Moving Out

That's right, it is time for Chas to move on. Gone are the days of carefree blogging at blogger. When I first started this blog, I made the decision to use blogger as a host, even though I ran www.zoocity.info, in case blogging was not my thing. Well, I have taken to blogging like a fish to dry concrete and so Sleeping Not Thinking is moving into Zoocity. Where it should always have been.

The move will be a difficult one, and will entail some changes. http://chasrover.blogspot.com will be hacked into pointing to the new home of Chas Rover: http://www.zoocity.info/chasrover/ . For you (singular) who have links/bookmarks to me, I leave it to you whether you change them. After all, without choice we would be nothing. Which is slightly less than what we are.

Why I might vote for Mark Latham

In my humble opinion, a blog is not the best forum for political discussion. Which is ironic as most blogs are political discussions. But the French in me knows the best forum for political discussion is face to face, slightly to heavily intoxicated, bar or living room 500 decible ranting amongst friends. But as our esteemed leader, John "small man made of smaller men" Howard, has decreed I must make my democratic mark in October, I thought I'd make a point for the leader of the Opposition, Mark Latham. I will most probably vote for Mark for one reason: I suspect he is a koala, pretending to be a Leader of The Opposition.

Similarities between a koala and Mark Latham:

1) The nose.
2) They both look soft and cuddly, but when angered are the most viscious bastards imaginable, cutting shreds out of you with their completely unconsealed claws.
3) They both put up with Japanese tourists as they bring in the cash.
4) They only like certain trees, but are friendly towards tree-loving hippies like Peter Garrett.
5) They both come from the outback or somewhere like that. I don't really know as the furthest West I have been is really not very far and I don't know where Werriwa is or Green Valley or any of these other ugg-boot, flannellette shirt wearing westy dens, but I am sure there are lots of koalas and kangaroos and emus and all of that.

Now, being a leftist tree-hugging, pro-education, pro-healthcare, pro-welfare, anti-pre-emptive war, anti-locking-refugees-up, pro-Kyoto, anti-spam, socialist, communist, trusting, fearless scum at heart, I would never vote for the Libs, regardless of how good they are at hoarding money. It is true that the Right saves, while the Left spends. It is a cycle and I don't give a shit enough about the world economy to know what is needed right now. I would vote for the Greens, but they really aren't as balanced as they should be and extremism is useless. The Democrats have imploded, but I would only vote for them as a protest against the main parties, which is like voting for Nader in the US. So, you may ask why I have qualified my preference for Labour with the word "may". You see, I could always turn up on October 6, pick up my ballot paper, strip down naked, piss, shit, spit on the ballot, chew it up, spew it out, tear it up and write FUCK ALL POLITICIANS on every scrap that remains before carefully placing the pieces in the ballot box. But, as my sister pointed out when I floated this concept at the dinner table one night, that would be a vote for Howard.

Scientists with great taste

A panel of scientists has decided (informally) that Blade Runner is the best sci-fi film ever. Damn straight it is. My favourite film. Has been since I was little. I have never understood why, except that its themes of what makes a human touch me deeply. I have the soundtrack on my iPod and when the God of Random Shuffle chooses Tears in Rain, End Titles or Rachael Song my mood lifts (and falls at the same time) dramatically.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is my favourite Phillip K Dick novel. P K Dick is my second favourite author. Ridley Scott is my favourite director. Harrison Ford was my favourite actor for years. Rutger Hauer, Daryl Hannah, Sean Young are all personal favourites. The Blade Runner PC Game was a masterpiece. The Blade Runner sequel books were well done, if slightly crap. The soundtrack by Vangelis is Number 1 on my desert island CD list. It could be the only one on the list and I would still be happy.

My one wish in life is for the legal wrangles that have stopped the release of the special edition DVD with Ridley Scott's ultimate version (the director's cut was a rushed hack job) could be sorted out. My one regret in a life with no regrets is that Harrison Ford, who I idolised as a kid, dislikes Blade Runner. It was his best work, but it seems that Ridley Scott got it out of him the hard way. The book of the making of Blade Runner, Future Noir, tells this story and is the best book about the making of a film there is.

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I've seen C-beams glisten in the dark by the Tanhauser gate. All these...moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain" - Roy Batty.

Blogger Enemy Numero Uno

I do hope no-one has ever used that title before. The blog world is in uproar. The injustice! The gall! The sheer humanity! The blogosphere is primed and ready for this latest affront to the "unwritten rules of blogging". They have pitch-forks, pitch-spoons, torches and the batteries for them. Blogistan goes to war on plagiarism. Call the UN, call the Americans, take France off the speed dial. We going to war. WAR! The violence will be horrific. The death toll may be in the billions. Not since the great loser debacle that was Athens 2004 (oh wait, it's still on? Seems like years ago) has a group of Australians shown their true colours.

This reminds me of the time I found an essay online on Kubrick. It quoted a review I had written for A Clockwork Orange. There was no mention of me. None. My ego nearly snapped. Then I read the essay was for Film Making 101 at some community college. And the guy had passed. I felt good. I had contributed to someone else's success. An act unrewarded is more rewarding, in my view. Not to mention I now have a Film Making 101 diploma by proxy. Oh, how my friends are jealous of that!

But that was really my user who thought that way. Chas is a different kettle of fish. Chas is ready for the battle. Chas will enlist with the first enlistment officer to ask Chas to enlist. Chas will fight like he did in his excellent dream last night, where the cats had mysteriously escaped the house and the mystery was solved when a burglar was discovered taking the hinges off the doors and then a fight ensued and despite being stabbed by a seringe with unknown psychadelic drugs in it, Chas still fought the burglar, but mostly "off-screen" as it was clearly a G rated dream and the burglar was taken away by the police who looked nothing like police and may have been in league with the burglar, setting up a sequel, but the psychadelic drugs seringe was still in Chas' leg and he realised it was a dream and realised that it was now lucid and Chas could control the entire universe for a couple of minutes so he floated to the top right corner of the room and woke up. Point is, Chas is a soldier and Chas will fight the war against People of Blog Plagiarism (PBP) which doesn't have the same ring as WMD but if he says it enough maybe CNN will run with it.

The first step is always to name such a worthy endeavour, or crusade, as I like to call it. Perhaps The Coalition Against Copy Catting or The League of Anti-Plagiarists or The Crusaders For Intellectual Property or Blogger's Jihad against Word Duplication or Comrades of What's Mine Fatwah or Media Watch or Pompous Gits Versus Godzilla or Chas versus the Hinge Removing Cat Letting-outering Cops and Robbers of Doom or Aussie Alarmists Angered And Alarmed At Alotof un-Authorised Alteration, plAgiarism And Aliteration Response Group or AAAAAAAAAAAARG, for short.

PS: Please plagiarise this post. I have even less readers than Caroline and I could do with the lack of publicity a complete lifting would provide. Except for when people remember the AAARG bit and type it into Google and this post comes 30 or 40 and the really bored people would come and visit my site and be the first people ever to make it to page 40 of a google search result and win some kind of medal and a prize and kudos and a gmail invite from me. If you are going to steal this, make sure you cut and paste and don't just type it in from a print out or something like that, cause you will get the number of As in AAAAAAAAAAAARG wrong, which I probably did already. So you can change the number of As to the right number, if they are wrong and if you are going to steal this post, which you won't now 'cause its gone on too long and changed tone and tense and doesn't really make much sense but does have that bit about the cat leterouterer and stuff, so maybe. What?

Groundhog Day

Watch me sell out

Step right up and watch Sleeping Not Thinking descend into capitalist hell. From Amazon links to Google AdSense, Chas Rover gladly prostitutes himself and his blog to the highest, lowest, hell any bidder.

This is the sellingest-outiest sell-out ever.

Morning state of mind

Un-Australian

With all this hoo-haa about Sally Robbins dropping her oar and "costing her team mates a medal they had zero chance of getting", I thought I'd give my thoughts on how the Olympics could be improved to make it more...Australian.

We have a rich heritage in sports down-under. From bowling under-arm to dummy spitting, we epitomise the gentleman sportsman. For us, there is no purpose to any endeavour unless the result is first place. We are winners. It was probably an Australian who said you don't win silver, you lose gold.

So, the first proposed change to the Olympics to make it more Australian is to remove all but the gold medal. No-one wants silver or bronze, they are un-Australian. In fact, there shouldn't be a gold medal, either. It should be a platinum, diamond and safron hybrid and there should be only ONE. Every athlete should have to compete in every sport and there will be just one winner. That is the Australian way.

Second, only athletes that have a 100% (or 110%, as it is known in Australian sport) of winning The Medal should be sent to the games. If you don't have a 100% chance, you are already a loser. Australian sport does not suffer losers. Losers are un-Australian.

Third, any athlete that drops an oar, suffers complete musclular breakdown, a heart-attack, an asthma attack or any form of loser behaviour (including not winning The Medal) is to be held in an internment camp. The final olympic event will be rifle shooting. All losers, including the losers of the rifle shooting, will be shot by the winner. He (it would be un-Australian for it to be a She) will then claim The Medal and will be put down through lethal injection. This is the Australian way.

On completion of the Olympics, all athlete support staff, Olympic staff, volunteers and members of the media will be marshalled into "The Showers", where they will be gassed. It is un-Australian to be at an Olympic games and not win The Medal.

All spectators, passers-by and the population of the host country will then be removed using a combination of nuclear, neutron and biological weapons. It is un-Australian to be in the vicinity of the Olympics and not win The Medal. The host country will then be dug up to a depth of 40 metres and the remnants shot into space.

Special monitors will be attached to every television and computer in the world. Anyone who watches or obtains information about the Olympics during the two week period of the Olympics will be killed through a small explosive charge that was implanted in the world's population prior to the Olympics. It is un-Australian to take an interest in the Olympics and not win The Medal.

All members of any athlete's race, ethnicity, religion or country that does not win The Medal will be hunted down, tortured and killed by a specially created "Loser Squad". It is imperative that the spread or Loserity, through belief systems or genetics, be halted as it is un-Australian.

As you can see, these small changes to the Olympic procedures would create a much greater spectacle and avoid the nasty taste that is left in our Australian mouths when we are forcibly subjected to the dreaded "loser". It is time we wiped all losers from our great country, from the world and from the Olympics. It is un-Australian to have to put up with it.

Perfect, they're all perfect.

It may be blindingly obvious by the look of this blog, but I am not a perfectionist. I agree with the emerging view that perfectionism is basically a mental disorder perpetuated by those that feel chronically inferior and rationlise any failure into falling short of perfection.

The balanced part of my mind says there is nothing inherently wrong with that, though. Striving for perfection is a worthy goal. The balanced part of my mind is clutching at straws. I went to a selective high school and associated with the high acheivers at uni. Personally, in both cases, my lack of perfectionism set me aside from the others. It meant, in their minds, that I didn't achieve to my potential, a fatal sin according to that mindset. Didn't bother me. I could see what they couldn't. Perfectionism was killing them. If they ever achieved any of their arbitrary goals, they would move the goal posts. Forever dissatisfied. They called this emotion yearning for perfection. I call it dissatisfaction. I have never set goals for myself in that way. I learn what I can, I experience what I can. I don't feel getting the top marks or earning the top dollar makes me a better person. Gaining knowledge and being happy makes me a better person.

I think the vast majority of people are the same way, despite mass media pushing us to strive for perfection. I think it is credit to the human race that in the face of such pressure most of do find ourselves happy with our lot. It warms my heart.

The Olympics are, of course, the ultimate expression of the two types of people. There are those that are overjoyed to have the privilege of such an experience. There are others that are there to win. There are those that feel that training every waking hour for years is only justified if you get that gold medal. Those hours were a waste for those who think like that. The hours are only as valuable as the value one gets from them. Fortunately, the Olympics consists of a majority of athletes who are happy to know where they stand, still happy if that is not on the middle podium.

I have often used the following analogy when talking about perfectionists. A perfectionist fills a cup to the very top. A perfect cup, to them, is as full as the surface tension of the water will allow. One more H2O molecule and the surface tension would pop, spilling the water. One less, would be short of perfection. I don't see that as perfection. That is an accident waiting to happen. The perfect cup of water, to me, is not quite full. Full enough that it will quench my thirst, but not so full that it will spill everywhere when I try and transport it back to my desk.

Perfection is tommorow for Perfectionists, but today for me.

Heinous hypocracy hurled horrifically from my high horse

"Education... has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading." - G. M. Trevelyan

"Blogging... has produced a vast population able to write but unable to distinguish what is worth writing" - Me.

"I started a blog, which started the whole world whinging.
Oh, if I'd only seen, that the joke was on me"

Irony: To treat ironing as an art.

Open letter to tobacco companies from hosptials: "We thank you for your patients".

Apple to Xerox: "We thank you for your patents".
Microsoft to Apple: "We thank you for our patents".

So what is worth writing? A lot is being said in main stream press and on blogs about how it is virtually a crime to allow ordinary folk access to a publishing medium, that information is being passed along unflitered, un-sub-edited, un-UN-sanctioned, without permission and without training/degrees/doctorates in sub-atomic quantum writing for dummies on the moon. Well, they should all get a grip and do their own thing. Soon (say 50-100 years) everyone (yes, everyone) on Earth will have access to the technology to write, read, sing, dance, create, film, photograph, jingle, inspire, fix, break and fuck anything they want. Most will do it for fame and be bitterly disappointed. Some will do it all for shits and giggles and will die happy, knowing that one day, a thousand years from now, some 8 year old stars-in-her-eyes-nine-tenths-to-enlightenment little girl will read, write, sing, dance, create, watch, look, hear, break and fix all of it and find out how to be happy.

What is worth writing is the same as what is worth reading and the answer is everything. Click the "Next Blog" button at the top with the idea of reading at least 3 posts of whatever blog turns up. Don't judge them, just read them. Some will be badly written, with more elipses than words, some will be in another language. Read them all, try to figure out what part of their human existance they are letting you in on and be enlightened. Repeat. It is arbritrary what writing we claim to be good and bad. The decision is made for us when we are young. There should never have been a decision made. It's all good. It's all bad. And it's all worth reading.

Someone frurtled my froolangs

I would love to be able to eloquently add to these pages a treatise on my current feelings and mood, however there is no symbol for spew in the English language, as far as I know. I wonder if there is a language that has a character for spew. I may have to design one.

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