Inspired by the British Museum’s publishing coup in printing The Tale of Peter Rabbit in hieroglyphs – the perfect tale for busy mummies who want to unwind with a nice story about bunnies after a hard day punching holes in the chests of character actors and overwhelming the world with an army of the undead – I am now working on translating Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix into cuneiform.
This is no easy task, even after successfully neogtiating the rights with J.K. Rowling’s publishers and several earthmoving contractors. There are the difficulties of finding equivalent terms relating to an anachronistic British boarding school that will make sense to the average Babylonian, how to translate all the cod Latin into an even more ancient context and, most of all, how to live with myself as a fully-grown adult ploughing through a children’s book only slightly shorter than the collected works of Jane Austen.
The new edition should hit the streets in time for next Christmas, and is expected to take up about 12,000 clay tablets. Customers are advised to pre-order to avoid disappointment, and to hire a truck to take it home. Please take care not to drop a page, or get it wet: tablets will not be sold separately. For vision-impaired Sumerians, a large print edition is in preparation.
Filed under: Stupidity, Writing by Ben.H
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What I did on my summer break
Tuesday 4 January 2005
I guess you had to be there.
Before resuming this timewaster properly for the new year, I have to note that I don’t remember writing that last post at all.
Oh, and don’t I feel foolish now for mocking that tsunami warning I received last month? Well, no I don’t because it missed me entirely.
Filed under: Self-promotion, Stupidity by Ben.H
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Swings and Roundabouts
Sunday 12 December 2004
On the one hand, Delta Goodrem is leaving Australia to live in the U.S., from where hopefully she can devote less time to perpetually saturating every Australian media outlet* while simultaneously bleating about how the media shd respect her privacy. Having now stiffed in the U.K. and exhausted the goodwill of her compatriots, she thinks she can still evade the Pepsi Curse.
On the other hand, Leo Sayer is still threatening to move to Australia next year to relaunch his music career. For those who haven’t heard this choice quote:
In Australia they still want heroes. They are looking to me to teach their kids knowledge and wisdom.
Still, better him than Delta, I guess. And you have to admit “You Make Me Feel Like Dancing” is pretty catchy.
* Including this one, dammit.
Filed under: Music, Stupidity by Ben.H
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Spammers challenge slackers: find the angle
Wednesday 8 December 2004
Yeah, yeah, everyone gets weird spam from time to time, but lately they’ve been tending toward the incomprehensible, in word and intent. Am I too smart or too stupid to respond to whatever insane sales pitch they’re sending me?
Subject: there is a lot to be ahamed of
Alright! Don’t give me money or sex, promise me shame!
Subject: pain is killing me
Good. Carry on.
Subject: girlish ang ruttish fillies are holding back you!
Sexy come-on, or dire warning screamed by one of the characters from Zero Wing? To be fair, one of these spams provided me with the fantastic word ‘bulkhorsewoman’, which has got to be the only genre of Japanese fetish porn I have not yet become an avid collector of. But then I got this one, which takes the soft, pink, ham-in-aspic cake:
Subject: Warning huge ocean wave
THIS IS AN OFFICIAL WARNING!
qgnxv cphb hdmgxv
A huge 300 ft. high ocean wave is moving towards your continent. Your and many other cities are in a real danger. Approximate wave moving speed is 700 km/h.
hieih uqtw boylpt
Please read more about this catastrophe here:
http://www.tsunamidanger.com/
http://www.hugewave.org/We are strongly urging you to evacuate yourself and your family as soon as possible, even though you may live far away from your city. The tsunami will reach the continent in approximately FOUR hours.
jhnyf ibvp cdupir
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
This was sent to me on Sunday, and I didn’t check my mail until at least a day after I drowned. But what the hell is it trying to sell me? What genius thought up the “only give them four hours to buy our product, less the time it takes them to receive our spam, but first tell them to go far away from where they normally access the web” marketing strategy?
The website they advertise offers nothing but helpful expert advice about how to run away from a tsunami:
If you are near the ocean and you feel a large earthquake, you should go inland or to higher ground immediately. NEVER go to the coast to watch a tsunami. A tsunami moves faster than a person can run.
Gosh, thanks for that! Remember, counter-intuitive as it may seem, never, ever, run towards a tsunami. If this seems hard to grasp, here’s a picture to help:
The site also gives soothing reassurances…
The site also gives soothing reassurances…
It may take hours for waves to reach coastal South Australia coast, and there is a Tsunami Warning and Alerting Plan in place to pass the warning to coastal residents as quickly as possible.
…only to cruelly crush them in the next paragraph.
If a tsunami were to be generated close to South Australia coast, waves could reach shore within a few minutes and there would not be enough time for officials to issue a warning.
Weirdly, the text seems to be lifted from an honest-to-god government website. Although it keeps referring to a threat to the South Australian coast (and helpfully includes a map of South Australia which inadvertently shows that there is no way a tsunami could inundate Adelaide) it keeps making references to British Columbia and is obviously lifted from some Canadian government information page about the importance of not being near the sea when there’s a tusnami. There are even fake official-looking icons on the page suggesting that this is all somehow official, including this one below. It’s small, but you can just make out the moose flanking the British Columbia coat of arms. Now I can’t get to sleep because my head is buzzing with the one question: why? why? why?
Filed under: Stupidity by Ben.H
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The miserable few who doubted my powers must now bow down before my genius
Tuesday 7 December 2004
The newspapers have already reverted to publishing blatant crap for the summer… I will now predict the summer’s top ‘news’ stories… A scientist will claim to have cloned the mountain lion in the Dandenongs, which will boost the revival of the local film industry.
Melbourne Zoo’s public relations chief yesterday declared the silly season open as senior animal keepers were called in to analyse images of yet another mystery cat seen near the Grampians.
That’s one down.
Filed under: Journalism, Stupidity by Ben.H
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Hokey Local News and the Two Minute Hate
Tuesday 7 December 2004
I must have slept in because the newspapers have already reverted to publishing blatant crap for the summer:
A residential island could be built in Port Phillip Bay, made of silt from the proposed dredging of the bay and the Yarra River.
In a related news story, a 500-room luxury palace could be built in my back yard, made of solid gold panned and smelted by my personal harem of nubile virgins.
Melbourne 2030 reference group member Rob Pradolin said Melbourne needed visionary projects such as this.
Thanks for your support, Rob.
The article even provides this challenging vision of the future below, with a provocative question. Mouse over the picture for the secret answer.
To save you the trouble of reading hacks scratching their balls in The Age for the next two months, I will now predict the summer’s top ‘news’ stories so you can put in more quality time falling asleep on the couch in front of the cricket on telly:
• A scientist will claim to have cloned the mountain lion in the Dandenongs, which will boost the revival of the local film industry.
• A environmentally-friendly world-class luxury hotel will be built on the CUB Brewery site, which developers predict will become an international tourist attraction.
• A (feature in the Good Weekend/column by Tony Parkinson) which explains why everyone in the world, yourself included (is obsessed with/will be grateful for) the (boundless talent and charismatic mystique/noble statesmanship) of (Casey Donovan/Donald Rumsfeld).
• An article by John Elder where he wanders the streets picking up other people’s litter. At first he has some difficulty find enough litter, but soon gets the hang of it. After a while tries to interview passersby about his litter-gathering, but finds everyone is strangely reluctant to talk to him.
• An opinion essay by a staff writer who has the epiphany that she prefers some cafes over others, but explains this phenomenon by tenuously blaming it on other people’s moral failings and interpreting it as a sign of modern society’s decline. Hang on, they’ve done that one already.
Filed under: Journalism, Stupidity by Ben.H
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Short, disgusting confession
Sunday 5 December 2004
You know how sometimes you wake up to find you’ve left a damp patch of drool on your pillow? You know how sometimes your dreams end with something that really is happening at that moment? This morning I woke up from a dream where I was brushing my teeth.
Filed under: Stupidity by Ben.H
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People or things I have been mistaken for, or allegedly physically resemble, in increasing order of ridiculousness
Wednesday 17 November 2004
Filed under: Self-promotion, Stupidity by Ben.H
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Phelps Watch: a nation holds its breath
Wednesday 27 October 2004
The media’s conspiracy to suppress news of Peter Phelps’ march towards a federal senate seat must not prevail. As a matter of public interest I give you the latest results of the vote count from the national tally room:
-
Provisional Quota: 421,034 votes
-
Phelps, Peter Grant: 133 votes
I’m hopeful for a late surge in the 6 remaining unapportioned votes on his ticket, but it’s clear that we can’t celebrate Phelpsy’s victory for certain until all the below-the-line preferences have been distributed. In the meantime, we’ll all have to be patient. That includes you, Ellen de Graaf.
Filed under: Stupidity by Ben.H
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A sobering moment of insight
Wednesday 27 October 2004
So I was at work today googling for upskirt photos of Denise Drysdale when it suddenly struck me that I’d been at this job for seven years. Only part time, but still. Now, I’d long been conscious of having never been able to hold onto a job for more than a year until this one, but unwittingly I’ve also smashed my previous record for clocking in more or less regularly at the one establishment. Which was five years at one high school. I started to reflect on how I had become more mature at last, but quickly realised that I was self-deluded and corrected myself to reflect upon how damn old I am. Then I lost interest in self-knowledge and went back to googling for nipple slip photos of Collette Mann.
Filed under: Stupidity by Ben.H
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Australia’s Election Day Outrage
Sunday 10 October 2004
The federal election’s over and I am disgusted with the direction this country has taken. I truly fear for our children’s future, which is a big call given that I don’t have any kids and really cdn’t care if the little bastards live or die. How can we hold our heads high and say we are proud to be Australian, after Saturday’s debacle?
My compatriots know what I’m talking about but, for the sake of the thousands of overseas visitors who check in to this site every day on the off chance I might get around to updating it, I’ll spell it out. I went down to my local polling booth in the mid-morning, and there was NO SAUSAGE SIZZLE! What the hell has happened to this country? I circumnavigated the whole schoolyard twice: not a sausage. Literally. I thought charity sausage sizzles were mandated by the AEC.
If you think this all sounds superficial and apathetic, you’re clearly in the minority. I’m just going to go with the flow since no-one else round here gives a shit about this place. And anyone who drones on to me about how they’re going to leave the country better be prepared to meet my wager of $100 that they will still be here a year later.
Filed under: Stupidity by Ben.H
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Update: Phelpsy for PM! (cue laughter)
Wednesday 15 September 2004
Just looked through the Stingers site and found this tasty nugget:
ACTOR BIDS FOR ROLE IN SENATESTINGERS star Peter Phelps’ next role could be in Canberra — the actor will stand for the Senate in the October 9 election. Phelps will join the Your Voice group, a pro-indigenous political movement established this year. He said he was disillusioned with mainstream political parties. “So I want to give them a bit of a kick in the guts,” Phelps joked yesterday. He was talking tactics in Alphington with other Your Voice members, including founder Richard Frankland. The Aboriginal director, musician and writer said the idea for the party was sparked by the Federal Government’s abolition of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission. And Frankland was not satisfied with the alternatives: the Democrats, Greens and Labor.
So, I’m sorry for impugning Phelpsy’s intelligence in the preceding article. Actor, statesman, author, singer, and Peter Allen impersonator: Peter Phelps is a true Renaissance Man.
Filed under: Stupidity by Ben.H
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Filler by Proxy IV: Doesn’t anyone round here like Peter Phelps?
Wednesday 15 September 2004
Except this woman, but it seems even she has her limits. To be fair to her, it’s a full-time job keeping up with Phelpsy’s hectic career.
I was going to write something about Phelps but, Christ! it looks like everyone’s beaten me to it. So go read them instead: they’re good.
The outpouring of love was triggered by Pete’s charming and gracious letter to the Green Guide bitching about how an article about the scriptwriters for Stingers didn’t mention him, an actor. I know actors are often stereotyped as not being terribly bright, so it’s sad to see one enacting the values and going out of his way to claim even part of the credit for the quality of plotting and dialogue in that show.
* That reminds me, I must customise my blog’s design one day soon.
Filed under: Filler By Proxy, Stupidity, Television by Ben.H
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Australia’s Week of Shame
Wednesday 8 September 2004
It’s been over a week now since this once-proud nation won a gold medal for anything. Having once strode like a colossus upon the world stage, our hopes and dreams have crumbled like my lower left front molar did a couple of years ago. Who can Australia turn to in these dark times, when day after day passes without a single foreigner validating our existence with some shiny bauble or other? Not our preening, so-called ‘heroes’ of the pool, the velodrome and the shooting gallery (or whatever they call that place where they fire shotguns at flying plates).
Just because the Olympics are over is no excuse to get lazy! Our athletes have been resting on their laurels – literally! I distinctly saw a telltale bumcrack-induced fold in Chantelle Newberry’s wreath on telly today. She ought to be ashamed.
Things have gotten to the point where I have decided to take matters into my own hands. Anyone needing their faith in the ANZAC spirit renewed is encouraged to come round to the Brunswick Trugo Club in Temple Park on Saturday week, where I personally will be standing on a milkcrate with a Golden Rough on a piece of string around my neck. Unless it’s raining, in which case I’ll be in the nearest pub. Either way, feel free to shower me with accolades, media commitments, and lucrative sponsorship deals. If it helps, you can imagine I’ve been singled out for recognition by Nestlé, thus putting Australia back on the map.
If it’s up to me to single-handedly lift the spirits of this great brown land and give our children something to live for, then it’s a burden I am honoured to bear.
Filed under: Stupidity by Ben.H
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Some journos still haven’t gotten over seeing Zsa Zsa Gabor in Queen of Outer Space all those years ago
Sunday 5 September 2004
This just in: Male sex not yet reduntant [sic].
