all good things

So I am back. I didn't mean to stay away this long. At first I had just planned to take a couple of weeks off to catch up on uni work. Of course once I had caught up on that other stuff would come along, so I would say to myself "Just a few more days of catching up and then you can go back". I have been flat-out with uni and work at the moment, it is ridiculous. How do they expect someone to get a solid 18 hours of sleep??
Nothing really great has happened to me lately, but on a good note, nothing terribly bad has happened either. It's been like an episode of Las Vegas; rather mundane and uninspired but the flashy lights and the occasional boob shot keeps you watching.
The only exciting thing to have happened is that my little brother is being shipped over to Afghanistan for 3 months. Honestly I thought we weren't bothering with Afghanistan ever since Bush told us that it was Iraq that causes global warming, forces kids to experiment with drugs, kicks puppies etc. I just can't keep up anymore (not that I really bothered to in the first place). I mean who is the enemy now?? Iraq?? North Korea?? Klaatu?? The way I see it, if you are going to wage a quasi-legal war under the guise of ridding the world of the highly subjective concept of 'evil' then you should really stick to one ethnic group.
Anyway my little brother is going to Afghanistan and frankly I am jealous. I would love to go there (or anywhere near there) and knowing my brother he will stuff it all up. He is a terrible traveller. When he travels he doesn't leave the hotel. The most exotic thing he will get up to (get your minds out of the gutter!!) is furrowing his brow while he tries to figure out which Arabic symbol means 'men’s bathroom'. He would not 'slum' with the natives, he would not eat a local dish and he definitely would not disobey his commanding officer by getting drunk and riding a camel naked. Such a waste.
So being the good brother that I am, I have compiled a list of things that he must get for me while he is over there. Not only will I benefit from having these things, he too will benefit by being exposed to the rich culture that can only be found in war torn countries, broadening his horizons and making him a better person. Here is the list (I know that most, if not all, of these things can't be found in Afghanistan but I figure that he will be close enough to the countries that they can be found in and really what harm can come of taking a quick trip into another country??)
1. One Carpet, preferably magic.
2. A slightly rubbed lamp.
3. One Turban.
4. One camel, named George if he can manage that.
5. Ali Baba's autograph.
6. The lost tribe of Israel.
7. The Ark of the Covenant.
8. An open sesame.
9. An infidel.
10. The Prodigal Son.
11. The praise of Allah.
12. Something 'Halal'
13. A signed copy of the Koran.
14. 3 of the 40 thieves.
15. A bag of dates.
That about does it. I would be happy with any of these. To be honest, I would be even happier if he doesn't do anything stupid and comes back in one piece. All good things must come to an end.... including my little brothers 'axis of subjective evil'.

I had a rather annoying delivery tonight. It started off well, it was to a street I knew, in a town that was close by and there were actual house numbers that were easily visible at night. The trouble started when the owner, an attractive middle-aged woman, answered the door while talking on the phone. I always hate it when customers are talking on the phone, they make you feel like you are rude git who dared interrupt them while they are having an extremely important conversation. This lady was no different, she glared at me, shoved $50 at me, and then continued talking to her friend about how great her boyfriend is. Sometime during our exchange of goods I must have made my presence noticed by the woman (I know it is wrong of me to assume that it was a woman, but honestly, only 2 women can successfully carry on a conversation about current boyfriends and penis lengths while one of them is distracted by a very inconsiderate delivery driver) on the other end of the phone. The reply made by the lady I was doing business with was “Don’t worry about that, it is JUST the pizza boy”. Just the pizza boy?? Now hang on a second, last time I checked you were the one who asked for me to come here, you were the one who was too lazy to get your own damn pizza, and you were the one too rude to put the phone down for 30 seconds and treat me like a human being. You have no right to think that you are better than I am.
Just a pizza boy, what a load of crock. For starters, I am not just a pizza boy, I am a damn good pizza boy. Secondly my whole life doesn’t revolve around delivering pizzas. These people must think that I jump out of bed each morning, eager to deliver pizzas, and sleep soundly each night secure in the thought that I had done a good job. The truth is, I stumble out of bed, take a good, hard look in the mirror and try to pinpoint exactly where my life sunk so low that I had to resort to being ridiculed and insulted for a measly wage, then I spend the rest of my time wondering exactly how much trouble I would get into if I bludgeoned someone to death with a pizza crust.
Look, I am not asking for much, all I want is for people to realise that just because I deliver pizzas for a living that it doesn’t mean that is all I want to do and all that I am. A person’s job is not their identity, I have hopes and dreams, I have a complex personality that has nothing to do with pizza, and I have a desire to spend the rest of my life doing something that has nothing to do with pizza. Simply put, saying that someone is just the pizza boy is like saying Albert Einstein just worked in a patent office, Nikolas Tesla was just a glorified electrician, and Michael Jackson is just a creepy man. It doesn’t begin to do them justice, it just shows what they are on the surface and doesn’t tap the deep (and in Michaels case, depraved) well that is their true nature.
Just a pizza boy. Ridiculous. New rule, whenever someone refers to me to a third person as ‘just the pizza boy’ they forfeit all rights to their change, after all it is just money.
All good things must come to an end…. they are just good things after all.

For some reason there seems to be a re-emergence of the whole "we must accept homosexual people" regime going around. I am not sure why this has started up again. I honestly believed that we all came to an uneasy truce sometime in the 90s and everyone was happy, secure in knowing that gay people can come out of the closet without fear of prejudice (well, not as much prejudice) and straight people can safely walk the streets fearing not the secret agenda of the rainbow people. Now all of a sudden everyone is talking about intolerance towards homosexuals and I don't understand why. Even my gay friend is at a loss, he thought everything was going just fine. We tried to figure out what the hell is going on last night, but unfortunately the only news source we regularly check is Fark.com.

Anyway some people at my uni have decided to jump on the band wagon with this as well. All over my uni are these posters saying "Stop the intolerance: Homophobic people should be beheaded" or something like that. I wonder if these people realise the irony about this. They propose to "stop the intolerance" by instigating intolerance towards a different group of people. The way I see it is that if you make the choice that there is nothing wrong with homosexuals then you are admitting that there is the opposite choice of not liking them. Just because you made the choice doesn't mean it is the right one, and it doesn't mean you made the wrong one. All it means is that you consciously weighed up the consequences of each choice and picked one that felt right to you. Saying that all homophobic people are evil is just as intolerant as saying all homosexuals are evil. The point is that everyone has the right to believe what they want and we should not go on some crusade to make everyone think the same way we do. However, after saying all this I should probably point out that I am a big hypocrite. I am very pro-gay; in fact, I am so in favour of gay rights that my gay friends go "damn, you are gayer than we are". But that is my choice and I am not going to instantly hate someone just because they think otherwise, and I would stand up for them if they were being beaten up by a bunch of drag-queens (not that it would be that difficult, we all know drag-queens punch like girls).
All good things must come to an end.... including intolerance over the rainbow.

Some unpleasant things have happened at work lately. Unfortunately I am not allowed to go into great detail about them at the moment because my employers are afraid that if it got out then lawyers, judges, paralegals, and the dreaded 'A Current Affair' will get involved, which will then make John Howard look bad (not that he looks any good now) and he will be forced to come up here and get all Jackie Chan on my bosses (and by "getting all Jackie Chan" I actually mean he will send them a threatening e-mail, written by his hired grunts, then wave his huge bushy eyebrows in a self-righteous manner). To be completely honest I am not worried about what’s going on. In the long run I will either be fired, or end up making more money, and since I have about as much company loyalty as a chicken has to KFC I really don't care. What has got me pissed about this whole thing is the fact that I have been lied to since I started working there. To be fair I must point out that this isn't my employers fault. They were kept in the dark as much as I was, and as soon as they found out they told me. It is the head office that kept their mouths shut and hoped it would all go away. Those lying bastards.

So what I am getting at is I am completely sick and tired of being lied to. Honestly how hard is it for people to tell the truth?? I never lie (this isn't a moral choice or anything, I just can't lie to save my life) so I am easily duped by people who have even a mediocre ability in spinning the truth. I want this to stop. If I can't lie then no one else should be allowed to either, it just plain isn't fair. Unfortunately I get lied to a lot; usually by the people I trust the most. Like this one girl, who for like 6 months kept telling me she wasn't ready for a relationship blah blah blah, and then, with all the subtly of a slap to the face, she starts playing house with some mouth breathing moron. Because of that I was an emotional wreck for over a year, and I know have a complete hatred for all things woman, including, but not limited to: Ovaries, long hair, lipstick, eye-shadow, bikinis, panties, bras, boobs, hair removal products, the colour pink, the colour peach, Holden Barinas, Cosmopolitans, Tequila Sunrises, 1/2 of the 'Friends' group, handbags, high-heeled shoes, rings, Helen Hunt, Helen Keller, Helen of Troy, Shampoo, and field hockey. All of this could have been avoided if she had simply told the truth from the beginning. Nothing fancy, just a quick "you don't float my boat" and it would have been fine.

But the real noodle-scratcher is why do people lie?? Is it to spare my feelings?? To absolve their guilt?? Make them look good?? Well, with this girl it was none of the above. According to an e-mail I got from her a couple of months ago it seems that if she told the truth from the start it would have saved both of us a lot of suffering. As for the looking good part, well that didn't work out too well either because she is now on my list of people who are worthy of my contempt (not as worthy as those lying bastards from work though, they are just faceless names, so they are easier to feel nothing for. As for the girl, we did have some good times, so that makes up for some of it).

So I am now forced to disbelieve anything anyone tells me. I will consider everything someone tells me as a lie unless they can prove it with at least 3 independent sources. This might make me sound like a bitter cynical arsehole, but hey, it's not like I ain't that already. All good things must come to an end.... including all these damn lies.

Well my little brother has finally done it. Despite all of my efforts to persuade him otherwise, he has finally gone and become a jet pilot. Yes, my brother is now an officer in the Australian Air Force. He officially graduated last Friday and got his posting today. He is the newest Hornet pilot in Australia. Now, even though I do not particularly like the armed forces (because they are a bunch of mindless heteronomous individuals who blindly follow orders without questioning the ramifications of their incessant meddling in other peoples business, which will eventually become obsolete when everyone comes to their senses and just does what I tell them to do) I am still proud of the little guy. He is doing what he wants to do and I can't really fault him for that, and he has worked very hard to get there. The only problem with all of this is that Australia has all of about 3 jets to share with all their pilots, so I can't see him actually doing much flying. By the time we get more planes for them to fly, all the wars will be fought by robots. Then some idiot is going to insist that we adopt Isaac Asimov's 3 laws of robotics, so all these killing robots will continually whinge and moan about how their orders violate their programming, causing cascade failures in their positronic nets, inadequate functioning of their logic circuits and a general feeling of unease. And who do you think will have to listen to all of this?? Me, that’s who. I am not studying psychology so I can spend my days philosophising about software induced robot psychosis. No, I am studying psychology so I can help children, nurture them, encourage their development and guide them to what is right, then perhaps there will finally be a generation of people that don't piss me off. Anyway, I am proud of my little brother, not too impressed with the robots though. All good things must come to an end.... including everyone's insistent denial that I know what is best.