Words

And when the sun goes down into the sky
together we shall sit and we shall sup
and we shall eat and drink the heady wine.
Let us share the overflowing cup.

We'll ramble on the coast, each side by side.
We'll feel the sting of bracing, salty air.
We'll feel the moon pull at the ocean tide
and wonder that we are together there.

One day these things shall have to come to pass.
And then the end will come, as so it must.
No longer shall we smell the summer grass.
No longer shall we know each other's trust.

So let us walk and feel the cooling breeze
before they're just forgotten memories.

~~~
Those rather sombre words are from a crash test dummies song. Haunting yet upbeat. It hurts my soul, but I feel it's rather fluffy and lacks substance.

I'm watching Clerks 2. It's very crass

I was watching Family Guy this evening and I saw this rather disturbing scene.

Has anyone seen the Centrelink ad that's running at the moment? It's such a good thing that we fine young women $6,000 for not informing the state of their living arrangements.

I have been thinking of writing a treatment. The only problem is I don't know exactly what a treatment is.

Remind me to write about Jon Theodore's drumming.

Ideas from my mind to my fingertips to your eyes to your mind

At work today, I got to do a really interesting site visit. I've realised one of the great things about my new job is that I get to go out and about often. Apart from seeing how the stuff works, it's rooly nice just being in the outdoors.

In other news, I just had my second feature for Cosmos published online. It's about some climate change mitigation technologies. I've tried to strike a balance between detail and perspective, between humour and earnestness, between legibility and nonsense, between objectiveness and critical appraisal.

I think this article has a lot of interesting information, but it could have flowed a little better.
I certainly think that writing features is fun, and I'm curious myself as to what some topics of the future might be. I deign to openly speculate on things I may write about here:

hofstadter / ai / analogy
science of sport appreciation
futurologists
Futurama

Pain is what I feel each day
when you take my pride away
Somethin somethin is not right
and it feels so black and white

Way back when in '68
brothers didn't have it great
They fought back the civil rights


Black is black not blue or purple
Being black is like a curcle
Round and round we all go
Where we end up I don't know

btw the article is here

Return of the Mack

Remember that song? It was great, because it created the illusion of history. Who's Mack, where'd he go and why's he back?

I was watching MediaWatch on the ABC tonight and they mentioned how a story on rental price hikes was greatly exaggerated by the media. The source of the story was partly a real estate lobby group. I just can't get over how many lobby groups there are. They have money, time and a media presence. It makes me sick.

I think JR Saul made the point well. When corporations are the dominant structure - in the broad sense, so including non-profit organisations too - you just have a bunch of groups arguing for their own self-interest. Some of them may be enlightened, most aren't and it's a crappy way to run a society. Wake up, this country needs a f**kin' shake up!

If you agree with me, register your support at www.elliotgoblet.com.au

Chimpanzee Stone Age

Hmm. Nutcracker performed by monkeys. I'd pay to see that.

Me first feature article!

It's on viruses. Read it, i dare ya.

Embarrassment, thy name be Klair Sowlitch

What woebegone utterances coughed out the mouth with the grace of a splutterer devoid of the ability to hit more than 14% of her notes. I've seen her before, and she wasn't this bad then. I love you now more than ever before. Before too long, that is. That's why I'm trying to tell you this.

I care that you hear about it. If you're gonna have half a chance in the wasteland you've inherited, you'd better listen to me now boyman. Pig man, Jerry! PIG MAAAANNN!!!!

It's kinda hard to write they way to make the right persona pay
That is why attention getters
Baseball dreamers clubbed bedwetters
Fall about as though in stream
With the great divine blue beam that's glowing softly in the light produced on such a black black night as this.
It lights the way.

***

Perry was going about the city, as he liked to call it, when the sun flashed out from clouds. Out shone the brutally warming sun. Shadows disappeared, light abounded and warmth was to be had when the rays caught his cheek. As he paused to feel the gently scorching sun he noticed something. A man he knew, a homeless man walked past with his down hat, flat back and cane.

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The weather was fine and the homeless man, known to Perry as Smeeghwell Tops but to others as Papa Subu'tx, calmly reminded Perry of the ransack he had planned for tonight. Perry confided that he actually had a few other things to do, but if he saw him out and about he'd wish him well and give him some wine.

You see, Perry adhered to the belief that the juice of life that is to be quenched with gusto could only be obtained in the Woodside Fruit Orchard, meaning that it's good to give people wine when you're out and about.

This was just another night in Chicado, the city at the hub of the post-apocalyptic rebirth, with 12 people.

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All my life, I have carried the aching and bruising need to

1) have brain surgery

2) burn

3) burn for you

4) confide my darkst inner fears to strangers, often embracing dogs that catch my eye. The eye may be caught under the following circumstances: use a good bait: member of opposite sex, complex pattern, dyin butterflies. When casting reel, try not to flex abs, as this can cause whiplash to passers by. Once caught, the eye fights mightily to retain her place in the sea of her socket, but with persistence, she will eventually tire and snag herself on a sea cucumber. 5) reduce waste

6) reduce my waste

black mamba my ass

First feature article awaits

I'm working on my first feature article for Cosmos, it's about viruses and how great they are. Joy!

Australian Flag banned at Big Day Out

People fortunate enough to listen to 2GB and watch daytime TV, and eventually anyone exposed to the mainstream media, have recently learned that the Australian flag has been banned at the Big Day Out!

Last year there was a bit of violence and unsavoury behaviour committed by some flag-bearers. This was in the aftermath of the Cronulla riots.

This has been a wonderful opportunity for politicians to point out how patriotic they are - more than everyone else.

I don't know about you, but I find the thought of 60,000 Australian flags in a confined, alcohol and drug-laden space a little scary.

Still, are they right to ban it?

As it turns out there is no ban. But there is a discouragement of flags being brandished inconsiderately leading to increased tension. And keep those giant flags at home! Here's what Big Day Out peeps say.

What do you think?

My alter ego

Spam that made my laugh

Vanced Woodards: bibb tubular accompaniment mw

careful consideration reveals that the truly great nonsense must have a bit of sense in it too. For some reason, this one almost makes sense to me. I found myself nodding in agreement, then nodding off to sleep.

Artful Science is back

Did you know that some people with hippocampal amnesia find it hard to imagine things? Shock!

If you'd like to find out more, check out the full story at Cosmos.

I would like to volunteer my tutoring services to indigenous students

Any ideas on where to look?

interview doctoring

Here's a pretty damn funny doctoring of Britney & JT from Weird Al, whose timing is a little off.

It is very reminiscent of some of Tony Martin's work on TripleM.

In case you're wondering, the pic's from Rocky Balboa, the latest and perhaps final instalment in the Rocky series. It was a good move to drop the VI, as that allows us to temporarily forget V.

Jim Carrey reportedly begged Sylvester Stallone to cast him as Broke Pete, Rocky's has-been next door neighbour who inspires him to return to his previous heights of pugilistic prowess. "He told me he was gagging for it," Sly said. "When a man like Jim Carrey begs you, you listen to him, believe you me."

Either that, or it's from The Number 23, coming soon to a thee8r near you. In it, Jim Carrey plays saxophonist Otto Pfister. The star performance is really Carrey's convicing depiction of a man suffering from worms. Critics are openly, freely and broadly tipping him to be nominated for a Tony this year.

Ever since getting tattooed while on a bender in Philadelphia, Carrey has found it hard to find suitable roles in which to display his 'guns'. In #23, they receive approximately 23 minutes of camera time.

The film's backdrop is the Sydney suburb of Petersham circa the early '80s. Carrey's Australian accent was so good, he was often mistaken for Richie Benaud when making phone calls.

Welcome in my new year

It is with Graham Leisure that I welcome you to the new, adjusted blog.

Wow!

Here's the questions, and my own answers, to a new year's survey my friends and i filled out over on yonder evening.

Highlight of the year: Yellow, at several billion light years
Best Song:Next stop Takadanobaba
Best Album: Crash Test Dummies, Songs Of The Unforgiven
Best Musical Experience: Listening to 2day fm
Best book:Oryx & Crake, Margaret Attwood
Best/most drunken moment. Drinking a beer
Lowlight: kind of murky, at the bottom of the ocean
Short-term goals: be at 3.14159... with the multiverse
Long-term goals: Buy the newspaper and burn it

I wonder what your response would be to these questions, unknown reader?

kilometrestone

it's not quite a milestone - about 5/8 of the way there. But my first article has been published in Cosmos magazine proper, issue 12 dec 2006/ jan 2007. it's the article about mutant white mice who can tan and will never ever suffer cancer. My heart goes out to these brave mice.

A male friend of mine - a deep friend - found out about cloaca the other day. When did you find out about cloaca? You recognised its significance immediately, did you not?

I am currently preparing a counterpoint to the opinion piece written by Martina Newell-McGloughlin. It will appear in the pages of

History of the Roman Empire, Vol. 3
Nimrod - Octavius Flubius

the shitz

i've got 'em. they're with me. We travel in threes. Jorgondy, Blasman, and me.

403 lumps of mini demountable furphies. just as long as i can keep them close to my chest, the cards can fall as they may. i do not care. it's surreal, this feeling. like momentarily lifting my head above the compound walls and catching a speck of the outside world. some people believe that everything happens for a reason. what they don't realise is that nothing actually happens. ever. there is - and that, my enemigos, is it.

Four forwards with impressive numbers

But extremely varying wraps. TD, everyone knows he's a star. Dwight Howard, well he's the definition of a manchild. People go on an on about his upside, but if he keeps up what he's doing now, that's enough for me. Carlos Boozer was almost hounded out of town for being a no show in the first year of a six year, $65 million deal with Utah. Now people think he's actually earning that. Which brings us to Andris Biedrins. Nobody expected him to be putting up numbers like this, and nobody expects him to maintain it for the season. We'll see. As it is, he's top 15 rebounding, top 5 field goal percentage, top 5 blocks.

The lines:
TD @ GSW
22pts (9 of 18), 16 boards, 4 assists, 1 steal, 6 blocks, 5 turnovers

AB vs SA
18pts (8 of 15), 15 boards, 4 assists, 1 steal, 6 blocks, 1 turnover

a win for golden state surprisingly

DH @ Jazz
21 pts, 16 boards

CB vs Magic
21 pts, 9 boards (mind you, AK47's back and he took a little of the scoring and rebounding slack off Boozer, putting up an AK-like 11 pts, 5 boards, 5 assists, 3 steals, 4 blocks)

a win for the Magic, suprisingly

the only surprise I need now is GS to win @ Orlando.

In other news, I got my results for Honours yesterday. And they were good.

FACT

i am bitterly disgusted by the behaviour of the federation against copyright theft. They put out a really funny anti-piracy ad and i am forced to watch it before my lano & woodley dvd.

Somebody made a factual addition to their entry at wikipedia referring to this proper Gandhi, but it was removed by the thought police. Instead, we now have this:

"FACT's adverts appear at the beginning of many videos and DVDs, urging consumers to check whether they have a genuine copy, and providing contact details to report any illegalities."

Which version do you prefer?