Tuesday, July 29, 2008

The post previously known as ""

I was about to begin this post with : "You probably don't remember this, but", but then I remembered just who my readership was...... Anyways, there was once this episode of Red Dwarf where the crew of said vessel met up with alternate versions of themselves from other dimensions. The humour from said episode deriving from the fact that Rimmer's opposite number turned out to be the Übermensch. I bring this up because I seem to be living with a similar happenstance. Readers may note that in the past I have mentioned that my current supervisor looks like John Bunnett. What I didn't mention before now was that, well, he kind of acts like John Bunnett too.... only with a few crucial differences.

Let's say you're sitting in a seminar or summatt when the speaker makes a statement that seems either innocuous or goes completely over your head. It is not unknown to hear an "ahhhhh" or "cool" emanating from your left such that, with your eyes closed, could fool you into thinking you're sharing a room with Gomer. Then a question will be asked of the speaker by said individual which, at first, no-body really understands. The difference being that, after a similarly long and painful exchange it will invariably turn out that the questioner has actually spotted some fundamental flaw or implication that no-one else did, and isn't merely asking to be convinced, at the freaking end of a Galois theory course, that you can't express all roots of a quintic as radicals.


This leads me to the inescapable conclusion that my supervisor is, by some bizarre cosmic trick, the man that John Bunnett was meant to be.

It's creepy.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Judicial activism, NZ style

Recently, my august colleague harbored a discussion linking judicial activism to bills of rights. Now, it seems to me that with or without a bill of rights the community will always, well, expect a certain level of judicial activism anyways.... or at least they should do. The separation of powers is, for rather obvious reasons, a damn good thing. Further, even competent and just governments cannot be expected to foresee every circumstance to which a given law may be applied - and so cannot possibly be expected to draft law, the interpretation of which will fail to be ambiguous in every possible circumstance to which it will be applied. Thus, at some point or other it will become inevitable that judges will find themselves staring down the barrel of multiple interpretations of the law to a given circumstance - one of which they must pick guided only by (we would hope) their reason and their conscience. Lastly, requiring that law-makers face a hostile judicial environment is, I rather think, a good thing for the democratic process in the long term anyway.

I would like, then, to take a quiet judicial-activism appreciation moment. I would like us to reflect that, on occasion, it can fall on the shoulders of judges to act as those that stand on the wall as our last lines of defense against a descent into barbarism. Perhaps we can all recall at this moment our favorite instance of such a moment. Much of my pinko-commo readership will, I imagine, be thinking of, say, the Mabo decision at this point. I am not. For me, there will always be the one definitive moment of an instance where, with the barbarians at gates of the courthouse a single judge stood firm and said .... "no. Here is a line that society simply must not cross. I cannot, in good conscience, allow such a pernicious blot on the name of humanity to stand." Further, I am pleased to say that this case occurred right here in my adopted home of New Zealand. Wiping away the tears, dear reader, I refer you to the details1.

1Make damn sure you read the readers comments. Oh, yeah, and thanks Helena.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

A moment in the day in the life of Fitz

"Why" I found myself asking myself "does nobody ever take me seriously?". Shaking my fists at an uncaring universe for effect I asked once more "Why????"1.

I then took a long hard look at the hands before me. "Ah", I said. "Perchance it's because I'm the kind of person who'd wear those."

On said hands were a pair of bright red (wind-proof) mittens. And not just any mittens, either. With these mittens, you can fold the portion covering your fingers back so as to render them into a set of fingerless gloves2 with large flappy attachments on the back. Flappy attachments which ... and get this ... can be folded over to make you fingerless gloves into mittens!!! Picture the scene, if you will. It's cold and windy, and I find myself stopping off for a point of business in a corner store. I fumble clumsily for some change with my bright red mittens on, then in frustration make as though to take them off. "But sir!" the good store-keep exclaims. "Quite apart from the obvious chore involved in removing then replacing such lovely mittens over such a trifle, you run the risk of accidentally leaving them behind!!". I smile and offer a rejoinder "worry not, noble store-keep, and observe!" Then, to the wonderment of all in the store I simply fold the top mitten-portion back to reveal my naked ever-nimble fingers. I conclude my business and carry on outside, where an icy wind bites at my poor bare fingers - but do I care? No sir! with a simple flick of the flap, so to speak, my fingers return to toasty goodness.

An unfortunate side-effect, however, is that I look like a dork.

1At this point the universe appeared to slow down so that, to my ears, the above exclamation sounded a little more like Whuuaaaayyyyy..........

2The kind you see on the hands of sad old drunks clutching a half-consumed bottle of cheap whisky in one hand with which to drown the reminiscences of broken dreams whilst singing, oh I don't know, Brother, can you spare a dime? and warming said hands over a fire in a 44-gallon drum.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

A real call to arms.....

Up until this very morning I had thought that my favourite Wikipedia article was the entry on the neenish tart, which wins this accolade for its public interest, accuracy and the obvious wealth of research that went into it (click on the one cited reference ... it's awesome).

After reading the latest xkcd, however, I have another one. That no-one on the talk page appears to notice the obvious, if unintended, satirical humour in the fact that the pre-amble has tags stating that "This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards" and that "All or part of this article may be confusing or unclear" is itself, I think, note-worthy (although, I really must tip my virtual hat at whoever left the "It seems to me that the added publicity won't hurt this article -- in fact, nearly any edit to it will have no choice but to improve it. For example, the entire "Logocentrism" section could be replaced by "PENIS PENIS PENIS LOL" and it would greatly improve the overall clarity." comment)

What really brings a sense of sorrow to my heart as regards this article, however, is how disappointing the history section is. I was rather hoping that a "find: 'vandal' " type search would reveal a little more than it actually did. To be sure, there have been some noble efforts1..... only not, I feel, nearly enough. For the most part, the 'vandalism' history appears mostly to refer to people trying to link to the xkcd comic in question, or something similar.

And then I thought to myself, well, that something can be done about this.... and, damn it, we're the people to do it. We have but to take the energy we put into our chalking war on that retarded 'we killed god: you don't care' campaign by these people and combine it with both our prior wiki-vandalism cunning and the fact that it's really, really hard for wikipedia to ban ip addresses that correspond to entire frickin' universities. What say you, dear reader? Shall we fuck this page up or what? I dream of a day when it becomes untenable for wikipedia to maintain a 'deconstruction' page consisting of anything more than a brief entry such as:

Deconstruction is a term used in contemporary literary criticism, philosophy, and the social sciences. Originally coined by Jacques Derrida, he apparently took the actual meaning of the word with him to the grave.
A single tear makes its way down my cheek as a contemplate the possibility that my blog may now become a force for good in this world.

1Others .... not so noble, exactly, but cheers Gemma just the same. And who are 'we' to talk here, anyways (I'm talking to you, here Martin)

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Ethel the Frog rides again..

...or, as I like to call it, From New Zealand's heart, I stab at thee1. It had occurred to me recently, yon reader, that I should probably be looking for a trivia competition here in sunny Wellington, what for tradition's sake and all. As it turns out, it's kind of difficult to find a pub here that doesn't have a quiz night. I opted for one in a nearby Irish pub. Irish pubs in Wellington, based on a sample size of one, can be distinguished from those in Brisbane in at least two ways:
  1. Most of the people behind the bar were actually born in Ireland, or at least lived there long enough to develop a very convincing accent.
  2. It is not considered sacrilegious to fail to have Guinness on tap.
I'm not at all sure how I feel about point # 2. Anyways, Trivia appears to be taken about as seriously as at Harry's..... and there were 15 teams there including my own, many of whom made up of some serious trivia freaks. All other teams were (it seemed to me) veritably chomping at the bit in their desire to bring about the complete annihilation of all that lived..... or at least as close to this as could be achieved by way of answering more trivia questions correctly than any of their opponents.

Into this grim arena stepped a single frog2. Ethel the frog. Me.

Why
was there only a single frog, I hear you ask дорог reader? The answer to this is two-fold. One potential team-mate felt it more important to discover that theirs was the best student band in Wellington (drawn from the poxy set of 10 bands who decided to enter the relevant competition at short notice .... not that I'm bitter or nothin'). The other had no good excuse whatsoever, and shall be duly punished with a bucket of soapy frogs and a pipe-cleaner3. In addition, there were various .... odd .... questions asked. Like "In which state of Australia is Alice Springs?" and "If Superman is Clark Kent, Who is the Phantom?". My answers to these questions commended me as a pedantic smart-arse, and they were duly marked wrong. My revenge shall be swift, cruel and probably imaginary.

To cut a long and terminally dull story short... I didn't actually come last. No sir, I came 14th. I managed to miss the entire last 'round' (there were 8), too, when the puzzle sheet in question was handed out at at a time when my entire team was in the toilet.

Notable Gets:

  1. Managing 4/10 on my own in a fucking sport round.
  2. Which South American country is a member of OPEC?
  3. Hmmm... that's about it, really.
Notable fuck-ups:

  1. Who is Cupid the son of? Notable because A) they were marking as correct only a single parent answer, and B) there are apparently 3 different accounts of Cupid's parentage, none of which I actually gave.
  2. Who had a hit in 1974 with the song "Billy don't be a hero"? This was asked in a "Heroes and Villains" round, for fucks sake. Not happy.
  3. Look, there were probably more, but I'm lazy.....

1It has been pointed out to me that this is silly. I mean, "as I like to call it..."? I'm writing this, for Christ's sake. If that's what I like to call it, that's what I should have called it, hey? Actually, there is a lie involved here .... it wasn't pointed out to me, exactly, it's more that it just kind of occurred to me. I thought that "it's been pointed out to me" sounded better, though.

2And I like to think that's the first time anyone ever committed that sentence to writing, incidentally. As it happens .... google backs me up. So there.

3My punishments tend to be cruel, creative, completely dis-proportionate to the gravity of the offense ...... and just that little bit silly.

Monday, July 14, 2008

Left-leaning social engineering gone MAD!!!1

Look. So, let's just get out of the way the rather reasonable premise that what two (or more) consenting adults do in the privacy of their own home is no business of you or I. This is, I feel, a principle even the Bill O'Riellys among us must pay at least lip service to..... and where Bill leads, dear reader, I follow. But .... when a group of pomo, "progressive", pinko, cafe-latte-mixed-with-chardonnay-in-a-bucket swilling, chattering class elites claim the right of certain individuals to force their lifestyle choice upon an innocent child .... well it's then that decent, hard-working Americans Australians such as you and I need to stand up and be counted. Especially when this lifestyle choice represents an abomination in the eyes of GOD himself2.

Which brings us to the case in question, involving a homosexual couple who identify themselves only as 'Roy' and 'Silo'3. Roy and Silo made a lifestyle choice, dear reader. And fair enough, says I. I mean, if they want to condemn themselves to eternal damnation well, that's just their choice. Unfortunately, however, those social engineers on the left (represented here by one Robert Gramzay, may this fag-enabler burn in HELL!!!!) just had to step in, didn't they? They gave Roy and Silo a child to raise. Yeah, that's right buddy, a poor innocent child. It's time the silent majority stood up to be counted here, and declared that enough, dear reader, is ENOUGH!!!! According to no lesser authority than GOD himself, children should be raised by a father and a mother. Yeah, you heard me Gramzay. Give my regards to Satan when you see him.



Roy and Silo .... or possibly Squawk and Milo shamelessly
flaunting their unholy relationship in the fag-enabling
pit that is Manhattan.... Cute penguins? Or an abomination before
god himself? I'll be the judge.........



1Let's see if this one works, hey.....

2Such as, say, the heinous decision to subsist on shellfish. And don't kid yourself, buddy, such sick individuals are out there.

3Or is it 'Squawk' and 'Milo'? I'm confused. Not happy, Scientific American.

Monday, July 7, 2008

Let the honeymoon phase begin

Chris and I find ourselves trapped, it would seem (dear reader), in our own private cycle of violence. Not knowing how, exactly, to make it stop I'd just like to usher in the honeymoon phase in the traditional manner ..... with silly youtube videos.

Let us begin with a classic:



... before considering the plight of that most under-appreciated of instruments, the kazoo:





Lastly, let me just say that Chris, honey, it'll never happen again.....

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Never one to let a pointless smack-down go .....

I come to bury Chris' blog, not to praise it;
The crap that bloggers write lives after them,
The good is oft hard to find, though one doth spend many an hour clicking "older posts"
So let it be with myblogisagoodblog ... The noble Georff
Hath told you Chris was pompous and sarcastic:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Chris answered it ...
Here, under leave of Georff and the rest,
(For Georff is an honourable man;
So are they all; all honourable men)
Come I to speak in myblogisagoodblog's funeral ...
It was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Georff says Chris was pompous and sarcastic;
And Georff is an honourable man….
It hath brought many bizarre prattlings of Christopher Pearson to our attention,
Whose ramblings didst suck smart from our heads:
Did this in Chris seem pompous and sarcastic1?
When the ukuleles played, Chris hath wept:
Sarcasm should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Georff says he was pompous and sarcastic;
And Georff is an honourable man.
You all did see that on March 14 2008
Chris didst write a trivia report as epic poetry
Which, when bested by a cheap cock joke, didst lead to much dummy spitting: was this pomposity?2
Yet Georff says he was pompous and sarcastic;
And, sure, he is an honourable man3.
I speak not to disprove what Georff spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love his blog once, not ..... completely ..... without cause:
What cause withholds you then to mourn for it?
O judgement! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason…. Bear with me;
My sincerity is on the floor there with my broken dreams of getting work done today,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

1Well, yes, actually....

2Well, again .....

3O.K. so, I have to admit here that the effort involved in saying that so many times with a straight face .... well, I'll be sore in the morning.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

I love XKCD

Just a brief note to say that today's XKCD speaks the truth, and that my links have been adjusted accordingly. Also, while I'm here, might I just add that I think this entry sums the Dave's Livejournal experience up for me better than any other I've read or been involved in.

And while I'm on a random link-fest, find here a new, compelling reason for Americans to vote for Obama.

Small talk in a lift

I was just in a lift with a view to getting back to my office with a cup of coffee I'd just made. The coffee room is on level 3. My office ........ is on level 4. Having absent-mindedly pressed the button I said to myself "why aren't you walking, dufus?" when, horror of horrors .... the door opened revealing a disgruntled passenger. I paused. In the few moments it took to scan my immediate vicinity for another individual who could conceivably have pressed the button the passenger in question asked me (my check confirmed no other plausible candidate - also, note that I have written this aside in brackets, and not as a footnote) "are you getting in?". Noting that my mouth was now too dry to speak, I mutely nodded and darted in keeping my eyes on the floor and hoping against hope my co-passenger would speak to me no further. It was not to be. "I'm going to level 5" he said (and there are only 5 levels), pointing toward the buttons by the door as though to politely check whether I needed a button pushed - but I could sense that tone of accusation in his voice. Like Phillip Ruddock and Anakin Skywalker before me ..... I had become the very thing I was sworn to hate.. "Me too" was all I could think to say.

Upon arrival at the 5th floor I paused at the staff directory on the wall. Initially, this was out of habit, since this allows me to dart through the swinging door accessing the rest of the floor just before it closes behind the second to last person in the lift. But as I did so, I now thought instead to wait until my silent accuser had left before just walking down the stairs. After a brief uncomfortable pause, I realised I was being watched. My lift-mate was holding the door open for me. "Are you coming?" he asked me, knowingly it seemed. "Oh. Yes." I walked calmly around the corner where I found and read one of those Maths is really useful, kids! signs they rather inexplicably put around maths buildings even on such floors as are occupied exclusively by people engaging in research ....... until I heard the tell-tale sound of a door closing that said to me that, barring another trick from my lift-using tormentor, it would now be safe to make good my exit. It was. I slunk quietly downstairs with my tail between my legs.

How was your morning?

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Never enter an arse-kicking contest with a hedge-hog, Chris....

There are people you pick fights with in this world, and then there are people you don't. In the first list we find bunnies, ducks and .... you, Chris. In the second list, we find weasels, ferrets, maniacal axe-wielding thugs and ..... me.

Anyway ... so it turns out that The Australian publishes pointless columns, the reading of which I find saps valuable time from my day which I might otherwise employ in reading Tolstoy or Jane Austen novels.

I mean, I ask you....
Watching them, I could see the degree to which many of us are often not really arguing with the people we’re arguing with; rather, we regress to a place where we are playing out our relationships with our parents.
...............................
The boss telling you to do something may trigger feelings of disempowerment not because his request is unreasonable but because you hear: “Son, do what I say!” Even the cleaning lady putting your socks in the wrong drawer can anger you because Mummy used to confuse your things with your older brother’s.
Perhaps I can make my umbrage a little more clear, though, if I give voice to my objections in iambic pentameter. Ahem.
Ruth Ostrow, and just quietly, she knows
says of life's ills ..... repeated childhood woes!
Forgive me maam, as I replace my rib,
if I suggest that you are trite, and glib.
I hope that this request will not annoy......
Could you, perhaps, call me a naughty boy?