I am finally on holidays. In fact I have been 4:30pm since Friday, when Photography finished.

Friday night Trav moved his stuff into our spare room. He can't stay at the uni during winter holidays, so he's staying at our place when he's in Ballarat.

Spent most of yesterday cleaning and reading - Remnants 7-9, which were a bit disappointing; and Adrian Mole: The Wildreness Years.

Went to church this morning.

Tomorrow we're going up to Blampied (near Daylesford) for Students for Christ Conference. (I don't actually have enough money for it, due to not having any work for two and a half weeks, but Flip offered to lend me the money.) So there'll be no bloggage at all from me till probably early Sunday morning at my parents' place in Melbourne, using the free Internet service which is only available between 1 and 6 am. I'll be in Melbourne for most of the second week, then back here for the third week of holidays so I can work - and hopefully find somewhere else to live.

Yesterday was, surprisingly, really sunny. Scotty didn't believe me when I told him because he didn't get up until 5pm, after staying up until 5am playing on Nathe's PS2.

Last night we (all the young people from the church) went to Ray (our pastor) and Brigetta (our pastor's wife)'s place for tea.
It was Trav G (Erin's little brother)'s last night with us, so Scotty had tried to write his name on a cake in icing. It kind of looked like it said 'Trav'. A few people make speeches and we prayed for him.
And Harvey showed a video on short-term missions. We're hoping to have fifteen people from the youth ministry on short-term missions this summer. Last year it was eight, I think.
Brigetta leant me this book by Philip Yancey called The Bible Jesus Read, which is about the Torah (Old Testement) and Jewish culture.

Today I went op shopping because I thought I should have more than two pairs of pants*. Scored:

1 pair cords, dark blue, $5

1 t-shirt, light grey, to be printed onto, $3

1 official Centrelink shirt, blue, $5

1 wire CD rack, $3.50

Also changed my subjects for next semester. Instead of doing Editing 2B at SMB I'll be doing Myths & Symbols A & B off campus. This will mean I'll have to spend less time at SMB being 'taught' by a 'teacher' who's totally untrained in education** and doesn't know the meaning of personal space†.

I also went to the library. They had nothing by James Joyce or Julio Cort?zar. But I managed to find The Autumn of the Patriarch, by Gabriel Garc?a M?rquez.

And as you can see above, the new version of blogger (which just kicked in) can't handle accents. Not happy!

*This is partly due to me turning my jeans into what Al calls 'pirate pants' and my navy cargos into what Devo called 'animal pants' and became animal shorts after a couple of mosh pit incidents.
**TAFE teachers don't have to be trained in education. They just need to be experienced in the industry, although the particular teacher I have problems with can't be that experinced in editing as she's always saying, 'Did I spell that right...?' when the answer's obviously, 'NO!'
†Enough said.

Had my Issues with in Television exam yesterday. I think I probably passed the exam, but I'm not sure if I passed well enough to pass the unit. Flip, Ylonde, Dundee and Tegan had their Art History exam too. (Also DUNDEE AND SONIA ARE ENGAGED!!! Mick proposed to her Sonia at 3 am on Saturday!)

Bendigo
All-nighter last night at the Chapel. Didn't make it, partly because I knew about today.

We had a Warrnambool SUFM info session in Ballarat in the afternoon. Two people showed up. The Bendigo one tonight was a lot better - fifteen. Trav and I are driving back early in the morning.

Old and New in Ballarat
[Hover your cursor over each photo for a caption]

Fixed

Thilko woke up and felt cold. Very cold. Opened his eyes and almost had a heart attack when he realised he was in a bath-tub full of ice, in a dark room, almost lit by a dim, flickering light bulb.
‘Ahhhhh!’ he yelled as he gripped the edges of the tub and heaved himself up out of the melting ice.
He lifted up his shirt and breathed a sigh of relief. No bloody incisions giving easy access to his kidneys.
Then he thought, How come my legs weren’t sticking out the other end of the tub?
‘Ahhhhh!’ he yelled again. ‘My legs! Where’re my legs?’
Then he realised … his legs had been stolen and sold on the black-market!
But why? he thought. It wasn’t like he was some famous soccer player or dancer with super-legs that could be used to take over the world or anything.
Then he worked it out. It was the Mr T tattoo he’d gotten on his right calf when he was 17! Everyone had always been jealous of his Mr T tat!
‘Don’t be stupid!’ said the shady character standing over him, who he had somehow overlooked until now. ‘It’s an appalling piece of work. The boss won’t be happy.’
‘What’dya want my legs for?’ Thilko whined. ‘What’ve ya done with them?’
‘They’re safe. In the freezer.’
‘But what do you want them for?’
‘Frog’s legs. They’re a delicacy.’
‘I’m not a frog.’
‘No. But that can be overlooked. I’ll just say they’re from a giant Madagascan leopard-eating frog.’
‘What?! And you think they’ll buy that?’ said Thilko. ‘That’s the most flawed plot I’ve ever heard of! And how did you know I was thinking about the tattoo before?’
‘Don’t blame me, blame the author,’ said the shady character.
‘What?’
‘The author! Don’t you realise this’s just a story?’
‘No,’ said Thilko. ‘No-one told me!’
‘Um… they were supposed to.’
‘Well I reckon it’s a pretty poor effort at a story. And how come I haven’t bled to death yet if me legs’ve been cut off?
‘Oops, sorry,’ said the author and he went back and fixed it all.

Spent most of yesterday cleaning my room - something I hadn't done properly for about three months. Tomorrow I'll go next door and see if I can borrow their vacuum.

Been studying for my Issues with in TV exam on Monday. I saved all the lecture notes onto disc so I could take them home and print them, but the computer won't give my disc back.

Flip has wheels again - her parents got a new car, so she has the old one, a red Toyota Corona. She's getting the Beetle towed to Colac, and fixing it later.

Boy breeds beetles in his body
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - A 13-year-old Indian boy has begun producing winged beetles in his urine after hatching the eggs in his body, a senior medical official says.
Yahoo News, June 16 2003

NZ signs international tobacco control treaty
New Zealand formally signed the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) today in Geneva, Switzerland, home of the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The former Norwegian prime minister, once a family doctor, had set attainment of a treaty against a scourge that kills some five million people a year as the centrepiece of her four-year term at the head of the United Nations agency.
Countries signing at a special ceremony at WHO's Geneva headquarters, where the pact was approved by 190 nations at a key conference last month, ranged from Brazil, Botswana and Iran to Britain, New Zealand and Spain.
Absent were the United States, where the administration of President George W Bush had opposed parts of the accord, particularly an advertising ban, and Germany and China, both heavy-smoking nations with high revenues from tobacco sales.
Costas Stefanis, Health Minister of current EU president Greece, said the treaty -- the first-ever legally binding global public health pact -- "shows the will of the peoples to go against organised interests, the tobacco companies".
The WHO estimates that about 4.9 million people die each year from tobacco use. If current trends continue, this figure will reach about 10 million per year by 2030, with 70 per cent of those deaths occurring in developing countries.
New Zealand Herald, June 17 2003

Flying Boats and... Stuff
This Queensland company called Flightship, is making flying boats (pictured right), for commuter travel.

China has a maglev train running between Shanghai and Pudong.

This company called Segway makes the 'people mover' pictured on the left. I'm not sure it'll catch on to quick.

To the rescue
A BELGIAN couple tried to sneak into the royal palace in Brussels to save the country's king and queen from an assassination plot by deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
Herald Sun

Next they be saying he had weapons of mass destruction.

We're close to star wars deal
AUSTRALIA is close to signing on to the United States' controversial $118 billion missile-defence shield.
Defence Minister Robert Hill told the Herald Sun he believes the space-based national missile defence program could help underpin the Australian-US alliance for the next 20 years.
The US could seek Australian involvement in the ambitious project within weeks.
But critics argue the defence shield -- designed to destroy incoming warheads with defensive missiles directed by satellites and ground stations such as the US base at Australia's Pine Gap -- will spark a new arms race, particularly with China.
Herald Be-Afraid-Be-Very-Afraid Sun, June 17 2003

free enneagram test

Student Accused of Creating Fake Airline
BOSTON - A college freshman created a fake airline that offered bargain-priced tickets on flights between Honolulu and Los Angeles, authorities said Thursday.
Luke Thompson, of Yardley, Pa., incorporated Mainline Airways in Pennsylvania, established a business address in the Boston suburb of Wellesley and set up an elaborate Web site, according to Massachusetts Attorney General Thomas Reilly.
Thompson, who attends Babson College in Wellesley, offered fares as low as $89 one way between Los Angeles and Honolulu, Reilly said. Flights were to begin July 3, but Mainline had neither planes, crews nor the required permits and approvals as recently as a few weeks ago.
Yahoo News, June 13 2003

Also Untitled
[Once again, if you have any idea/s for a title, please tell me, and any other 'constructive' comments are welcome.]

Erica looked at her watch as the packed, peak-hour train pulled into the station. Picking up her briefcase, she got up from her seat by the window, squeezed between the old, Indian lady and the dreadlocked hippy sitting next to and opposite from her, and hurried off the train, into the station.	Monica looked at her watch as the packed, peak-hour train pulled into the station. Picking up her briefcase, she got up from her seat by the window, squeezed between the school girl sitting next to her and the businessman working on his iBook opposite from her, and hurried off the train, into the station.
She fed her ticket into the validation machine, retrieved it as the gate opened, and hurried out onto the busy pavement.
Three blocks to the apartment block where she and her two children lived. Hopefully she could beat them home, and have a nice bowl of ice cream each ready for them when they returned from the private school in the eastern suburbs where they spent their weekdays. They’d probably watch kids’ television the whole afternoon, and the (self-censored) news – providing there was something on besides the war coverage that seemed to be flavour of the month – then get tea delivered, and watch Neighbours and Home and Away, followed by Who Wants to be a Millionaire with Eddie. Then Cass and Andy would do their night’s homework, and she’d do any housework – or apartmentwork – that was needed.  Erica arrived at the apartment block, entered the lobby and headed for the elevator with four other residents. She pressed the button for the twelfth floor, and they began to rise.	Three blocks to the apartment block where she was needed. Hopefully there would be lots of people just getting home, from work, from school, from university. Getting home and expecting to spend the rest of the day – like every other in their meaningless lives – vegetating in from of a television or computer screen. Doing what? Just filling/killing time. It had never been like that for Monica. She’d always made every day count. She couldn’t stand the thought of just sitting back and watching it all happen. She would be the reason things happened. And she was going to make things happen today more than ever. Big time. Monica arrived at the apartment block, entered the lobby and headed for the elevator with four residents. She pressed none of the elevator buttons, but spun the combination rings on her briefcase, setting off a timer inside, which would eventually continue a chain reaction. They began to rise.
The briefcase exploded.

News:

Nathan (a kid who lives next door to Harvey) became a Christian Wednesday night.

Nathe (my housemate who's Scotty's cousin) had to go and buy a Playstation 2. Right at the end of semester when there's exams and assignments due. So he and Devo have been spending most of their days playing Enter the Matrix, formulating their own dodgey, Matrixesque Zen and trying to talk all sophistamicated 'cause they've seen The Matrix Reloaded and I haven't bothered to yet.

Another story I started a while ago and never finished. In fact, I didn't really want to finish it. Just as well, because when I came back to it yesterday I saw it differently.

Untitled
[If you have any idea/s for a title, please tell me. Any other 'constructive' comments are welcome.]

While reading Grug and the Meringue in her nice and lovely sitting room, BANG! Mary exploded.

Frank put down his paint roller and walked into the living room to find out what had made the noise.
The chair where Mary had been sitting was on fire. The blackened wallpaper behind it was peeling off as it incinerated. In the chair sat a charred skeleton.
Frank reached for the phone, to call triple 0. The phone was melted.
He went outside, to his van, and made the call on his mobile.

‘Very strange, Mr Fisher,’ said the head fire fighter. ‘Only ever heard of a couple of other case like this. Both in Spinal Tap. Happens all the time apparently. Can’t be explained.’
‘But… but that was my wife!’ said Frank. ‘She was just sitting there reading!’

That night, Frank couldn’t sleep. He tossed and turned for hours. He got up and headed through the nice and lovely sitting room, toward the clean and respectable bathroom. As he walked over the burnt floor something in the nice and lovely living room caught his eye. Sitting in the charred armchair, reading Grug and the Meringue, was Mary!

It was all just a horrible dream! thought Frank. Then he realised that everything was still burnt.
‘Mary!’ said Frank.
‘What?’ she asked, looking up and irritated.
‘But you exploded!’ said Frank.
‘It’s alright,’ said Mary. ‘Just finishing my book. I’d just got up to the good bit’
‘Oh, that’s alright then,’ said Frank with a sigh of relief.

Frank went back to bed and fell asleep.

Here are some stills from the pilot episode of Jell's Party, an animation series my friend James has been working on:



The school backgrounds we shot on-location at our high school. And I'm not quite ashamed to admit that Music (the guy in orange) was based on me.

I started writing this after putting some CDs in the microwave. I'd read about it at Adam's blog (February 12 2003, 'Your Own Personal Lighting Show'). However, I couldn't be bothered finishing the story. Now it's nearly the end of semester, and I need to hand in 4000 words worth of short stories in two weeks, so I just finished it then.

Why You Shouldn't Burn CDs
A Cautionary Tale

Find a crappy CD you don’t listen to anymore and are extremely embarrassed about owning. One you got when you were thirteen or fourteen; a single where all the tracks are just different versions of the same repetitive song repeated repetitively song repeated repetitively repeated repetitively. It’s probably Boyzone or Spice Girls or something. If you’re a bit younger (or just immature), maybe it’s Avril Lavigne or John Mayer.

Remove the disc from its case. Open the door of the microwave. Place the disc inside the microwave, reflective-side-up. Close the door. Set the microwave to cook for ten seconds. Start the microwave. Sit back and watch as your very own mini electrical storm (no that is not the name of the CD) takes place before your very eyes. Watch and listen as your housemate freaks out because he or she doesn’t know what’s going to happen and thinks his or her microwave with its mother-written instructions taped onto the door is going to explode or something.

Open the door of the microwave and remove the CD. Note the wrinkles and burns in the reflective foil. Give it a poke with your fingertip, causing the fragile foil to flake off.

Notice an itch in your eye. Scratch it with your finger, pressing a tiny foil particle into your cornea. Cringe with pain. To try and make it feel better, rub your eye, pressing the foreign matter deeper into your eye. Notice that this just makes it feel worse. Begin to hope it will just go away.

After three days of severe pain and deteriorating vision, take a visit to your doctor. Sit still as he or she examines your eye. Become worried as he or she lets out an urgent gasp, informs you that your eye has become gangrenous and calls an ambulance, which rushes you to the nearest hospital.

Take deep breaths as they roll your stretcher down the light-green painted corridors and into the operating theatre. Hyperventilate as the surgeon declares that the eye will have to be removed. Watch as the anaesthetist inserts an anaesthetic drip into your left hand, and places a mask over your face. Hear him or her count to three as you drift into unconsciousness. Lie helpless as the surgeon begins to cut out your damaged and infected eye. Feel nothing as one of the nurses accidentally knocks him or her, causing him or her to drive the blade through the eye socket and into your brain, killing you.

This is why you shouldn’t burn CDs.

Think I have a throat infection.

Art auction was great. Flip's piece, Little Brown Betty went for $70. Tegan's went for $50, and Ylonde sold one ink drawing on butchers paper for $15, and two together for $15. They don't get the money though - the auction was to raise money for the Art Society, so they can put on an exhibition (in Ballarat and Melbourne) at the end of the year, and print a book of student artwork.

The reason there's a problem with images here at the moment is that my image server keeps renaming the files for some reason.

Something that was sent to me by Fiona, a friend from high school:
Why did the Chicken Cross the Road?
SAEED AL SAHAF (Iraqi Head of Information): The chicken did not cross the road. This is a complete fabrication. In fact, we do not even have a chicken.
HANS BLIX: We have reason to believe there may be potential for this chicken's capability, but we have not yet been allowed to have access to the other side of the road.
COLIN POWELL: Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly see the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road.
GEORGE W BUSH: We don't care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road or not. The chicken is either for us or against us. There is no middle ground.
TONY BLAIR: I agree with George.
JOHN HOWARD: I agree with George and Tony.
KIM BEAZLEY: There is no challenge to the chicken at this stage, but if I were crossing the road ....
SIMON CREAN: @#@#!!@ Chicken. No one crosses the @#@#!!@ road without my @#@#!!@ say so. It's time for the chicken to put up or shut up.
PETER HOLLINGWORTH: I am not aware of any impropriety in the chicken crossing the road. In fact I am led to believe that it was the other way around and the chicken asked for it.
DR SEUSS: Did the chicken cross the road?/Did he cross it with a toad?/Yes, the chicken crossed the road,/but why it crossed I've not been told.
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR: I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives called into question.
GRANDPA: In my day, we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Somebody told us the chicken crossed the road, an d that was good enough.
OPRAH: Isn't that interesting? In a few moments, we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heart-warming story of how it felt accomplishing its lifelong dream of crossing the road.
JOHN LENNON: Imagine all the chickens,/crossing all the roads./You may say I'm a dreamer/- but its not the only hen.
MICHAEL JACKSON: There's nothing more wonderful than sharing your bed with a chicken.
ARISTOTLE: It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.
KARL MARX: It was an historic inevitability.
ARSENE WENGER: What chicken? I did not see it.
ALEX FERGUSON: The chicken was not drawn to the other side fairly, and Beckham is not bigger than this club.
SIGMUND FREUD: The fact that you are at all concerned that the chicken crossed the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity.
BILL GATES: eChicken2003 version 1.0 will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your cheque book - and Internet Explorer is an integral part of eChicken.
ALBERT EINSTEIN: Did the chicken really cross the road, or did the road move beneath the chicken?
BILL CLINTON: I did not have sexual relations with that chicken!
THE BIBLE: And God came down from heaven, and he said unto the chicken THOU SHALT CROSS THE ROAD. And the chicken didst cross the road, and there was much rejoicing.
COLONEL SANDERS: Did I miss one?
HOMER SIMPSON: Mmmmmmmmm . . . . c h i c k e n

Downhill
News Scents
links to 101-365
links to a joshua tree in every pot
links to Hetty Litjens' Radio Weblog
links to Reality Bytes / Reality Bytes
links to Random Musings @ Precision Chaos

This is like a really simple blogging version of BuddyZoo - it tells you how many degrees of seperation there are between two blogs.

Bohemian like you
Just been at Camp St to find out from Flip what's going on with the art auction tonight. Had a look at some of her art, which's been mainly about everyday objects recently. She's done this whole series of drawings of this old purse.
Met this punk guy called Shaun, and had a look at his stuff too. He does kind of Pop Art stuff. He asked me if I was putting anything in the auction, and I had to admit I don't do art anymore. Had a look at what Dundee and Ylonde were doing too.
Being there made me feel real bad about quitting art, wish that I still did it. I've been wanting to get back into it a lot recently, so I'd decided that in the holidays I'm going to get all my sketches back from Melbourne and get some dry pastels (I've still got a can of fixitive) so I can do some art during the holidays. I was talking to Erin on the bus yesterday, and she's said she's been feeling the same way to, and come to the same conclusion.

Yesterday was Flip's birthday, and it was Trish's on the weekend, so a heap of us went out for tea at La Porchetta last night to celebrate. Gave Flip a box of pastels for a present.

Check out this post at Gaurav's blog.

I am an overly happy A.D.D kitten


Which cute or possibly strange kitten are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

you are energetic. for some reason you have all
the energy in the world. while you were taking
this test, you probably got up 5 times to get
something from another room, go get a snack,
find the phone... you are probably always
involved in a sport or something that allows
you to move around a lot. or maybe you just
have a.d.d.


who are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Some people may disagree with me, but I don't think that's true.

One said to the other that my favorite Australian band (since Mindnight Oil split last year), The Living End, may be releasing their third album in September. Unfortunately, it won't have 'Into the Red' on it. Nevertheless, I expect it'll be a fantastic addiction to the canon.

Yes I'm still alive (Sorry Neil)
I've just been pretty busy. Some here's some stuff that's happened over the past week:

Wednesday June 4
While we were waiting on the Camp St steps for the last lecture for Issues with in TV lecture, I sat with my classmates eating some rolls I'd bought for my two-o'clock-lunch.
This guy wearing one of those sheepskin jackets came running around the corner of the old Law Courts building (where we had the class), yelling in an American accent, '¿D'you know what just happen' t'me? ¿D'you know what just happen' t'me?'
'¿Nah, what happened?' asked Whitcher.
'I was just about to park, and this woman in another car pulled in in front o' me. So do you know what I did? I got out, and I said, "Look, why d'ya have ta go and do that for?" And do you know what she said? She said, "You. Weren't. Indicating." ¡"You. Weren't. Indicating"! You know, I try ta be a nice guy; I'm always nice to people. But when someone does something like that, that just makes it hard. ¿So you know what I'm gonna do? I'm pretty friendly with all the parking inspectors around here; they know me. So I'm gonna make sure if she's ever over time, she's gonna get a ticket. Every time.'
'You could try bein' nice to her,' I said stupidly, then waited for him to punch me in the face.
'Bein' nice to 'er,' said the guy. '¿You know? I'd like to. But she made me angry. And she was rude. I say, "An eye for an eye."'
'...and the whole world's blind,' I said.
'You know y're right. Y're probably right. And I'd be better off to try and just calm down. And you probably all think I'm crazy and you'll just laugh at me when I'm gone.'
'Nah,' I said, 'I'd probably have the same attitude if it was me.'

Wednesday night after small groups, Micky was telling me how a lotof the old people were commenting about my nail polish and are worried that I'm a goth and thus a Satanist. Luckily he vouched for my not being a goth, although I don't see what's wrong with being a goth. And I was pretty disappointed that no-one who had any problems had actually said anything about it to me.
Al was wearing a black trenchcoat so I said he must be a goth, and thus a Satanist, as well.

And Flip told me the house's fallen through. Finances.

Friday June 6
After work we did this thing called a fox hunt. Six teams. Each had a car hooked up with a CV. One team got five minutes to hide somewhere in the backstreets, then the other teams had to race to find them using the their CV to ask a question once every three minutes. I was in Team Truck with Micky (driver), Flip (telecommunications), Emily (navigator) and Kelly (front passenger seat person). I was defogger of windows, which made me very busy because Emily talks so much. We managed to irritate a few of the other teams by asking questions such as, '¿Do you have change for a five?' Two of the other teams changed channels to discuss the possibility of ordering a pizza.

Saturday June 7
Went to a mainly goth party next door, and managed to get Shaft, Devo and Scotty to come along to. It was rather amusing to find out that they call Scotty's car The Bitchmobile.

Monday June 9 was the Queens Birthday public holiday, which means there were no classes, but also no public transport, meaning I had to walk three hours to the church for prayer meeting.
Passing Ballarat Base Hospital this guy asked me for a light. I said I didn't have a light, but we got talking (I think he was a pretty lonely person), and it turned out we were going in the same direction, so we walked together for the next hour-or-so.His name was Mark. He was almost 37. He served six years in the army, and wanted to ask his social worker out.

Got home. Ate some yoghurt while cooking chicken soup. Ate chicken soup. Went to bed for a few hours. Woke up. Ate more yoghurt. Ate apple. Had a shower. Ate toasted sandwich. Went to Trav's unit to get SUFM Info Session postcards. Went to labs to work on Issues with in TV essay. Now going home.

I feel like I'm going to pass out, so I'm going to call in sick to work and go home, have something to eat, then probably go to sleep.

Flip, Ylonde and Tegan got the house. So they're cleaning it up during swot vac, and moving in after exams. And they aren't having a television, which's also good.

And my editing teacher's asked me to resubmit my assignment on blogging again. And she doesn't seem to know the meaning of personal space.

Sons of Korah played last night. Was really good. A few people from TAFE came.
This guy called Chris was there. Apparently he'd seen us walking around the Lake on Saturday, and God had told him we were Christians.
Also turned out he'd completed the same course as I'm doing, in 2000. He's just finished writinga book for Geelong Football Club, and's now been comissioned to write a biography for someone. It was nice to hear, since I've been feeling pretty fed-up with studies, and the few people I know taht've done the course before just moan and groan about how they couldn't get any work out of it.

Just found out that Amnesty International overdrew my account because it was near empty due to Centrelink stuffing my payments around for the last two months. Thus, I now have an account balance of -$34. So I now give Amnesty International permission to get stuffed. (I would do the same to Centrelink were I in a postion to.)

Yesterday came up with this theory: Generally, people can be divided into those who're actively searching for humour; and those who only see humour when it's easily recognised as humour, perhaps because it is presented by a comedian (or someone with a reputation for being funny) or because everyone else is laughing.
How did I come up with this? Hugh was saying how he used to not smile or anything when he was making a joke, and so most people just wouldn't realise there even was a joke. Now he does smile when telling jokes, and so more people can appreciate his humour. I remember I used to do the same thing when making jokes.
Also, because Hugh just seems like such a serious person, I'd forgotten what a funny person he actually is until yesterday.