WARNING: Sappy speech to follow
So, this is farewell people. Despite the fact that it has been months since the Blogger quill's been picked up, I'm feeling a bit sad about it all. But, the fact is, Althea is being retired. She's had her day, and some rather glorious moments. Althea's puppetmaster may blog again. But Althea's shelf life is up, and it's time to do the merciful thing and lay this, the last of her blogs, to rest. Before she goes, though, she will have her last say.
One by one, the bloggers I knew and loved: Rorschach, Li, Ruby, Tript, Steph, the other Ruby(dot), Johanna, and more recently American Guy have taken their leave of blogland. Some of them became more immersed in their real lives. Some of them just got bored and migrated to Facebook and Twitter. And some of them were eaten by shark-shaped leprechauns. I have no evidence for this in any place except my imagination, yet I know it to be true.
My own reasons for departure are far more complex than that of any person who has ever ceased to blog, at any time, anywhere. You're not going to get it, but I get to justify my reasons anyway. I've been journaling a lot over the past several months (y'know, in the tradition ink pen and papyrus paper sense) and it's been very personal. I've tried several times to do a blog entry, and it felt like it was either going to be too superficial, or too raw. So I left it alone.
I've been accused of being too negative before, with the name of my first blog "Dream Inevitably Lead To Hideous Implosions" cited as a piece of primary evidence for this. I will admit to the court that I have indulged in the negative and obsessive, and as much as is possible, I intend to leave that luxury behind.
Lastly, and most importantly, my current employment situation is not ideal for me. I am now actively pursuing a viable career in writing, which is a fact that I scarcely believe, but there it is. I need to believe in it to make it happen, and to do that, I need to let all my various side projects go to nurture the belief and do the legwork for turning the dreams and vague possibilities into my day-to-day reality.
Nonetheless, it would be remiss of me to omit the fact that my blog(s) have given me many gifts. Through blogging, I have practiced my writing, creative and otherwise, and been fortunate enough to read some superbly talented writers express themselves freely. Using my blog as a propeller, I have achieved a really important, long-term dream of mine, which is coming to Melbourne to live. It has been one of the greatest gifts I have ever been able to give myself.
Above all, my blogging helped me be entertained and engaged by life (albeit in an artifical via fibre optic cables kinda way) throughout 3 out of 4 moderately depressed years of working in shitty finance/investment jobs. That's a blessing that can't be counted.
I don't know what else to say other than this: it's been real. Especially when it hasn't been.
Ciao folks.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Friday, July 10, 2009
Still Here, Still Pretty
You heard it here people.
More to come.
**Update** Not so much more, as it turns out.
More to come.
**Update** Not so much more, as it turns out.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
How To Spread Superstition
No comments!!
This fotograph taken in 1916 is showing a figure likely being the soul of someone departing.
A couple took a picture of their one year old baby in the car. The car stopped outside a cemetery of the 17th century. NO COMMENTS.
A couple take a photo of their baby , while the TV was switched off. This face appeared. The fact that a picture was taken, its proved by the flash next to the figure!
This ia a scene from the film called 'Three men and a baby'. A boy behind the curtains appeared. They say that this boy was killed in the same room that the film was taking place.
This picture was taken by a reporter in Indonesia , in 1993. The reporter wanted to take a photo of a room where a mass killing was done.When the photo was developed showed this!! It is said that people that were looking at this picture for long, had nervous breakdown problems afterwards.
NO COMMENTS!!!!!!!! Look At These photos Carefully!!!
This fotograph taken in 1916 is showing a figure likely being the soul of someone departing.
A couple took a picture of their one year old baby in the car. The car stopped outside a cemetery of the 17th century. NO COMMENTS. 
A couple take a photo of their baby , while the TV was switched off. This face appeared. The fact that a picture was taken, its proved by the flash next to the figure!
A couple on vacation took a photo of their daughter.When the film was developed, a lady without legs appeared.
This ia a scene from the film called 'Three men and a baby'. A boy behind the curtains appeared. They say that this boy was killed in the same room that the film was taking place.
This picture was taken by a reporter in Indonesia , in 1993. The reporter wanted to take a photo of a room where a mass killing was done.When the photo was developed showed this!! It is said that people that were looking at this picture for long, had nervous breakdown problems afterwards.
NO COMMENTS!!!!!!!! Look At These photos Carefully!!!
If You Don't Send This to at Least ten People in the Next 2 Hours .....You will Forever have Bad Luck.....If You do...Something Good Will Happen to you in the Near Future !!!!
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Internet, internet, wherefore art mine internet?
I was going to whinge about my lack of home internet, but that's gotten old. It's yesterday's news kids. And instead of sitting here thinking about how to structure (and then not proofread) a post on catapults as a perfectly viable method for transportation (which I'm sure they could be), I'm going to do a rhyme.
Because, you see...
Doing a rhyme,
Takes up so little time,
It's easy, you see...
Not like 13x14x3
You can make it up in your head,
Or make it up on a plate of red,
Whatever, I'm still tryings to recover,
From a drunken night with colleagues, I find it an amazing stat
That in a group of eleven not one potential lover.
Makes it easy to keep the rule,
Don't mix sex with work, nor with school.
I love silly poetry,
It amuses the crap out of me.
But sadly this one must end for I cannot countenance,
Staying awake much longer, this picture of awesomeness needs sleep maintenance.
Because, you see...
Doing a rhyme,
Takes up so little time,
It's easy, you see...
Not like 13x14x3
You can make it up in your head,
Or make it up on a plate of red,
Whatever, I'm still tryings to recover,
From a drunken night with colleagues, I find it an amazing stat
That in a group of eleven not one potential lover.
Makes it easy to keep the rule,
Don't mix sex with work, nor with school.
I love silly poetry,
It amuses the crap out of me.
But sadly this one must end for I cannot countenance,
Staying awake much longer, this picture of awesomeness needs sleep maintenance.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Conversation Revolution
People, I'm excited. We are about to experience something wonderful. Significant advances in individual liberties and freedom of expression as well as open-mindedness of the general population. And it's all thanks to, you guessed it....
Hands-free mobile phone users.
What?!? Those annoying cockwads?!?!!! I hear your say, with my bionic ears.
It's true. Those annoying cockwads are ushering is a new era. A dawning, if you will, of greater human understanding and tolerance.
The realisation came upon me when I was reading one-liner reader opinions in the disrespected publication MX and there was one as follows;
"It's getting more and more difficult to tell whether someone is having a mental breakdown or just talking on their hands-free phone."
First of all, since when was it a sign of mental illness that one conduct conversations with oneself in public hearing? Oh, right, since there was a implicit society-wide agreement that one-person conversations were taboo, and hence, anyone who holds aforementioned conversations must not be able to help themselves and are therefore, non-compus mentus.
Only it's even more sinister than that - the scope of this agreement has widened to include peoples houses. Even their minds.
How did such an absurd agreement come about? We may never know. As a result of my observations on the matter I suspect a variety of reasons... as follows...
-Because It makes people feel uncomfortable and insecure when people adjacent to them in public spaces talk in their general direction, but they aren't talking to them. Tends to make most people a bit "miffed."
-To more easily identify schizophrenia sufferers and other persons experiencing dangerous forms of psychosis. (Yeah, like the bloody axe isn't half a clue.)
-Due to general misunderstanding of the illusory nature of "self" and the subjective nature of "sanity", and hence not realising or fully appreciating that when someone is talking to themselves, even when that someone is "perfectly sane", there can often be an exchange. With value even.
Stupid people.
Despite the overwhelming presence of stupid people - the tables will turn. The streets, restaurants and cafes, the trains, trams and buses -the supermarket- will be filled with people talking to themselves, whether they are in possession of a hands-free phones or not.
I have seen a small glimpse of the future, which I'm delighted to share with you.
From modest beginnings, the tiny, hands-free phones will become so prolific that people will become used to talking in public spaces, using no apparent device, to people who aren'there. The most intolerant and jusgemental people won't notice when the next generation (Generation Scabby-Ears) begin to use that as a cover to have loud conversations with themselves on public transport.
Eventually, people will cotton on. Only, because Gen Y bred like rabbits in response that global economic crisis way back when (around about the time that all forms of currency were replaced with peanuts and mulitnational CEOs were replaced by ethically superior lemurs), Gen Scabb-E will have exceeded the voting power of all other living generations. Legislation regarding the inalienable right of people to have audible conversations with themselves in public.
The leap in productivity will be astounding. GDP rockets in the progressive countries who adopt this legislation (USA, Australia, New Zealand, UK, Spain and Svalbard), entire independent of that whole business of ripping the earth apart and killing people in Africa to get collective hands on rocks. People will be happier and more in tune with themselves.
.
There will be minor resistance from the "noise pollution movement" (mostly from crochety Gen-Xers) which will be violently put down and quietly fade into history. Especially since developments in hearing aid technology - instruments which better assist you in not hearing what other people are saying. There then will be even more minute resistance from the "natural sound movement" which will be put down even more violently. Because nobody likes hippies.
In the end, we will reach a point where entirely new social conventions wil develop....
"Hiya, how's it going!!!" "Oh, good, good." "No, not you man, I was talking to one of my more reticent selves - we haven't caught up in ages." "Oh, I'm sorry man. Please don't let me interrupt."
"I'm really interested in how the boys are going, but I'm dying to know whether the waitress Jenny's' selves have kissed and made up - I'll be with you in two shakes.."
*Hey that guy's the only person on this train to not having a conversation with himself or anyone else - what's he got to hide????"
Hands-free mobile phone users.
What?!? Those annoying cockwads?!?!!! I hear your say, with my bionic ears.
It's true. Those annoying cockwads are ushering is a new era. A dawning, if you will, of greater human understanding and tolerance.
The realisation came upon me when I was reading one-liner reader opinions in the disrespected publication MX and there was one as follows;
"It's getting more and more difficult to tell whether someone is having a mental breakdown or just talking on their hands-free phone."
First of all, since when was it a sign of mental illness that one conduct conversations with oneself in public hearing? Oh, right, since there was a implicit society-wide agreement that one-person conversations were taboo, and hence, anyone who holds aforementioned conversations must not be able to help themselves and are therefore, non-compus mentus.
Only it's even more sinister than that - the scope of this agreement has widened to include peoples houses. Even their minds.
How did such an absurd agreement come about? We may never know. As a result of my observations on the matter I suspect a variety of reasons... as follows...
-Because It makes people feel uncomfortable and insecure when people adjacent to them in public spaces talk in their general direction, but they aren't talking to them. Tends to make most people a bit "miffed."
-To more easily identify schizophrenia sufferers and other persons experiencing dangerous forms of psychosis. (Yeah, like the bloody axe isn't half a clue.)
-Due to general misunderstanding of the illusory nature of "self" and the subjective nature of "sanity", and hence not realising or fully appreciating that when someone is talking to themselves, even when that someone is "perfectly sane", there can often be an exchange. With value even.
Stupid people.
Despite the overwhelming presence of stupid people - the tables will turn. The streets, restaurants and cafes, the trains, trams and buses -the supermarket- will be filled with people talking to themselves, whether they are in possession of a hands-free phones or not.
I have seen a small glimpse of the future, which I'm delighted to share with you.
From modest beginnings, the tiny, hands-free phones will become so prolific that people will become used to talking in public spaces, using no apparent device, to people who aren'there. The most intolerant and jusgemental people won't notice when the next generation (Generation Scabby-Ears) begin to use that as a cover to have loud conversations with themselves on public transport.
Eventually, people will cotton on. Only, because Gen Y bred like rabbits in response that global economic crisis way back when (around about the time that all forms of currency were replaced with peanuts and mulitnational CEOs were replaced by ethically superior lemurs), Gen Scabb-E will have exceeded the voting power of all other living generations. Legislation regarding the inalienable right of people to have audible conversations with themselves in public.
The leap in productivity will be astounding. GDP rockets in the progressive countries who adopt this legislation (USA, Australia, New Zealand, UK, Spain and Svalbard), entire independent of that whole business of ripping the earth apart and killing people in Africa to get collective hands on rocks. People will be happier and more in tune with themselves.
.
There will be minor resistance from the "noise pollution movement" (mostly from crochety Gen-Xers) which will be violently put down and quietly fade into history. Especially since developments in hearing aid technology - instruments which better assist you in not hearing what other people are saying. There then will be even more minute resistance from the "natural sound movement" which will be put down even more violently. Because nobody likes hippies.
In the end, we will reach a point where entirely new social conventions wil develop....
"Hiya, how's it going!!!" "Oh, good, good." "No, not you man, I was talking to one of my more reticent selves - we haven't caught up in ages." "Oh, I'm sorry man. Please don't let me interrupt."
"I'm really interested in how the boys are going, but I'm dying to know whether the waitress Jenny's' selves have kissed and made up - I'll be with you in two shakes.."
*Hey that guy's the only person on this train to not having a conversation with himself or anyone else - what's he got to hide????"
Friday, May 1, 2009
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Drowning In Mediae
As a preface to this post, I'd like to inform you all that it has been decided that media as a plural term to describe multiple tools for storing and communicating data / information is just not doing it for me. Therefore, we will introduce the new, somehow more satisfying, plural form - mediae.
Has there ever been this much mediae? I don't think there has been. There are, of course, the conventional forms; TV, noose-papers, trashy magazines, outdoor displays, etc.
Enter internet stage right. Whoosh! Zing! Rhu-ka-puh-zazz! There she is; the best, spankiest media form ever to grace humanity. For a good number of years there it is generally thought of as one single form of media.
Similar to the Behaviouralists, those of us who thought this were proved wrong! Completely wrong! Email is as distinctive a form of media to a networking site as a hand-written letter is to a speech at an industry networking event. Thus the internet can only be described in terms of mediae. All the various little subsets of mediae are mind-bogglingly numerous.
Email(s). Blog. Facebook. LinkedIn. Message forums. News. (So much news.) Last but not least - The Twits. I don't know about anyone else, but I can't keep up with them all. There is too much information that I want to receive, and too many channels that it frequents!!!
Overload!!! Mega-information overload!!!!!!
Shutting.....down.
Public service announcement to OZ-e government - there ain't no need for mandatory censorship over here. The constraints of work firewalls, lack of home internet solution, attention span, and a mere 24 hours in a day are its own kind of censorship.
In other words - don't you dare automatically censor my internet. You'll inevitably fuck up what you're trying to accomplish, and although I ofttimes these days get the feeling of overwhelmededness by the masses and masses of internet media, I reserve the right to be overwhelmed.
And that's my final word on that. I don't approve of government imposed media censorship for the benefit of individuals.
It is interesting to consider the effects of increased access to reams upon reams (or screens upon screens) of information though. Does it actually hinder people to have that much ready access in that they become disinterested in looking for it and are more likely to ignore information that's right in front of them because there's so damn much of it? Are there more cases of analysis paralysis as a result of pervasive mediae? And are people sacrificing doing to get in more media-ing? Where do the waterfalls of information with increasing degrees of pressure carry us?
These are the mysteries.
(Twilight Zone theme plays and screen fades to black)
Has there ever been this much mediae? I don't think there has been. There are, of course, the conventional forms; TV, noose-papers, trashy magazines, outdoor displays, etc.
Enter internet stage right. Whoosh! Zing! Rhu-ka-puh-zazz! There she is; the best, spankiest media form ever to grace humanity. For a good number of years there it is generally thought of as one single form of media.
Similar to the Behaviouralists, those of us who thought this were proved wrong! Completely wrong! Email is as distinctive a form of media to a networking site as a hand-written letter is to a speech at an industry networking event. Thus the internet can only be described in terms of mediae. All the various little subsets of mediae are mind-bogglingly numerous.
Email(s). Blog. Facebook. LinkedIn. Message forums. News. (So much news.) Last but not least - The Twits. I don't know about anyone else, but I can't keep up with them all. There is too much information that I want to receive, and too many channels that it frequents!!!
Overload!!! Mega-information overload!!!!!!
Shutting.....down.
Public service announcement to OZ-e government - there ain't no need for mandatory censorship over here. The constraints of work firewalls, lack of home internet solution, attention span, and a mere 24 hours in a day are its own kind of censorship.
In other words - don't you dare automatically censor my internet. You'll inevitably fuck up what you're trying to accomplish, and although I ofttimes these days get the feeling of overwhelmededness by the masses and masses of internet media, I reserve the right to be overwhelmed.
And that's my final word on that. I don't approve of government imposed media censorship for the benefit of individuals.
It is interesting to consider the effects of increased access to reams upon reams (or screens upon screens) of information though. Does it actually hinder people to have that much ready access in that they become disinterested in looking for it and are more likely to ignore information that's right in front of them because there's so damn much of it? Are there more cases of analysis paralysis as a result of pervasive mediae? And are people sacrificing doing to get in more media-ing? Where do the waterfalls of information with increasing degrees of pressure carry us?
These are the mysteries.
(Twilight Zone theme plays and screen fades to black)
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