It Defies Explanation

Someone wants to keep his job, so what is the last thing he would do?

Go on strike!

Would you like to explain that to the Lufthansa pilots? How does going on strike protect your jobs from being outsourced to an Asian airline? Surely it would simply speed it up. Sure! You can go on strike - we were going to replace you anyhow...


Obama never ceases to amaze me. The sheer arrogance when he stated that people just didn't understand his healthcare plan so he would have to explain it to them one more time! It just doesn't occur to someone so wrapped up in his own 'mission' to consider that perhaps the population is saying "No!"

This man has wracked up almost as much debt in his one year as Bush did in eight years! And yet he keeps blaming Bush for all his ills! He keeps claiming to have 'created' two million jobs, even though the USA has two million fewer jobs than a year ago! And now he is calling for 'bipartisanship', Democrats are blaming the Republicans for being obstructionist. The Democrats have the White House, the Upper House, the Lower House, how can anyone be obstructing the Democrats except other Democrats? Someone needs to explain to this university 'professor' about basic arithmetic.


I have been feeling very down lately, hence why the long gap in blogging. Mostly 'cos I've landed in a depressing job. The basic tasks are fun enough, I am working with Business Objects Planning and doing a lot of VBA programming, generally couldn't be happier. But as pointed out in an earlier post, I am getting exactly half the rate I have gotten for my contracts for the last nearly two years and I am reporting to someone that would have previously reported to me.

Last week two people asked me for my resumé to send on to different people in the same organisation and the rate will almost be what I am used to. So I guess I should start feeling better.

The main thing that was annoying me I reckon was that I was going to have to be working long hours just to make ends meet instead of the laid back, easy going style that usually provides me with more than I need. Life wasn't fun. But hopefully all over soon. That would officially be the end of the GFC.


We have an election coming up late next month in South Australia. We had a strange law in this state that didn't allow people here to blog about elections without signing off with their real name and post code. Then the Attorney General went off the deep end defending this law and in the process slandered some guy, and then in a quick back-track to divert attention from, or maybe to seem contrition for, his act of slander he suddenly revokes the law.

Can an Attorney General revoke a law unilaterally? I thought that it had to be revoked by another act of parliament.

But either way, now I can apparently tell you that I am seriously disappointed in both sides. Whilst I usually vote for someone interesting or fun or independent in the Upper House, compulsory voting has made our Lower House votes meaningless for most of us in Australia - the outcome of national elections is decided in just a few seats, usually be less than one percent, so in a country of ten million voters the outcome rests with just a few thousand voters. Not democratic. And I generally tend to live in what we call 'blue ribbon' seats, firmly conservative seats (this might confuse some yanks, their socialists are blue and their conservatives are red, other way around for everyone else on Earth). Therefore I draw a little box at the bottom, tick it, and write 'none of the above' next to it.

There has always been a few percent of votes that were informal for either reasons of error, or because the voter makes an otherwise legit vote but then writes a funny little poem next to it - and in this country any mark other than the approved vote informalises a ballot. But for the last couple of decades there has been a growing number of deliberate informals, and it scares the Australian Electoral Commission that people are not taking their system seriously. Last I heard five percent of votes, like mine, are deliberate statements against our political system.


A new email scam hit my inbox today; "someone I am attorney for with the same surname as you has died recently...". If I responded then I guess the next step would be to ask me for my bank details so they can send money to me. Came from a USA address, not Nigeria like the last few - they come out every year or so.


My damned niece! ARGGGHHH
I have been vegetarian for a long time, and I have been careful about the cheese that I bought - no animal rennet. But over xmas she got me feeling guilty about the entire dairy industry and so now I have to try and be full vegan. I never minded being vego, I got annoyed at the Australian - I suppose the entire Western - culture at times, and this was one reason I loved Singapore so much. But being full vegan is noticeably harder, especially eating out.

Road Rage

I want to make this official, just so there is no confusion, I hate Adelaide.
And, what's more, I hate Adelaidians. They have serious problems. Yes, I know, I have lived most of my life here, but still.

A couple of days ago, Saturday to be precise, I went for a walk down to the market. As I, a pedestrian, crossed at the lights, whilst they had the little green man, I nearly got bowled over by a driver tearing around the corner who then had the audacity to scream abuse at me. At the same corner, Pultney and Angas, on the way back there were two bike/car incidents. The first saw someone blasting there horn at a bike mounted parking inspector who apparently made the unforgiveable mistake of being in the left lane and indicating a left turn and then turning to the left. Then a car wanting to turn right and indicating so was waiting for the oncoming traffic to pass (remember that we drive on the left here) and the motor bike behind blasted his horn and then pulled alongside the guy and screamed abuse at him.

And just now walking back home after the first day at my new contract the local old fart says hello and asks my name. I politely said "I'm Kai." He said "you're tired? Well go home and have a sleep!" I said "No, I'm sorry, you didn't hear me, I said my name is 'Kai'." And then he started berating me for being a "smart arse" and then reckoned that the only reason he didn't fight me was that he had to be somewhere. Stupid old fart could hardly stand as it was, he would have unbalanced if he had tried to swing one at me.

God, this city is just so rude and aggressive.


So, I have started my new contract. It is at Santos, I am going to be working on Business Objects Planning (data comes from Oracle Financials and I will be using a couple of the Oracle tools as well). I am working with a Chinese Filipino; I was talking about my experiences in Singapore and that I would like to visit Hong Kong and maybe Japan, that I nearly started learning Japanese but learnt some Russian instead, that I have a friend that was learning Japanese but is now learning Chinese because he has a Chinese wife, that I knew someone from Hong Kong that had a Malaysian Chinese wife, and he says that I know a lot of Chinese and asked if I was okay with Asians. But he was then distracted by someone requesting a report before I could say that I am a racist.

Isn't it weird? I have always thought of myself as a firm racist and yet I do have a lot of Oriental friends. But then they are all racists as well, seriously, you should here them sometimes. And one of my two best friends is an Australian Aboriginal, as is one of my aunts. So there you go. I would still describe myself as a racist though, it's just that good people are good regardless of what else they are.


On the gaming front; I have been playing Sword of the Stars lately, acquired via Steam. It is kind of a second-rate Master of Orion, maybe better than Sin of a Solar Empire in some ways, but with a few really annoying bugs that spoil it. Definitely Stardock really need to come up with a new version of MOO2 that plays on modern Windows - MOO3 was a total waste of time! Don't go there again, just redo MOO2 and all will be forgiven.