that I know have started up Brain Stab, basically a combination of a few of The Blogs That Are Worth Reading, and I felt like being a part of it. However, given that having two pointless weblogs would be even more redundant than just having one, I’m going with the new one for the time being.

There are various reasons for the shift, but none worth going into. (And no, unlike most people, I don’t mean that as code for “I have personality clashes with whoever or whatever”, I mean it as code for “The reasons really are quite boring so I can’t be bothered typing them out”...)

I dunno, I might come back to this, depends on how long I stand Brain Stabs pastel layout. We’ll see.

This makes me think back (yes, I’m reminiscing, shut up). November 9 is part of Map For The Blind. MFTB rose from the ashes of Mutopia, which was created after the ill-fated Key 23 went the way of all homepages. Key 23 was the first of these web projects, started by a friend of mine going under the nom-de-net Darmeus.

I had high hopes for this site for ‘scribblings and meme-crimes’ (as was the tagline), because I was reading a number of websites with similar visions at the time. For no other reason than getting maudlin, here they are:

Endculture.

A group of hip young things writing about the adventures of their lives. The last update – concerning the lack of updates – was made in February of 2004. That having been said, there has been a redesign in the last month or so, who it looks like its still kind of active...

http://endculture.org/

Beauty Destroyed

One of the Endculture crew who went her own way. It has been pretty active over the last few years as something of a journal/amateur gothporn site, and has recently been reborn as a semi-professional gothporn site.

Not worksafe, unless you happen to work in a place that values some good cheesecake shots of topless women dressed as Nazis...

http://beautydestroyed.com/

Fire and Steel

Again, inspired by Endculture, this started out as a similar site, and had quite a lot going for it in the beginning.

Currently displays the message “Hell, a lot more will be done tomorrow.” The same message it’s displayed since 2000.

http://fireandsteel.com/

People are Stupid

The first blogspot site I discovered. The creator is still around on some forums I occasionally visit, but gave away the blogging fairly early on.

http://stupidpeople.blogspot.com/

Opi8

‘The home of new dark culture’ says the tagline. A site for “dark” themed art of various media. Going at one tenth the speed it used to, but still going.

http://opi8.com/

Savant

Comics activism magazine, with the mandate of making people realise that comics are a valid art form. Some really good stuff in the archives, but currently sitting in the same “we'll see you soon” message that has been there for over a year now.

http://savantmag.com/

These were the sites that inspired me to actually write and release it onto the internet, and (with the exception of Beauty Destroyed, because camwhores who go naked are pretty safe money) are all limping along, or stand as Ozymandian monuments to the eventual fate of all internet hipsters.

Map For The Blind isn’t going anywhere, and Nov9 isn’t going away, just changing url and being put in the middle of other posts by people who are funnier than I am. Oddly enough, that’s important to me. I’ve always said (at unnecessary length, usually) that people should create and release their work basically for the sake of doing so. Certainly, there’s nothing worse deciding “I want to have a blog” before you have anything to say, but if you do have something to get out, then it’s easier than ever before to say it. Sure, my daily rubbish isn’t that interesting or well written or funny, but I like saying it, and a few people visit the site every other month to read it, so I’m content with my lot.

“We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.”
- Robert Wilensky

Stereotypically enough, I’ve been listening to Fairytale of New York by the Pogues on repeat recently.

I don’t remember it being quite as depressing as it is. I guess the idea of sadly drinking yourself to death in a sleazy bar gets less and less romantic the longer you’ve been out of university...

So, no posting the lyrics to Irish drinking ballads for you this Saturnalia, rather you get something I stole from the intermanet a while back that more fittingly sums up the festive part of my year;

Twas the Night before Christmas, and all through the shack
Not a creature was stirrin', cept the lice on muh back.
The beer cans wuz nailed to the screen door with care,
With hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.
The children were sleepin', all snug in their beds,
While visions of tractor pulls danced in their heads.
And Ma in her nightgown all stained with pound cake.
Had just settled down to watch Ricki Lake.

When out in the driveway, a loud noise I heard,
I opened the winder to check muh T-bird.
I ran to the door, like I's on a mission,
But I tripped on some parts from muh granny's transmission.

The moon shone outside, the hound dog wuz barkin'.
Muh daughter weren't home yet, she wuz still out parkin'.

When what to muh whiskey blind eyes should I see
But a Chevy S-10, pulled by eight flyin' sheep.
With a fat nasty driver, so disgustin' and sick
I said, "Shoot Fire! That must be St. Nick!”

More rapid than X-lax his wooly sheep came
And he belched and he hollered, and he called 'em by name.

“Now CLIFFORD! Now VERNON! Now LESTER and ENUS!
On FESTUS! On ELMER! On ROSCOE and CLETUS!

From the top of the shack to them there garbage bins
Now dash away! Dash Away! Dash Away youins!”

I heard a loud sound on the roof of muh shack.
Pud down muh beer and went fer muh gun rack.
He fell through the roof, plum killed my dog,
I swear that ole' Santa looked just like Boss Hog.

He wore a T-shirt, rebel flag on the front,
And his jeans were all bloody from that morning's hunt.
A big nekkid lady tattooed on his arm,
And he wore black boots that he'd picked up in 'Nam.

His eyes, how they glazed from too much Wild Turkey.
From the side of his mouth hung a stick of beef jerky.
A scar on his cheek from a fight with the cops.
The veins on his face looked ready to pop.

The butt of a Marlboro clung to his lip
He wore a hip pack full of B-B-Q chips.
He had a fat face and a hairy beer belly.
I ain't seen one that big since muh ex-wife Shelly.

He was gap-toothed and dumb with an I.Q. of three
And I laughed cause that redneck was smarter than me.
A wink of his eye, a fierce shake of his head,
From his hair came a rat that ran under the bed.

He reached in his sack, sipped his gin and tonic,
Then filled the kid's stockings with Hooked on Phonics.
His toys came from Save Mart and they weren't very nice
But he had lots of them and yuh can't beat the price.

He gave us some Spam and some Oatmeal Cream pies,
And a Nascar T-shirt in Double X size.

When the presents were gone and he had no more,
He staggered and stumbled right through muh screen door.

He hopped in his truck, to his sheep gave an order
"Hurry up youins! To the Tennessee border!"
And I heard him cry out, with a strong southern drawl,
"MERRY CHRISTMAS, YOU REDNECKS!
MERRY CHRISTMAS Y'ALL...
YEE HAWWWW!

As evidence that I was and continue to be right, I give you the case of the woman who was found dead with her infant cut out of her womb. I challenge any author or director to come up with something as truly horrifying as a sheriff making the announcement: “I believe there is a live 8-month-old fetus out there we need to find.”

On the news last night they played the radio alert given out in the ’States, where the announcer warned the public to be on the lookout for the baby, watching for such signs as possible health problems, bloody clothing, and a freshly cut umbilical cord.

Broken Planet

This makes me unsure about including it, because I don’t want to encourage her to “get the Jack part out” - the more pretty burlesque goth genius women with a little Jack in them the better...

“You’re not becoming obsessive compulsive are you?”
“Uh... No.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“Vacuuming.”
“Why?”
“Because no one has in a few months.”
“Yeah, but... Why?”

Overheard five minutes later from another room

Conversant the first: McFlatmate. Conversant the second: Other Flatmate.

“I think Jack’s becoming obsessive compulsive.”
“Why?”
“He’s vacuuming.”
“You know, there are some flats where it’s considered normal for someone to vacuum.”
“Whatever.”

I wondered, as she processed my order, if my amazing powers of detection were actually healthy – Stuff like this jumps out at me all the time; Surely that means I’m just an observant person by nature.

Then I realised something: I hadn’t noticed what colour her eyes were.

That’s when it hit me: Years of teaching messed up teenagers and hanging around with goths hasn’t given me keen observational powers, it’s given me a wound paranoia that borders on fetishism...

The freeing of Ahmed Zaoui:

Last night I watched the footage of Zaoui’s release. They interviewed his lawyer, who traveled in the same activist circles that I did back in our respective student days. Then they interviewed a member of the NZ Islam society, and in the background was the father of one of my old activist cronies. Cut to a sound bite from a concerned member of the public, who worked for the students’ association back in the Day.

It was like getting the band back together...

(I’ve got a rant in me about how all of my old activists are now the core of today’s union scene, that I’ll write if I can think of a way to make it even remotely interesting...)

Anyhoo, should Zaoui have been freed? Yes. Remember, he hasn’t been given free reign of the nation’s fertiliser shops, just released on bail. Maybe he’s a kindly old man who wants nowt more than to live in peace, or maybe he’s Osama’s Trojan horse sent to open wide the gates once the revelers get the country drunk on the Chardonnay of victory. However, neither matters. What matters is that in a free country like this ‘un, you don’t hold someone for two years without bail. That’s what the Americans do, and we’re better than that. Will he be allowed to stay in the country? Don’t know, don’t hugely care – I have my own problems – but we don’t keep someone in prison for two years without trial or bail. We’re not a colony of America yet...

Passing of the Civil Unions Bill

I’m all about this. It makes me happy.

Of course there are still the opponents. I don’t mean Destiny Church or any of the other ridiculous homophobes (as opposed to the ridiculous homophones, I mean; bear, bare, come on now...), I mean the people who opposed this bill because it was seen as settling.

David Young raises the good point that this law doesn’t give the right to marry nor to adopt, and that now, when someone tries to pass a bill allowing these rights, a lot of people will say “We gave them the civil unions thing, what do they want from us, blood?” The fact is that the existence of the CUB will make it more difficult to pass a bill allowing full gay marriage.

However, the CUB passed by only ten votes, and it looked pretty shaky for a while there. A gay marriages bill would not have passed. Maybe in five years, definitely in ten, but not now.

Is Young right, should we have waited for all-or-nothing equality? He makes reference to a group that sank a “compromise” bill in the late seventies, but was then instrumental in the creation of the homosexual law reform bill of the mid-eighties. Should we have held out for five or ten years in order to get a full marriage bill passed instead of acquiescing to a compromise that could stymie such a bill for ten or fifteen?

I don’t know. For now, I’m going to take this one as a victory. But I have that luxury, because it doesn’t directly affect me...

Smoking banned in bars

Good. About time.

Now don’t for one minute come to me with your arguments of personal freedom – I am affected by your dirty filthy fumes, so it’s not your personal freedom I’m worried about.

The whole “it’s my body so I can choose what to put into it and I’m not hurting anyone else” doesn’t stand up for one single minute. You exhale smoke, which means two things:

One – You fucks have been giving me cancer. Two – It smells bad and makes I hard for me to breathe.

You know what you can put into your body that doesn’t affect me? Heroin. No, really. You want to skag yourself to the eyeballs (or through the eyeballs for that matter) then it doesn’t affect me, because carcinogenic horse fumes don’t waft into my fresh pink lungs. Cigarette smoke on the other hand, does, so you can fuck all the way off with the argument that it isn’t affecting me.

So I’ll fight for smoking in bars immediately after you fight and win to have heroin use in bars legalised, because it’s a lot safer to me, and I’m the important one in this equation.

And yes, I know the other argument: You’re at a bar with the specific intention to ingest potentially lethal amounts of poison and, all going well, have unsafe sex with a complete stranger.

Good on you – doesn’t mean I have to get lung cancer while I’m watching you.

Smell that, Timmy? That’s the redolent funk of democracy! Take that you commie bastards!