This just in: Pigs Still Suck

I had to take a sick relative to the Public Medical Centre yesterday, which turned out to be a two hour ordeal, most of which was spent sitting around in the fairly large waiting room. I passed the time by scouring the crowd for hot chicks to look at, until I realized that these hot chicks were probably here to get “some kind of weird rash” checked out, so I lost myself in a copy of The Advertiser instead.

At one point I went to the reception desk to check on the waiting time, and found a distressed young girl and her mother chatting with the receptionist. It turned out the young girl had been diagnosed with swine flu and had obviously been crying after being given the diagnosis. The receptionist and mother were consoling the girl telling her it was nothing to worry about. The headline news of the day probably didn’t allay the girl’s fears; a 12 year old girl had died from the flu strain in an Adelaide hospital Saturday morning.

The whole incident reminded me that it has been a good few weeks since I first wrote about swine flu. 40 days to be exact. Which means we’re long overdue for a


Swine Flu – the disease that pretty much jumped the shark before it even took hold, and you’re all no doubt sick of hearing about it. But fuck it, Australia is playing a huge role in the infection count, so let’s take a look at the current Leader Board, and how it has changed since my last posting on Jun 17th.


Holy shit, Australia has shot up the ranks three places, even overtaking Mexico (which quite frankly is a bit of a worry). The United Kingdom has also climbed a spot, and Thailand has gone from bottom to 7th place. Spain only had an infection climb of 488 in the last 40 days, which drops them from 9th place all the way down to 16th. Meanwhile Peru now has enough infected people to make the top ten, so they must be feeling really proud. Here are the infection counts for countries 11 – 20:

11. Germany 2,844
12. Hong Kong 2,702
13. Philippines 2,688
14. New Zealand 2,585
15. Brazil 1,566
16. Spain 1,538
17. Taiwan 1,280
18. Singapore 1,217
19. South Korea 1,166
20. Israel 1,094

Of course with any global dilemma the statistics reflect not only the rate of infection, but of the authenticity of the figures in the first place. China in particular has come under fire, with accusations that the Government is withholding information on the infection. For a country with over 1.3 billion people they are posting an infection count of only 1,852 and only one death.

Speaking of deaths: Australia has racked up quite a body count with a current tally of 48.

I still remember the first Swine Flu death, the victim was a man from the Northern Territory but he died here at an Adelaide Hospital on June 19th and it was pretty big news at the time. The South Australian Health Minister John Hill had the press release:

"We do know this man was seriously ill from a number of conditions,"

Then came the second death soon after, a 35-year-old obese and diabetic man dying in a Melbourne Hospital.

The Third came on the 26th of June:

"A 50-year-old woman suffering from life-threatening bone marrow cancer died in the Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute in Melbourne on Wednesday morning after being admitted with flu-like symptoms on Saturday."

A 71 year old woman died the day after that. In the case of this fourth death, the victim’s family requested her medical history be withheld from being released. By now, though, the more astute readers will no doubt have noticed a pattern forming, and it is one that has continued all the way up to the 42nd death on Wednesday of a 70 year old Queensland man.

What people have to realise is that the normal flu kills over half a million people a year, and if a “seriously ill” person catches the swine flu and dies, it is not really a cause for alarm. This doesn’t stop the media from rattling our cages with their constant headlines:


It’s only after further reading do you find the whole story:


The 12 year old girl dying here in Adelaide was a sad occurrence, it’s one thing for a grandparent to die, another case completely when it’s a young child. But even then the girl in question had ”serious underlying medical conditions”.

But what of the perfectly healthy people who catch swine flu? What about the people who caught it but weren’t already crippled with a pre-existing life threatening ailment? The 99.23% of the H1N1 infected who survived the virus and lived on to tell the tale?

A Russian man identified by the government as infected with the country's first case of swine flu says he feels fine. – UPI News

i have swine flu apparently i feel fine now it lasted just over a week I would say I have experienced worse with a normal flu – UK victim on Sky News

A 13-year-old boy who has the swine flu appears to be fine and rode his scooter Wednesday as he took some time off from school… - KCRA News

Christ, all these swine flu sufferers and they “feel fine”. Meanwhile, Uncle Beef had one too many reds last night and is feeling a little worse for wear. Fingers crossed, hopefully I can catch swine flu and “feel fine too”.

Those who don’t want to catch the disease can always turn to the Centre for Diseases Control for expert advice. (Warning: CDC tips may make cause you to slap your forehead in a “well duh” manner)

* Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. Throw the tissue in the trash after you use it.

* Wash your hands often with soap and water, especially after you cough or sneeze. Alcohol-based hands cleaners are also effective.

* Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth. Germs spread that way.

* Influenza is thought to spread mainly person-to-person through coughing or sneezing of infected people.

* If you get sick, CDC recommends that you stay home from work or school and limit contact with others to keep from infecting them.

And of course, my personal favouite:

* Try to avoid close contact with sick people.

Thank you CDC, you fucking pioneers of the obvious. Here’s a few I wanted to add to your list, just in case:

* Don’t jump off buildings.

* Don’t invite bears into your home.

* Don’t pour battery acid into your pee hole.

I’ll update again next month.

Where’s Wally gets punched in the face, Amy Grant gets fingered, and a dead hooker soaks in an acid bath. It’s business as usual at the Shoddy Blog.

We are deep in the guts of school holidays at my end, a period that almost always fills me with abject fear. It is not so much the younger kids clogging up the shops and streets by day squealing and screaming like the godless bastards that they are, but rather the older students - the teenagers.

Those that patrol the streets at night like restless vampires, high on Alco-pops and intoxicated with the inconsequential recklessness of youth.

There was a small group of us working the graveyard shift on Saturday night, and it was our third and final late shift for the week. Halfway through we felt a little bored, so pulled up a few chairs to the main window to see if there was any action out on the street below.

The street below was North Terrace, one of Adelaide’s busiest CBD streets during the day, but strangely quiet during the wee hours of the morn. We have had a few looks through the window on various nights, and usually the best sight we can muster is that of an animated drunk stumbling home from the Casino, or a group of people leaving a work party.

This particular Saturday night (aka 4am Sunday morning) represented the end of the first day of School holidays, so all bets were off.

There were about half a dozen guys urinating in the shrubs below our window. Hordes of young people stumbling on the footpaths, including a small group who had deiced to casually stroll up the middle of the street with cars angrily blaring their horns behind them. Most of the girls seemed to be wearing skimpy summer dresses, even though the temperature would have been 10 degrees at best. Most noticeably there seemed to be a plethora of drunken arguments going on. Mostly chicks arguing with their boyfriends, but there seemed to be a heated argument between two groups of people across the road from us outside a Hotel – that was slowly getting increasingly aggressive.

The confrontation was eye catching, mainly because the smaller of the two groups (which was trying to back away from the skirmish) was lead by a young guy in a red and white jumper and matching beanie, and looked a dead ringer for Wally of Where’s Wally fame. Now there’s a character you’d never expect to spot in public. Poor old Wally seemed to be copping the lion’s share of the ire, as various guys came up to him yelling and shoving. We thought the fight was going to kick off when somebody ran up and punched Wally square in the face.

(Though to be honest, if I saw this twat on the street I would punch him too)

But then words were exchanged between the two groups, and they both parted ways. The sights we had seen in these short moments had whetted our appetites for more drunken carnage to view, so came up with the simple yet unanimous decision to spend our lunch break (at 4:30am mind you) wandering the streets outside instead of the staff canteen within.

Upon venturing outside, we found the previous sights to be a mere entrée for the main course as we were greeted by a small army of drunken teens waiting for cabs. Despite the freezing weather there were t-shirts and short skirts. The boys were all dressed like they’d just been to Satan’s skate park, the girl’s dressed like they wanted dollar bills stuffed down their tops. There were hair cuts that defied the imagination and even gravity. All present were bleary eyed and babbling.

We turned the corner onto the infinitely more terrifying Hindley Street, and almost got bowled over by a drunkard who had been thrown out of a club and didn’t have the faculties to stop his momentum until he was face down in the middle of the street. Hindley Street is Adelaide’s main pub and club drag, a street full of seedy bars, Tattoo Parlors and strip clubs. It can be quite an experience, and this particular night was one of the very few I had dared venture down it sober. School Holidays had only upped the pandemonium, and I felt a real end of the world vibe as I strolled down the blocks of this squalid cluster-fuck.

There were people passed out in the gutter, lakes of vomit, and I counted no less than three brawls – including one guy who produced a full bottle of beer from his pocket and tried to launch it at a couple of young guys, missing and hitting the wall in a fury of broken glass and wasted beer.

The girls were crying, the boys were fighting. This was our current generation of High Schoolers, the future leaders of our mighty nation. An entire platoon of crazy youths, who had not yet learnt their alcohol consumption limits. The unspoken rule was to keep drinking, until it ended in tears.

By the time we had gotten to the end of the street, I felt like I needed Snake Plisken to fly a helicopter in to save us.

We passed a busker who was sporting a pair of locked hand-cuffs (!), and made the journey back to work to finish our shift. We punched out a couple more hours of labour before heading home. The work-mate who gave me a lift dropped me at my house, and then headed off to the dying embers of a 21st birthday party. I preferred the warm confines of my bed, and drifted off to sleep at about 9am.

My alarm woke me four hours later, sleep had to wait as I was meeting the boys (we’re talking Stranger, Matt, Richo and Prowse) at the pub to watch the biggest match up of the AFL year so far, the undefeated Saint Kilda versus the undefeated Geelong.

I got to the Alma Tavern (our venue of choice) to find the bar staff all wearing school uniforms. Immediately a shiver ran up my spine as I recalled the annihilation of the night before. As it turned out, they were promoting the Alma’s Sunday School Session. A day off nonstop happy hours which included the highly agreeable pricing scheme:

2 pm– 3pm $2 Schooners
3 pm – 4pm $3 Schooners
4 pm – 5pm $4 Pints
5pm – midnight $5 Spirits

We watched the Carlton game after that one, enjoying cheap booze and post game banter. Everybody slowly filtered off due to work/baby/dinner commitments until 7pm when the last stragglers decided to call it a day. Having finished a heavy week of work and having just watched a full day of sport, I was left with a bit of a “thirst on” so decided to head on a solo adventure. I had a pint and played some pokies at the Oriental, before heading off to Finn Macools to sample a few Guinness’s. It was a slow Sunday night, and the chatty bartender struck up a conversation with me regarding all topics from travel to music.

I drank and waxed lyrical until closing time, then ambled home. It was 10pm by this point and it still felt too early to call it a night, so I decided to drink all of the beer I had in my fridge while watching music clips on You-Tube. I somehow managed to string this simple list of activities out until 5am, when I finally hit the sack.

I woke up at lunch time the following day to head off to a chiropractor appointment. The Chiro reckoned I need to drink more water, because my body seemed dehydrated. I was unsurprised.

After that I came home and logged into my Yahoo email account to find out what the plan was for the next Footy match this coming Saturday, even though my splitting head ache and aching body shuddered at the mere mention of future alcohol related activities.

I was surprised to find about a dozen emails from You-Tube users waiting for me in my Inbox regarding comments I had made on various clips in the wee hours of the morn.

I had no idea my You-Tube account was actually linked to my email address. I had first set up my account in 2006 (under the name "El Ganso") when we were putting our tropfest entry Slice Slice Baby onto the site. Until this morning, that had been the last time I had commented on a clip. I have kept the account running, because it allows you to watch the Adults Only stuff on You-Tube (mainly trailers for films that include violence and swearing).

I guess it’s also handy when you’re drunk, bored and feeling more than a little belligerent, and feel the need to let your inner commenter out. In my infinite drunken wisdom I took screen captures of all the comments I made. Retracing my steps from these shots, I found my first comment on the film clip for Amy Grant's Baby Baby



I’m not entirely sure what any of that actually means, but I must have grown bored of the conversation as I went to the Bruce Springsteen page for Born in the USA for a change of topic:



You-Tube user Kruezoraxe somehow finds hidden meaning within my comment:



I continue with



The next commenter is EmMeDv95 with



I reply to him/her with



I was being a smart-ass at this point, knowing that EmMe was writing about something completely different and in Spanish (and I had a Spanish User name) I thought it would be ironic to confuse their post with French and pretend to translate it. Even then I had it all wrong, as declared by sputnikspaynol in a personal message to me:

"EmMeDv95 speaks italian, not french XD"

Christ, I can't even do irony properly.

This line of questioning eventually spilled over on to the Transformers 2 trailer (which is a film I don’t even have any intention of watching):



And finally concluded on the Hannah Montana comments board (Don’t know what brought me to this particular clip, I’m not entirely sure who or what Hannah Montana actually is.)



The twisted thing about this inappropriate comment spree, is that of the dozen emails I received only one was negative:

"WTF is all this shit about dead hookers?"

The rest were either simple LOL or ROFLMAO comments, or people wishing me good luck on my endeavour.

I spent an early morning trolling You-Tube posing as an inept serial killer and get praise for my efforts. Meanwhile, there is probably some poor 14 year old girl who has been brave enough to post a clip of herself singing to get some constructive criticism, and is drowning under a tirade of ”STFU” and ”OMG U SUCK!” commentary. The internet is a sick place. Probably why I like it so much.

All of this nonsense reminded me of that hungover afternoon I spent harassing poor old Father Christmas at SantaBot.com. I was pleased to find the site was still up and running, so decided to get Saint Nick’s advice:



Santa doesn’t have a favourite way of disposing of dead hookers. Meaning what? He likes all ways? But how creepy is his second comment (and up yours Santa, I’m spelling those words like the Queen intended me to):

My favourite colour is transparent

Holy shit. It sounds like something that David Lynch would have engraved on his tomb stone. I’m going to be up all night wondering what the hell it means. Fuck you Santa, you demon.



I’ll leave you with this comment left on Katrina & The Waves - Walking On Sunshine



Notice that no less than six people gave me a thumbs up for crapping on my neighbour’s door step.

God bless You-Tube.




As a side note: Readers from the US of A may be confused as to what Where’s Wally is, and that is because the title of that book series was changed to Where’s Waldo when it hit your shores. Just as Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was changed to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. American kids don’t know what a Wally or a Philosopher is, but they are quite comfortable with Sorcerers.


Let's hope they leave the title of the final book in the series (Harry Potter and the Dead Hooker) alone.

Tilt

I was chatting with a workmate last night who is a keen photographer, who was telling me about a process that enables you to make normal shots look like miniature models. Kind of like the reverse of what Godzilla movies try to do.

Chud.com had more information on it (and are quoting Wikipedia here):

Tilt-shift miniature faking is a process in which a photograph of a life-size location or object is manipulated so that it looks like a photograph of a miniature scale model. By distorting the focus of the photo, the artist simulates the shallow depth of field normally encountered with macro lenses making the scene seem much smaller than it actually is.

The effect is quite nifty. File this in your “cool but kinda pointless” folder:

Bathtub V from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

mj

My current job is labour intensive, so during working hours I don’t have access to a computer and by default any News services either.

I first heard of Michael Jackson’s death from a colleague halfway through last Friday’s shift – he had told us of the singer’s demise in a casual fashion:

Shannon: Hey guys, did you here Michael Jackson died?
Me:...And? What’s the punch line?
Shannon: No punch line, he’s really dead. Cheryl heard it on the radio and told me ten minutes ago – thing was, I thought she was leading into a joke as well. He died of a heart attack.

This is what happened for the rest of the day, people were informed of Jackson’s death only to assume it was a build up to some peadophile reference. It was only a couple of months ago that somebody had sent me a link to the top 101 Michael Jackson jokes – meaning that the humour had become so prolific that they had to cull the list just to get it to a manageable triple digit figure. Kind of a shame that such a promising young talent had grown up into a living punch line.

The general mood at work was one of apathy tinged with a “good riddance” mentality. My workmates are a mixture of AC/DC and Chemical Brother fans, if anybody liked Jackson’s music (and there are surely a few) they would never admit it. It hasn’t really been “cool” to be into Michael Jackson since Reagan was president and ALF was on the air waves, but it was more the problem of the singer’s surreal personal life that soured opinions (and those pesky molestation charges certainly didn’t help).

However, his impact on the music scene certainly cannot be denied. Thriller still stands as the greatest selling album of all time (109 million copies sold, a good 60 million more than the closest competition), and the music video for the titular track still ranks as one of the best ever made (compare the film clip for Thriller to anything that’s come out in the last decade or so).

At the end of the day this was not a guy you could see settling into his twilight years smoking a pipe in his rocking chair at the age of 80. Still, it came as a bit of a shock to see such an icon shuffle off this mortal coil – especially considering his huge tour was kicking off in just over a fortnight.

All that is really left to do now is churn through the media onslaught that accompanies any celebrity premature death. Of course this will involve the punitive eye witness reports, as dozens of people close to the star come forward to tell of how he looked “perfectly normal” only days before his death (or as normal as that skeletal Martian could muster).

One thing is for sure, DJ’s will still be filling dance floors to Billie Jean, and cover bands will be ripping out the Jackson 5 tunes long after the likes of Pink and Kanye West have become faded memories.