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Showing posts from August, 2025

TRENT REZNOR'S TO-DO LIST SEPTEMBER 23 2001

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  1. Stop taking drugs 2. Go to gym 3. Get haircut 4.  Have lunch with David Bowie 5.  Have another, better haircut 6. Write music for some movie about the internet or something ( note to self: what is Social Media 1!!?? 7. Eat two kilos of raw meant, go back to gym 8. Ring Gary Numan. Tell him "Cars" is a great song 9. Go on Ebay. Look for reasonably-priced domestic unicorn

HOW TO START A WAR BEFORE AFTERNOON TEA

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You'll need some fanatics. Bunnings has a good selection but if you're shopping on a Friday you'll be wanting to get there early as the best ones are usually taken by sundown. Keep women out of it as they tend to have a moderating and ecumenical approach, which is the last thing you want. Beards. You want as many beards as possible. Blokes with beards, automatic weapons, and a family history of mental illness going back at least three generations.                                          Next. Right. You've only got a couple of hours left so get a move on, lickety-split, and pick a fight at the UN in the morning session. Anything'll do. Complain that China's trying to keep you off the Security Council because you've been buying all your catmeat from Taiwan. Lodge a formal motion of censure. Then do a weird long and rambling lunchtime interview claiming that the Koran is a deep fake I...

THE PAST IS A FOREIGN COUNTRY AND I'M HAVING A SPOT OF BOTHER GETTING THROUGH CUSTOMS

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  Yesterday, 23 June, 2025, I bought a brand new second-hand Chinese quartz watch from an op-shop for $5. Today I put a !5$ battery in it & we're good to go. Is it now already ? Yes. Yes it is. Most emphatically. Our story starts in Wellington, on Wednesday 4th June on the Interisland Ferry, but if it's anything like the rest of the narrative, it will quickly grow restless and want to go back to Fri 30th May, which is when I flew into Wellington to attend the 50th Anniversary of   TVNZ's AVALON STUDIO COMPLEX where 50 years earlier colour television was unleashed on an unsuspecting public. Along with a second channel. Yes, count them folks, you now have TWO television channels to watch at any given time. Well up until midnight. Yes midnight. Late enough. Why anyone would want to watch television after midnight instead of getting a good night's sleep is perplexing, even a little worrying, but we'll say no more about it, but I think some of you people need to take...

THE WAR ON DRUGS

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LT COLONEL WARBURTON SMYTHE-SMYTHE, SPECIAL UNDERCOVER ENVOY APPOINTED BY UN SECURITY COUNCIL TO TALK SOME SENSE INTO THESE  The President is sitting at his desk in the Oval Office, nibbling on unicorn-liver pate and quince jam while effortlessly completing the Times Cryptic Crossword and occasionally picking at his teeth with a gold toothpick. His 23 year old Chief of Staff, Jeremy, is brushing down the familiar lumpen blue suit, too-long red tie, and orange fright wig poking out of the breast pocket. He is holding the outfit out at arms length, his disgust evident. JEREMY  I wish you didn't have to wear this.. this clownish costume, sire, God it's awful TRUMP     It is truly fucking awful. That's why I gotta wear it. The people they see me wearing that and they think He is one of us. We can trust him. Tell you what Jeremy old bean. I turn up in Armani, this White House is fucked.  JEREMY   You are, my liege, in all things, wise & witty &...

Is 14 coffees too many ?

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                                                                            Or should that be 'are 14 coffees too many ?' Are we talking about a situation or a quantity or in fact a situation caused by a quantity or a quantity as a result of which the situation has evolved. Or is it an amount in which case 'is' would theoretically be correct but you have to ask yourself as you teeter between 13 and 14 coffees, is correct grammar the thing to be really worried about ? And really are we talking about an objective situation here ? Some of us can drink 14 or 15 coffees and barely notice it. Is 14 coffees too much for who ? Or is that whom ? and does it matter. Is it too much for you and does that as a result automatically mean it's too much for me ? And what exactly do we mean when we...

Tour of Duty II APOSTROPHE NOW

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  Two tours of Nam back in 66 & 67 ? Pshaw. Six months in Afghanistan embedded with some fucking suicide mission US Marines half of them addicted to smack & the other half packaging smack up to ship back home 2 kg at a time inside each body bag ? Yeah nah. Oh sure you've probably got PTSD, but you think you've been through hell ? You know nothing. You have not taken a three year old to Billie Lids in Preston East on a Sunday morning. At ten-thirty. You do not know. You can never know know. Not unless you were there, man.  1030 hrs Sunday June 15. "Billie Lids" is a medium-security indoor adventure playground, entirely covered in vinyl and small children. Sartre in Hui Clos (No Exit) said hell is other people. Hey Jean-Paul, I see your "other people" and raise you twenty kids and thirty parents who've gathered to help Tallulah celebrate her fourth birthday with bells and whistles and pate and Peppa Pig I'd got the call 30 minutes earlier. Just...