Santa Spoiler Warning

It is a well established fact that once someone becomes a father he also becomes a veritable fountain of embarrassing crap jokes (in fact, I've heard talk that this could be used as an early indicator of pregnancy). We all develop an instinct for when a Dad joke is about to be told. Perhaps it is the way your father clears his throat, waiting for an appropriate moment to interject with his witticism. Whilst eating at the local Chinese restaurant, whenever questioned about his fortune cookie message, my father will reliably answer, "This insert has a protective coating". I have a theory about the production of Christmas Cracker jokes - I imagine Christmas Cracker factories where children with new haircuts, waiters dropping dishes and people wearing bad ties are paraded before father-son pairs and the ensuing monologue is recorded. The child's embarrassment levels are measured, via electrodes attached to the forehead, to test for quality assurance.

The internet must be like prospecting for gold for most fathers. My father subscribes to a number of mailing lists, which run hot with Santa jokes in the weeks preceding Christmas. This leads to the eternal conflict every father must continuously face: to protect the sacred innocence of the childhood myth of Santa, or to tell the Dad Joke? As an aside, I'm a little confused about the whole Santa thing. A phenomenon I've noticed for myself, which I can only presume extends to others, is a reverse in the direction of the Santa myth. Originally intended as a story parents will tell their children, it seems to me that Santa is a pretence that children will hold for their parents sake. I remember feeling very embarrassed for my parents whenever I became aware of a transparency in the Santa myth. For example, when I noticed that my parents were becoming careless in the hiding of the Santa presents, I'd attempt to hide them better, by putting something over them. Perhaps this is something particular to being an eldest child, (i.e. protecting the younger siblings). I asked my 11 year old brother the other day what he thought about the whole Santa thing. He answered that it depended on who was asking, because if it was our parents the answer would be that he was a believer. His logic was that as long as he continued the pretence of naivety then he'd continue to cash in on the extra presents (talk about mixed messages). I recall the Christmas that my father had the Santa discussion with me. The motive behind this advent was a little confused, as not only did I stop receiving presents from Santa, my father started sharing his internet Santa jokes with me (actually, they were probably BBS jokes, as this was before the internet). I recall the joke that my father shared with me on this occasion, probably because of it's aptness, as it was about the scientific impossibilities of Santa. I was unable to find the original publication (which, to the best of my knowledge, was, the now defunct, Spy Magazine), but found numerous reproductions across the internet. Here it is reproduced, yet again:

Is there a Santa Claus?

Consider the following:

1) No known species of reindeer can fly. But there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.

2) There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.

3) Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75-1/2 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc. This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man- made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.

4) The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that 'flying reindeer' (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.

5) 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.

In conclusion - If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.

Anybody else have any Dad Jokes they care to share?

Outlets of Artistic By-products

I'm often haunted by the question "What is your artistic outlet?" I have no idea what to answer to this. The best that I've come up with is to say, the expression of my ideas, that is, the articulation of my inner thoughts. This answer gives me about as much satisfaction as answering "I'm a hiker" (i.e. I walk) to my uncle's questions about which sports I play (something which is, apparently, very important). A certain anarchistic side of me toyed with the idea of answering, to the artistic outlet question, "my shit" (literally). There is a wonderful sub-story in "The Naked Lunch" about a man who teaches his arsehole to speak. Eventually the arsehole takes over saying, "It's you who will shut up in the end. Not me. Because we don't need you around here anymore. I can talk and eat AND shit". I imagine Freud would say I'm stuck in the anal phase of Psychosexual Development. I think it's interesting that people will refer to bad art as "shit". I imagine myself at the opening of my own exhibition listening to some fop (with too many artistic outlets to count) saying about my art "Well, I think it's shit!", to which I'd excitedly respond "Yes! You get it!". I think farts are funny as well. I've developed this habit of proudly mimicking my own fart noises, whenever I have a nice fat audible one. Jodi, forever the psychologist, says this is technically known as echolalia, i.e., meaningless repetition of another person's spoken words as a symptom of psychiatric disorder (again, stuck in the anal phase).

When I was 13, I was involved with an amateur theatre group (Ok, Ok, it was a Scout Gangshow). During the initial get-to-know-each-other phase we had a introductory exercise, you know the one where you go around the circle and introduce yourself by saying your name and something about yourself. I hate these games, as I imagine everybody does. It was the usual mundane stuff "Hello, my name is blah, I like Scouts", "Hello, my name is also blah, I really, really like horses" or "'Ello, my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die". Even though that Inigo guy was a hard act to follow, when it came to my turn I thought I might spice it up, and said "My name is Owen, my balls have dropped and I've had my first wet dream". My God, the fall out! Shock waves were felt across the city. The next day, in the totally unrelated arena of school, I had people come up and ask if it was true. Had I uttered these words which must surely amount to social suicide? Unfortunately for me this type of weirdness wasn't to be considered cool for another couple of years (when everybody would presume that I was continuously on drugs, which, apparently, is cool when you're 15 years old). As it was, I didn't make many friends at the time, and the ones I already had started to avoid me.

Nowadays, with all this virtual blogging, people can observe me without any direct interaction (just to be safe). Yes, I know that you're there. So, at the risk of making a fool out of myself when nobody does, I'll ask you to please leave a comment. If only to say hello and how you think my blog is shit (to which I'll respond "Yes! You get it!") and, if applicable, leave a link, so that I may tie you in to my page and start stalking you on your own virtual space.

The Gay Thing

I'd like to recount for you the many occasions when people have apparently felt they could enlighten me as to my unconscious homosexuality. This has happened so often that I have thought it worthy of serious consideration. Anyway, I've come to the conclusion that I'm not gay (I'm just a little bit "poofy"). I don't fit many of the stereotypical "gay" characteristics: e.g. I don't like Kylie Minogue, I have questionable personal hygiene and I'm a shithouse dancer. Oh yeah, and I've never kissed or had sex with a guy and I'm quite partial to pants-less females (of course, these considerations are secondary).

I've been surprised on a number of occasions, at how I've inadvertently been drawn into gay environments. Once, during a family get-together in Brisbane (actually the funeral of my grandmother), I, along with a group of cousins decided to find a bar to have a drink and shoot some pool. We settled on the bar called the Sportsman Hotel, completely unaware that it was, in fact, a gay bar. Not that I was completely oblivious to some same-sex "hand holding", I just didn't think anything of it (gay people are everywhere, apparently). I should have twigged after a couple of guys in the toilets invited me to a party where the theme was "blue hard-yakka shirts", like the one I just happened to be sporting. A compliment's a compliment, and gay boys sure know how to spin my dials, although I had to decline, returning to my table giddy as a school girl. I started to get suspicious, but it wasn't until, whilst attempting to find the source of someone singing "The Power of Love", I stumbled upon an adjoining room set up for "Pricilla, Queen of Desert" style karaoke. Another time I went to see a friend performing her poetry during a female poets reading at a gay bar called Salon Kitty. I swear there was some sort of conspiracy with the toilets, which were positioned just so that the seats wouldn't stay up, so that one hand was required to hold the seat up whilst peeing.

I don't mind that people think that I'm gay, in fact I've incorporated into my self identity, (although, some "hardcore" gays might feel that my "little bit poofy" doesn't qualify me for the positive entitlements of the label). I must admit that I get a bit of kick out of winding people up, especially my mother, who takes a diplomatic approach to my "may be gay" situation, i.e. "I'd be supportive of you, but it's a hard life..." What, harder than being sexually repressed and marrying a someone you have no sexual interest in?

Another story, (on how I lost my virginity) - I once spent a summer fruit picking with a friend, Dan. We lived together in a caravan, which my parents had kindly lent us, so that we could more easily commute to the orchard. It was during this summer (the tail end of that seemingly endless summer that follows the finish of year 12) that I decided to give up my virginity to my then girlfriend. And so it was that many a condom wrapper was lost to the countless nooks and crannies that are found in a pop-up caravan. My 18th birthday party signalled the end of our adventures. I'd struck a deal with my parents, who were to tow the caravan back, allowing me to commandeer the family home for my party, whilst they spent the night in the country. I shudder to imagine the sight as they packed up the caravan and discovered the evidence of my conquests.

Meanwhile, at the party, my friends and I had whiled away the night, and were well into the morning (occupied, as we were, by the Jehovah's Witness' we'd cornered on the front porch for a good "questioning") when my parents returned. Dan was the first to encounter them, and my mother sinisterly whispered to him "We found the French letters..." Dan managed to circumvent them to warn me of the impending doom, before making off. Resigned to the situation, I went to seek out my parents and face the music. My mother demanded an explanation so I told her of the recent progressions in my relationship with my then girlfriend. Her anger was immediately replaced with relief when she realised that her "obvious" conclusion, that I'd been bonking Dan, was proved false.

Table for One at the Philosophical Steak House

Well, what did you expect whist dining at a philosophical steak house? Lettuce? There are some things you just shouldn't ask me, or bring up whilst I'm anywhere in the vicinity. I'm sure Jodi would be happy to compile a list for you. Among them would be: "what's the chances of that happening?", "so, what are you studying again?" and "I just don't get evolution?". Something I'd like to share with you: for those of you who might worry about being rude to Mormons who tackle you at bus stops and the like: if you ever try to talk about your own existential dilemma's they are sure to bugger off quick smart (faster than if you told them to, outright). Rejected by Mormons and other religious nuts, it's a lonely life being someone who thinks too much.

I probably didn't make it clear in my previous blog, I'm not actually an atheist, even though I think evolution is a pretty powerful explaining tool. The truth is I'm all tangled up in the concept of "Truth". I was brought up a Christian, and although I have found it important to question such things, I still regard the pursuit of things spiritual as most important. I'm Agnostic, that is to say, I believe that nothing can be known of the existence of God. I believe that people who are blindly atheistic are, in many ways, as bad as religious fundamentalists. I'd like to share a satiric cartoon of the atheist by Jack Hamm. I'll let it speak for itself (Although, I will say that I think it makes my blog look smarter and also notice the absence of pants):


A story I'd like to relate: there was this one time I was reading a book about artificial intelligence on the train and these two girls asked me what I was reading. Happy to oblige, I recounted the entirety of the subject matter of PHIL101, "Mind and Machine", which I did during my first year, to them. Strutting my intellectual prowess, I talked of Searle's Chinese Room, The Turing Test and Descartes' Demon. After I'd finished bombarding them with this crap, I asked them if they thought it would ever be possible for a machine to think? One of the girls looked at me and said "Well, I think, there's so much space up there there is bound to be life somewhere out there..." Apparently, we'd started talking about extra-terrestrials. Now, I say that philosophising is like having a good tug. So, here I am, trying to strut my stuff, doing some weird philosopher mating ritual, and in actual fact all I'm doing is just jacking all over myself. I note that these rambling sessions are followed by a great feeling of elation, having got all this stuff off my chest, closely followed by a sharp pathetic feeling. A friend of mine recounted a joke by Daniel Kitson where he reflected on the elation of masturbation being followed by an awkward moment of clarity, where you realise that standing over the toilet bowl, pants around your ankles, is rather depressing.

Tweemo

As if the individual music genre terms of "twee" and "emo" weren't confusing enough, Adam and John had to coin the amalgamated concept of "tweemo". Twee, originally intending something excessively or affectedly quaint, and emo, short for emotional. Twee was originally derogatory and emo has become derogatory. Perhaps this photo, taken on a recent trip to the beach, of the two masterminds behind the word demonstrates its necessity:


A large part of the weekend involved the invention of twee porn titles (e.g. barely eightween). The story line, repeated across the genre, with minor variation by unimaginative twee porno directors, goes: a boy and girl, both wearing cardigans, meet (perhaps he's an effeminate poet and she's a librarian). They sit, mostly turned away from the camera, looking over a beautiful dandelion meadow (Belle & Sebastian is playing). The girl's cardigan slides, ever so slightly, down her shoulder. The boy reaches out to take the girls hand in his own. They turn to face each other, and stare into each others eyes as the sun sinks below the horizon between them and they slowly get old together. THE END.

I like twee music. Although, I have to admit the origin of the term is a bit off putting. It figures though, because I'm slightly effeminate and my girlfriend's a librarian. I made her a twee CD, here is the track list:

Music Is My Boyfriend - The Hidden Cameras
I Don't Know Why I Love You - The House Of Love
Bachelor Kisses - The Go-Betweens
The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get - Morrissey
Don't Call Me Whitney, Bobby - Islands
The Luckiest Guy On The Lower East Side - The Magnetic Fields
Lovefool - The Cardigans
Let's Get Out Of This Country - Camera Obscura
Sort Of Mine - Heavenly
Build - The Housemartins
Our Lady In Havana - Essex Green
Sleep Tonight - Stars
The Leanover - Life Without Buildings
Wishbone - Architecture in Helsinki
My British Tour Diary - Of Montreal
Just Like Fred Astaire - James
Camera-Shy - The Lucksmiths
There Is A Light That Never Goes Out - The Smiths
Beautiful - Belle & Sebastian
On The Bus Mall - The Decemberists
Listen To My Heart - Steinbecks

Of course, a close inspection of this list will lead some to exclaim "but that's not twee..." when questioned further their main reason will be because they like it. I think that this is, probably, a problem with the original definition, which being negative, implies that all twee must be negative, but if it was then no one would like it.

I don't know about emo. I researched to try and find out which bands constitute emo music. But, I haven't heard of any of them, apart from more recent, post emo (i.e. post decrease in popularity), bands like death cab, which I imagine wouldn't call themselves emo. People seem a little crazy on the whole emo hate thing. I suspect that many of them wouldn't actually be able to list many emo bands. And why does JB have an emo section? Well, what I know is that James Blunt isn't in the emo section so someone else is to blame for his music (which sounds like a cat being tortured). Lets regain our focus, rally the troops and work on the real evil here.