happy traveller

my body is my temple

Every time I go to the farmer's market and look at the pretty organic apples for $2 a pound, or the smooth, plump tomatoes for $3 a pound I just have to keep reminding myself that 'No it's not actually that much to pay for good food and therefore good health'. I mean, you've only got one body.  You want shit to leave it, not be put into it. I find it infuriating that we douse our food in pesticides, that we basically torture the animals that we will consume by cramming them in cages and feeding them ground up bits of other animals. Newsflash! Cows are herbivores! They eat grass! Not other cows! 

People put food in their bodies that has completely unpronounceable ingredients. Apparently some chocolate now has something called polyglycerol polyricinoleate in it. What's this you ask? It's when you want to be all cheap ass and not use too much cocoa butter (which is what chocolate SHOULD be made of!).  According to Wikipedia it's a "yellowish, viscous liquid composed of poly glycerol esters of polycondensed fatty acids from castor oil. It may also be polyglycerol esters of dimerized fatty acids of soya bean oil". I don't know about anyone else but I don't want that in my chocolate.   

Yes I have been devouring books such as Fast Food Nation and Food Inc. recently. Well worth reading!

And don't even get me started on all the chemicals floating around our homes! Plastic is evil! Read Slow Death by Rubber Duck. You will be shocked. I'm not surprised that people are getting sicker. Even 25 years ago when I was a kid barely anyone had allergies or food intolerances. Now everyone seems to be allergic to something or has asthma or has cancer. 

 My eyes are open! I hope yours will be too.

got a light?

A customer at Coles reaction to the  seriously gross new images recently introduced on cigarette packets.

"Oh great!  I can't look at this!" she says disgustedly. "Now I have to go and buy something else to put my cigarettes in!" Then off she flounces off in a huff, already cramming a death stick in her mouth.

You know. I think the idea is supposed to be that you see the feral pictures of gangrenous limbs and lips covered in lesions and say:

'Hmm maybe I should, I don't know, QUIT SMOKING before all my body parts mutate and fall off?'

Just a thought.

show us your.....

Even after reading that depressing article in the 'Good Weekend' yesterday about the "rise of raunch culture" I still don't understand how some girls think that gyrating around in front of hollering men with barely any clothes on is 'empowering'? Can't women who do this see that it's degrading and humiliating? Why do they purposely make such a ridiculous spectacle of themselves like that?

Girls! There's nothing empowering about being treated like a piece of crap with breasts. If a guy is only interested in you because you sucked him off in the toilet within 10 minutes of meeting him he is not worth your time.  And guys, being treated like a penis driven idiot is not good either.

All the people doing stuff like this seem to be my age group but I seriously  don't know anyone like this and doesn't anyone want old fashioned romance anymore? I know I do. I want a guy who's smart, friendly, sweet and funny. Who is respectful of other people.  Not just after a quickie.  And don't guys want a girl who's intelligent, interesting and well..a real person? Not just a blowjob in the toilets?

what's news?

Today's headlines

Public servant denies leaking to journo

Hang-glider man spends night in tree

Speaking of sex, it's all talk

Robot receptionists to debut in Japan

and on a serious note..

When I don't have a whole lot to do, which is often, I like to read the online news. Today's was lots of fun with people suggesting that women should be allowed to fight on the front lines in wars. Personally I don't know why anyone would want to do that regardless of their gender but if a woman wants to go out there and get blown up or riddled with holes for her country then who are we to prevent her? Besides it's not like wars (stupid things that they are) are like they used to be with a bunch of guys running at each in a field. These days people just seem to sit far away and lob missiles at each other. Doesn't take a whole lot of physical stength for that. And I fail to see how having a uterus somehow renders a person incapable of driving a tank, shooting a gun or pushing a button.

More annoying was the education minister suggesting that intelligent design (read creationism) should be taught in schools. I think that's a great idea. They can teach it in the class where students learn that the world is actually flat, earth is the centre of the universe and the moon is made out of cheese.

bad parent

So Michael Jackson's not guilty. Can't say I'm surprised.  There seems to be a lot of people around with definite ideas of whether he is guilty or not.  Me, I don't know.  He's definitely guilty of being a complete weirdo (and not in a good way) and of immense stupidity but beyond that I guess we'll never really know.  You have to ask though what kind of parent let's their kid go over to a strange man's house, a man they barely know and who has had well publicised child molestation charges in his past, and then allows their kid to SLEEP IN HIS BED WITH HIM?! Are these people insane? This just screams WRONG! so loud it's deafening.  Honestly what's the matter with these people? I just hope that everyone has learned a lesson here and that Michael Jackson goes and hires himself a damn good psychiatrist.

so tragic

So Russ flipped out (again) and is in trouble (again) for attacking some poor guy who was probably not in the mood to bow and scrape before the superstar (yes again).  God that man is just an embarrassment to our nation.  Though at least they call him the New Zealand born film star and not Australian. I don't know what the deal is with us always trying to poach other countries famous people.  The media calls Nicole Kidman "Our Nic" and yet she was born in Hawaii!

On the upside the good stuff is updated with stories by Tipper and Auburn. Go check it out.

earth: love it or leave it

In the news yesterday there was yet another story about how we, humans, are stuffing up the planet. They even got over a thousand scientists out to prove it. Well all I can say is DUH! Not particularly eloquent but there you have it. I though it was completely obvious that earth is going down the toilet. And if it's obvious to me then it sure as hell should be obvious to everyone else. As long as we'd prefer to have a ton of woodchips over a rainforest, oceans full of sewage and plastic bags and dead animals rather than live ones we're all going to be stuffed. I just don't get it. People wreck the planet in order to make money. Well money isn't going to do you much good when your planet is fucked. You can't go buy another planet.

But I rest easy in the knowledge that we are insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Though we may like to think of ourselves as the centre of the universe we are most definitely not. Though it's a bit sad I think we'll probably wipe ourselves out. And now it looks like it might happen sooner rather than later. If we don't blow ourselves up, we'll pollute ourselves out of existance. But that doesn't really worry me. When we are gone something else will take our place. Just like when we popped up a short few thousands of years ago.

But hey. Maybe we'll come to our senses. We'll stop being so greedy and come up with ways to save our environment and at the same time we'll stop fighting stupid pointless wars, end poverty, famine and religious fundmentalism, everyone will be educated we will show our fellow humans and animals the same respect that we would hope to receive ourselves. We'll all live in peace and harmony and everyone will be happy.

Oh look what's in the news today. Japan wants to murder humpback whales and fin whales now. For scientific purposes of course. I guess all that murdering of minke, bryde, sperm and endangered sei whales just didn't provide enough meat, oops I mean scientific data, for them. The polls in Zimbabwe were so obviously rigged so that that that a lovely violent dictatorship will likely get back in and oh look the church gets all cranky and up in arms about a gay festival.

We are so dead.

did you see our new swimming pool?

Amazingly fabulous storm for the last 24 hours. No thunder or lighting unfortunately but lots of rain. Lots and lots of rain. So much rain that just looking out the window was a fun filled adventure. Ok maybe that's exaggerating but getting to work was pretty exciting. Especially when I came up Gordon St to get onto Geelong Rd and saw some poor bastard had driven his little car into the 1.2 metres of water collected under the bridge. Poking up out of the minature lake was the roof and tailights.

Moron: Hmm. There's a little water across the road. Well my shitbox is no 4WD but I'm sure it will make it across.

5 seconds later

Moron: Damn.

Only time I've regretted not buying a phone with camera.

One of the women downstairs was getting around the office moaning about how it took her 4 hours to get to work. Bloody hell woman! If that had been me I would have turned my arse around and gone home after 30 minutes. The freaks at my work are mad. They would come in to work if they were in a full body cast, if they were on their deathbed. They arrive early and stay late and glare reproachfully at anyone who leaves anywhere near on time. They take everything so seriously and wear suits even on slightly casual Friday. I constantly worry that they will see through my facade and realise that I really don't give a crap about what I do. I can't stand cars and the tasks I perform are simple. I spend most of my day trying to look like I'm doing work, though I'm really reading the Age online and the recently discovered what's new, pussycat? whilst keeping one eye on the clock 3.50, 3.51, 3.52. 5pm I'm out the door like I'm being chased by a pack of dingoes. Run suzy run!! Back to where the sane people are!

why people suck

I've been completely disgusted by the behaviour of Melbournians lately. Why have people suddenly turned into heartless, horrible grinches? Two incidents in recent weeks have rendered me almost speechless with outrage.

There was a man with a shotgun who created a seige situation near a main road out of the city. Of course the police responsibly closed down the road until the man eventually gave up himself up many hours later. This road closure resulted in hundreds of people being trapped in their cars for hours in traffic jams while trying to get home. This led to many angry calls to talkback radio stations by callers calling on police to 'just shoot the bastard so we can all go home'. Now normal people might think that this kind of statement was made in jest. But no. These people were serious. Then came the calls criticising the police and complaining that they were doing a terrible job. I personally think they did a wonderful job. The seige was ended with no one being hurt and with no risk to the public at any time. I think they did their jobs perfectly and I think that those selfish people who believe that a man's life is a reasonable price to pay so that they can get home in time to sit their stupid fat butts down on their couches and watch tv need to take a good hard look at themselves and ask why they are such disgusting people.

Last week a teenage girl was killed when she fell in front of a train. Of course all trains on that line, and there were a few, were stopped for a few hours due to this sad event. And what was the reaction? The headline in the newspaper blared that thousands of people were stranded. People were bitching and moaning about being late for work! What a huge inconveniance we are having to endure! Well gee it seems to me that being a bit late for work is not quite as big an inconveniance as being dead! Do these awful people have absolutely no compassion or human feelings? A child has died in one of the most horrible ways imaginable. Imagine the devastation of her family and her friends. Imagine the horror of the people who actually saw what happened and the train driver who will likely never be able to return to his job. And here are these disgusting losers who only care about whether they get to work on time. But at night they will come home to their families and the next morning they will get up and go to work again. But that girl will not come home again and her family will wake up in the morning and they will not have a daughter. But all these people care about are themselves and they are not ashamed to let everyone else know it.

I don't understand people lately. Everyone is so much more selfish, rude and nasty than they used to be. You can't walk down the street, get on the train or go to work without being abused by someone. Just two days ago I asked to check a kids ticket at work and I was yelled and sworn at. Everyday in the news people are being stabbed, shot, murdered, raped, losing their homes, being abused by their parents, being blown up or beat up. What about the stories about people who are doing heroic and wonderful things? Sometimes you hear about them but honestly they are so few and far between. And I think that that's very sad.