Jumping ship: your options

NSW is done for. Tax hikes, plummeting growth, the prospect of a crappy credit rating and two and a half more years of Nathan Rees mean that it’s time to get out. Let’s have a look at the other states and territories, in no particular order.

Australian Capital Territory

Pros: Decriminalised mull, cheap fireworks and sex stores that make Bunnings look like a shoebox.
Cons: Politicians, public servants and zero night life.

The nation’s capital isn’t really an attractive option. More a country town than a city, it suffers from the dual ignominy of firstly being completely surrounded by NSW, and secondly having its best suburb (Quenbeyan) in NSW. Cold in winter, too far from the beach in summer, the only advantage to be obtained from moving here is that Central Coast bogans won’t often be motoring down the highway for a visit.

Rating: One titanic

Victoria

Pros: Trams, cafes, bars and music.
Cons: Having to admit that Melbourne is better than Sydney, realising that Melbourne is a lot uglier than Sydney.

South of the border, down Mexico way offers the most obvious choice for a disgruntled New South Welshman. Of course, you’ll have to start supporting Collingwood and drinking Carlton Draught, but Victoria’s economy is strong, and Melbourne will soon once again be Australia’s biggest city. Sydneysiders will fit right in with the fast-paced lifestyle, but be warned; no one is ever on time here. You can also enjoy paying exorbitant tolls for the privilege of sitting in traffic. It’s like you never left home!

Rating: Three titanics

Queensland

Pros: Relaxed lifestyle, great steak and the best devonshire tea in the country (thanks Flo!).
Cons: The heat, the bogans and the cane toads.

Beautiful one day, stinking hot and humid the next. Sunny Brisbane is situated on the bank of the Brisbane River, however it seems to be immune to any form of breeze and so summer days are long and sweaty. Thanks to the relaxed Brisbane lifestyle, you can beat the heat by having a couple of XXXX Golds at lunch, followed by a XXXX Gold at afternoon tea, and a couple of quick XXX Golds after work. People are friendly, the girls are good looking and thanks to the mining boom, business is on the up. If city life in Brisbane is still too hectic for you, you can always head up the coast to unwind. Plus, if you’re a political type, you’ve got a great chance of reaching the dizzying heights from up here - you would be alongside the PM, the treasurer and the G-G.

Rating: Four titanics

South Australia

Pros: Coopers, fine wines, amusing palindromes.
Cons: Abundance of upper class twits, sharks.

Second only to Canberra in terms of boringness, I haven’t spent any time in Adelaide so can’t really comment too far. The climate is mild, they seem to produce some good bevoirs, and if you want to have a good time you just need to don a pair of fishnets and hit the town. Give it a whirl, if you’re that way inclined.

Rating: Two titanics

Western Australia

Pros: Mining boom, great pubs, nice city.
Cons: Distance.

The final frontier, Perth is the most isolated city in the entire world. If you want to leave, it’s at least a five hour flight to anywhere decent. That said, the city is picking up as more and more money flows in thanks to the mining boom, and they seem to know how to have a good time. The pace is slow, and they are 2 hours behind, so if you’re dealing with the rest of the country you can knock off at 3pm every day. Better still, you’re a really *really* long way from the Central Coast, so you’ll almost never see a sub-human from Umina driving around your city. Speaking of the city, it is quite pretty, especially along the Swan.

Rating: Four titanics

Northern Territory

Pros: Beer.
Cons: Heat.

This is the only capital I haven’t visited, so I really don’t have much to say at all. They drink a lot of beer (twice the national average), but it’s also bloody hot. You also have a very high chance of being eaten by a crocodile while performing such everyday tasks as crossing the road. Only for the very adventurous.

Rating: Two titanics

Tasmania

Pros: Cool climate, beautiful city, excellent seafood.
Cons: No jobs.

Hobart is a fantastic city. Relaxed, friendly, no traffic, and best of all, you can’t even drive there from the Central Coast without catching a ferry. It could be a bit chilly in the winter, but the energy is mostly sourced from the hydro scheme, so turn those heaters up! If you can find a job down here, it’s definitely the place to be - especially as climate change kicks in and it gets a couple of degrees warmer. The locals all seem to exhibit mild signs of inbreeding; if you’re planning on procreating, send your kids to the mainland so they can meet someone from outside the family.

Rating: Three titanics

New Zealand

Pros: Russell Crowe
Cons: Russell Crowe

The seventh and final state, New Zealand is still maintaining a façade of independence by retaining its own currency and stamping passports whenever mainlanders visit. Importantly, if you do decide to move to New Zealand, your national cricket captain won’t be Ricky Ponting. The snow is great, the beers are cold, and the accents are hilarious. What more could you want?

Rating: Three titanics

That’s all from me. Good luck with your decision.

The slippery slide continues

Around a year ago, I stopped reading the Sydney Morning Herald’s online service, due to plummeting language standards in their content, and their general all-round slovenly attitude to journalism.

I switched over to the ABC, and since then have noticed a substantial decline in the quality of this publication as well. I have stuck with it for a year and tried to ignore the occasional typo, grammatical error, unsubstaniated information and blatant bias. Now however, I think we are reaching the end.

Senator Obama is expected to win, with pollsters giving him an average lead of seven points.

If omens are anything to go by he might look to the small New Hampshire town of Dixville Notch.

Voting has already finished there with residents casting 15 ballots for Barack Obama and six for John McCain.

Votes have already been counted in the small New Hampshire town of Dixville Notch.

The remote town traditionally opens its polls at midnight on election day, hours before the rest of the east coast heads to the polls.

For the record, voters in the town cast 15 ballots for Barack Obama and six for John McCain.

Did I mention that Barack Obama received 15 ballots in Dixville Notch? Time to stop laying off those subeditors, Aunty.

Maybe it’s time I switched to Al Jazeera permanently.

Another missive for Middle Australia

This one is dedicated to everyone who has ever purchased a bumper sticker bearing the legend “Fuck off, we’re full”.

There were some interesting studies released on the weekend. Let’s start with the findings of Kevin Dunn’s work Challenging Racism: The Anti-Racism Research Project.

40 per cent of Australians believe some ethnic groups do not belong in the country … one in 10 has outwardly racist views.

Fuck you, you inbred rednecked meat-and-three-veg-eating worthless steaming piles of shit. You know your second-favourite bumper sticker: “love it or leave it”? Guess what? People come to Australia because they love it. If you’ve got a problem with that, you should be the ones leaving. Fuck off back to the central coast with all the rest of the lowlife morons having sex with their 14-year-old cousins in the back seat of their mum’s Cortina, in the carpark of the local Eagle Boys.

Fuck you, residents of Camden. Fuck your combined intelligence which is barely high enough to spell “town meeting”. Fuck your anglo-centric attitudes and your McDonald’s diet which has rendered you so fat that you have to buy a Landcruiser just to haul your wife’s arse to the supermarket, to buy your weekly supply of Black and Gold instant coffee. Getting some decent lebanese cuisine in town is probably the best thing that could happen to you, short of being quietly put to death to raise the acumen of our collective unconscious.

Fuck you, white Australian flag-wavers. Fuck you for showing the world how fucking stupid we are. Fuck you, fuck your deadshit surfie haircuts, fuck your dead-end 9-to-5 jobs, fuck your fake-tanned, bleached-blonde girlfriends, fuck your chicken-burger-and-chips world outlook, and fuck your pathetic football team - 42 years without a premiership.

Ashfield … came out positively in nearly every aspect of the study, thanks to long-term encounters with diverse cultures.

“It could be one of the most tolerant areas in Sydney,” [Professor Dunn] said.

Fuck yeah. Inner west for life, motherfuckers.

Tricks with photography

Let me preface this by saying that I’m not a big fan of Mahmood Ahmadinejad, however I have noticed a trend in the western media that I would like to talk about.

Firstly, let us consider the standard file photographs of some major world leaders (plus K-Rudd, just to keep up my quota of local content).

Now, let me bore you with a little bit of data analysis.

You don’t have to be Alfred Einstein to notice the trend here; the more “evil” a world leader, the smaller he appears in his file photo. It’s not too overt for Kim and Fidel, but the mugshot of Ahmadinejad is truly ridiculous. All the media is missing is a caption: “Small man syndrome”.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. The true beauty of this is that noone will ever pick the media up on selecting photos which reflect the way they wish their subject to be portrayed in the subconscious minds of their readers. Notice how our beloved western leaders are all deep in thought of making an eloquent point, while the “crazy dictators” all look like they are either on a disjointed rant, or addressing some kind of fascist rally.

I’m going to have to ditch my beloved ABC and start reading Al Jazeera.

T minus 2

We are now less than two hours away from one of the most exciting events in the history of quantum chromodynamics - the flipping of the big switch marked “LHC ON”.

In order to prepare for the highly improbable event of a catastrophe, I ducked out at lunch and consumed three schooners. Apparently alcohol can cushion your system from the effects of:

1. Micro black holes
2. Rifts in the space-time continuum
3. Beings from another universe invading through aforementioned rifts
4. Concerned technophobes

If you require any further information, please visit this website.

Step aside, CERN

In five days time, European scientists will fire up the greatest penis extension ever constructed - the 27 km Large Hadron Collider. The aim? To prove once and for all the existence of the Higgs boson, otherwise known as the God particle.

Preempting the results and moving forward a little, I would like to present my latest research paper on the Next Big Thing. No doubt, once the hullabaloo surrounding discovery of the God particle has died down, scientists will start to get bored again, and mankind will long for an even bigger penis extension. I dub this construction the Mega Large Hadron Collider. It will be 42,000 kms long, and constucted in orbit, in the shape of a Klein bottle.

After being cooled to 1/π th of a degree kelvin, the Mega Large Hadron Collider will be switched on. The purpose of this experiment? To split the God particle, of course! My predicted outcomes of this particular project are presented below.

As you can see, the neutral God (Higgs) particle created from the two colliding quarks is hit by an ultrafast χ beam. The God particle is then split into its three component Auld-Higgs particles, designated G^f, G^s and G^h. In layman’s terms, I like to call these the father, son and holy ghost particles.

Unfortunately, it will be at least 100 years before the technology exists to build the Mega Large Hadron Collider, but when it happens, don’t be too surprised if I receive a posthumous Nobel prize.

A room with a view

With my work in Bundaberg complete on schedule, I spent the morning at Bargara beach with my laptop. There’s nothing quite like answering your emails while staring out at the Pacific Ocean.

Off to Brisvegas now for a night out with Messrs. Karbowiak and Wilson, before heading back to Old Sydney Town on Wednesday. Photos may follow.

Sunny Bundaberg

Unfortunately, due to my recent laptop downgrade, I cannot decorate this post with scenic photos. Fortunately, due to the fact that I am currently hanging out in a motel room wearing a towel, the photos probably wouldn’t be of interest to the general public anyway.

My day started at 4am with the realisation that I had no clean clothes other than those on the line, which were all wet. 30 minutes of ironing solved this problem, and I was ready for my cab right on time.

Flying Qantas for the first time in over two years was quite eerie. I really dislike the concept of being called ’sir’ by hospitality staff; aren’t we supposed to be living in an egalitarian society? Even more odious is the flagrant use of the title “Mr Auld”. This name is reserved for my close friends only. If you don’t know me, it’s “Stuart”, or “mate”.

Anyhow, I survived not one but two Qantas flights, replete with bland bakery products and inferior tea. Upon landing in Bundaberg I realised that I should have hired a car, and so called the bean-counting department to get things moving. 45 minutes and 3 different forms later, I was on the road.

Having had consulted Google Earth about a week ago, I was fairly confident that I would have no trouble locating the distillery. However, a dream I had on the weekend completely confused me; I caught a taxi through the middle of Bundaberg and it was full of overpasses, bypasses and used car dealerships. After driving for ten minutes and not locating anything but endless fields of sugar cane, I resorted to Plan B: drive towards the chimney stack I can see in the distance, while simultaneously calling the office for help.

It was at about this point that a friendly member of the local constabulary stepped out on the road and motioned for me to pull over. He provided clear and concise directions to the distillery, for the bargain price of $100.

Is it possible to contest a speeding fine on the basis that you were driving a Tarago? I tried for the rest of the day to get it above 60 km/h, but couldn’t manage it. How he clocked me going at 72, I’ll never know.

Anyhow, I arrived safely at the distillery and was presented with an orange vest, a yellow hardhat and a rubber strap for my boots. The tour shortly commenced.

I think that the biggest insight of the day for me was learning where these “special blend” 18-year-old one-off bottles of spirits come from. Of course, the naive punter (aka me, 24 hours ago) would naturally assume that the liquor in question has been “hand crafted from the finest ingredients, before being laid aside in premium oak barrels for an extended maturation period”. In fact, the reality is somewhat different.

Engineer: “Hey, I just found some barrels that we stored in the wrong place 20 years ago, and have been sitting here gathering dust”.

Marketing department:”$$$$$$$$$”

To cut a long story short, I shall be heading to Bargara tomorrow morning to catch some surf, before departing for Brisvegas at 2:30pm. Adieu!

Monday, Monday

As we continue our inexorable march towards spring, I find myself standing on the tarmac in Melbourne. The temperature is 4 degrees, the sun is shining, and a light breeze blows from the direction of the city. Glorious.

With the chaos of last week’s performances of Man of La Mancha (including the consumption of enough alcohol to keep Billy Ray Cyrus happy for a month), work was quite difficult. This week should give me a chance to refocus and catch up on everything. Two days in Melbourne to start the week should help; my efficiency seems to increase by about 60% when I’m not around the office.

The phenomenon of Mondayitis is one which has been puzzling me of late. Is this simply an invariable symptom of the human condition, or can we overcome the Monday blues on a personal level? For years I have been content to write Mondays off as a waste of time, however I am now starting to believe that perhaps there is hope yet.

Consider the working week. We are locked in to a pattern of anticipation; eagerly counting down the hours until 4pm Friday, when we can crack open a beer, fire off the last couple of emails for the week, and then hit the town. The rest of the weekend is invariably spent trying to do as little as possible, while hoping that time will somehow get stuck somewhere around 3:30pm Sunday afternoon so that we can spend the rest of our lives drinking tea in the sun. Sadly, this is yet to occur.

The problem at hand then becomes one of expectations. Once we accept that it is simply not feasible to have a productive Monday, we can take measures to use the time wisely. You know all those pointless meetings which sap your valuable time on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday? Reschedule for Monday! Weekly shopping, cleaning out your desk/inbox, conversations with HR - all these time-wasting exercises are perfect to start your week off.

Anyhow, I can’t stay around here all day; I’ve got reference material to alphabetise. Adieu!

Countdown

My most ardent anthropoids,

Over the past five years I have lived with ten different people in five different dwellings. Friendships have been forged and broken, good times have been had and I am still on speaking terms with 70% of the people who I have been lucky enough to share a roof with.

For the past two months, I have lived by myself for the first time. Although it was slightly lonely at first, I had my dog with me, and spending most of the time out and about also helped. Now, just as I am getting used to being able to crank out the guitar at 1am every evening, this are about to change again.

In under 48 hours, the infamous internet celebrity Joel W. Courtney shall be moving in to my humble abode.

No more walking around the house naked, no more late night songwriting, no more storing underpants in the microwave.

On the other hand, we now have some sweet photography adorning the walls, I can have a quiet beer at home again, and there will always be someone to cook for. Here’s to a long and prosperous marriage!