Your Opinion Is Wrong™

Just like I did last year on my other blog, and as Craig did recently on his, I will now do...now.

I shall rant about Christmas and explain, in simple terms, why it sucks.

1) The main reason, apparently, that we celebrate Christmas, is to celebrate the birth/life of Jesus. Unfortunately, no rituals that are performed during Christmas have anything to do with Jesus. Christmas trees, Santa Claus, Reindeer...the only thing I can think of that related to Jesus is eggnog. He loved that stuff. Some would say that the giving of gifts might have something to do with how he lived his life...

2) Giving gifts to others is a good sign of generosity. Jesus was apparently a little like this in his time. But how can you call it generosity when we're setting aside a single day of the year for the sole purpose of giving to people that we know (by rote) who we (usually) know will return the favour? (again, by rote) I would have said it'd be a better display of generosity to go around doing stuff for people you don't know, all throughout the year. That's what Jesus did, or so the autobiographical account by William Shatner tells me.

3) Most people who celebrate christmas in the above-described fashion aren't even christian anyway. Quite a few atheists (or people who just don't know/care one way or the other what they believe) celebrate christmas just like any devout christian. More or...less...

4) One thing that DOES happen a lot during christmas is buying. Lots and lots of buying. People running around like crazy, spending money. Retailers all around the western world are laughing come christmas time, and I really don't think I have to explain why.

Our new god is commercialisation. Or money. Or the accumulation of possessions. Christmas is how we worship it with each rotation of our round little ball of dirt. What christmas used to stand for (if it ever really did stand for anything else) is now irrelevant. If the corporate world wasn't pushing it, I doubt we'd still be celebrating it by now. Like I said last year, it's a holiday on life support.

Went to park at the commuter car park at Ashfield today. It was guarded by an old east-european guy cooking eggs on a car's engine block. He also had a large, dirty sack slung over his shoulder.

He seemed to be in charge.

'Hi, does this car park charge anything for the first hour?'

'No. No charge. Car park free. All day no cost. But you must buy llama'

'Sorry?'

'You buy llama to park here!'

'Oh. OK. I dunno, I could just pay you, since I'm not sure if the llama will fit anywhere in...'

'NO! Buy llama or no park!'

'OK, OK...how much does it co...'

'Llama free too'

'Oh?'

'But you must buy birdcage'

'But I've already GOT three!'

'YOU BUY! Or else no park!'

I ended up parking out in the street.

I have decided to start up another national holiday, called Ethnic Day. This is when we'll be able to celebrate our ethnic diversity and understanding of other cultures with level-headed open-mindedness.

Now, to kick things off, where's my sombrero? Actually, CAN you wear one over a conical hat? I want people to see both!!!

Better get some batteries for my loudspeaker, too...

Oh, forget it. Ganoogana is a good enough reason to skip work.

Well, for those who care, Sounds Like Chicken sorta rocked last night, despite Nat (their guitarist and screamer) not being there...so some songs sounded a little odd...Nyall took over his vocals for the most part, and as for the guitar...well...let's just pretend Nyall did that too. On the plus-side, their new bassist seemed OK.

But Winter's Underground were pretty good. Not exactly mosh material, thanks to the odd time-signatures that the drummer was obsessed with churning out...I guess that's the nature of their music. Their bass player was a jerk, incidentally.

Access Denied apparently have been getting feedback that their sets are getting mind-numbing because they play exactly the same stuff over and over and over and over...so they replaced an old song with a new one. And left the rest as it was.

Talk about creative. They gave us nay-sayers what's-for!

Hmm...Anna's comment back there about public transportation has lead me to think (no, really!) about how much it actually costs me a year for the privelage to catch the train to work.

She said:

hmmmm... i spend hundreds each year to commute, and all i get in return is this feeling of misanthropy...
DAMN YOU CITYRAIL!!

(i wanted the t-shirt!)

Which led me to think that I spend 25 bucks per week on a weekly to central.

And that's 50 a fortnight. So I spend hundreds in just a few months, really.

52 weeks later, and 1300 bucks have been spent...

Ouch. Who'd like to pay that up front?

'Hi, it's Ted calling from Child Flight, how are you tonight?'

'Oh, not bad...'

'That's good to hear...I won't keep you too long, I assume you've heard of Child flight before?'

'Yeah...listen, can you give me your number?'

'Sure, our enquiries line is...'

'No, I meant YOUR own home number'

'I guess I could. Any reason you want it?'

'Yeah, so that I can call you up at two in the morning'

'Oh, OK, go grab a pen and paper...but I DO have your number on my screen here, so if you forget to call me, I can give you a call at three to remind you, OK, sunshine?'

*pause*
'OK, how about we just call it quits?'

'I think that would be best. Look, I have to give you credit for being the first person to ever try that line on me in the seven months I've been doing this. At least, you're the first person who thought it would actually work on me...'

'What's that supposed to...'

'Whatever you like, mate. Hope it's a little more successful on the next guy that calls you. Bye!'

For those of you who know, I am collecting train tickets. I have no idea why, I just am. I have no idea what I'm going to do with 'em, if I do anything at all...

But I recently counted them, and I have 53. Seemed like I'd have more, but no...

Oh, well. If I had a digital camera, you'd see them here, right now.

Oh, hang on...I do. But I don't know where it is.

Trust me. 53.

Last night turned out OK after all.
Mallory and I finally met, and played a few games of pool. Which turned out to be the highlight of the night, since the rest involved standing around drinking, and walking around the city looking for places where we could stand around and drink. Boring social stuff.

There are two reasons I go to bars. To watch other people get drunk, and to try and beat them at pool afterwards.

w00t on!