Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Home is where the Steve is

A strange thing happened to me the other day.

I fell in love.

I missed my fucking train at 7:20 AM because I was trying to leave an hour early. I also needed to buy a ticket so I had no chance, they only have eftpos on the city bound platform assuming us hicks trade in corn or something who go out to Upfield.
So I decided to ride up the train line until I could intercept a train going in that direction. Riding out of the city is an amazing thing, demographics change, housing changes, you realise what a living breathing thing a city is. The path itself tells a story.
My soundtrack was De La Soul is Dead, I fell in love with it. They tell a story like no other.
Anyway this didn't compare to how strange I felt the other day. I was walking down a laneway I'd walked down 400 times at least in my hood and I felt something...

I felt at home.

This feeling cannot be described, so sudden and instantaneous I suddenly knew what wars got fought over and shit.
I'm not saying I feel Australian, but somehow magnetically, Brunswick just became my centre. It was pretty neat.
All roads lead to Brunswick?

Steal this thought

One thing I still struggle about with Henry George is the treatment of intellectual property. In fact I'm not a hundred percent sure of where he/it actually stands. Ben Franklin was a dude though refuing to patent things he had invented to improve society, he also didn't have slaves unlike George Washington founder of the Land of the Free.
Anyway I've been going out with Mickey about a month and already it's her birthday. Normally when I start dating a girl so close to her birthday I get them nothing in protest over the relatively short time we've been dating and me not wanting to spin the relationship into realm of financial burden so soon.
But this time it's different, I'm rich. I have money to burn, I can't possibly convince anyone of financial burden status. So this time I was fucked from another direction. I simply didn't know Miki well enough to know what to get her. Miho seemed to think it was simple. You just bought some easily recognisable really expensive brand like prada, Louis Vuitton or Dolce & Cabana or some shit.

I refuse to pay that much for sex.

A gift needs to be a comunication of just the qualities that resonate with you that makes you attracted and appreciative of the other person. Admittedly people struggle to buy me gifts, except uncannily my brother who has fucking Aspergers, go figure.
So I had nothing but vague impressionistic shades that merge between cute, funny, precious, hot, cheeky, shy, creative blah blah. So I end up having to buy a collage of presents.
If I have an achilles heal it's gift wrapping though. So here's an idea I came up with by stealing the idea of my Grade 1 teacher.

On the morning of miki's birthday I got up to go to the toilet. I walked back into the room and tied a ribbon to Miki's wrist that said ' follow me.' she then followed a trail around my living room making her crawl under ironing boards and over chess tables until unwrapping her various crappy gifts and reading messages along the way. at the other end of the trail was me, frankly at a loss as to what to do.
But the crappy ribbon adventure transformed otherwise meaningless gift giving into a memorable adventure.

I'm sooooooo great. feel free to steal the concept especially those of you who struggle to get things wrapped.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Liddle Facts

My taste buds have just about regrown. But this has taken longer than it should have did you know:

'Liddle fact #238: The tongue is the fastest healing part of the body.' when I read '#238' I was impressed with Spring Valley. I was more impressed when Amrish verified this fact 'yeah the tongue doesn't get scar tissue' so these facts were infact factual and numbered. Presumably even if I had by freakish circumstance managed to pick the last fact I could buy the juice everyday of the year and the odds of me getting the same fact twice were low.
Anyway if the fact was indeed factual it seems #238 is more like #5. I've gotten this fact two or three times now. That's with 4 purchases in 2 months. If I was stranded on a lifeboat in the middle of the pacific ocean with no reading material but lids off my survival juice I would just jump overboard. That or try and psychically predict the 'fact of the day'
If I had writing material I vow now I would try to single handedly recreate Wikipedia, fuck diaries encyclopedias are where it's at.

Anyway on any given day I have or don't have the sense of taste. See once or twice a week I eat something straight out of the oven, microwave or pizza box and burn my fucking tastebuds off. I do it a lot. Since my post breakup miraculous recovery of sense of smell I've noticed my sense of taste coming back which are apparently intimately linked. As in mucassy tubes, what could be more intimate.

Anyhoo taste is important because more than anything else it determines style. I have to say I've gotten to a point where I can tell the difference between various schools of hip hop. I can tell good from bad by means that aren't my being able to judge the 'white music' they have sampled from various eras.

My favorites are:
1. A Tribe Called Quest
2. De La Soul
3. Nas

A mini spectrum of socially conscious to Gangsta. But sewiously my lack of sense of smell blinded me (what a fucken awful sentance) to something to emerge in my lifespan to a phenomena. Hip-Hop. It's fucking phenomenal. The players the evolution the works. You gotta check it out get yo'self schooled.
I remember sitting next to these fags on a train once talking about radio head, I looked at this dude and felt how black people must feel when they read this blog post - 'what a fag.' but seriously I can on some rudementary level now tell brilliance in hip hop from a total hack like I can when I compare say fucking cliched amatuers like Jet to artists of Genuine artistic integrity like FNM or Soundgarden.
Hip Hop is something else, it's storytelling, it's poetry, it's very super subtle pushing of brain buttons. It's playing with words like no one else does Tribe and De La are phenomonally good at it but you know I timidly and shamefully offer my opinion as in reality I don't know shit, working on it.

Saturday, November 25, 2006

The Democratic Process

7 years under bracks has made the state election as exciting (possibly even less so) than the local council elections. Here's how it went down: water not enough of it, want more of it. education never enough let's invest in highschools. gay marriage noone mentioned but the greens and the brethrens.
So I almost forgot to vote but fortuitously was trying to buy gifts for Miki's birthday and wlked past the melbourne town hall.
Every polling station has 4 absentee people and 10 for the local seat. I would be surprised if anywhere in the student populated suburbs have more local voting than absentee voting. Anyway I got to stand with my fellow people who get a say as to who is in charge. Yeah I was standing with the retard family. When there asking about how to fill out the vote at the voting table but only consulting eachother you know their five votes are going to ensure your one vote doesn't get lost in the crowd.
Fucking morons. I don't endourse elitist points of view. If you are going to vote you may aswell force everyone to and have it preferential. But too much of the campaign goes into policies that are never understood to hold face with political commentators that write articles for newspapers that aren't read except for the producers of sunrise and today who then can dumb it down for the brief newscast before the news the masses really want to hear, the traffic report.
So I had no fucking idea what was going on this election since One Piece is back with a new series . So democracy I mean it's something, but its gotten fundamentally conservative it seems in most of the developed world.
It's okay I guess but I must point out that democratic nations such as australia have been the big contributers to climate change and nuclear armements the first real things to ever introduce the possibility of wiping out life on the earth.
And in Australia and America, gays can't get married, minorities are still repressed and underrepresented and class division is going.
So stick it up your fucking arsehole.

Friday, November 24, 2006

Punches in the face

that is to say hard hitting journalism. Have been hard pressed to sit down and blog of late, hard pressed to do anything.
Posting becoming narrower but discovered this handy link:

http://nexus.ihouse.unimelb.edu.au/e_IH/globe/

I know it's a copout like a flashback episode or best of album with additional single or even a star wars limited dvd release. But the upshot is if you go click on the fucking 2002 and 2003 one's you can read articles by me in the 'what I reckon' column that I can't even remember writing.

In fact for an inhouse IHouse p[ublication it does capture pretty well the culture of IH with the regular contributors being many of the people who still find time to write in this day and age.

If you've got say 8 hours spare you could read every issue and watch its descent into bullshit shout outs to palskies and avoidence of confronting any inhouse issues.

Regrads,

tohmuardo.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Kaleadovision

So first up I'm going to the shop to buy something to drink.

Secondly the internet has a lot of cool sites to kill time on. People say they could spend all day on you tube. If your harvard you think embedding a youtube clip you like counts as a post you lazy uninspired fuck.
Anyway enough flaming or whatever us IT nerds who date asians are supposed to refer slagging off people you depend upon on slow work days to update their blogs.
A site I recently killed a couple of hours on is this one:

http://forums.cgsociety.org

think myspace for artists and by artists I don't mean fucktards of middling to no musical talent posting their cliched fuckshit for us all to listen to and linking to people who write huge ascii code love hearts and then say - 'thanks for ad'.
I mean people who can draw, and generally to a high level in amazingly not only 2D but 3D as well. They have comps, try to produce shit in timelines work to deadlines and solicit feedback from their peers.
All this has led me to one startling conclusion...trust first instincts. All I really want to do and ever have wanted to do is sit around and draw. My skills have gone undeveloped, neglected for years, I want to work in an art collective, a tattoo parlor fucking anything. I don't want a computer (I don't mind having one) I want a visual diary.
I want to wander the streets and draw and design shit.
I think I'm gonna enrol in a course, yeah I say as I sit here in my newest underpants that I have christened 'Pual Pierce' I'm not gonna do that. What I'm gonna do is go out and buy one of them books about drawing n shit and spend some quality time with the VD.
See you mofos.

Monday, November 20, 2006

A dream I just Had

Syn was broken yesterday so I retuned my alarm to Nova, right near Syn on the dial is gospel fm I think it's called Light FM. Anyway it's on right now and making me sick. Discussion topic - what's the toughest challange preventing teenagers today from leading 'pure' lives. God fucking damn I could 'discuss' that at length myself but suffice to comment now - no wonder church attendance is down progressivly in successive generations.
These are some of the most complicated sentences I've ever written, good job tohm.
Anyway what I meant to say is last night was fucking hot and I was having trouble sleeping without covers, with the fan on and waiting till 12.30 to open my windows into the relative coolness.
So I had a dream to pass the time between 12.30 and 6.30, a fucked up dream where I quit my job and went back to highschool. It was a dream where I just felt completely out of touch, except about 30% of my yearlevel had had the same plan. But the curious thing was we all seemed to be there to try and 'find our way' even though clearly highschool hadn't worked the first time. I scheduled into a german class.
Also a girl called Vicky offered to sleep with me, I told her I couldn't and got a blasting about what a loser I was it felt much worse than the flattery of being offered copulation.
After some hours of drifting about campus trying to figure out my conceptual time table I gave up and sat down with Kate, Hughesy and the other guy just trying to eat some breakfast while the Nova FM crew talked shit. I noticed school was out and commented on what a long fucking breakfast shift they have to do since it was now 4pm. Then I woke up and my clock said 6.30. Unimpressed with the dynamic I tried to retune it to SYN and found Light FM before giving up on tuning it manually within one nanometer to the frequency SYN professes itself to be on.
A shout out to Clarissa who also told me to give up on going to protests like G20 because you know they won't achieve anything. She's an inspiration, I hope you enjoy Springnats this weekend.

Darling Micci

Okay whatever a prince song, I thought maybe it's worth writing something about Miki as ways to explaining what has happened to what little free time ampersand me time I had.
It didn't fucking take long, like maybe a day before I was being derided as suffering from 'yellow fever' for dating the 'chinaman' I mean when in more or less all previous relationships I've dated bogans aka good country girls - and I must say I still don't get city bitches, it's like you have to know how to climb through a barb wire fence to relate to me or some shit. So anyway you racist protectionist fuckheads fuck you.
But I do feel like an IT student everytime I walk somewhere holding miki's hand conscious of looking like a nerdy portly white guy who has nabbed an asian girlfriend.
But alas one of the best books I ever did read was 'Le Petit Prince' where the child like narrative comments on how abject parents are in insisting on numeric ways to quantify someone when they are curios about them you know 'How old is she?' 'How tall is she?' etc.
Well let me say my newly lodged apple of my eye laughs like hiccups, says seriously like homestarrunner, likes italian cinema she has a footprint shaped birthmark near her right elbow that if you squint and turn your head looks like a love heart. She told me she worked in a Thai restaurant then stressed out aboot telling me it was really a massage parlour assuming my offended sensibilities would be worse than my insistence on free massages (the moron). I told her it was the most boring secret I ever heard.
True to stereotypes she folds everything she can get her hands on, taking a top of a shelf in a store we was in to look at it and instead of lazily chucking it back on top like I would (to give retail staff something to fucking do) she folded it into a crane and set it on top.
Her favorite flower is poppies and her three favorite animals are:
1) elephant
2) whale*
3) Giraffe
And that's what I know of Miki so far and of course a bit more, she smells so nice her scarf she leant me one cold night managed to stave off singlehandedly the smell of Liam's burnt saucepan.
But yeah I gotta say it's sure nice to have her around. I even impressed her with the listening exercise I learnt at RYLA, my ability to cook without knowing how and my diverse interior design skills.
The real challange is the balancing act, I'm an antisocial boyfriend at the best of times generally what she calls a 'house date' or 'room date' but I think I've already managed to spend a record amount of whole saturdays or sundays with her (2) and been on a record amount of actual dates for a one month relationship (5) she's also met a bunch of my friends already and I've even met and gone to lunch with some of hers.
These efforts impress me if not you.
So if your alone why don't you just cry in the shower where noone can tell how dead you are inside.

*Sewiously** if you have a half decent connection download this video the project is close to as cool as environmentalism will get. Miki has eaten her second favorite animal by the way.

**She says this just like homestar it's adorable.

Saturday, November 18, 2006

The Snowball effect

Needless to say this is not my usual crowd. At the G20 watching kids have punch on's with riot police (I mean those anarchists have a fucking deathwish) and perched on top of a rigged out army truck blasting dj dance sets to a crowd of those same kids having a rave.
I mean you gotta know you're doing something right when the police close down 8 square city blocks so you can have a meeting.
I mean I heard about someone talking about taxpayer money going to police to prevent people from expressing their opinion and even going so far as to protect private businesses but on the other hand it's probably much more expensive to pick up the bill for property damage so really I don't mind.
Here's a happy snap from the top of the truck.
janice didn't want me to say cuntfuck on tv.
I was meant to MC but the amount of trouble we had getting the truck into the protest, and I suspect a lot of liberally applied bullshit came out of trying to do the right thing and liaise with the cops, anyhoo moral of the story is our schedule got pushed back about 2.30 hours where a stroke of fortune meant we eventually got let in to chill out the crowd.
The angsty kids all followed us expecting us to I don't know plough through the police lines or something with the army truck and then drifted away when they realised were just going to dance.
For a first standup gig though I did pretty well with my one spot.
I gotta wonder though at the police officers A) when you pull over 1000 officers into 8 square city blocks where do those officers come from? B) these guys
hats to protect them from the sun
what are they thinking when they are facing down a line of 10 deep agressive anarchists. I mean let's get it straight behind them are riot police and behind them are police on horses, but basically that first line has to rely on pure disciplined intimidation to hold them back. Seconds after taking that photo I turned around and two guys ran with twix metre steel pipes and tried unsuccessfully to smash the ANZ baks windows, yet bizarly even after a chastizing from miki I felt perfectly safe, contrary to the news reports the violence was there to be had but it wasn't a full on riot or anything there was heaps of room for innocent bystanders, there was no way to get swept up in it all. Some individuals chose to turn up for a punch on and some turned up for peaceful protest, it can be said though that everyone who turned up wasn't happy with the G20 efforts thus far with the World Bank, IMF and WTO which I think they may be trying to reform into something even more ineffectual (like Bono and Bob Geldof). I gotta say I'm with the PM on that at least.
Fucking Baby Boomer fuckwits. At least we aint in China where they send the riot police in to disperse crowds celebrating their successful olympic bid.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Whatever dude just wrap it up and I'll eat it

Some days life just conspires to put me through a day of bullshit. Thanks Shona for buying me life of Pi. It's reading well so far even if I do find it too pretentious to publicly display the fact I'm reading it.
After a day of more or less constant complaint calls grinding my exciting work progress to a halt I go home and hit the kebab which is dissapointing for the usual high standards I place on intersection cafe.
So to finally unwind Life of Pi will have to take second place to SLAM's cover story on Ben Wallace. I gotta study up his game style as I figure my PPG average will approach his 6 only with a lot of hard work on my part. Go defensive you not so Big ben tohm.
Anyway peace out I'm going to bed fuck this.

Sunday, November 12, 2006

Bedtime Story

Okay so my brother tells me this story. I still cry tears of pure amusement when I hear it but others don't find it funny.

Paul T is 8 years old and scared of the dark. So for a fair stretch of time he hits his parents room where he sleeps at the foot of his parents bed. Not so unusual.
Anyway one night he overhears his mum say:

'It makes my feel so dirty, but I love sucking your cock'

Now who the fuck gets up to that shit with their kid at the foot of the bed. Way to go Mr & Mrs T.

Kid traumatised for life.

Friday, November 10, 2006

Spirit Animals

Something has to be said about Michael Jordan. I haven't looked at a role model in some time but Michael is just fucking amazing.
What can be said? He got game. And that may be all that needs saying, except that few people have ever propelled a sport into the imaginations of a whole generation around the world, dominating it like no other ever has or has done since.
6 championship rings, 6 time finals MVP, 5 times league MVP and 10 times scoring titles. He could fucking dunk from the free throw line and exhibited a perfect combination of athleticism, genetics and discipline.
A man who retired for lack of inspiration to better himself.
Air Jordan is still the highest selling shoe, the number 23 is the most significant basketball sporting accessory. That being said back in primary school there were two singlets to have come summertime: 23 if you thought you were truly great, 32 (for shaq) if you thought you were truly large.
I think basketball is a street sport of totems. I AI you see most often on the courts, the tru warrior, the little engine that could. Probably followed by T-mac or KB8. I picked up Wade's initially but was dissatisfied, he just didn't represent who I was as a player. Making the switch to 15 Vinsanity opened me up more in my confidence, my penchant for injury and my natural showmanship. I mean Ben Wallace would probably better represent my low scoring, defensive playing style and willingness to play on dudes that can look at the top of my head and eat two more meals a day than I do.
Anyway Jordan, we salute you.
Jesus Christ Monkeyballs

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Spiegaltent spiegaltent

So on Monday night 'Cup Eve' the night with the worst ring to it in all the years calander I did the charitable thing and took Miki to the ACE spiegal party. No point advertising it now, you probably were double checking all your fashions for the field that night that was made for cambodians.
It was a great fucking night though. It was the sort of party people only manage to throw in movies or at p-diddy's house. There was good dj's, a dress up theme, charity, imported beer, dancing, circus performers and a stop motion horsey race.
Miki and I both lost and yes I may have attacked a few of the event organisers under the pretense of foul play but seriously it's the sort of party Bruce Wayne goes to and comes home with a boy wonder.
Although my red polyester suit doesn't breath that well and the metabolism of mine that allows me to consume my own weight in cheese on a daily basis had me drenched in sweat I was feeling and dancing pimpaliciously.
I was dropping money on the floor left right and centre in a bid to come across as an oyabun gone charitable with all his ill gotten amphetamine and sex slavery income.
And Kirk, kirk fucken cracks me up every time. His gift for emballishment make him the perfect man for all my future PR endeavors needs a big cheer for everyone. How do I keep falling in with the fucking development crowd? I dunno though I will add ACE and it's Happy School to my sites of value and revel in the beauty of that night you could not join me on and I can't really share because I got given a camera that doesn't take photo's for my birthday.
That's so zen.

Cliche Touche

Ha ha fuck you bush, nobodies going to your birthday party now, not even lowly donald rumsfield.
That being said the Gripe sensation continues, it seems bitching about the fairer sex seems to get a reaction from all 5 people that read this blog. So I'll fucking follow up the Wise and evil John's On love and suffering yes John who updates so rarely he usually leaves a random comment to notify me he has written something new, take on the whole romance and relationship thing, of which he espoused several cliches which skillful councillours will get you to realise without actually saying them so you get all fucken defensive and pissed off that they are treating you like a fucking moron.

If you were meant to be together you still would be, or at least, you will be again: I couldn't agree more, you may have noticed my sampling of 'it's called a breakup because its broken' if your partners cheating on you there is no way you are better off with them. If you're partner doesn't love you, it takes two to tango I'm sorry but they cant just make the relationship work through discipline and effort alone.
Chances are if yer dumped there was a problem, good relationships I think can recognize these and communicate them effectively to eachother and that's where the second half of 'will be again' I don't think you gotta get in a relationship and just hope no problems ever come up.
I remember when John and his favorite girlfriend got back together and a mutual friend of ours found out she threw her hands up in the air and thanked god. Damo on the other hand said 'what they are just two losers that couldn't manage to find anyone else that likes them' or something to that effect, so you have the romantic and the cinic both represented their, I was at the time I think probably still in the throws of desiring my nice safe old comfortable relationship. But also I had observed no real pattern to the 'meant to be' part of 'meant to be together' for example one of my friends had managed to get back with his serial cheating ex in what was considered a bad move by all and probably included him. Some couples I couldn't believe had broken up stayed broken up and vice versa.
It took me much longer to realise that people with low self esteem may in fact be meant to be together, I never really compared my situation to John's because they had had a practical and as far as I could discern amicable break up that truly allowed for reconcilliation.
I had a second chance at my first year girlfriend and it became clear that the way by which we had broken up and the deep seeded reasons behind it simply made the relationship impossible and unworkable. I tried to be clever and I tried to be disciplined and resilient and strong but no matter what you can't reason your way out of being dumped by being smarter and knowing more and you can't fucking make someone love you by rejecting their rejection.
When me and my ex finally decided (final responsibility lying with her. yay!) to not speak to eachother anymore and go our seperate ways I was certainly upset but also pretty eager. I mean eager beyond drawing everything out, unlike ever before I just wanted it done. I had shit to do and realised that even though it felt like I'd come full circle in my developement it was really only half way, and I won't kid myself by saying the process is over.

You need time apart to grow as people: this I couldn't agree with more. If anything its the main point. I got the mopes around my birthday over getting older even though I'm younger than most people I know and associate with and then I realised that looking back at the past year their really wasn't much more I could fit into my life.
I've been through two name changes in less than 1 year, from tohm to tom (because I was tired of pretending to be someone I was not and needed to discover who I was) and then from tom back to tohm (because I discovered that who I was was of my own making and I had created my identity as new and complete in tohm) that double name change aside whilst a lot of me is essentially me friends of old hired by police to track me down on a friday would probably have a hard time of doing it.
Such has been the complete overhaul of my social circle, music tastes and preferences, attire, hobbies, vocabulary, work etc etc etc. My ex having gone to indonesia I always new we'd distance from eachother due to the unshared experience but I sort of didn't count on how much I can change in a year and this was following the feedback on how much I changed in 3 months directly after we broke up.
You seriously don't appreciate what you've got till it's gone, but more importantly often in a relationship the relationship becomes so much a part of your identity that you don't develope as an individual. I literally regressed back to the age I had last been single in my mind which was 16 then caught up 6 years in 3 months. Like some fucking overhaul.
Still it's a great process Shon-shon my oldest and dearest lady friend said 'in every sorrow lies a golden opportunity' it may have been a quote or some shitI don't know. As an interesting aside for reasons I don't understand and haven't consulted a doctor over after getting dumped I regained my sense of smell.
Which was a bad thing when liam left his empty pot on the hot stove for 3 hours but a good thing when Miki's scarf managed to permeate the most beautiful and fragrant fragrance in my room protecting me from the carbon stench of the rest of the house.

Damo needs to stop being a bitch: to true, Damo may be a little dead inside maybe and preoccupied with what is morrally right in a relationship which we all admit has a large grey area particularly when it comes to nutting out women's lib. Girls like anyone love attention and pampering and compliments, yes just as much as you do Damo.
As for being a bitch, you know when Morley asks for a pen and then throws it out the window and asks you for another pen and you give it to him and he throws that out the window and asks you for another pen and you give it to him to 'teach him a lesson'. yeah... you're not teaching him a lesson at all, you're being a bitch.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Reproduced Without Permission

I'm tired of watching the news, listening to Politicians and investigative journalists all walking around witht their tongue up my arse. I got sent this document on Housing Affordability of which Australian Taxation policy is amongst the worst and most irresponsible in the world. If you want to know more go to www.progress.org.au. I shall endeavor to post more criticisms of Australia so maybe one day my fellow citizens may actually generate enough self consciousness to make this country actually great in some way shape or form. anyway read on you people bored at work:

Housing Affordability - The Other side of the debate

The real issue forcing land prices up are the huge economic rents available to land speculators. With Jeff Kennett’s move away from Site Value rating to Capital Improved Value (CIV) rating, land speculators can purchase land, sit on it and wait for the property to grow in value. The constant attack on State Land Taxes ensures a continuing trend for them to be weakened, sending the signal to the marketplace that hoarding land is appropriate.
On a Local level, the combination of these 2 factors has seen a growth of vacant land in inner urban areas in Melbourne. We believe the reduced supply of land from this speculative trend has applied greater pressure on land prices than Melbourne’s 2030 boundary. The huge upward trend in land prices happened well before the 2002 announcement of 2030.
The problem with land supply therefore comes from the private supply of land, dominated by speculators, rather than the public supply of land.
A decade on from Jeff Kennett’s reforms and the results are mounting. The practical evidence abounds us. Cycle through Richmond (Melbourne) and rafts of vacant land can be seen. One 700m stretch of Elizabeth St sees 9 blocks of vacant land and another 4 vacancies in commercial property. However, the official REIV vacancy rates continuously quote at or about 2.1%. Efforts to find a qualitative definition on what constitutes a ‘vacancy’ have so far been fruitless.
At the State level, the recent Bracks Govt reforms to State Land Tax have reduced the rates for upper to medium valued houses. Whilst cuts to stamp duties are appreciated, the overall message gives the go-ahead to speculators to invest in property. Is this why prices in wealthy suburbs such as Hawthorn have increased by 42% in a single year? How long will it be until housing prices in suburbs such as Preston, currently growing at 12%, take them into these top brackets?
On a Federal level, the upward trend in land prices was assisted by the 1996 Negative Gearing reforms. This was enhanced by the halving of Capital Gains (2000) to just 12.5%, less than the taxation of the minimum wage.
A recent report by the UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, Miloon Kothari, said
“According to official figures, out of the 943,877 low-income persons receiving rent assistance, 35% (330,360) were spending more than 30% of their income on rent, and 9% (85,000 peoples) more than 50%.
With Australia’s negative gearing policy, perhaps the most generous of all developed countries (emphasis added), and the tax benefit from capital gains, a subsidy of $21 billion is given to the high end market." (Aug 06)
As we can see, a combination of these policy changes have given speculators free reign around Australia. A decent holding charge on land is needed, as Julian Disney commented on Lateline (21st August, 2006).
Why should investors be encouraged to make ‘unearned’ speculative gains rather than profits from productive activity? A recent ANU paper by Atkinson & Leigh entitled The Distribution of Top Incomes in Australia revealed that just 20% of the income earnt by the top 0.01% of the population comes from productive activity.
Do we really want to continue this trend?
Share the rent with all and remove the unnecessary burdens of taxation, we say! Then local land supply will be used efficiently, reducing the need for urban sprawl through the encouragement of infill development. This has a cascading effect that soon reduces the cost of housing. It should be remembered that high housing prices are dominated by the cost of land. Land now represents about 70% of property sales prices, rather than the 30% it was in the 70's when the tax system encouraged production over speculation.

By k2 at 2006-10-19 13:00


PS k2 sorry I didn't ask for your permission.

Monday, November 06, 2006

Book Launch

Seems my Gripe this month has caused a sensation, I've never had so many comments, and so many great reviews all containing the word 'fuck' I may be the next doctor phil.
Oprah calls it 'True Liberation'
Calling em as I sees em. No I think it probably has more to do with the fact I mentioned some people personally, you know if I just posted a post titled, 'Everyone I know has a face like a busted arsehole' and proceeded to insult everyone I know I'd probably get some responses.
That being said over the past week I've had some horrifying revelations with my new imaginary girl. Firstly dating is expensive, but on the upside I now have a reason to earn money. Secondly I may still be frigid, as fucken terrifying as that may be I must conclude I have no idea how to actually pick up a girl. I mean Miki questioned the same question I always asked myself thus justyfying my ego through her natural Suspicion - 'how come you didn't have girlfriend' and I had to admit, mostly because I've got no fucking idea how to actually bust a move.
This scares me, the label on my head I strove so hard in year 9 to shake and it may still be lingering on like some relative I hate spending christmas with after all this time.
And fucking fuck you spellcheck I'm not going to capitalise christmas. I fucken wont.
Anyhoo, the third revelation is for anyone that doesn't like heavy metal and think it has no place in the world you should watch this. Cleaning up the streets of Brazil Voodoo stylin'.

Superfluousity

My plea to you the public, or at least private and exclusive group of friends... has any of you ever fucking met anyone, ever who actually uses the back pocket of yo pants? apart from idly using it to feel your lover's arse.
From watching the tom sellick classic, 'mr baseball' he offends his new Japanese owners by putting their business card in his wallet and then putting it in his back pocket. Now the japs are offended because he will 'sit on their name' but that's not the point I mean how could you live like that, fucking sitting on your fucking wallet, uneven arse cheeks I can't imagine it.
Sort of like wearing heels to appear taller. But yeah I buy shorts, they generally have pockets at the back, unless your some standing baba that smokes opium constantly to nullify the constant agony of being on your feet having your joints mortify who the fuck would ever store anything in their back pocket. It makes less sense than shoving condoms full of heroine up your arse comfort wise. I mean fuck. fucking fuck shite.
I noticed a bald patch. On my fucking thigh, a perfectly square bald patch with some regrowth where friction from my wallet rubbed against it. A physical reminder that I have money almost constantly.
Anyhoo if I kept my wallet in my back pocket I would have a square bald patch on my arse and curvature of the spine. And a wallet has to be the most comfortable thing you can put in there.
Mobile phone, fuck no. ipod, why don't I just kick myself in the balls. Yu Gi Oh trading cards?
Seriously this isn't my fucking first attempt at a standup routine (now that was painful) I seriously feel like a retard for not knowing what such a generally accepted piece of fabric is for.
tell me?

cunts.

Saturday, November 04, 2006

Gripe

First off I gotta say what a wonderful thing blogs are. We'll they is and they ain't I can see how they are kind of pretty gay too. But being a graduate of International House, one thing that sort of kicks you in the balls a bit is the proportion of your friends that end up either going to their own country to live and work or becoming glamourous expats.
So I appreciate blog's as a way to stay in touch, even better in touch with someone when they are local but don't have a blog or msn profile or anything. So I got harvard and morley's blogs linked up and they both yesterday (3rd Movember) posted some real insights into their psyches.
First up yes I looked at the picture Morley posted and I'm not sorry about that. I think there's a line that passes through all 4 dimensions the approaching/crossing of which is what defines funny and not funny. That line can only be sensed intuitively and mother's lose the ability to sense where that line is the moment they have their first born.
Morley's a real slash and burn guy, of the two takes on a breakup I actually find morley's less disturbing than harvards. (yes you'll have to click on those links and read them I can't link specific posts on morley's website but it's the Movember 3rd one) I mean morley had a shitty job he shat on when he quit once and I found that real funny and other's didn't.
Now, the context of my last dumping happened after I had watched the spectaculalry drawn out post dumping trauma of my brother in which he dated a girl for a year or so and then grieved, bitched, flipped out and wallowed for around a year and a half. Which is fucking crazy, he said the tipping point for him was when he actually realised he had spent more time feeling miserable about his crazy bitch ex than he ever had felt good about her.
But I knew there was only limited window of sympathy you get in situations like that and even though the emotions are powerful fucking chemical imbalances in your brain, I mean you can seriously watch and scoff at some sad guy doing all these loser things and then the moment you are in the same situation you do the exact same loser things and more over you are conscious of doing loser things but you do them out of addictive compulsion anyway.
I mean it's fucking powerful stuff, I hated it, I wouldn't recommend it to anybody. What I would recommend to absolutely anybody, no matter how far down the track or how embarassed you are is councilling, if you are still a student it is free. If you're now employed it's better than free your company will pay for an actual 'on-the-money' psychologist. If you are going the student option remember they have more than one available so if you find your first one to be a total fucking moron, switch.
That's my community service announcement but in all seriousness I couldn't deal with my dumping. I didn't want to be me, I didn't want my ex to have evolved into who she was (which is to say my ex and not my girlfriend) and I didn't want to be here, in melbourne at home.
But you know I gotta honestly say from what I have observed and experienced in the long run I would still rather be dumped than dump someone, and moreover I would never want to be with someone who doesn't want to be with me.
But yeah reading Harvard's post I almost want to scream 'Get the fuck over it, straight up Bob was not your best friend, Bob was some whiney sicophant, weasley christian fundamentalist, pencil dicked, jazzy mother fucker who ruined our battle of the bands entry with his selection of incredibly uncool music, you had and have much better friends than Bob all this time' but you know at the same time I appreciate that when you love someone and they leave you for a cocktard like Bob it's a real fucking dick twisting world of pain. I gotta say muchos respect to Morley in such an early phase of the breakup period is at least meeting Liz's destruction of their relationship with a 'make the pebbles bounce' nuclear attack to clearing of what is left.
I gotta say their are three reactions typical listed from worst to best:

1. wallowing in your own self pity - I was really afraid of this, I even had head-fucked issues with feeling sad, I didn't want to be, I wanted to work and be happy and get the fuck on with my life so I had to be really conscious of going into denial. But the general rule here is you can only play this while sympathy is publicly on your side, people are happy to give you conscssions and listen to you for 2-3 months, your best friends will put up with it for 6 months by 6 months though you are going in circles and not making progress, get a councillour who has seen it 100-1000 times before to just give you the answers and a progressive plan before your friends abandon you too.

2. Getting angry and hilarious - This deals with the issue by destroying whats left, it may be divisive though, I never took the option until way late in the piece when I got tired of being walked over and unappreciated for how cool my reaction had been, like you know fucking Clint Eastwood cool. It depends on how many of your friends are shared, how well liked your ex is. In morley's case he's probably pretty safe, however you always gotta consider your rep for your next partner.

3. Focusing on how great you are/being the better man - public sympathy is a wonderful thing, furthermore just trying to get on with your life, learn, evolve etc also robs your ex of any potential justification they may try to grab at for an excuse for making the right decision. It takes a lot of fucking energy, a lot of help and support though and you may just can't be fucked doing it. I was really a combo of 1 & 3. But you know I (think I) bought Damo and Liam dinner and thanked them for putting up with my shit and stuff.

I'm not saying I'm fucking great and other people who do it differently are losers or anything, I'm a marketer and I think in terms of sheer fucking personal profit. I'll be honest and say some times I envy Morley's huge balls for so publicly and generously doing what he does and certainly I often felt (past tense) as melodramatic as harvard does, infact I totally relate to the Matrix analogy.
And so though I must say I do have a gripe for the ladies, because a big thing for me was that when I got dumped, a month later Harvard did, and my mates Chris, Brenton, Omar, Damo (who really needs a blog motherfucker he never writes never calls and apparantly is living with me again next month) etc that it seemed to me to just be this lifecycle stage and I have a couple of devicive theories on why this may occur.

First up, guys are arseholes, I have limited life experience or booksmarts on why married men have affairs and destroy their families and shit but at this stage it seems to me from observances a girl is far more likely to cheat on their boyfriend in a long term relationship. It's like a Honda product really, if there isn't a random manufacturing flaw in the product in the first two weeks it will probably last you 15 years running perfectly. Similarly if your boyfriend isn't cheating on you in the first month of the relaitionship odds are he wont start for a long time. But growing up I never wanted to be an arsehole, thats why when I was in a relationship and at a bar/party talking to a nice girl I clicked with red flags flew up in my head 'this is how cheaters start' and literally ran away, which doesn't mean I'm right about that being how cheaters start maybe they start by grabbing the girls breasts or arse and skip the whole convo thing. The point is I ws always suspicious that deep down I was a filandering arsehole and was always on guard about doin that. Now let me first say most of the girls I know 'have their shit together' as my father would say, they've had some good relationships and some bad relationships they've learnt and grown as individuals and they are in a good one now, But as I was saying to Miyuki a ways back a lot of romantically minded girls don't have any deep seeded suspicion of themselves because the media, girly mags and everything reinforce the 'men are arseholes' thing that make heroes out of sex and the city cast for acting like irresponsible men anyway a lot of girls I've come across have expectations of 'true-love' eg. the relationship should be impervious to all outside influences and maintaining a deep attraction does not require effort.
Which is wrong on every level, first off that's an impossible standard to put on any relationship because it's going to get hard at some point whether it be in 2 months (okay probably worth breaking up at that point) or three years (needs serious contemplation) or 15 years with children (at least attempt to reconcile) it's not fucking magical yet if a girl in a relationship is at a bar/party talking to an attractive man here's what I suspect they think 'Oh my god, this guys amazing, but how can I feel like this when I'm supposed to be in Love with Brad, why the only conclusion is that I don't love Brad' instead of 'this is how cheating begins' and so from my experience although addoringly innocent in it's naivete this is how nice girls with lots of self respect end up becoming cheating mcslurry's. Which I will now directly contradict with gripe number twix...

Girls have far less capacity to be romantic than boys do. Simply because the same media that makes me feel like 'men suck' before I've done anything wrong also reinforces another sexist agenda. Billy Connelly likened it to buying a house 'Men buy a house they would like to live in. Women don't see that house, they fucking walk through saying knock out that wall and put stairs in here and loft this and paint that' I wasn't dumped last time on this logic but have been before but again Billy Connely applies the same logic 'Men when they marry a woman are like "I love YOU, don't change, don't ever change, just stay the same" but the woman isn't marrying you she's marrying some fucker who you're going to be in ten years time and don't fucking try and fight it it's going to happen' you see as a male, the thought has never ever crossed my mind of incorporating my partner into my financial plans or lifestyle goals suffice to say I have a loving partner who is a big part of my life. I would never ever give a fuck what my wife/lover/owner actually did or how much they earn. But I've come across and experienced first hand a lot of girls who pragmatically dump their partner because they failed to fit the picture they painted for themselves, as a guy you can actually fail to change can you bewieve it? directly contradicting the expectations that true love is a permanent and indestructable feeling like giddiness.
So whilst you are expected to hit all the buttons emotionally this still depends on some market price you've got on my head. The one time I contemplated darwinian homicide was in marketing where a girl said she wouldn't accept a non diamond engagement ring because 'I enviosion myself being succesful and having a rich husband' now it doesn't have to be rich, it may be any number of things you may not achieve, not getting a six pack, not wanting to move to the country, not being able to concieve, not getting published. On a timeframe that is meant to sink in with your partners life cycle.
From a guys perspective and possibly only my perspective it's not fair, I'm actually far more willing to compromise because quite sexistly I would never depend on my partners income, job etc to achieve my dreams. This is why I expect you see the plethora of dumped losers saying 'I can change' it often comes as a cold hard shock that the person you 'loved' had to change.
Two things on that a) cut someone some slack and don't try to live vicariously through your partner, just endeavour to support eachothers dreams and operate as a team and b) so you are excited about your new boyfriend, don't make the first point of business going out and getting a new look, straightening and dying your beautiful mediterranian curls (true story) into some shitehouse Dolly recommends look because the dude is probably attracted to you.

My final psycho analysis on Morley and Harvard that is as unwelcome like the Salt N Pepa song says 'None of yo business' Morley will be fine but any chance of reconciliation may be ten years off, start thinking about the next girl's rationalisation of what dating you says about them though. Harvard by being cool and malaysian is like a gay guy in ballarat, that gay dude can keep hoping for a 'gay scene' to pop up in ballarat but he's much better off jumping ship and moving to brunswick for some Gilpin park action. Namely Harvy, stop bemoaning your lost girl and start hitting the bars and parties where some down to earth girls are because if you are ever going to be pragmatically dumped it'll be by the malay princesses you mix with now.

Some Lingo Explained

Lately some terms have appeared in my vocabulary that give people a reaction that can only be described as confusion and concern.
So the first bit of slang was from catching up with my old buddy Brenton who said: 'Ainslie's as hot as mustard these days' which you know was catchy way of describing people.
Ann at work says I'm so hot when I'm assertive. Too bad I'm a pussy 98% of the time, it's why I put so much effort into crushing peoples esteem.
Anyway I watch this show that never aired in Australia anywhere and was pretty underground in north america and I combined the lingo of that show to Brenton's useful turn of phrase so let me explain so you don't look at me like I'm retarded anymore. (click on the links for instant enlightenment)

entry level: (s)he is as hot as mustard - (this I would apply to Neighbours actors, footballers girlfriends and run of the mill models boy and girl. People who are noticably attractive)

level 2: (s)he is as hot as mayostard - this I would apply to pop divas and the like. Too hot to take their clothes off, and exhibiting in the upper echelons some degree of taste.

level 3: (s)he is as hot as mustardayonaise - this one is pretty much superfluous I mean who needs 4 tiers of attractiveness. but I use this more often than mayostard because it has a nice ring to it.

level 4: (s)he is as hot as Mustmayostarayonnaise - the ultimate we're talking Selma Hayek, Mary Kostakeedus etc. fine women that know what they want from a man and you know the equivalents, the depps the clooney's. I just always mince the pronunciation of this.

Thursday, November 02, 2006

Writers Block

Why can't I write my zine like my blog. I even lost the notepad in which I laid out how to write it. So as a procrastination within my procrastination I just spent 10 minutes searching my room for my notebook rather than reading my blog.
So at RYLA I did some thing where the guy tried to push down my arm while I focused on negative or positive thoughts. Which you can't really demonstrate to a class it's a real one on one thing. Anyway my experience warrented me getting the Dalai Lama's little book of wisdom and I can't help but think how many hot(ish) chicks the Big D can get.
Anyway he had some advice that having read you know it agrees with a lot of what I think and what I've discovered. Don't get me wrong, he's quite eloquent (or the translator is) and he can talk about genuine compassion more than I can as his countries been invaded and had his friends gunned down and tortured.
Is it worth reading? yes, I mean if you're one of MY friends you're probably an arsehole let's face it. Or is that even true anymore? I think most of my arsehole friends called me a fag when I started writing this and have never read it again.
So maybe you don't need to.
Anyway some thoughts:

The thing to be most afraid of is being ashamed of who you are.

I mean seriously could there be anything worse. I almost felt like this when I used fruity tactics at bball the other week wearing fish net stockings and the homophobic asians I play with got scared of me. (oh and I was sticking my people up peoples asses too).

long term in a relationship I just seek happiness.

I think that's the key really. I aint never walked into a relationship with a plan or anything but the things I always miss and enjoy are the real friendship elements for me. I've sat down with a lot of girls in various capacities over the past year and talked about all this true love stuff. Charlie sent me some chainmail I had to send to 52,348 people or some shit so my true love would contact me in the next 24. I binned it. I'd hate to meet a true love. Someone where it's boring everything works out and you can't fuck it up because of magical feelings. I'd rather have to work on being happy work our dreams around eachothers and get laid once in a while.

tell people they are looking good.

Everyone's too insecure, you gotta reinforce peoples self image. Do em a favor I say, besides their putting so much effort in. I really gotta stop calling Miho fat.

fall in love often but know when to concentrate.

I've spent too long in love with 5 or 6 people at a time. Like being pulled on in everydirection you just can't move.

Look down on everyone like pittiful children

This is why I never lose it. I'm just too condescending.

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Heroes heroes everywhere

You know today I was annoyed briefly by the fact that the website for my internet banking didn't remember my password for me. Then I realised how stupid that would be. And oh yeah good news my blog has spellcheck now or maybe this mozilla fucken shit browser which you may notice doesn't improve my spelling but does succeed in annoying me.
Anyway heroes, national heroes, national treasures like hitler's father/leader = fuhrer combo I think hero and treasuer can be combined into the new rank of Howard. I mean for serious. let's invest australia has a lot of coal. Coal is a dirty fucken source of electricity and as far as quality goes, ours is shit, fucken brown coal. it aint been around the traps long enough to burn well.
But Johnny stands firm to protect the short term economic interests of a majority that is approaching death and irrelevancy at breakneck speed. Australian values is such bullshit. Honestly when you read about Blair actually making some economic sense out of climate change and the environment. Starting to take it seriously and Howard drags the same ball and chain he has since I was in fucken year 8 we have problems.
A big problem is that Australia doesn't seem to get criticised anywhere near as much as we deserve, and if we do it is news to me as the media doesn't seem to ever run the story.
It's all good news and biscuits when Colin Powell thanks our insignificant nation in a press statement carefully prepared so it isn't too obvious that Colin is trying to remember what our country looks like as he says it.
And that's not because he is dumb, but because he is smart. Australia is literally a hole in the ground you can dig shit out of and sell it to china. That's our fucking contribution to the world and we think we need recognition for it. We are a pack of winging farmers with delusions of granduer. And we are stuffing up our own planet then defiantly trying to make things worse rather than claim responsibility. Apparently farmers are shooting themselves with this drought. Steve 'Mr. Nothing' Bracks may actually be in trouble over the water crises. But where's it all coming from, our dogmatic protection of our coal industry.
Well fuck it. It's not sustainable nor is digging big holes anything to be particularly proud of. Our government is acting irresponsibly and if the world was just we would be getting economic sanctions against us instead of acting like our opinion counts in putting sanctions against north korea.
What's that Bush & Blair you need to hear where Australia stands on this?