It’s Like Funny In The Bank

If you can tell a joke that no-one expects, you can sell it for more money than they’d normally pay.

I know – I do this daily. Not here – you get this stuff for the price of the electricity to open your computer – but over on the column I write for the Perth camera store. They pay me to stay away from the place and write good things about stock and events they sell. If I ever stop writing they’ll just pay me to stay away…

Every daily post contains a product or service that is being touted – and I do so on a fair and honest basis – but every post equally contains one unexpected yock. Mostly I make fun of myself, as being the safest target. Of course, if I suspiciously look and sound like someone else and it puts the readers in mind of another figure in the photo trade…well that must just be a trick of the light. So far no rocks through the editorial window – from either inside or outside.

Some trades would be notoriously difficult to write humorous pieces for. I should not attempt the funeral trade, nor any crisis service or legal business.  I did poke fun at dentistry while I was a dentist, but have left it alone since retiring. This way I cannot be accused of dated humour.

Likewise, some topics bear little laughter from outside the fold – religions and political movements are a good example. People involved deeply in any of those fields are not inclined to laugh at themselves nor at anyone else. Laughter invites relaxation and friendliness and few religious or political figures want to be tainted with that sort of accusation.

As for writing jokes for other people to present…well, bring it on. But be warned that if I am going to get other people to laugh with you, I will also be providing them with an opportunity to laugh at you. Are you stalwart enough to join with them on both occasions?

Advertisements

The Experiments – Part Four – Final

The heading image placed on this last experimental page is a conventional representation of a one of the flags of the Confederate States of America in the 1860’s. Recently it has become the centrepiece in a storm of controversy in the United States and has been used in a number of deplorable political and criminal acts, as well as for theatrical presentations.

It was also an extremely small part of an image on a weblog column dealing with die-cast toy cars – fuzzy and pixellated though it was, I suspect it triggered a mechanism in Facebook that blanked the image. I determined to see how that mechanism operated. The previous three posts on this column ( go back and read them ) detail the experimental means I employed to see if the thing could be set off again.

If we don’t see an image up there on Facebook today – or if it’s a generalized image of my studio card – we’ll know the trigger mechanism is the entire, coloured, detailed pattern. Every other combination has been ignored. If you do see the flag pattern, then the whole episode was just a flash in the social media pan.

The flag pattern won’t be shown again – not for political or moral reasons – but because it is just not relevant to life and thought here in Australia. And that may be a hard thing for anyone in North America to accept…that this is another part of the world with people who lead other lives. The distresses that the North Americans encounter or engender within their own borders are theirs to deal with amongst themselves. To put it succinctly – it’s none of my business.

Readers can be as proud or as ashamed – as busy or as idle – as high or as low as they wish. No need to howl at me with either rage or approval – my opinion on North American matters is not relevant. The only thing you might care to do is to share some thoughts:

If you can’t see an 1860’s flag on the top of a Facebook post…what other things are you not permitted to see? What price constitutional amendments or bills of rights ? Who decides the let and hindrance of your life?

 

Checklist For Anzac Day March

With the recent theatrics of the ” Anti-Australia Day ” march in Melbourne in mind, the Backstabbers Guild Of Australia has prepared a useful checklist for protestors who wish to stage an ” Anti-Anzac Day ” march later in the year. Feel free to download it and add anything that you feel may improve the affair.

a. Remember that it may be a march but it is not in March. Try as you might, you can’t re-write the fact that the assault at Gallipoli really was on April 25. If you come down the main street in town a month early with protest banners and scarves wrapped around your face in anticipation of tear gas, no-one will take any notice of you.

b. When you howl in outrage and curse the 1915 soldiers of the ANZAC you will be safe from retaliation by the original people. They are no more. Their sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters, great etc., are, however, inconveniently alive…in large measure because of the original people’s war service.

That means you are not quite as safe to insult and degrade the memory of old service people as you may think…

c. If you plan to make your protest a step in your political career, be aware that steps can go down as well as up.

d. Likewise, if you plan to make your ” anti ” march a theatre of sexual protest and anti-male propaganda, keep a wary eye out for the ex – servicewomen who are there. If you are too offensive, that eye may collect a fist from one of them…not all aunties are anti.

e. If you plan to complain about the Anzac Day march from the point of view that the Australian forces were harsh to the enemy…well that’s fine. They were, on many occasions, and on a professional basis. That’s why the big chap up the front of the parade is still carrying the Australian flag down the main street of an Australian town a century later…

f. If you plan to protest current wars instead of past ones, remember that you may be seen as espousing the cause of current enemies. If you try to make this clear to all around you with foreign flags and banners, expect unofficial as well as official attention.

g. Don’t wear bogus service medals anywhere on your person during your protest. Not even if you wear them in the correct position. Nothing will earn you more lasting contempt and damaging notoriety.

 

BGA Guide To Fraud – Part Two – Deception For The Perplexed

Note for the gentiles: A lot of guides for the perplexed were written. Some of them worked and some of them didn’t. The fact that people are still reading them tells us that there are more of the latter than the former…

So – Deception.

Deception defined: a fraud. The act or fact of being deceived. We start to get into a circular word whirlpool here as most of these terms have come up before, but to help you out, let us say that a deception is a lie that worked. A bluff over which we have driven the buffalo of your belief. A trifling amusement that allows all the rest of hell to rise from the ground.

Are we often deceived? Are you reading this on the internet? Do you take a daily newspaper or watch a television? Must this be spelled out? Yes? Very well:

YES

Yes, we are often the subject of deception in political, moral, financial, and artistic matters. We are deceived by others, we deceive ourselves, and we deceive others. Some of the deceit is done for good purposes – we throw up Santa and his elves to compel children to good behaviour. Some is done for bad – we see gangsters promoting fundamental religion to gain political power. Some is done to obtain money – this is called mainstream advertising. And some is done for fun – sophomore student pranks and the vast majority of romantic courtships. It often works – indeed it may be said that deception works more often than bald truth, and is a kinder social phenomenon.

If you lie to someone, it is usually seen as a bad thing – generally by people who feel themselves in danger of falling for that lie themselves. If the lie is successfully absorbed, though, the condemnation is diffused and may ultimately disappear. The way to make it disappear quickly is to cut the moralists in on the takings.

If, on the other hand, someone lies to you, you are entitled to be outraged and to take the moral high ground. High ground is often thought to convey a superiority to an army – but remember that high ground silhouettes you against the skyline and may make it easier for your enemies to pick you off. Consider carefully before you turn the spotlight of goodness and morality on anyone – it’s easy to hit a spotlight with a bullet.

In the end, truth will out – like a belly button. And what a disgusting sight that can be. The best plan for Backstabbers is to concert an agreement with their enemies as to just how much truth and dignity is going to be thrown about. Limit the morality and you limit the damage – and you leave more time free to attack your friends.

 

 

Broadcast Live From Your House

When you watch the news about the US president Donald Trump – or click the Facebook side panel – or listen to your friends deride him based upon what they have read on the internet…have you ever stopped to consider what YOU might look like if you were subject to the minute scrutiny that attends him?

I ask this as I remember being afflicted with similar scrutiny when a child in school – I was the fat, new, frightened kid…and was fair game for all the bullies and smart arses in every school I attended. As my detractors wanted to belittle me, they watched every single thing I did and found fault. The simplest action was cause for howls of contempt. Nothing was private, sacred, or approved. President Trump seems to be in the same position vis-a-vis the people who supported the other side of politics – and lost – and who now want their revenge.

So let’s imagine you – if you’re a Trump detractor – going about your daily routine. Let’s see if the treatment works on you.

You get out of bed in time for breakfast: ” Lazy swine lolls in bed while others slave to prepare feast. ” Not sounding too good.

So you get up earlier next day : ” Can’t sleep. Guilty conscience. Snoops on cooks behind the scenes. ” Still not good publicity. And who is feeding these stories to the press?

Okay, this time you’ll please someone…you’ll do without breakfast: ” Too good to eat like a normal person. No pleasing some people. ” Well, what the actual…

And we haven’t even started on your bathroom routine, your clothes for the day, or whatever it is you’re going to be doing for a living – never mind your religion, family, or politics. These topics will be covered by your enemies and will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are evil incarnate, totally incompetent, and in collusion with the Russians, the French, the Tongans, and the firm that makes Cheezils. Every single action that you undertake, all day, all week, all year, will be wrong. The press and your detractors will be free to lie about you, to you, and because of you. No-one will hold them accountable.

Feeling the love yet? Feeling the burn yet? Feeling the bigotry and pettiness yet? Want to do something about it? Here’s what you do.

Nothing. Not a damn thing. Do not take the slightest notice of your detractors. Do not reward them with anger, or distress, or recognition. Take note of the fashionable meme that started up a few years ago: ” Keep calm and carry on. “. By all means use social media but do not use it to vent frustrations or angst. Be benign, vague, and cheerful. Send kitten videos. And do what you were going to do regardless.

Don’t be too sanguine about the results. You won’t reap any better opinion of yourself from the people who are determined to hate you; they have invested to much of their time in speech and writing to resile their position. Many of them hope for benefit from your opponents*. The best you can hope for is a better judgement of history.

* And if, in a few years, they present their intellectual bill to the other side of politics – and it is not paid – they have a ready-made supply of protest that they can direct to them.

 

 

 

The Russians Have Been Influencing The Elections In Moscow

Apparently with the help of Julian Assange, Donald Trump, and Robert Mugabe. Or so the latest sidebar wisdom from Facebook would have us believe.

I’m fully prepared to agree with this – if only in an effort to get away from the arguments about whether vaccines cause football players. I’m waiting until a would-be bestselling children’s author releases a statement clarifying the roll of Bob The Builder, and whether he did, indeed, fix it.

I am always amused when I hear of the secret influences the Russians are said to have on overseas governments. How secret can freighters loaded with Kalashnikovs and RPG’s be? They couldn’t even sneak atomic bombs through the Bosphorus back in Nasser’s day without getting caught at it…and having to beetle round and sail back with them. And how popular could the Russians be in the Muslim world anyway – after Afghanistan they are generally as welcome as a two-tone turd on a toothbrush.

And they have the problem of not only China, but North Korea. Oh, they are meant to be allies of both countries, but being an ally downwind of either of these places is a worrisome matter. Especially if the wind gets lively – they have a choice of 4 billion cases of smoker’s breath or an underground nuclear test site built on the Swiss cheese principle… I have a strong suspicion there’s a growing desire on the part of a number of countries to remove the present ruler in Pyongyang…I wouldn’t be surprised if there wasn’t a take-a-ticket machine for the various  Spetsnaz teams so that they all get their chance.

I’m actually privately pleased to see that the Russians are getting their act together…if they could ever be said to do that…and getting more consumer goods. That’s the real ticket to world peace. The Chinese went from being regarded as outer-space alien zombies to world shopkeepers in the space of 30 years and there is nothing to stop the Russians, with all their mineral wealth, from doing the same. Nothing except the Russians, mind…

 

A Happy Bin Of Kitchen Scraps To You

This is the BIG WEEK round our house.

The council has distributed the four rubbish containers that they want us to use and a colour-coded schedule for which bin goes out on the verge which week. We have been having nightly debates as to the exact things to put in each bin…not an easy decision when packers mix up the materials in their designs.

Case in point – the recyclable bin takes cardboard containers and some plastics. But the local recycle works man said at the dump tour that plastic spouts on the cardboard containers prevent them from being recycled. So we are trying to think of a way of safely cutting off the spout.

That doesn’t sound like much, but if you have ever seen some people wield a knife, you know that it is only a matter of time before they are going to be sitting in the ER with their hand wrapped in a red tea towel. My solution is to quietly confiscate said containers and hacksaw off the spouts in my workshop.

The other item of contention is used paper – the garbage man says there is a fine point at which it goes from compost to landfill and we are to judge that to a hair. The old document shredder may need to be searched out to give the compost digesters a fighting chance. I’m not sure if the tip will appreciate the first organic bin this week as we have had heavy colds for three weeks and the used tissues are starting to form revolutionary battalions in the bin.

The nicest point is the new kitchen caddy – it carries the pure food scraps to the organic bin by means of compostable organic plastic bags – which the council has promised to supply for a year. The caddy is actually a good thing as it gets smelly stuff out of the kitchen each day before it has time to build up pressure and as it is a bucket with a handle, there is less likelihood of the whole thing taking a dump on the hall carpet as you head for the bin.

Can you tell that we are retired here? But it is still more fun than Facebook at present. At least old orange peels and onion skins don’t try to scold you or change your politics.