Peter C. Hayward's Livejournal.

From dmmaus:

A fundamental difference between Australians and Americans, and one that will stand you in good stead in cross-cultural interchanges if you remember it:

• Americans respect their government, but they do not trust it.
  
• Australians trust their government, but they do not respect it.

Poll #1473496
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 7

In life, which do you think is more important?

Does your answer change if I change the phrasing to...

I want to update, just haven't been home in a while, and when I am I'm treating it as down-time and not going near my computer. Been watching a bit of TV, not as much as I'd like to (that's something you don't hear very often) - just watched through the first season of How I Met Your Mother and Coupling. Really need to do some writing and video editing, I'm way behind on my self-appointed deadlines.

On the plus side, I'm feeling really good about myself and life. Being busy tends to do that to me - I feel productive and valued, and those are lovely things to feel.

Me: I was watching a historical documentary last night, and it said that there actually used to be businesses before the internet.
Her: What do you mean?
Me: Well, you know how we communicate with other businesses via email? Yeah, apparently they used to have businesses talking to each other before the internet even existed.
Her: You mean…still on computers?
Me: No no, that’s what I’m saying. Before computers even existed, businesses used to communicate with each other. I don’t know how it would work.
Her: Well yeah, by the telephone.
Me: Yeah, I didn’t really understand it myself. It was a weird concept though. Business before the internet. I mean, how would you send an email?
Her: You’d write a letter.
Me: No, but this was before even computers existed. How would you print out a letter?
Her: By typewriter…
Me: Yeah, I’m not so sure.
Her: Or you could just write it.
Me: Write every letter? That’s insane. I don’t really think it was-…
Her: I don’t understand.
Me: Yeah, I don’t think it was real. I think it must have been a hoax – like you know those people who believe the moon landing was faked? I think it was like that, they were pretending that businesses communicated before the internet.
Her: Peter, I have no idea what you’re talking about.

Just then, on MSN.

Brent: you santimonious prick!
Me: Do you mean sanctimonious?
Brent: duck
Brent: FUCK!

Reading through the "Obama is likely the first Muslim President" page is astounding. Their evidence:

• Obama declared in prepared remarks, "The United States has been enriched by Muslim Americans. Many other Americans have Muslims in their families or have lived in a Muslim-majority country - I know, because I am one of them." Oh selective bolding, you can prove any point you like!
  
• Obama used his Muslim middle name when sworn in as President.
  
• Obama stated that the autobiography of Malcolm X, a Nation of Islam leader who became a Muslim, inspired him in his youth. God, if only he'd been inspired by Mein Kampf, then we'd know he was a Christian!
  
• Obama's background, education, and outlook are Muslim, and fewer than 1% of Muslims convert to Christianity.
  
• Obama tries to downplay his Islamic background by claiming that his Kenyan Muslim father was a "confirmed atheist" before Obama was born, but in fact less than 1% of Kenyans are atheists, agnostics, or non-religious

Oh my god...I just realised something...Obama can't be president!! Statistics prove it: less than 0.000001% of people have EVER been president! What are the odds that he is?

Statistics never lie, people!

I adore Conservapedia. It's a 100% genuine conservative-run version of wikipedia - it may seem like a parody, and at least once while reading a page you'll think "Wow, is this for real"...it is. I swear.

What I love most about it is how much it oscillates - you'll be reading one page and thinking "Hey, that's quite reasonable" and then you'll find something like Overcoming Homosexuality.

Today, for example, I clicked straight from Bill Clinton, which is surprisingly even-handed (it's not exactly glowing, and it highlights some of his worse moments, but it's not nutbag crazy) through to Barack Obama, which, three paragraphs in, tells us that "The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons observed that Obama used techniques of mind control in his campaign, as in this speech: "a light will shine down from somewhere, it will light upon you, you will experience an epiphany, and you will say to yourself, 'I have to vote for Barack.".

It's a fascinating read; I'm taking everything I read with a grain of salt, of course, but I found this article particularly interesting: The Adulteress Story (it theorises that the "Let he who cast the first stone" story doesn't deserve to be in the bible.) Even if it's all made-up, I have learned from reading it that there are people who do believe that.

Poke around, post your favourite articles/the most outlandish statements you find in the comments.

(and if you get bored of it, the discussion pages provide a whole new level of crazy...)

So here's where I am on a number of things at the moment:

Livejournal: I have no real motivation to keep updating this. I won't be announcing a hiatus or anything like that, and I certainly won't be deleting my account, but I'm finding it very hard to allocate time to updating this. I'm updating now because I don't feel like sleep, and there are dozens of thoughts buzzing around my head that I want to get written down (including why I don't feel like updating, interestingly).

Livejournal serves a number of purposes: In terms of reading, I use it to keep up with a number of online friends, I use its RSS feed capabilities to read most of the blogs that I read. In terms of writing, I use it as an archive of my day-to-day life (I go back and read through my own archives embarrassingly often), I use it to keep up with people, I use it to explore concepts and learn from other people, and I use it when I want to think about something.

I'm continuing to read all the journals on my friends' list (even if I don't comment much) but this entry is really more about the decreased writing I've been doing.

I read once that introverts like to solve problems ("problems" meaning anything that has come up in their life generally) by themselves, they like to go away and think about it until they come up with a solution, and then they might feel comfortable telling others, whereas extroverts will solve a problem by telling others.

I don't know if that's true or not, but if there's something buzzing around my head, I have to get it out there to stop it from buzzing. Used to be that livejournal was my first port of call for that (thus all the "hey, what do you guys think of this situation?" or "I need advice on x, y and z" posts of the past) but these days I don't have the time to sit down and nut out my thoughts in a livejournal entry.

So these days, I tend to actually talk to other human beings. Probably much healthier for me, and easier, but it means that
a) There's much less content on here, and
b) I have no record of what I thought about various things at various times.

That sort of sucks. I love having a record of what I thought about various things about various times. I loved getting feedback from several different people, and then going back in months or years time, seeing the comments, and thinking "Oh! So that's the moment where I started thinking x," or "Wow, I used to think y? poxy_report was right, that was a completely arsey opinion."

So while I'd like to resume recording my thoughts and opinions here, as they change and evolve, it's just a time issue. I'm working 9-5, five days a week (I got my hours at work doubled!) and I have something on most afternoons, so when I do get home, I either do some non-journal writing, do some editing, watch some TV, or just go straight to bed. (more often than not it's the latter. Can you still say "latter" when there's more than 2 options?)

In terms with keeping up with people, I now have more groups of people to keep up with than I ever have before. When I first started writing this journal, I was in highschool, and the only people I needed to keep up with were school friends and my direct family. I saw both of those groups every day, so the journal was really just for myself. Updates were spotty at best.

When I left highschool, a number of my highschool friends continued to read the journal, so I started to record my goings-on in some detail. It was also around this time that I made a lot of friends through livejournal (or the internet generally, but most of them had livejournals.)

When I moved to Brisbane, I was suddenly cut off from most everyone I knew, and I updated my livejournal a lot. I had oodles of spare time, and it was essentially the only means of communication I had with all my friends. (I genuinely didn't realise this until months later, but during those first few months living in Brisbane, I was must have been ridiculously lonely. I didn't see anyone I knew for at least a month at one point.)

Then I moved into a house with my cousin Gavin, poxy_report, and at the same time made friends with dozens of people through NaNoWriMo...again, most of whom had livejournals. Livejournal served this great triple purpose at that point; it kept me in contact with highschool friends, Nano friends, and (obviously) livejournal friends.

Then, alas, I got into impro, and started making friends with people who not only didn't have livejournal, but had never even heard of it. I continued to update, to keep the nano and livejournal people up-to-date with what I was doing (I'd mostly dropped out of contact with high-school people at this point.)

And then I moved to Canberra.

I'm not sure if it's as quantifiable as I'm making it, but I tend to meet a large group of people every now and again, became friends with most of them, and then a few months later only be in contact with the people I've "clicked" with the most. I've no idea if this is true of everyone or just certain types of people (or just me) but you can pretty much track my life as I move from group of friends to group of friends.

(for example, of my highschool friends I'm only in regular contact with one, and irregular contact with half a dozen. Of the nano people, I only still talk regularly to half a dozen (including obviously katydidinoz, who I now work under) etc etc.)

So when I moved to Canberra, my "most recent" group of friends were the impro people. Who don't use livejournal.

So to keep in touch with my friends, I didn't much use livejournal. I used Facebook, because that's where they all are these days. I wasn't regularly meeting up with these people who I was used to seeing once or twice a week, and so the best and easiest way to keep up with them was through Facebook.

Through Facebook which, conveniently, ALSO kept me up-to-date with highschool friends, nano friends, and most of my livejournal friends as well. I know a lot of people, and 90% of them are on Facebook.

(a lot of that group is also on Twitter, which I can update from anywhere via my iPhone.)

Also, and I realise that this is entirely my fault, my livejournal readership has been steadily dropping (the less you update, the less people want to read you. It makes complete sense, but it quickly turns into a vicious circle...) I can post something here, and...actually, here's a quote from an LJ entry I wrote earlier this year:

I was talking with jenerationb, and she mentioned something that I've been realising lately as well - you can spend twenty minutes turning a stray thought into a livejournal entry, or twenty seconds turning it into a Facebook status. What's more, Facebook statuses are more likely to get comments, and let's face it, most of us are comment whores. I know I am!

If I still worked from home, I'd have livejournal as my flip-to, and update regularly. But as it is, I work in an office, and someone a few months ago had words to my boss about the amount of time I spend on non-work-related websites. Since then, I've been a bit paranoid, and tend to make my flip-to something completely ambiguous, like Holly Lisle writing guides, or sites about sitcom theory.

Facebook (and Twitter) can be updated from my phone, but livejournal? Livejournal requires chunks of time that I just don't have, to an audience that I don't have much to do with any more, for a reward that (while much less shallow than a Facebook or Twitter update) isn't as immediately gratifying.

But I miss livejournal. I miss the discussions (particularly the heated ones) - I will go back regularly and read through comments on my more controversial posts. Some extremely intelligent people read this livejournal (packbat, aphephobia, lurkitty, just to name the first three that come to mind) and even going back a year later, the comments are fascinating to read.

I can't promise that I'll try to update more, because I have been trying, and the only way to do it is to sacrifice sleep. (which I'm not getting enough of already.) What's more, sleep-deprived entries are almost worse than no entries at all.

So I suppose this is a post (it was originally going to cover more than livejournal, but time slipped away, as it always does) to explain why I haven't been here, and to say that yes, I genuinely do miss it.

If I get a chance, I'll update tomorrow with some more of the things buzzing around my brain, but I can essentially tell you ahead of time that I won't. Alas.

Is anyone else out there in a similar state of livejournal-limbo? It's like accidentally wandering out of a party, and standing in the middle of the street, staring in, wishing you could be back at that party, but knowing that the doors are locked and it would take more effort than it's worth to get back in. You might as well go home. For you, the party's over...but there will be another party, some day, and you can only hope that it'll be as good.

That metaphor got a bit longer than I expected it to be, but you get the idea.

My current flip-to is the website of Holly Lisle. I've never read any of her books, but her articles on writing are amazing. I thoroughly recommend checking her site out.

One quote particularly struck me, and so I thought I'd share it with you (and, honestly, for my future self, when I go archive-diving.)

Perhaps I'll never reach the place in my writing where I can touch the soul of a stranger from across the abyss of death. Maybe I don't have in me what it takes to change the world, or to change a life. But I want to live my life knowing that I gave everything I had---and if my reach forever exceeds my grasp, I will not die knowing I could have been more. To me, that is the challenge of writing.

More, it is the challenge of life. - Holy Lisle.

There's an
interesting post (and resulting discussion) over at theferrett's journal about the use of language, and whether use
of a word discriminates against particular groups. It's particularly
interesting because it covers a number of different topics that I'm
interested in: racism, homophobia, language, slang, prescriptivism vs
descriptivism (and how language evolves) and intent vs result.



Essentially, the post is about use of the word "gay" to mean "bad".
"That movie was totally gay," "your mum's cooking is gay", "having sex
with people of the same gender as yourself is literally gay"...



Personally, and let's get this out of the way, I don't use the word gay
to mean "bad". I actually don't even use it much to mean "homosexual",
ever since I learned that they're two different words with quite
significantly different meanings within the gay community.



He links to a
post by tithenai, in which the point is made that
whenever you say "Philistine", you're implying that Palestinians are
stupid, uncultured, idiotic etc etc.



There's a paragraph that Ferrett quoted, and I'll quote it as well:



What I am saying, when I say this bothers me, is that I am hearing
you equate Palestinians with negative things. If this was not your
intention, please consider that it's still what any Arabic speaker will
hear when you say it, because that word is in use in Arabic, and
whatever its true etymology, whoever the Philistines were, whether or
not they are ancestrally linked to the people occupying Canaan-that-was,
it means Palestinian today. Would you use the words 'to Jew
someone down' as synonymous with arguing over a price? Or the words 'to
gyp someone' as synonymous with cheating? Or the words 'to Welsh on a
deal' as synonymous with going back on your word? If so -- awesome. My
respect for you is lessened.



Now, this is where it gets interesting. Again, to get it out of the way
- I've never used (or, honestly, even heard) the phrase "to Jew
someone down", and I never will. I knew "to welch on a deal", but never
connected it with the Welsh. And even though it's obvious in retrospect,
I've been using "gypped" all my life, and never associated it with
gypsies. What's more, I am going to continue to use "gypped" and
"Welsh".



And, unless someone specifically objects to me, I'm going to keep using
the term "Philistine". (if someone objects, I'll stop using it around
them, that's common courtesy, but I'm not going to cut it out of my
vocabulary entirely.)



I obviously have a line. I haven't particularly defined it (and that's
not what this post is about) but I've drawn it. "Jew someone down" is
offensive, "gypped" isn't. "Gay" is not an appropriate synonym for
"bad", but "lame" is okay.



I bring up lame because it's an argument I've seen a few times before. I
know people who agreed that "gay" as a synonym for "bad" was offensive,
and so replaced it with "lame". Other people have then stood up, and
said "Hang on, why is that less offensive? Instead of saying homosexual
people suck, you're now just saying that disabled people suck."



That's an interesting point, but...is that really what lame means these
days? Except for in the phrase "lame duck", I've never heard anyone
disabled referred to as "lame". Lame, to my generation, simply means
"bad". The old definition has been lost.



"Ah," people have rebutted, "but it originally meant disabled
people."



And that's the point of my post. If you saw my poll earlier, you'll
notice I made a list of words: gay, lame, Philistine, idiot, moron,
retarded, Indian giver.



The fact is, while some are more obvious than others, all of
these have offensive origins. "Idiot" was a medical term for a while*,
it meant someone who (due to mental retardation) had an intellectual age
between 3-7. Similarly, moron meant someone with a mental age between 7
and 10.



So as well as gay, lame and retarded, should we cut out "idiot" and
"moron" from our day-to-day vocabulary? Someone from the early 1900s
might be offended! My parents are both psychiatric nurses, and every 10
years or so, the terms for mental disability are changed, because the
old meanings have become common insults. It happens every 10 years. It's
not going to stop.



Again, everyone draws their own line, but I think that there's a point
where a word outgrows its original meaning.



"Lame" has reached the point where people offended by it are being
unreasonable. I think that "gyp" used in a phrase is completely
different to calling someone a "gyp". I was aware of the term "Indian
giver" before I knew anything about native Americans, but the link there
is strong and obvious, so I no longer use the term.



One more thing about this argument that I find particularly interesting
is that I've never seen anyone bring up sexism in the same breath
(/post). "You x like a girl", "don't be so girly" etc etc. They're just
as common (let's be honest, they're probably much more common than every
other phrase except "that's gay") but no one ever comments on it.



*no, that's not where it originally originated, but let's be fair, "gay"
didn't originally mean homosexual.



So my question to you: Where do you draw your line, and why? What's your
personal pet peeve when it comes to offensive phrases? Here's a list:
which ones do you use, which ones do you avoid?



Philistine, gay, lame, Indian giver, gypped, like a girl, welsh(/welch)
on a deal, hooligan, idiot, retard, moron, special, disabled, hip hip
hooray, vandal, cannibal, bugger...(if you've got any others, comment,
I'll add them to the list)



My answers (as well as an anecdote that I couldn't fit in the post
anywhere) in the comments!

Keeping a livejournal updated is much more of a time-commitment than I remember. I've got an entry as my current "flip-to" window at work (an entry about one of the topics on this poll!) but I'm actually getting a lot done at work today, so it's being written very slowly. In the meantime, here's a poll!

Poll #1461803
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 16

Which do you prefer?

Jamie T?

Which of these words do you find offensive when used to mean "bad"? (ie "That was so ___" or "You're ____")

Send me a 30-character message.

That pun thread from earlier led me (somehow) to Uncyclopedia's Guide to Being Funny (And Not Just Stupid).

Comedy theory ("killing the frog") is one of my passions. It's my dream to some day write a book on the Universal Theory of Comedy that I've been developing, but in the meantime, I enjoy reading other people's theories. (most of which actually tie into my Universal Theory quite nicely)

Anyway, I thought I'd share a few of my favourite quotes from the Uncyclopedia Guide, either because they're particularly insightful, or just because they made me laugh:

Delete, delete, delete. More writing is more funny, right? Not necessarily. There's a reason why it's possible to make a living as an editor, a person whose job is mainly to delete prose and throw manuscripts in the trash: most writing is bad. Good writers understand this, and spend as much time mercilessly hacking their work apart as they do creating it in the first place, even throwing away completed novels to start from scratch. The ability to look at your own work, ask, "does this suck?" and answer honestly is one of the major differences between the pros and amateurs. Writing is as much about destruction as creation, so spend at least as much time editing as writing. Another way to think about it: writing is like cooking, it's as much about what you leave out as what you put in. When cooking a soup, you do everything possible not to put crap into it, shouldn't you do the same when you write?

As anyone who's ever seen anything I've ever written or created ever (including most posts on this livejournal), this is what I have most trouble with, and I'm only just really beginning to come to terms with it. The NAP-Time script (the puppet show, as seen in my default usericon) is probably the best script I've written so far, and I rewrote that literally 11 times. I'd reached the 6th draft before mujubius gave me some excellent notes that resulted in me throwing the whole script away and starting again. (I was still able to use some lines from the first 6 drafts, but I removed two of the main characters. Complete rewrite.)

I'm writing some scripts now for a show that Gavin and I are filming at the beginning of next year, and last night while trying to get to sleep, I realised what was wrong with the first episode...so I got up, and deleted almost half the script.

I don't know about anyone else, but (particularly when working on scripts) I find my writing:editing ratio closer to 1:3.

A bit on rhyming schemes:

ABAB
Little Fanny Crunchmuffin
Wouldn't go to Mass
Jesus saw her kitten-huffin'
Slapped her saucy ass.

AABB
The moon, you say, is round;
Your feet are on the ground.
I think I'll moon your mom,
And set you up the bomb.

ABBA
You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life
See that girl, watch that scene, dig in the Dancing Queen

That took me an embarrassingly long time to work out.

Speaking of things that took me an embarrassingly long time to work out...

Gay jokes. As of the time of this writing, there are more hits for the term 'gay' on Uncyclopedia than for the term 'the'. Adding the word 'gay' or a reference to gay parents for every person under the sun doesn't make the article funny - it makes it sound like it was written by a grade schooler.

Yeah.

If a joke immediately pops into your head after three seconds' worth of pondering, assume it will occur to many, many people as well, and a large fraction of them will probably make it in other pages.

This one I disagree with, but it's possible that my mind is wired differently to most people's.

Status Change. Stephen Colbert has suggested that all good humor involves status change. For example: if you are walking down the street, and bump into the President of the United States and he apologizes to you profusely, gets flustered, then asks you for your autograph, that's funny.

This is one that I've only recently learned about. I can't remember where, but the first time I heard about this, the example given was a Conan O'Brien sketch: he started a monologue by talking about how his job was completely different to that of a doctor's, because being a comedian is harder. A doctor in the audience stood up, objected to the premise, and stabbed another audience member, challenging Conan to fix him. Conan did.

This "bit" was funny for a handful of reasons, but one of the key factors is the status changes: Conan sets up the premise that he's going to compliment doctors for having hard jobs (Conan deprecating himself: low status) then turns it around, and claims that his job is much harder (giving himself high status.) The doctor stands up and challenges him - the doctor shifts from audience member (low status) to talking down to Conan on his own show, challenging him to operate on a patient. (giving Conan low status and the doctor high status) Conan succeeds, restoring his high status.

That's 3 distinct status changes, and a stabbing. That's comedy.

If anyone has any particular favourite comedy theory links or anecdotes, share them in the comments!

Someone linked me to this pun thread. I've been amusing myself today by tormenting my boss, katydidinoz with all the ones I haven't heard. (What's brown and rhymes with snoop? Dr Dre.)

None, however, made me laugh as much as this long post, simply described as "German jokes":

Knock, knock. Who's there? The police. I'm afraid there's been an accident. Your husband is in hospital.

A man walks into a pub. He is an alcoholic whose drink problem is destroying his family.

Did you hear about the blonde who jumped out off a bridge? She was clinically depressed and took her own life because of her terribly low self-esteem.

What do you call a cat with no tail? A Manx cat.

Why do undertakers wear ties? Because their profession is very serious, and it is important that their appearance has a degree of gravitas.

How many electricians does it take to change a light bulb? One.

How many engineers does it take to change a light bulb? None, it is far more efficient in both time and money to change it yourself. Failing that, ask a relative or neighbour to change it for you.

Why do women fake orgasms? Because they want to give men the impression that they have climaxed.

Two men are sitting in a pub. One man turns to the other and says: 'Last night I saw lots of strange men coming in and out of your wife's house.' The other man replies: 'Yes, she has become a prostitute to subsidise her drug habit.'

Two cows are in a field. Suddenly, from behind a bush, a rabbit leaps out and runs away. One cow looks round a bit, eats some grass and then wanders off.

Why are there no aspirin in the jungle? Because it would not be financially viable to attempt to sell pharmaceuticals in the largely unpopulated rainforest.

What do you get when you cross a chicken with a centipede? A media circus about the debate over the morals and ethics of genetic engineering.

So, there were an Irishman, an Englishman and an American wrecked on an island. One day, they found a bottle, and when they opened it, a ghost came out and offered them each a wish. However, even though they wished for different stuff, nothing happened, as the three guys of varying nationalities were just having shared hallucinations from hunger.

How do you drown a blonde? Hold her head underwater until she can no longer breathe and stops struggling.

Why did the blonde get fired from the M&M factory? Repeated absences and stealing.

A black man is going to get a vasectomy. He shows up to the doctor's office wearing a suit. The doctor says, "Why are you wearing a suit?" The black man says, "I just got back from a funeral"

A Blonde and a Brunette jump off a tall building at the same time. Who hits the ground first? Both of them hit the ground at the same time. Hair colour doesn't affect acceleration due to gravity.

What's worse then finding a worm in your apple? The Holocaust.

A man walks into a whorehouse and pays a prostitute for sex. He contracts an STD and passes it onto his pregnant wife. Their child is born deformed and has a difficult life. When asked if he could see the humour in the situation, the child replied, "No. No, I don't."

A man called a lawyer and asked, "How much will you charge me to answer three questions?" The lawyer said "$400." "Wow," said the man. "Isn't that a lot?" "I guess so," said the lawyer. "When are you going to ask your questions?"

How do you know when a Frenchman has been near your house? You don't, really, unless you were there to see him or if one of your neighbors saw him. I wouldn't worry about it, really.

Why did the chicken cross the road? Earlier that morning the farmers daughter had inadvertently left the gate to the yard open as she was preoccupied by her worry over a maths test set for that day. She hadn't studied for the test as she was still deeply distressed over her fathers recent heart attack. This, coupled with the added burden of household chores now delegated to her because her mother was out trying to get the west field prepared for sowing, had made her quite forgetful and distracted of late. Whilst several chickens escaped, only one strayed so far that it actually encountered the road facing the farm. After crossing the road and gorging itself in a soybean crop, the chicken was struck by a furniture removers van as it attempted to make its way home. Several hours later the dead chicken was spotted by a Community Mental Health Worker who was doing his bi-weekly rural clinic run. The chicken, being a bantam caught the eye of the Mental Health worker, who was a keen trout fisherman. "Cool" thought the mental health worker- "those feathers will make for excellent trout flies". He stopped and plucked a handful of the most iridescent blue, green and orange feathers and placed them in an envelope. He rolled himself a cigarette, sat on the trunk of his car and admired the clouds. "God, I love this job", he muttered to no one in particular.

Satan takes the form of Jesus and appears to three priests saying that if they do something evil, he'll let them drink of the holy water. The three priests discuss the offer and come to the conclusion that Satan must be tricking them into committing sin. When confronted with this accusation, Satan reveals his dastardly plot and salutes the priests on their cunning and steadfast faith.

Have you seen Stevie Wonder's new house? No. Well, it's really nice.

Where did Hitler keep his armies? The brunt of his forces were applied to the Eastern front, but throughout different periods of the war, a sizable chunk were used to protect the Atlantic Wall and a handful of divisions were used in Africa, to secure shipping routes.

A kid is riding down the street when his chain pops off his bicycle. The kid yells "God damn!" as he begins to fix it. A priest walking nearby overhears the boy taking god's name in vein and says "Don't say 'God damn' say 'God help us'". The kid says, "I am an atheist, get away from me".

How do you make a Swiss roll? Generally it involves a thin layer of sponge cake and a layer of either jam or cream. The resulting flat sheet of cake and cream is then rolled into a cylinder. It's quite delicious, actually.

A blonde girl walks into the local dry cleaners. She places a garment on the counter. "I'll be back tomorrow afternoon to pick up my dress." she says. "Come again?" says the clerk, cupping his ear. "I said 'I'LL BE BACK TOMORROW AFTERNOON TO PICK UP MY DRESS'," says the girl, this time louder.

What do you call 5 Mexicans in quicksand? A dangerous situation that could soon turn tragic.

Four blondes are driving to Disneyworld. They finally get to Florida and they see a sign that says "Disneyworld: left" so they take the left and have a wonderful time at what many people believe to be the most magical place on Earth.

A Mexican, a Texan, a Brit, and a Frenchman are flying on a plane when one of the engines goes out. The pilot comes out and says "we're too heavy, one of you will have to jump!" The Mexican looks at the Texan, the Brit looks at the Frenchmen, but they all decide that they don't want to jump out of the plane. The pilot attempts an emergency landing but without a runway and only 3 engines the plane hits at too harsh an angle and explodes.

How do you make a blonde's eyes light up? Do something really nice for her, like buy her the piece of jewelry she looks at every time you go into the mall, or bake her a cake. If you have the time and effort, make her something. People appreciate thought and effort in a present more than money.

Why don't Polish girls swim in the sea? The only sea that Poland borders on is the Baltic. Throughout most of the year this sea is too cold to comfortably swim in.

There once was a man from Nantucket. He owned a sailboat. I haven't seen him in years.

As their plane spirals towards the ground, a young man asks the pretty girl next to him if she would have sex with him, as he does not want to die a virgin. Surprised by this request, she declines, stating that in addition to the sheer inappropriateness of the idea, the mechanics of copulating in a crashing aircraft seem very difficult if not impossible. He agrees and admits that he was only trying to lighten the mood. However, she was busy putting on her oxygen mask and didn't hear this last bit. They both spend the last moments of their lives in anxious reflection.

A man walks into a bar. He orders a couple of drinks, pays for them, and then proceeds to leave the premises, as his wife had told him that he must not be too late home.

A horse walks into a bar. The barman immediately calls the local stable to report the missing stallion, and his owner promptly arrives to take him home. He thanks the landlord and offers a small reward, but it is respectfully declined.

What do you call a man with a tray on his head? If you are aware of his given name, you may address him with this. If he had adopted a nickname by which he is comfortable to be known, using this would also be deemed acceptable. If, however, you do not already know what his name is, ask him to kindly inform you so that you may become acquainted. You may then ask him why he has a tray on his head, and he will quite likely answer you with humility and direct earnest.

A man dies and goes to heaven. This is an assumption based on religious faith.

Oh my word. I laughed and laughed.

Hi! So here is what I've been up to lately, starting from last Monday.

Monday: Work from 9-3, gym for an hour, play rehearsal from
5-6:30
Tuesday: Work from 9-5, play rehearsal from 5-6:30, Impro from
7-9:45
Wednesday: Motorbike training course from 8-3:30, went around to
Kate's afterwards.
Thursday: Work from 9-5, impro from 6:30-8, impro rehearsal from
8-9:30 (preparation for the Cranston Cup)
Friday: Work from 9-5, edited NAP-Time until the wee hours
of the morning
Saturday: Rehearsal from 10:30-12, edited NAP-Time from
12:30-7:30, went and saw a play ("History Boys") from 8-9:30, watched
Lost for a few hours.
Sunday: Got picked up at 9:30, drove to Sydney (on the way,
proof-read and tested some scripts for Living With Peter, the new
YouTube project I'm working on) to participate in Cranston Cup. Got home
at 2:30am on Monday.
Monday: Work from 10-3:30, play rehearsal from 5-6:30, impro
rehearsal from 7-9:30 (preparation for a Dickensian long-form), rewrote
Living With Peter script from 10-11.
Tuesday: Today! Working from 9-3:30, then play rehearsal, then
impro.

The play I'm in is called "Hate Restaurants," it's by David Finnegan,
and if you're at all interested, you can read the script over at his website.
I'm playing the part of "Toby". I think it's a great script, but I'm not
mad for theatre.

If I get a chance, I'll update later with something a bit more personal
than a list of what I've been doing. I hope this email update works
better than the last one I tried!

Over the weekend, I read through the archives of a comic called Daisy Owl. Here are links to a few of my favourites, for sample purposes:

The Rest Stop
The Bully
Daisy Is So Smart
Movie Night

I recommend you check them out and also the rest of the comic as well!

(lots has been going on lately. I'm in an updating mood, but won't get a chance to do a proper update until...Saturday? Maybe Thursday night.)

As I'm sure you've noticed, I haven't been updating much lately. That's
because I spend most of my time in front of a computer either at work,
where I don't feel comfortable having livejournal open to post an entry
(too obvious) or I'm video-editing, in which case I'm too focused to
flip to a window to post an entry.



But I remembered recently that paid accounts on livejournal have a "post
by email" feature that I've never used, and so yesterday evening, I
looked up what had to be done to use it. If I've done everything
correctly, this should appear as an entry! (if I haven't, you'll never
see this, so no harm no foul.)



I was talking to my cubicle-mate today about feeling inspired, and she
mentioned a story that she'd thought about writing into a kid's book
last night. I told her about a poem I'd written in 2006, "Mum's
Marvellous Hair", and how I'd always thought that would make a cute
kid's book. (you can find the poem at
http://www.peterchayward.com/poem/mmh.html
<http://www.peterchayward.com/poem/mmh.html> if you're interested. I
think it's a bit long, but still holds up okay.)



She liked it, and asked if she could have a go at illustrating it.
Obviously I wasn't going to say no, so she says that she'll try to throw
something together. I'm curious to see the results.



I was in a poem-reading mood, so I looked up some other poems I've
written over the years
(http://www.peterchayward.com/poems/shorter-poems/
<http://www.peterchayward.com/poems/shorter-poems/> ,
http://www.peterchayward.com/poems/silly/little-nicky-genius/
<http://www.peterchayward.com/poems/silly/little-nicky-genius/> ) and
decided to dabble once more.



So, without further ado, here are some poems:



Mum and Dad

My father was a baker

Moulding dough like clay

An old fashioned bread-maker

A-lay-a-lay-a-lay



My mother was a prostitute

When they met that day

A woman of ill-repute

A-lay-a-lay-a-lay



He said he'd bake a cake instead

So he didn't have to pay

And in exchange he'd share her bed

A-lay-a-lay-a-lay



He baked for weeks and weeks and weeks

And in his small cafe

He developed many new techniques,

A-lay-a-lay-a-lay



And when fin'lly the day did come

And he brought her the tray

The sight she saw did strike her dumb

A-lay-a-lay-a-lay



Cakes and pies and pastry treats,

It was a full buffet

She tried the bread, she tried the sweets

A-lay-a-lay-a-lay



She looked at him with great mirth,

And he took the chance to say

"Now you can't claim this isn't worth

A-lay-a-lay-a-lay."



Capeside

Dawson, he loves Joey

But Joey's keen on Pace

And Jen has trouble shifting gaze

From Dawson's boyish face



But Pacey's mad for Andy

And she was mad for he

(until she slept with another guy,

at the start of season 3)



Jack was dating Joey,

Until he came out

And this caused Jo and Dawson

To have another bout



So Joey ran from Dawson

Into Pacey's arms

While Dawson's all sincere and deep,

Pacey's got the charms



Watching all this angst

Is like a type of heaven

So come on network executives -

Bring on season seven!



Ctrl-P-Expletive

The trouble with printers

is that they all suck

and cause me to use

words such as "fuck"



Stutter-by

If I was a butterfly,

And I had a stutter, why

I would prob'ly always fret

'Bout saying "W-w-w-w-watch...w-w-watch...w-watch out f-f-for that
net!!"



Tiger Love

Billy was a tiger

Betty was a dove

Yet this quite unlikely pair

were firmly in love



Betty kissed him on the eye

Billy bled for days

But even tho' he lost his eye

Their love it did not faze



One day Billy was yawning

Betty swooped in for a kiss

Billy chewed, seemed unaware

He was eating his miss



Once he found out, Billy sobbed

But I thought, all the while

I saw underneath his tiger eye

A secret tiger smile



Also, here's one that I wrote in 2006. I've tidied it up a bit, and
removed the god-awful chorus it had (it was originally written as a
song)



Conspiracy

For the past few generations

There has been one operation

Focussed on world domination

And influencing the whole population



From JFK's assassination

To the KKK's very creation

They even ran your education!

(So we write this with some trepidation.)



No matter what your current location

Try not to mention them in conversation:

They have total telephone regulation

And don't even bother with the police station!



They control all of our communication

If you stand in their way, you'll face annihilation

They decided your sexual orientation

You've got to admire their dedication



They even control Disney's animation

You know that there is no salvation

Once, in a moment of desperation

I stupidly tried some defamation



Well, I was amazed at the transformation

You wouldn't believe their organization

I immediately suffered discrimination

(and some mild constipation)



They're not just figments of my imagination

Just do a bit of investigation

You'll reach the same revelation

Unless, of course, you face termination.



They're in charge of the Bush administration

Can you give any better explanation

For Bush's very nomination?

No! It was because of this association.



So try not to share my frustration

That you can't shake their foundation,

They defy investigation:

It'll just end in demoralisation



So try to avoid affiliation

With their leader "Obama" (no relation)

He is the personification

Of evil and all its temptations.



That's all for now!

At the end of 2008, Peter C. Hayward and Gavin Core, two cousins who lived together in Brisbane, Australia, came up with an idea for a project: they would watch through the TV show “House M.D.”, and record a commentary for each episode.

The twist? While watching, they would have a big bottle of spirits in front of them. Whenever one of three things happened, they would take a shot:

1) Whenever someone had a seizure
2) Whenever someone had an MRI
3) Whenever “lupus” was mentioned.

Gavin, being a slightly larger and more burly figure than Peter, had a fourth criterion all to himself:

4) Whenever someone “flatlined”, or went bradycardic.

And so they recorded four episodes of “Drinks on the House”, and then they completely forgot about them.

Almost a year later, Peter, now living in Canberra (1200km away) was at home sick and bored, and discovered the footage. And so he decided to upload the footage, in three different forms:

1) As an audio commentary, to be downloaded and listened to while watching the show.
2) As a video,  whole and complete.
3) As an edited video.

You see, when people are drunk, they alternate between extremely amusing, and utterly annoying. In the interest of openness and honesty, you can watch the footage in whole, but if you just want the juicy bits, you can check out the edited versions.

Drinks on the House: Coming September 2009.

Teaser trailer:

Originally published at Drinks on the House. You can comment here or there.

I sent this email to my boss today:

Dear Kate,

I don’t feel that my current position allows me to “zing” people enough. Not once so far in my official duties have I had cause to shout “zing” in a triumphant and scornful way. This is a serious problem that must be addressed.

I realise that the position of [my position] doesn’t automatically produce much opportunity to “zing” people, but I must confess: I feel that there has been a distinct lack of effort on your part to assist me in finding these rare and fleeting opportunities. Not once have you called me in when you’ve had to reject an article, or dismiss a telemarketer on the phone. I don’t need to be the one who delivers the stinging remark, all I wish to do is punctuate it with a “zing”.

I regret to inform you that unless this issue is addressed, I shall have to tender my resignation. It is every human being’s god-given right to hand out the occasional “zing”, and so far this position is not addressing my needs.

Yours most sincerely,
Peter C. Hayward
Publishing Officer

I received a reply a few minutes later:

Dear Peter,
Thank you for your letter. At this time I will not be accepting your resignation.

I understand that you feel you are not being given ample opportunity to perform a duty you feel integral to your professional development. However, as you pointed out, nowhere in your job description, nor in the interviews preceding your appointment, was the opportunity to zing ever brought up. We have not mislead you in this matter.

At this time, I just don’t think your skills are up to taking on the high level zing you feel capable of. Until you are able to provide adequate evidence of your proficiency in zinging – like these, for example, http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-10-best-comebacks-of-all-time/ - I regret to inform you that zinging will be left to those with a more tangible talent.

Kindest regards,
Kate

warmdarkwood did an update like this, and it looked interesting, so I thought I'd give it a go:

House: I'm currently living with two guys from impro, a girl who isn't from impro. I get along with all three of them quite well, in different ways; the girl and I will sometimes cook for each other, we'll watch films together, and generally hang out, but neither of us are actually home much, so we might only see each other once per week. Guy 1 from impro and I have similar taste in movies, so we'll discuss what we liked and didn't like about films. He can be grumpy sometimes, but so far has only gotten annoyed at me once, and I completely deserved it. Guy 2 has a completely different taste in films to me, so I enjoy recommending movies to him, and he'll quite often track it down, watch it, and tell me what he thinks. A great deal of interaction with my housemates revolves around movies.

Work: I'm rather enjoying work at the moment. Not the actual work itself, which is mind-numbingly boring paperwork, but I like the people I work with, and I'm fairly well-liked around the office. My boss is katydidinoz, who is fabulous both as a person and as a boss, and I've found myself socialising with some of my workmates. I got a glowing review after I'd been there for three months, and just yesterday did a task so dull that Kate promised to give me "the world's best reference" for doing it. She also offered me a full-time position if I stayed in Canberra next year, but she may well have been kidding. Work is definitely going well.

Health: I'm actually sick, for the first time since November last year. That is a long time between illness, and I was enjoying it so very much. The worst part about being sick is that I have to stop doing things, but I have a lot of commitments that I simply can't stop doing. Tomorrow night, for instance, I have an impro show that I've been looking forward to for a few months, and the night after that I have an audition for a play I'm in. If I'm not feeling well on Monday, and I can get a doctor's note, I'll have the day off and just lie in bed and watch TV for the day. Hopefully that will make me better. I've got too much on to be sick!

Also: I haven't gone to the gym for a month now. The SECOND I am better, I am remedying that.

Friendships: I've met a large number of cool people down here, but the people I'm hanging out with the most are a group of uni students I know through impro. One guy, Duncan, is probably the closest I have to a non-Canadian "best friend" down here; we're going to start doing a radio show together soon, we're co-running some impro stuff, he's producing this play I'm in...we see each other about three or four times a week just for this stuff, but we also go and see movies together and the like. Good times. I'm at that stage where I have about four times as many friends as I do time/energy to spend with these friends, so I really only keep in contact with the ones whom I see through other commitments; my housemates, impro friends, workmates. If you don't fall into one of those three categories, I tend not to get a chance to hang out.

Relationships: I've had about 5 or 6 dates down here in the capital, but none of them have particularly gone anywhere. Just tonight, I went out with a girl who I quite liked, but it turned out didn't really like me back. She wants to remain friends, but I'm pretty sure I'd just be miserable hanging out platonically, on top of the aforementioned "I only really see friends who I'd see anyway" system that I seem to have going. I'm leaving town in a few months time, so I'll probably have a few more dates in that time, but I'd be surprised if any of them went anywhere.

I actually have more to talk about, so here's a new, made-up category.

Future: My cousin Gavin (poxy_report) and my ex-housemate Cannibal Kate (wyrdsmyth) got into the Pratchett play that's happening at the end of this year, and I was going to come down for it. Originally the run was going to end on the 5th or 6th of November, which would have worked perfectly for me - my play is on the 26th of October, and I'm going down to Melbourne for my boss's wedding on the 31st, so I was going to fly down after that, visit Brisbane for a week, see the play, and hold auditions for a show that Gavin and I are putting together.

The end date of the play has been moved to the 31st of October, which puts me in a slightly ridiculous position. I have four options: fly up on the 27th, see their play, then fly down to Melbourne three days later for Kate's wedding; miss Kate's wedding; miss their play; miss my own play.

None of those is particularly tempting. Honestly, at this point, I'm tempted to drop out of the play I'm in. I have an extraordinarily dull (but vital) role, and I haven't been at all impressed with the director so far, but Duncan's organising it, and I'd feel bad. Also, it's doubtlessly extremely good for me to do, I'll learn heaps about acting, etc etc.

It's looking like when I go up to visit Brisbane, I'm going to miss Gav's play, which sucks. Stupid new end-date. The old end-date meant that it would have been my birthday when I came up, which would have been lovely.

So that's my life, in various categories. I know I haven't been writing much, but I am still reading livejournal. Is there anything else people want to know? What have I forgotten?

I vote we turn this into your meme: take these 5 (or 6) categories, and use them to update the world on your life!

I think it was katydidinoz who originally put me on to futility_closet, but I have enjoyed it ever since she did. It updates daily (sometimes several times daily?) with interesting little facts, quotes from old books, occasional chess problems, and various other amusing facts. Today's update made me laugh:

Unfortunate literary non-sequiturs:

"Mrs. Glegg had doubtless the glossiest and crispest brown curls in her drawers, as well as curls in various degrees of fuzzy laxness." — George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss

"She touched his organ, and from that bright epoch even it, the old companion of his happiest hours, incapable as he had thought of elevation, began a new and deified existence." — Charles Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit

"'Oh, I can't explain!' cried Roderick impatiently, returning to his work. 'I've only one way of expressing my deepest feelings–it's this.' And he swung his tool." — Henry James, Roderick Hudson

"Mrs Ray declared that she had not found it all hard, and then,–with a laudable curiosity, seeing how little she had known about balls,–desired to have an immediate account of Rachel's doings." — Anthony Trollope, Rachel Ray

"The organ 'gins to swell;
She's coming, she's coming!
My lady comes at last …"

– W.M. Thackeray, "At the Church Gate"

"Oh hadst thou, cruel! been content to seize
Hairs less in sight, or any hairs but these!"

– Alexander Pope, "The Rape of the Lock"

One of two "Letters to Cynthia" in Christopher Morley's Mince Pie (1919) is titled "In Praise of Boobs."