Rants & Raves of Jasmine's Fiction

Cost Of Complacency

My dearest friend who saves lives on a daily basis in-Glasgow-sent me this; and IMHO I feel that this is worthy of reading and further thought.

So in the risk of offending everyone and maybe even getting myself blocked and banned from blogging, I feel that I must pass this on to do my part in the hope that peace will one day prevail.

~~~

A man whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II owned a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many Germans were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude towards fanaticism.

“Very few people were true Nazis,” he said.  “But many enjoyed the return of German pride and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools.”

“So the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us. We had lost control and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything, I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.”

We are told again and again by experts and talking heads that Islam is the religion of peace; that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace.

Although this is assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant.

It is meaningless, only words meant to make us feel better; meant to somehow diminish the spectre of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.  The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment of history.

Fanatics are the ones who march.  Fanatics are the ones who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. Fanatics are the ones who systematically slaughter tribal groups throughout-Africa-and are gradually taking over the entire continent. Fanatics are the ones who bomb, behead, murder, honour kill.  Fanatics are the ones who stone and hang rape victims and homosexuals.

The hard quantifiable fact is that the ‘peaceful majority’ is the ‘silent majority’ and it is cowed and extraneous.

It is not only Muslims and Nazis that are guilty.  Communist-Russia-comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of 20 million people. 0China’s-huge population is peaceful as well but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.

The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a warmongering sadist. But-Japan-murdered and slaughtered its way across-South-East-Asia-in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder or 12 million Chinese civilians – with a sword, shovel and bayonet.

And who can forget-Rwanda-which collapsed into butchery.  Can it not be said that the majority of innocent Rwandans are peace loving? What about-South-Africa-and-South-America-and-Ireland-and-Korea-and-Afganistan-and-Iraq;-everything that is happening in those countries are because of fanatics.  The peaceful majority is irrelevant.  Innocent blood is spilt because the peaceful majority did not speak up till it was too late.

For all of us who watch it unfold; WE must pay attention to the only group that matters; the FANATICS who threaten our way of life.

BIRTHDAY!!!

For all of you who didn’t know, it was my birthday this past Friday. I ate too much and drank too much but hey, that’s a weekend celebration for ya…

So what happened?

Friday 4^th May 2007:

Woke up, kipped to my mom’s office and ran a few banking and post office errands for her and when I finished I picked up a friend and went straight to the spa for 5 hours of bliss. Going home feeling like tenderized

Kobe

beef; I caught up with gossip and tried on the jade bangles mom left for me. Dinner later was with family and friends consisted of lamb chops, 2 types of stingray (braised and grilled), fried glass noodles, leafy green vegetables, thick gooey flour noodles with black sauce, 2 types of squid (grilled and deep fried) and drunken ginger chicken. Dessert was freshly cut fruits and ice cream cake.  YUM.  Went home with indigestion, had some beer and called it a night.

Saturday 5^th May 2007:

Woke up still feeling full from dinner, showered and went with Ursa to visit cousin Sara and her hubby Gerard and her little happy ankle biter Christian. Christian is 2 so we brought the turtle to visit him as well – and after telling me repeatedly “ontyjas’mee-i-sawtutu-on-tv” he spent about an hour sloshing the poor turtle around in the tank. Had lunch with them and threw the baby around a bit on the carpet and finally read him a story and put him down for his afternoon nap we went back and I crashed out for 2 hours while the boys went shopping for barbecue supplies. Woke up to nice onion and pumpkin cooking and fresh marinade smells and I flopped on the couch while the boys ran around filling the eski with ice, beer, juice and vodka and making the salads and while waiting for everyone else to show up we sat around and watched Pirates and drank beer…

Heading to the pool and barbecue pit as the sun set, we started the fire (after about half an hour of heroic fanning by PyroBobot) and the meat – lamb, beef and sausages started to get cooked. Basically the whole night was boys with anime porn, fire, beer, meat, vodka, fire, meat, more vodka, more meat and finally we topped it off with a mass wrestling match where the losers get thrown into the pool. Ursa – big Sumo boy he is, won of course.  Finally packing up at almost midnight, we headed back to watch 300 on DVD (so blood and violence to top off an awesome night) and finish the beer and vodka…

Sunday 6^th May 2007:

Woke up to a slight hangover, showered and grabbed the boys out for dim sum brunch. Polished off enough food to feed a small 3^rd world country, we went to get orange juice. Back at home we loaded up on vodka and OJ, Lays chips and Star Wars, all to the soundtrack of Ursa’s snoring. As the temperature went up to 36 degrees Celsius, we hid in the comforts of air-conditioning and iced screwdrivers.  By the time dinner came about, I couldn’t drive.  We ate a quick slap up meal, went home and zzzzzzzzz.

It’s now Monday and slight hangover notwithstanding, I feel awesome. And my favourite highlights of the weekend?

-         Christian running up to me to scream at me, “ontyjas’mee-i-wana-guzin!” In English that would be ‘Aunty Jasmine I want a cousin’ but Christian, Aunty Jasmine needs to get married first before she can make you a cousin…

-         Khayman running full tilt across the floor towards Hazrul to flying tackle him into the pool but ended up slipping on a wet patch and somersaulting, literally, arse over teakettle into the swimming pool.

-         Lost ripping his shorts at the crotch and displaying /FLAUNTING his hairy goat trinkets for the WORLD to see. Ugh.  My eyes.

-         Lost making me divest Hazrul of his electronics so the rest of the boys could wrestle him into the pool… And into the pool he went, complete with shoes, wallet, pants, shirt & socks.

-         Pok and I double teaming a cussing PyroBobot face first into the pool and when he came up sputtering all he could do was show us the finger. LOL.

-         Ursa needing to help me tie my bikini top back up after a tandem barrel-roll into the pool ended up with my rip cords getting pulled off… *blush*

-         Susan and I smoking up the restaurant with the dry ice from the ice cream cake packaging like little 3 year olds.

-         Chocolate.  Ice.  Cream.  Cake.  Like, duh.

-         Sloshy Sunday – doing absolutely fuck-o, drinking chilled heavy screwdrivers, reading Raymond E. Feist, listening to Lacuna Coil, nibbling on chocolate and Lays chips, half watching Star Wars and listening to Ursa snore the place down and slowly getting FUBAR.  Awesome.

-         Vodka.  OMG.  With OJ.  OMFG.

To everyone who wished me, thanks for the thoughts! For those of you who forgot / didn't know, I still luv ya!  And to my favourite boys; you bozos rock. Really.  *muak muaks*

Same Old, Same New

You know how the song goes:

Istanbul-was-Constantinople

Now it’s Istanbul-not-Constantinople

Been long time gone-Constantinople

Why did Constantinople-get the works

That’s nobody’s business but the Turks

I find this name changing business kinda amusing really. Why?  Because last night my Friendly Travel Agent Bear asked me if I wanted a cheap flight to-Constantinople this summer.

I laughed.  My Sunny Vampire Comrade just boggled at the name and asked “where’s that?”  I just pointed him in the general direction of Anatolia-or-Turkey, if that’s what you prefer.

That got me thinking about how many cities/countries have had name changes. My Burmese cousins refuse to call themselves Myanmar-ese or uh, Myanmar-ans after the name change in 1989.

I have a mate who still tells me that he’s from Bombay-even after I corrected him that it’s now called Mumbai.  He just laughed at my face and showed me a clipping from a major newspaper about a terrorist attack:

“...A string of powerful bombs ripped through a vital spine of Mumbai’s commuter train systems killing nearly 200 people.  More than 6 million people ride the trains in Mumbai, formerly-Bombay…”

LOL.  Even the people are confused.  Me?  I take delight in it. I love making an even bigger mess of things:

Me:  Did I ever tell you about the time I went to-Rhodesia?

Mate:  Where’s that???

Me:  Slightly north-east of SouthAfrica

Mate:  Uh...

Me:  I think they call it-Zimbabwe-now…

Mate: >.<

One day I would love to try going to watch the Broadway musical Miss Ho-Chi-Minh but I think Andrew Lloyd Webber would balk at the name change from Miss Saigon to that.

Then I will have me some Beijing-Duck for dinner though I think that Peking-Duck would be tastier. Then to wash it all down I’ll get a glass or two of some Mumbai Safire gin and tonic. Or do you think that the lovely sparkling blue Bombay Sapphire would be better?

And what about my colourful-Madras-shirt? Would I eventually have to call it a Chennai shirt? And somehow I don’t Frank Sinatra would ever sound the same if he sang that he wanted to melt his little town blues and be a part of New Amsterdam, New Amsterdam instead of New York, New York.

Getting quite an education aren’t ya folks? I could go on about this topic but methinks I’ll stop here and next time my Friendly Travel Agent Bear tells me a story about a little west African nation called Burkina Faso (which roughly translates to “The Land Of Incorruptible Men” and its capital called Ouagadougou) I’ll tell him it used to be called Upper Volta.

Sweets From The Sweet

You all know about my closet cowering over the 14^th day of the 2^nd month. It really wasn’t all that bad I have to say.  After all, my closet is filled with nice clothes and all my lovely shoes and the lavender smells are all really nice and calming.

I crawled out for air recently to find that although I went into hiding, people still managed to find a way to remember me.  Here’s a quick list of thoughts I received:

-         4 cards

-         15 flowers

-         8 boxes of chocolates

-         2 teddy bears

-         1 dead mouse

-         1 death threat

-         2 rave reviews

-         1 hate mail

Not too bad I reckon!  My favourite has to be the dead mouse. It was hugged and squeezed and it was named George.  Don’t ask.  Just accept it.  I now have to open my anthrax filled hate mail.  Happy ValenSwine’s Day everyone!

FIRE IN THE HOLE!

Dog-Gone It

I’ve always liked to think of myself as an animal person.  You know how some folks are ‘Bird People’ or ‘Cat People’ or even ‘Fish People’?  I’ve always insisted that I don’t play favourites but after reading about several incidents involving dogs in the papers recently, I can confirm that I am most definitely a DOG person.  Yup.  I love pups.

The story was about this disabled lady, Jamie Hanson, 49 who had previously lost her leg in an automobile accident.  Since then she had trained a 13 year old Labrador Retriever German Shepherd mix to assist her in her daily life.  Basically she treated the pup like her own child and that pooch, having incredibly intelligent genetics seemed to understand Ms Hanson’s every word. 

Good doggie!  J

Now Ms Hanson also had a pet cat.  I don’t mind cats generally but I don’t like how they never respond when you call them and I hate it when they rip up your furniture.  Cats are also not highly rated on the ‘human intelligence’ scale. 

Ms Hansen was watching TV one evening when her feline suddenly decided to run along the back of the couch and jump onto the table that had a lit scented candle on it, consequently knocking it over.  A pot of artificial plants that resided nearby ignited instantaneously.

Bad kitty!  L

Ms Hansen, now panicking, fell off her couch and tried crawling for her artificial leg.  The flames, fuelled by numerous accelerants began to consume everything in its destructive path.

In the meantime, the smart doggie retrieved the cordless phone and brought it to Ms Hansen so that she may call 911 for help.  The pup also brought Ms Hansen’s prosthetic leg that she may get up and leave the house.

Fetch!  Good doggie!

Ms Hansen tried to put on her leg but it was too hot but not to worry!  The clever pooch returned to aid her once more.  Half dragging Ms Hansen, the dog managed to get its owner out of the house away from danger.

Sit!  Stay!  Good doggie!

At this time, the cat decided that it didn’t like the heat and started mewing.  The dog, upon hearing the cat in distress; disobediently left Ms Hansen and returned into the flaming house to get the cat.  Ms Hansen screamed and screamed for the dog to come back to her to no avail.

Sigh.  Play dead.  L  Poor doggie.

The burning house collapsed only moments after the dog went in.  Ms Hansen was the only survivor.

Sigh.

On another count, the [insert anal-retentive religion here] headmistress of a local girl school caught sight of her students feeding and petting a friendly stray dog in the school compound and she called in the dog catchers to ‘deal with the problem.’ 

The dog catchers promptly came during school hours with a shotgun and blasted the poor creature.  UNFORTUNATELY, the poor dog didn’t die from the shot.

So bleeding profusely and in terrible pain, the dog tried to run away so the dog catchers used a MEAT HOOK and skewered the poor mutt while the dog was still alive in front of the whole school of screaming girls.

One can only imagine the torment and agony that pitiful animal was going through.

I am a Catholic and as a rule I don’t believe in extraterrestrial life or animals having souls.  In the case of doggies, I sincerely hope that I am wrong about the souls and I sincerely hope that all doggies go to heaven.

I’m going to go cry in my shower now.

Banned From Reading...

You just gotta LOVE what the Malaysian press is printing nowadays… This came out on page 13 in the News Straits Times on the 10^th of August 2006. Laugh people.  That’s all we can do about it.

Even The Banned List’s Been Banned Now

A FEW weeks ago, the authorities came out with a pamphlet that listed the books that are banned from sale and circulation in Malaysia. There was some public outcry. To address this, the pamphlet has been slapped with a ban.

"The reason is quite obvious," said Freedom From Speech chairperson Salmon- berry Chen. "We fear that exposure to the very titles of these books will cause too much discussion. This should be the end of the matter."

The 49-page booklet was seen in a few shops of dubious prestige last week. But checks by this worthy organ confirm that they have been withdrawn from circulation.

The ban on those books and the reasons for them were initially controversial. One of them featured a cat named Garfield, considered offensive for "glorifying orange felines that were not indigenous to this country". Another featured a dog named Snoopy, and was withdrawn for "seemingly conferring the powers of speech to an animal, therefore going against the laws of nature". Now, even the titles of both these books can no longer be printed.

The question remains: If we don’t know what is banned, how can we take action against those who continue to sell and circulate those dangerous books? Chen dismissed this concern with a guffaw.

"The authorities have been instructed in a special way. Do not worry. Those of us in power have a different way of speaking, anyway."

It’s Sexier To Say No Apparently

Singapore

recently launched a campaign to curb rampant sex habits of Malay teenagers after looking at this ‘very worrying’ data:-

1)  About a third of all teenage abortions in 2004 occur in the Malay community

2)  Half of all teenagers infected with STDs are Malay

3)  More than half of the 417 teen who gave birth in 2004 were Malay

So with this in mind, the government is feeding ethnic Malay teenagers the message that “it’s sexier to say NO” in the hopes that they will abstain from sex.  Yeah right.  While I’m not Malay and certainly not Singaporean, I find this campaign to be somewhat, ambiguous.  And relatively offensive.

Seriously.  Which direction are they going?  They come up with lines like “This shows that our community has matured and is now ready to discuss this issue in the open and do something about it collectively.”  Uhm, ok.  Nothing in it about condoms and safe sex.  This reads like the Christian campaigns in the

USA

.  Abstinence supporters are up-front about their crusade being “MORALLY BASED”.  It’s for your own good goes the tagline.

C’mon, teens will be teens and if the government thinks that they can stop these kids from bumping hips just by informing them to feel ‘morally decent’ they’ve got another thing coming.  Teenagers don’t listen to their parents, so listening to the government is oh-so-likely-to-happen.  The more they make it a taboo subject, the more kids want to find out and experience it.  Surely it is a better idea to give these already sexually active young people information on how to protect themselves from the itchy nasties and how not to get knocked up!

Then there’s the other direction this could go.  This is the one I find odious.  It involves preaching directly to the Malay community about abstinence (with the S’porean birth rates declining), stigmatizing innocent kids born to unwed moms (rather than treating all kids equally) and placing the blame of teenage abortion squarely on the shoulders of a MINORITY group (14%, hello?) over ALL the population.  Look at the data above!  Two thirds of teenage abortions are from other ethnic groups and the other half with itchy nasties are NOT Malay! 

They want the Malay kids to say “NO” now but to wait till they’re ‘older’ and ‘married’ to then go for it like rabbits to impede the population decline but I feel by then they will be so terrified and uneducated about sex that they will have “NO” idea what to do and how to do it!

But what do the Singaporean ethnic Malay teens think about this?  In a random street interview, views ranged from the thoughts that it’s great that the government is taking such an interest in their morality to the fact that government is a legitimised dictatorship and that they would rather have their sensitive areas infected with several nasty things than to listen to the authorities.  Then cometh the teeth gnasher!  Some kids thought that the government should make it a point to impose a modest dress code because boys will be tempted to have teenage sex if girls dress scantily. 

I shall refrain from making any comments on that last thought lest I digress too far from my original topic.  All comments and brickbats are welcome though.

I Hear The Bells Go Ding Dong

Ding Dong alright.  Wedding bells.  It’s that time of year again - love is in the air and it spills forth the froth of lace, bubbles, balloons, wedding marches, cake, declarations of undying love, sappy love songs and Ding Dong.  Some starry-eyed people find it to be the most romantic thing on earth – the smells of sweet flowers, champagne and the cake topper couple exchanging ‘till death do us part’ vows.  Other cynical people find it to be the most nauseating fiasco on the planet – the plastic smiles, the hypocrisy, and the possibility that the those vows would mean nothing and end up in divorce.

I for one believe in the sanctity of the sacrament of marriage but the circus of a WEDDING is what gets me…  C’mon, do you have any idea the kind of planning one of these things take?  From the moment you announce the engagement it becomes like a guerrilla tactical assault plan. You start with the blocking of the actual date(s) and then the booking the church, priest/pastor/celebrant, the registry and the reception venue.  It doesn’t stop there!  There’s the dress and tuxedo, the limo, flowers, rings, attendants, seating arrangements, menu, music, invitations, hair & makeup, gifts registry, cake, thank you cards, party favours, bridal shower/bachelor party, dance lessons, alcohol, speeches, honeymoon arrangements of airline tickets, passports, holiday destinations & hotels, permits and supplies for tranquilisers for the more unruly guests, this list never ends! 

Not only that, having so many family members together in one room and giving them alcohol a recipe for disaster.  Inevitably you end up trying to make everyone happy and consequently driving yourself INSANE.  And you think these things are CHEAP???  Weddings cost from around US$10,000 to about US$10,000,000!!!  Oh that doesn’t include the divorce lawyer.  That costs extra, hehe.

Sigh.  I am unfortunately at that ‘age’ where all my mates are slowly but surely getting hitched and those of us that are left feels the pressure to jump on the wedding train.  I get the *nudge nudge* and the *wink wink* “when is it your turn?” speech at every event I attend and frankly, its starting to get really irritating.  The other irksome matter is when its time for the bouquet toss us single (and rather mortified) girls are herded like cattle to the slaughter/dance floor…

I think that when my time is up and I’ve been cornered with nowhere to run, I’ll elope.  If that is not an option then it’ll be SIMPLE.  No frills, no ‘extras’ and certainly no excessive cost!  In the meantime, at every FUNERAL I attend I’m going to do the same *nudge nudge* *wink wink* “when is it your turn?” speech to every single person who’s ever asked me that!

Ding Dong you hear?  I hear the Hunchback of Notre Dame shouting “Sanctuary!  Sanctuary!”  I agree with him.

The The Vinci Code?

So dark the con of man!

Yes we are back here as the movie runs in all theatres near you.  As critics scream for (royal?) blood (sang real anyone?) and the crucifixions of the director, script writer and producers, other parties are also lobbying hard to ban the movie yet once more.  Who can blame them?  The original book by Dan Brown was hardly historically, geographically and theologically accurate but it was still a marvellously written piece of fiction.  The movie however was a sad, sad, sad attempt at recreating the excitement of the book.

So, among the many voices shouting for a better-late-than-never ban,  I heard a voice jumping into the fray to add its pathetic 2 cents worth.  No thanks to my lame scanner, the article is illegible but no fear for I shall not deprive you all to reading about how utterly STUPID some people are…  I damn near pissed my pants cracking up!  All brickbats and comments are welcomed!

Linguists call for ‘Da Vinci Code’ ban

The Malaysian Linguistic Association (MALAS) has echoed calls by other parties to ban the controversial movie The Da Vinci Code.

The film is an adaptation of a best-selling novel that deals with some aspects of the Christian faith.  But the objections by MALAS has nothing to do with theology because, “we don’t even know who Theo is”, says its president Ambi Mohan.

The association’s chief objection is, instead, linguistic.

“For too long we have sat by and allowed language to be polluted but we have decided that enough’s enough.  The Da Vinci Code should be banned because we don’t want to to encourage youngsters to use ‘da’ as a lazy shorthand for ‘the’.

“We see this in rap lyrics,” he claims.

“All this talk about ‘hanging out with da hoes’.  You should be hanging out with THE hoes.  This sort begs the question of why someone would want to ‘hang out’ with gardening implements to begin with, but I am not here to question lifestyle choices, merely spelling, grammar and semantics.”

He said the association might reconsider its protests if the filmmakers changed its name to The The Vinci Code.

“But even this is problematic because having two “thes’ in a row look ugly.  So the film should be called The Vinci Code.”

The film’s producers could not be reached for comment.

What The Hague...

Tell me what you think of this article.  The whole time I was reading this my brain was going “WHAaaaaat the…???”

Dutch paedophiles to launch political party

Tue May 30, 2006 08:55AM ET

AMSTERDAM

(Reuters) – Dutch paedophiles are launching a political party to push for a cut in the legal age for sexual relations to 12 from 16 and the legalisation of child pornography and sex with animals.

The Charity, Freedom and Diversity (NDV) party said on its Web site it would be officially registered Wednesday, proclaiming:  “We are going to shake

The Hague

awake!”

The party said that it wanted to cut the legal age for sexual relations to 12 and eventually scrap the limit altogether.

“A ban just makes children curious,” Ad can den Berg, one of the party’s founders, told Algemeen Dagblad (AD) newspaper.

“We want to make paedophilia the subject of discussion,” he said, adding that the subject had been taboo since the 1996 Marc Dutroux child abuse scandal in neighbouring

Belgium

.“We have been hushed up.  The only way is through parliament.”

The

Netherlands

already has liberal policies on soft drugs, prostitution, and gay marriage, but the NVD is unlikely to win much support, the AD quoted experts as saying.

“They make out as if they want more rights for children.  But their position that children should be allowed sexual contact from age 12 is of course just in their own interest,” anti-paedophile campaigner Ireen van Engelen told the daily.

The party said that possession of child pornography should be allowed although it favours banning the trade of such materials.  The broadcast of pornography should be allowed on daytime television, with only violent pornography limited to the late evening, according to the party.

Toddlers should be given sex education and youths aged 16 and up should be allowed to appear in pornographic films and prostitute themselves.  Sex with animals should be allowed although abuse of animals should remain illegal, the NVD said.

The party also said that everybody should be allowed to go naked in public.

The party’s programs also includes ideas for other areas of public policy including the legalisation of all soft and hard drugs and free train travel for all.

Kicking The Proverbial Bucket

These two weeks will mark the annual Chinese Cheng Meng Festival – or basically the festival of the dead.  It’s a time where families gather together to visit the final resting of ancestors long past and generally to eat drink and be merry. 

For quite a while in my life I though this practice was a little bizarre to say the least; we would pack for a picnic, drive to a cemetery and set out candles, joss sticks, paper ‘hell notes’ (pocket money to spend in the afterlife), roasted pork and steamed chicken with glutinous rice, fruits, sweet cakes, brandy and tea.  Then we would proceed to clean up the marked area and set out everything in its proper place.  As a small child my only job was to wave a plastic baggie around the food to keep the pesky insects away.  As I grew older that baggie waving task was given to my smaller cousins.  My job now is to provide shade; as in hold 2 ginormous umbrellas up and out of people’s way so that everyone can be sheltered from the unforgiving tropical sun. 

When everything is set out in the proper place, we will distribute the joss sticks (prayers for the deceased as the smoke rises to heaven) among the present family members and everyone will take turns (in accordance to age and rank) to ‘offer’ these prayers up.  Oh and someone in the family will also distribute joss sticks and sweet cakes to the ‘neighbours’…  And after all that is done, we join in the feasting.  When everything is eaten we then pack away the remnants and go home but before we enter the house we have to ‘cleanse’ ourselves with water purified with pomelo leaves and chrysanthemum flowers.  This whole scenario takes about 3 hours, tops.  Easy.

Technically our little ritual is generally quite simple.  Some families seem to prefer a more elaborate setup.  We have seen some families with various types of offerings from an ENTIRE roast pig to giant candles the size of large tree trunks to 20 metre long firecrackers!  We’ve also seen some larger families with the rented circus tent sized umbrellas complete with the industrial misting fans.  Some other families also bring ‘supplements’ to the ‘hell notes’ like paper ‘TVs’, ‘cars’, ‘cell phones’, ‘trophies’, ‘brandy’, ‘beer’, ‘magazines’, ‘DVD machines’ etc. all made from coloured paper to look like the real thing.  The companies that make these paper offerings normally make a killing, pardon the pun.  Those paper replicas are expen$$$ive!!!  A paper TV set can set you back a very real US$75, and a paper Mercedes can be about US$130 and houses with swimming pools, fully furnished can be up to US$1000!!!  It’s a serious business death.

I think it’s all good if your family can afford it.  Personally when I’ve shuffled off this mortal coil and kicked the proverbial bucket, I want to be cremated.  It’s a slightly less expensive affair and I do not need to suffer my next of kin to the annual clearing of my grave site.  I shall have it in my last will and testament that when I’m ashes to ashes and dust to dust, each year my next of kin shall take a small vial of my charred remains and go to a different Disneyland around the world and sprinkle it there.  All they have to do is to discreetly open the vial when they’re on the top of the Rolling Thunder Mountain rollercoaster and whoosh!  I think it’s a great way to spend my afterlife listening to the sounds of laughter and strains of “It’s A Small World”. After all, it is the happiest place on earth.  If all else fails, I can always be one of the ghosts that haunt the Pirates Of The Caribbean ride!  ARRR!!!  Yo Ho, Yo Ho, It’s A Pirates’ Life For Me!

Drink Up Me Hearties, Yo Ho!

Why Bother?

Yeah, why should I start a blog anyway?  Jump on the bloody bandwagon of everyone and anyone who has one - do people really think that anyone cares about what they have to say about the sky, the earth, blah blah blah?

Also, Friendster tells me "You can start your own Photo Album on your Blog!" and why the heck would I want to do that?  Share my butt-freak-fuglie pictures with the world?  Shit, even my own family gets the 'edited' versions of my albums... So can someone tell me why, aside from entertaining sickos with rock bottom insecurities who feel the need to laugh at people who have bad hair years (I have bad hair years - ever tried an afro perm?) just to make themselves feel good, why, the heck do I need to share my i-just-woke-up-with-drool-on-my-face pictures or the classic my-skirt-got-caught-up-my-undies look?  Better, why not share all my buck toothed, 4 eyed, stick insect (that was me at 12 years old), horrendous fashioned, bad haired adolecent pictures with everyone???

PAH!

C'mon people, I'm just ranting.  The blog is called Rants and Raves of my Fiction.  Don't you all get high and mighty on me, everyone whinges (that's complain to those of you who don't speak Aussie) on their blogs so since I'm starting a blog, why not go all the way!  Truth of the matter is, this blog is just an excuse to bludge (that's goof-off in Aussie) for a bit while my boss is away on lunch break...  Technically I'm on my lunch break as well so that really doesn't count as a bludge, just a uh, detour...  Heck why not?  My phones haven't rung (that's a past participle of ring, to those of you who are grammatically retarded) in the past hour! 

I can't help myself correcting people whose grammar is *ick* spastic.  (Yes I'm still ranting)  Go and take English lessons people and for the love of all that's holy, please please please use SPELLCHECK!!!  Its really not that hard!

Anyway, I'm still bludging so back to the real world to get some eats... 

Will blog again soon, or not, maybe, depends...  x Ciao! x (that's bye bye in Italian for the single-linguals)