Everybody loves …mond

There are certain moments in time that everyone remembers. Big incidents create certain residual memories. Points frozen in time. Everyone remembers what they were doing and where they were when they heard that Princess Diana died (I was in the car driving back from a youth group outing to Pizza Hut). Everyone remembers what they were doing on September 11 2001 (I was watching the West Wing). I have a feeling today will be one of those moments.

Here are some of my observations on today’s experience:

1. Denial is really the first (illogical) step in coming to terms with bad news. I had the same experience with several people today – “are you joking,” “surely this is a hoax”… let me suggest that that’s an unreasonable response – a mainstream media outlet can not afford to falsely proclaim the death of someone famous (ever since Mark Twain’s demise was famously “greatly exaggerated” media outlets have been careful – except for a few notable slip ups). It also wouldn’t be a funny joke.

2. The phrase “unexpected death” should be limited to deaths which are genuinely surprising. While I respected and admired Steve Irwin and his genuinely laid-back larrikin style – the fact is if you make a living playing with very dangerous animals there should be a level of expectation that you’ll meet your demise (untimely as it may be) in this manner. I guess what was unexpected was that he was killed by a comparatively innocuous animal.

3. Genuine people are hard to find – and appreciated by the masses. Steve Irwin is one of those people that no one has a bad word to say about. His conservation based agenda may not strike a chord with you – but his passion for the cause was incredible. He genuinely practiced what he preached. There’s a lesson there for anyone who is trying to engage with people in a real way.

4. Going doing something that you love is still going… How is it better to die at the hands of something you love than at the hands of something you don’t? Would it be more satisfying to be shot by your spouse or by a stranger – I’m going to suggest the second would be at the very least less disatisfying (how many negatives are there in that sentence – what I mean was – being killed by a stranger would be less emotionally distressful than being killed by your spouse… maybe… or maybe it’s all the same. You’re dead anyway right?)

5. Jokes about these situations never take too long to emerge – I’ll leave you to investigate the suncream joke for yourselves – “it would have offered protection from harmful rays” is the punchline. I’m not looking forward to seeing the Chaser do anything on him this Friday.

I was going to blog about the Catholic church and their exorcist’s verdict on Harry Potter – but I’ll put that on the backburner while I deal with the burning issues… Is using the same word twice in the sentence funny the second time? Rarely… but, like a Harry Potter omnibus, I’m on fire tonight…

September 4, 2006

Knite in shining armour

I have had it. I’m putting up a fite. I couldn’t sit by any longer and not bite.* This blite can go no further. I can’t stand the site** of the word “nite.” I mite* have been prepared to let it slide if it were restricted to text messages and sms… but no. Now it’s serious. If I see one more sign advertising “one nite” DVD rental, one nite rates, et al, I will tear down the signs and do bad things to them (again doing bad things to inanimate objects is a hollow threat – particularly if it’s a drum – instead I’m going to carry a red marker around and correct the grammar on said signs (or sines?). Do it rite or don’t do it at all I say…No longer will I stay silent on the bastardisation of the English language.

I just don’t understand. How is night that much more complex to wright(sic) (haha…). It’s two letters people. TWO LETTERS***. I mean sure, if you’re texting and have a sore thumb abbreviate by all means. But to change the constitution of a word in your advertising is ludicrous. It borders on negligence. I heard a funny story the other day from Mr Scooter (who needs to update his blog – I’m sick of reading the same post on my daily perusal…) about a teacher who incorrectly corrected some spelling – I won’t bore you with the details. Needless (that word looks a lot like needles – an s can change everything) to say it was horrific and terrifying – what sort of people do we let into the classroom these days. I read an interesting article about teachers and the slipping academic standards the other day – it turns out that lots of people are becoming teachers who shouldn’t (and some are becoming teachers who should – and that evens up the balance somewhat – but what about the children not in that good teacher’s class).

Please feel free to share your educational horror stories…

*actually correct – a bight being something quite different altogether.

** again – technically correct provided I can’t stand the location of the word nite – wherever it occurs.

*** I just broke an unwritten law for my blog and capitalised two entire words – it was for emphasis only – I received an email from someone the other day completely in capitals which is apparently quite rude… more rude would have been to send an email completely in wingdings… I guess there are other implications for an email that looks something like this !#@#$%

September 1, 2006

Farewell good and faithful servant

Pluto is no more. Well it’s still there. But now that it has no “planet” status is anyone going to care? The process, or act, of deplaneting a large orbiting object is interesting and probably sets a dangerous precedent. Who gave International Astronomical Union the final say over planetary status? I didn’t. Did you? I heard recently that you can purchase yourself a star in the solar system from a particular company who claim to own them. How does that work? I think I’ll start selling blocks of land on Neptune (for the non astronomy buffs out there – Neptune is gaseous)* Space is a funny business. The last great frontier (presumably the bottom of the ocean isn’t great – nobody seems to have claimed land in the depths of the sea yet either). But I digress…

I’ve written an obituary for Pluto (and by I’ve written I mean I’m writing it now – and you’re reading it after I wrote it – which means it happened in the past. Unless you invented a time machine and some how breached the space time continuum (wow space and time travel – this post is a geek’s dream))…

Pluto was a loyal and trustworthy companion. Dogs are not only a man’s best friend but a mouse’s as well. When John Steinbeck wrote Of Mice and Men he should have penned the sequel “Of Mice and Men and their Dogs.” There were many occasions where Pluto came to my rescue…

Actually confusing the planet with the Disney character isn’t as funny as I’d hoped it would be. To continue in that vein would be to flog the proverbial dead horse – or in this case dead dog… or rather, dead planet. Flogging an inanimate object is futile. So I’ll stop. In fact I’m not really able to work up a full head of steam over Pluto’s demotion into the “Dwarf Planet” category – except to say that it strikes me as a little politically incorrect to have a problem with “dwarf” status. I mean at the end of the day dwarf planets are like every other planet – just horizontally and vertically challenged.

Mmm. Clearly I should spend more time writing stupid stuff and less time on Press Releases, election briefs and other serious matters.

*I’m not claiming to be an astronomy buff – I had to track down a gaseous planet for the purpose of that joke. And by joke I mean statement.

August 30, 2006

Long time no blog…

I apologise for my lack of blogging lately. I would suggest attributing it to a complete lack of blogworthy content. Any other suspicions would no doubt be completely unfounded.

I was a Hair’s breadth away from posting some form of comment on the Pakistan cricket fiasco… but then decided not to. If Darrell Hair really does believe ball tampering was going on then good on him for taking a stand. Lucky Dean Jones wasn’t commentating at the time the Pakistani decision not to return to the field was clearly an act of sporting terrorism.

There’s a state election happening in Queensland soon. It must be the least exciting election ever. When you have to choose between an incumbent idiot and two challenging idiots who do you choose? Actually, Springborg strikes me as a really genuine kind of guy, it’s a shame he genuinely has no policy solutions for the health and water crises… neither of which are of his making. It seems unfair that he should have to clean up Beattie’s mess, and be punished for not knowing where to begin. That would be like me having to tidy my housemate’s room – or vice versa.

There were also some interesting word things that I thought I might blog about – but you can look up anally retentive on wikipedia for yourselves.

I went to Magnetic Island again yesterday with a journo from the SMH. It’s the first time I’ve hosted a journalist there in sunshine. We conducted site (and sight (i’ll never tire of that pun)) inspections of some very nice new developments over there that I’d buy if I had the money.

August 26, 2006

Blog By Email version 1

This is the coolest invention ever. Cooler than sliced bread. Cooler than any of those other time saving devices dreamed up (somewhat ironically) by people with too much time on their hands. I can write an email from anywhere to my blog and it gets posted. Mattias asked why I thought that was cool. Well Mattias, let me tell you why it’s so cool. It makes writing a blog entry heaps easier. I can do it in about half the time. You’ll notice my reason here has changed since this was originally posted.

It’s 5.30 now, and I’m still at work. This is actually a test email because I’m not sure my emails are working. I guess there are other things I could be doing at 5.30 in the afternoon, because there are always new bits and pieces to write about Townsville. It’s a happening place.

In fact you should all move to Townsville. Every one of my readers (that’s right, all two of you). (I think that kind of feels a bit like I’ve done some work now).

I don’t really have a lot to blog about today… except the fact that I’m happily declaring myself a hypocrite. I knew all those years of bagging out couples for being couples would come back to haunt me.

A few weeks ago I mentioned a defamation case involving a NSW politician Michael Costa. He’s suing a radio station for airing a claim that he paid a visit to a lady of the night. That case got a mention in the papers yesterday – but a new and different case piqued my interest. TV host Ian Turpie, the luminary host of such classics as The Price is Right. Apparently Machiavelli was right, every man has his price*… for Turpie it took a few dollars to claim that he was suffering impotency – he was taken to court for faking it. My question is – does he now launch a defamation action to defend his impotency? Sounds like he’s between a rock and a hard place… or not. Sorry. That was bad. In fact this whole post was fairly gratuitous. I’m just enjoying my new toy (actually it’s not really a toy – more a convenient shift in technology).

*as quoted in A Man For All Seasons

August 16, 2006

I’m emailling my own blog… Now I have seen everything

This is an interesting concept. I can email blog entries through from work. Or from home… by email.

Let’s see if this works.

August 16, 2006

An interesting linguistic quirk

Hello loyal readers.

I just noticed something funny that I’d like to share with you all.

Traditionally the indefinite article “a” is used before nouns beginning with a consonant, whereas the indefinite article “an” is used before a noun beginning with a vowel. Like any rules there are exceptions – for example you have a university not an university.

It occured to me while writing this morning that you have an “f” not a “f”, or an “x” not a “x”. It would seem the usage rule boils down to the sound at the start of the word… phonetically speaking (or spelling) university would be yoo-nee-ver-city, which is a consonant sound – although y can also operate as a vowel. And the letters “x” (ex) and “f” (eff) actually start with vowel sounds even though they’re consonants. R (arr), L (ell), and S (ess) obey the same rule. This rule should also solve once and for all the aitch v haitch “H” debate. Because you have an “h” not a “h” it must be aitch. So there.

Isn’t language fun.

August 15, 2006

Israel, water, and Roman rule

Well. It seems I’ve promised a few people that I’d share some of my thoughts on a range of current issues via the ever expanding pages of this ‘ere blog. I haven’t done much blogging lately. I’ve been a bit distracted. Anyone who doesn’t know why should probably head to Mattias’ blog. For anyone who doesn’t want to read Mattias’ blog, her name is Robyn (while Matt got the scoop, I get the substance.) So here goes… a triple bunger.

I was talking to some people lately about the tension in the Middle East – and in particular the Israel/Hezbollah conflict. It’s a bit of a political hot potato really. But lots of people have opinions. And lots of people are stupid. Mel Gibson is stupid. Actually, pretty much anyone who takes a particular side in the conflict is stupid. The conflict itself is stupid. The re-establishment of the state of Israel, in hindsight, was probably stupid. You don’t see any Italians pushing for the reinstitution of the Roman empire do you. But then there wasn’t the same religious attachment or reasoning behind the Roman empire. The whole rebuilding of Jerusalem was based on a theologically flawed premise anyway… so there’s the background of my thoughts on the Israel/Lebanon tension… my thoughts on the tension itself are as follows:

No one in the world will ever have appropriate economic motivation to fire a nuclear weapon.

That’s my theory. The only people I can see firing one are a) Al Queda, b) North Korea, c) some crazy fundamentalist Christian sect from Northern Ireland. Al Queda because they hate everyone. North Korea because they’re crazy and want to be taken seriously even though they’re the smallest kid in the playground. The Fundamentalist Christian sect because I think fundamentalist muslims get unfairly tarred as the only crazy religious people – I mean, we’re forgetting Mormons and Scientologists when we tar all crazy people with the same brush.

I can’t see the US or any of the Arab states actually wanting to fire a missile into country side rich with the oil fields they all so desparately want to possess. I can’t see the Islamic countries firing a nuke at a city that holds a large amount of religious significance to their people. So, on that note, I’m not overly worried about world war three occurring this week.

Someone else asked me what I thought about the water shortage. Water shortages are bad. Especially if you are a farmer, or a particularly hygienic person. Whether you can legitimately blame a water shortage on a politician is another question. I don’t think you can. I think I should give some air time to my friend Joe’s theory on water use:

“We’re all going to run out of water at exactly the same time – so why shouldn’t I get more than my share of water while I can.”

Isn’t he a caring, sharing guy…

Speaking of caring sharing people. And because my blog follows the form of traditional newspapers with the sport at the end. I feel it’s time for me to give my first preview of the English Premier League which starts very soon.

Chelsea will win. Because Roman Abramovich will continue to pour his money into the club. This is a bad thing. As pointed out by this article. I was going to write more, but got bored, and distracted.

August 13, 2006

Cross media ownership laws: For dummies

Tonight I was going to spend a bit of time writing about my thoughts on the water crisis, the Israel situation and other events of global significance. But I changed my mind. Instead I’m going to run another one of my journalism tutorials for the uninitiated… My bachelors degree says I’m an expert (or it might, if I pulled it out of the envelope).

I have probably said something about cross media ownership laws before – but if I haven’t, let me say, for the record, that laws restricting cross media ownership are a good thing. Allowing the one super duper media company to control the media across the spectrum is not a good thing. Anyone who thinks that the press is free from editorial constraint is naive – the owners of a publication can dictate what gets printed. If an owner has control over more than one outlet they start to have the dangerous capacity to control the public agenda. For example – in a small country town if one party owned the local radio station and newspaper – they’d have almost total control over the messages getting out to the locals on any given issue – they’d essentially control what’s left of the public sphere (the place in which public discourse takes place (these days it’s talk back radio and the letters and opinions pages in newspapers)). This is a bad thing if you believe people should be able to reason out truth for themselves, rather than being told what to believe.

Funnily enough, in a survey conducted by crikey, journalists aren’t exactly over the moon with the proposed new laws. Here’s the stats (and a neat summary of the proposals – a voice = 1 media outlet).

The results show that most journalists are highly sceptical of plans to relax cross-media and foreign ownership restrictions and replace them with a new minimum of five significant media “voices” in metropolitan areas and four “voices” in rural areas. More than 63% of journalists surveyed said they believed Australian media companies have “too much influence” in deciding how Australians vote, and 71.4% said media owners had too much influence in determining the political agenda.

Alliance federal secretary Christopher Warren said the survey reveals that the people who work in the media know the truth about the Government’s proposed media changes. “The changes will undermine diversity, affect the integrity of journalism in Australia and further empower media owners who already have an unwelcome influence on their employees to report the news in a way that suits the owners’ political or commercial agendas,” he said. “The health of Australia democracy is at stake and these media law changes will clearly result in fewer voices and fewer choices for the Australian people.”

I guess there would be positive benefits if someone with taste (say Fairfax Holdings) bought out Channel 10. At least they’d have the decency to take Big Brother off the air.

August 8, 2006

This blog has been performance enhanced…

I’m in a state of shock. The positive drug test returned by Wallabies wannabe Wendell Sailor sent me into a bit of a headspin. I mean, Wendell is like, totally a role model right… and Warney and his mum’s diet pills – they weren’t helping him perform at all. I mean if those poster boys of modern sports ethics didn’t have you questioning the drug testing bodies then who will. Surely Wendell would never ever have been anywhere near a line of cocaine. I had some serious doubts about drug testing in sport – and this week those doubts have become fully actualised disbelief. It’s not enough that they tarnished the names of such reputable, luminary sporting figures. Now they have to drag two men who are at the pinnacle of their respective sports into the mire of a “positive” drug result. Drugs in cycling. I mean who’d have thought. Next we’ll be told people are using drugs in sports like weightlifting, baseball and professional wrestling. And now drugs in the 100m sprint. That’s taking things too far.

There are conflicting views on the issue of drug use in sport. Obviously health, “spirit of competition,” and “role model” issues aside there are certain points for and against either side of the performance enhancing drugs argument

Here’s a couple of quotes from the Sydney Morning Herald.

The most infamous drug cheat of them all, Ben Johnson, has his two cents’ worth on drugs in sport:

“The spectators don’t care, the sponsors probably don’t care … all they want to see is the world’s fastest man …”

German television station ZDF boss Nikolaus Brender puts the boot in on the Floyd Landis doping scandal in the Tour de France:

“We signed a broadcasting contract for a sporting event, not a show demonstrating the performances of the pharmaceutical industry …”

So some people are a little concerned about drugs in sport. Some people think sports stars should be having a positive influence on society. That sort of thinking is dangerous. Taken to its unnatural extension it creates problems where sports stars suddenly think they’re academically qualified to be making decision that have some bearing on wider society.

For example:

Outcast Brisbane Lions midfielder Jason Akermanis on his wooing into the world of politics by Queensland Premier Peter Beattie.

“I know a bit about politics. I have seen how politics can ruin a football club.”

Here is a man who is seriously considering entering the political arena. Celebrity and politics have always been a volatile mix. Lets look at the long list of successful celebrity/politics crossovers…

Ronald Reagan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Peter Garrett… intellectuality at it’s best… well ok, I’ll begrudgingly credit Garrett with some brains. But in reality these men have been elected on the back of fame rather than ability.

I thought I had a problem with ex-sportspeople becoming media personalities (Except Channel 9’s Andrew Slack, he’s good, and Richie Benaud, although he was a police reporter while he was a cricketer… I’ll bet some of you didn’t know that) until they decided they wanted to be politicians instead.

Jason Akermanis reckons he knows a thing or two about the water crisis. Apparently Australia is an island, surrounded by water… so we shouldn’t have any problems waterwise… maybe we should just start watering crops with salt water Jason. I’m sure that’s a wise and valid suggestion… (I’m aware that salinity is a problem, that comment, like the rest of this entry, was tongue in cheek… although a men’s 100m sprint with everyone on drugs would be kind of cool).

August 7, 2006

Promises, promises… oh and an apology…

So when is a promise a promise? Some unnamed politicians (who will probably be named later) would suggest only “core” promises are promises. Consider this hypothetical (and by hypothetical, I mean real) dilemma:

In a job interview, in order to impress the interview panel, a potential employee suggests he or she will stick around for a lengthy period of time. The potential employee gets the job. Was that promise a core promise? Who knows.

Then for the sake of argument, say a job with substantially better pay is advertised and the particular employee believes they have a fairly high chance of securing the other job – should they stay or should they go?

Disposable promises are an insipid social malaise. No one wants to be bound by these promises any more. And it’s all because of politicians. Here’s an article posted on one of the Herald’s blogs about another form of apparently disposable promises (the marriage vow).

While I’m on the subject of politicians and what they say – I’m betting that following the Prime Minister’s apology on the interest rate rise there’ll be at least one letter to the editor asking why he can apologise for that but not for the treatment of aboriginals.

Well let me give you my insight into apologies. A topic on which I’m an expert. You can’t apologise for something that you didn’t do – you can say I’m sorry for the way you feel about it… that’s every kid’s favourite trick. The government can’t admit responsibility for the actions of previous governments. That would open up all sorts of litigious wormholes.

On the other hand. I’m sorry for all the… and by that I mean for my excessive use of the elipsis…

August 2, 2006

Irony, Irons and other stuff

A little while ago someone suggested I write about the misuse of the word irony in the lexicon. Well I would, but ironically I don’t know anything about the topic (See that was funny on a couple of levels). I will point out my favourite example of this societal abuse of the word – Angst ridden Canadian Balladeerette (is that a female singer of ballads?) Alanis Morissette’s song ironic. The only irony in that song is that it doesn’t actually contain irony…

“A traffic jam when you’re already late
A no-smoking sign on your cigarette break
It’s like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife
It’s meeting the man of my dreams
And then meeting his beautiful wife
And isn’t it ironic… don’t you think?”

No Alanis I don’t think… and clearly neither did you. I’d suggest that’s more like poetic justice… as found in the correctly titled song Poetic Justice – written by Tom Kimmel and covered by Jane Saunders.

“I feel like the king when the queen loses faith
And the crowd rushes in to tear down the gate
While the whole palace slept, and I never rang the bell.
Maybe that’s poetic justice, but it’s pretty hard to tell.”

Actually – perhaps ironically that doesn’t sound like poetic justice to me – but perhaps that’s due to a lack of context. Ironically, again, Jane Saunders released an album called Poetic Justice – with the Tom Kimmel song as the title track. The song contains these lines:

“I feel like the king
When the queen loses faith
And the crowd rushes in to tear down the gate
And declare what was mine
I stole from someone else
Maybe that’s poetic justice
But it’s pretty hard to tell”

So if her album is named after the song, and she sings the song, could she not be declaring something as hers that she stole from someone else… Guilty as charged I say.

So as you can see it’s almost impossible to learn anything ironic from a female song writer… or in fact from anyone at all. Except perhaps H.W Fowler who is quoted on Wikipedia (note: I understand the irony of claiming it’s hard to learn about irony from anyone and then turning to the source of all “reputable”* information**) as saying

“Irony is a form of utterance that postulates a double audience, consisting of one party that hearing shall hear and shall not understand, and another party that, when more is meant than meets the ear, is aware, both of that “more” and of the outsider’s incomprehension.”

So there you have it. An ironic insight*** into irony.

My iron beeps when it’s been left on for too long. Isn’t that a useful function. I discovered this while preparing to attend the races (of the equine variety) yesterday. Perhaps ironically*** (after my post last week) I did place a bet on a horse and it was quite literally pipped at the post. I bet $5 and lost – I figure the $5 goes a small way towards repaying Jupiters Casino for kindly inviting me into their corporate marquee for the day and feeding me seafood and cake. They would have provided me with free beer too (or heavier stuff) if I wasn’t feeling fluey and congested still. I had a day last week where I wasn’t feeling fluey and congested but then I got up at 4.55am to host the Today show breakfast people up here and the lack of sleep didn’t help my cause. (Look how I tied four pieces of information into the one paragraph – watch and learn people… For those at home wondering what the four pieces of information are: 1. My iron beeps, 2. I went to the races, ate at the corporate tent and placed a bet (all one topic (but three pieces of information I guess)), 3. I am sick, 4. I had the Today show up here last week). Wow. Are you awestruck yet? Probably not. I should point out that I’m actually not as arrogant as I sometimes sound…

* “” Denotes sarcasm
** referring to Wikipedia
*** used ironically

July 30, 2006

I’ll bet…

The mighty Manly Warringah Sea Eagles are on a roll. I was so confident they’d beat the Panthers that I placed a bet with a friend of mine who happens to support them. Is this wrong? If I was sure the Sea Eagles were going to win isn’t that tantamount to stealing? If I was uncertain – is that poor stewardship of my money? Is gambling in and of itself wrong – or is it the associated greed? I don’t want the $5 that Pat is going to have to cough up because his team are unable to function effectively as a unit – I wasn’t motivated by greed. I just like to win. A game is infinitely more enjoyable if there’s actually something weighing on the outcome – by enjoyable I mean exciting – there’s more adrenalin involved if you actually might win or lose something depending on the outcome. But am I going to hell because of this bet? (well no, I’m not going to hell… at this point that was a little bit of rabbitical hyperbole… not that I’m claiming to be a Rabbi, or a rabbit…) Is gambling sinful? Should we be condoning or facilitating any form of greed. The Catholics have been running Bingo competitions as fundraisers for years so they obviously don’t have a problem with it. Neither does the Australian Chief Executive of Woolworths who is a professing Christian.

In that story above (by above I mean contained in the link above…) he made some pretty carefully considered statements about the decision his company has made to invest in a series of gaming establishments.

“I don’t think that’s a moral judgment, I think what is a moral judgment is that one needs to be careful and concerned about the environment in which they sell in the market facilities of that nature.”

While personally I don’t have a problem with gambling if you can remove the element of greed from the equation – if it’s budgeted entertainment with no addiction involved then go for it… who am I to say that using a pokie machine is any less fun than playing an arcade game. My problem is making a distinction like Mr Woolworths (not his real name) has made here. It reminds me of a scene from the Godfather where the Mafia Dons (head honchos) are gathered round a table discussing a move into the narcotics industry – one of them says ”

“I don’t want it near schools — I don’t want it sold to children! That’s an infamia. In my city, we would keep the traffic in the dark people — the colored. They’re animals anyway, so let them lose their souls… “

Somehow the logic in both those quotes seems strikingly similar to me – as long as we’re careful where we put the bad stuff people can go and do the bad stuff if they choose to. Gambling addiction is, without question, a destructive thing. Like the Whitlams I wish I could blow up the pokies… but then I’d lose out on cheap pub steaks designed to attract gamblers. So in conclusion I haven’t exactly figured out my position on gambling yet… but I thought that article was interesting… particularly the quote below, and the fact that Mr Woolworths said he’d be happy to sell bullets at supermarkets if it was legal and there was demand for them. Again, not a moral decision apparently. But where do we draw the line for Christians involved in business? Is it wrong to work at Maccas if they cause obesity? Is it wrong to be a lawyer? I think Mr Woolworths actually has it right in this case…

“I believe that I’ll be accountable one day for my life and so to that extent I’ll be accountable for my integrity,” he said.

July 23, 2006

literally… not figuratively

This is literally the best blog topic suggestion I’ve ever received…

“I would like you to write about the misuse of the word ‘literal,’ and about how ironic it is that the word literal has lost its literal meaning. It really annoys me when I hear comments on A Current Affair stating that “These are literally the tenants from hell.”” – Joel.

Well Joel I would quite literally love to write about that… and I will… now.

Literally literally means to:

  1. In a literal manner; word for word: translated the Greek passage literally.
  2. In a literal or strict sense: Don’t take my remarks literally.

Incorrect usage of the word really bothers me too. I would suggest that a more appropriate word, in most cases where literally is used out of context is in fact the word literarily.

  1. Of, relating to, or dealing with literature: literary criticism.
  2. Of or relating to writers or the profession of literature: literary circles.
  3. Versed in or fond of literature or learning.
    1. Appropriate to literature rather than everyday speech or writing.
    2. Bookish; pedantic.

If tabloid journalists began using literarily instead of literally it would literally solve half the problem over night.

For example the quote “These are literarily the tenants from hell” – could be acceptable if the show went on to prove that the tenants were of a hellacious nature. For it to be literally true, one or more of the following points must be demonstrably true:
1. The tenant is in fact Satan.
2. The house is in fact hell.
3. The tenant is actually dead, and the report has been beamed back from hell.
4. The house is in Ipswich (replace this suburb with the westernmost suburb in your city – I guess for Townsville readers it’s Charters Towers or somewhere like that).
5. The tenant is demonstrably a demon.
6. The tenant lives in a gambling house
7. The tenant is a scrap of material in a tailor’s box

I agree Joel, Current Affairs programs are literally the worst thing on television. They are literarily a product of hell.

Now on to other pressing issues. I had a thought the other day. Well actually, I had several. This one was to do with the “Drink Drive and you’re a bloody idiot” campaign. It occured to me that there are actually a lot of people in our society who a) are bloody idiots already, b) would like nothing more than to grow up to be a bloody idiot, or c) are not quite bloody idiots but would like to take that next step. It occurs to me that the campaign is flawed on that basis. It occurs to me now that that isn’t as interesting as it seemed in my head when I read it online. Stay tuned for my thoughts on Shakespeare and how lucky he was that his performers didn’t have speech impediments. Try saying Shakespeare with a lisp and it comes out as thakethpeare (and you spit on all the people in the same room as you). But that’s for another post. I may also make some comment about cb’s favourite new word, or new favourite new word. The word is both new, and her new favourite. Allived. To me it sounds a little bit Strongbadian – It’s a great way to transform an adjective to a verb. It’s just a shame alive actually only has one l though really.

July 20, 2006

Now coming to you in Wide Screen… at least from my end

Well, well, well… that of course is the answer to the question “what did the oil baron say when three new oil deposits were discovered in Iraq. The US of course simply said “Fire the torpedoes”, which was pretty useless because Iraq only has a very small coastline and there are much more effective ways to blow things up in Iraq. Strapping explosives to your chest seems to be one way… that’s not really funny is it. Not at all PC.

There’s not really much interesting stuff to write about today, owing to the fact that I spent yesterday in Charters Towers. It’s a hole. Or a series of them. Mostly because it contains a lot of tunnels left over from the gold mines. It is however, one of North Queensland’s premiere tourist destinations – attracting history buffs from all over the country. So if you like history it’s worth a visit. Or if you like meat pies. I’m sure it has plenty of redeeming features.

Today I took mum, dad, and Susie along to an Indy car roadshow thing in Townsville that I had to go to for work. There was lots of burning rubber, lots of noise, lots of girls in Indy outfits, and lots of the types of guys who enjoy those sorts of things. Then I went to WOW and bought a new screen for my computer… and more importantly, the new Muse CD. I’m impressed. I was worried at first. But it’s very good. It’s nothing like any of their old stuff. But Matt Bellamy is still the coolest front man strutting his stuff on stages around the globe.

That’s about it for this episode – be sure to check out the thoroughly politically incorrect ramblings at that other blog… http://philnsmiz.blogspot.com

July 15, 2006