tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62482322009-10-14T11:22:22.864+09:00SerepaxBecause the world needs more overwrought candour.Doughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01465644000149066476noreply@blogger.comBlogger319125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248232.post-64586440210665233002007-02-25T16:23:00.000+09:002007-02-25T16:27:49.535+09:00The endWell, after three years, I'm a bit bored of Serepax. I've enjoyed the ride, but had enough of inflicting overwrought candour on the world. If you like, you can join me in my 100% emotion-free blog, Whisperling. There will be less wank, I hope. Thanks for reading.Doughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01465644000149066476noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248232.post-87877786618930775262006-12-16T17:24:00.000+09:002006-12-16T17:26:05.398+09:00Two word-of-mouth rumours about Mel GibsonOne could be put down to possible exaggeration, but two rumours have a little more weight. OK, so the story is: two female friends have independently told me they have been approached by Mel Gibson in a Sydney club. K told me she and her friend spent the night dancing with Mel and his bodyguard before his minder called them the next day to suggest a Doughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01465644000149066476noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248232.post-46890435247199540672006-12-04T17:03:00.000+09:002006-12-04T17:16:29.355+09:00BoratSo good I had to watch it twice - but what a difference between viewings! Slumming it with the plebs at Melbourne Central's multiplex, everyone laughed at the heavy satire of the Running of the Jew or Borat's priceless speech outlining his Iraq strategy. The rather educated audience at the Nova was much less certain of laughing at racial jokes, even if the joke was that the exposed AmericansDoughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01465644000149066476noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248232.post-49767424440512770772006-12-02T17:45:00.000+09:002006-12-02T17:48:35.409+09:00DroughtAustralia's record drought shows no sign of breaking, and as the environment changes, so too are the gears of society slowly grinding into a new, more suitable configuration. So now we have the remarkable sight of four large Victorian businesses pleading, begging, cajoling people to use LESS of the product they have on sale - water. It's stunning - millions spent on advertising to ask Doughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01465644000149066476noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248232.post-615373626055148142006-12-02T17:07:00.000+09:002006-12-02T17:10:38.195+09:00IkeaAfter successfully wrestling an Ikea wardrobe into existence, I collapsed into bed contently. Lying there, I wondered why it was so satisfying to make Ikea furniture. Then it dawned - it was exactly the same feeling I used to have after making Lego according to the instructions. And what is Ikea but larger Lego? Both companies hail from Scandinavian countries, the design-oriented areas of Doughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01465644000149066476noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248232.post-19126289163639292052006-11-20T15:08:00.000+09:002006-11-20T15:14:30.395+09:00ChinaOk, so by popular demand (well, Laura's comment), here is China in two weeks:Every country evolves its own set of road rules. Traffic flows can tell you a lot about a country. Australia's are rigid - cars keep to their lines and burst into angry flurries of beeping when the rules are flouted. China, on the other hand, with 50 times as many people, has embraced the Tao of Traffic. Scooters Doughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01465644000149066476noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248232.post-1163149576221785792006-11-10T18:00:00.000+09:002006-11-10T18:06:16.240+09:00Action before motivationThe essence of blogging is meant to be continuity, so consider Serepax dead and resurrected. What happened? A trip to China (great), a wall of work and a complete lack on inspiration. But! Jayden told me yesterday he reckons action comes before motivation. Normally Jay likes to inspire controversy with the minimum number of syllables, but here he got me interested despite Doughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01465644000149066476noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248232.post-1159192354987711882006-09-25T22:38:00.000+09:002006-09-25T22:52:35.006+09:00My near near death experienceSo I went hiking on the weekend up in Mt Baw Baw national park with a couple of friends and we bravely forced our way through maybe 12 km of thick scrub before finding an elusive Scouts Hut. It was a fortress - bars on the windows and a cover over the keyhole. To break in, we adopted a two prong attack. Willy removed a corrugated iron section from the back, peeled Doughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01465644000149066476noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248232.post-1158752590895828892006-09-20T20:42:00.000+09:002006-09-20T20:43:10.910+09:00Thoughts after seeing An Inconvenient Truth- Imagine if George Bush had the passion to make such a thing- Imagine if Mark Latham had the passion to make such a thing, not the twistedly intriguing dummy spit that was The Latham Diaries- Imagine having politicians with actual passion in the system- Imagine 100 million refugees fleeing the sea - the chaos, the starvation, the amorality, the fear Doughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01465644000149066476noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248232.post-1157769276948743732006-09-09T11:33:00.000+09:002006-09-09T11:34:36.966+09:00Odd deathsFirst Steve Irwin, now Peter Brock. Australia's legends and larger than life men keep dying in ways that matched their lives, by things that defined them: wildlife and a rally car. Many commented that Irwin's death shook the nation, nearing the frenzy around Princess Di. She was also killed by something that defined her - the paparazzi. Is it irony or neat symmetry the way these three Doughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01465644000149066476noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248232.post-1157378709444386632006-09-04T21:08:00.000+09:002006-09-04T23:05:09.600+09:00WorkI've been a full time worker for about six or seven months now. While I quite like the cycle of work-stop-work, the disturbing thing about it is that I can see the rest of my life unfolding in a similiar vein and it scares me. I've also acquired a new temporary housemate, K, who told me an abridged version of her life story over an hour. I did the same thing and it took about a minute. It Doughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01465644000149066476noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248232.post-1156498957891679612006-08-25T18:41:00.000+09:002006-08-25T18:42:37.910+09:00On pornI wonder if porn is the greatest weapon yet devised by the male backlash? Consider porn's conventions: - Head jobs: The woman cannot speak through her mouthful of cock- Male orgasm: Denoted by the degradation of jism spattering the woman's face - Female orgasm: Unknown bar whimpers designed to secure the male ego - The female body: Sculpted (apparently, adjustable implants have now been Doughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01465644000149066476noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248232.post-1156252002824401402006-08-22T21:48:00.000+09:002006-08-22T22:06:42.843+09:00TaggingRiding home a couple of weeks ago, I came to a 20 kmh speed sign. Someone had thrown a hasty '1' in front with a jagged dash of black paint, with a smiley face beneath. Looking at the sign, I couldn't help but think of it as a metaphor. What if the supposed disengagement of youth - the disillusioned slacker culture apparently typifying Generation X and beyond is just a wider version of theDoughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01465644000149066476noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248232.post-1155653914503121522006-08-15T23:49:00.000+09:002006-08-15T23:58:34.546+09:00OddI like it when life turns turtle - when things turn upside down and there's that oddly off-centre feeling in the tummy, the feeling that always puzzled me as to how to name it until I rode my first rollercoaster. I spose it's weightlessness - that sense of floating while the world shifts and rearranges itself around you, like the point during an action flick where the cops leave the ground at Doughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01465644000149066476noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248232.post-1154956713407721552006-08-07T22:14:00.000+09:002006-08-07T22:18:33.446+09:00Uppers and downersThe link between depression and creativity is well documented - but what do anti-depressants do to creativity? Does the numbness my friends report comes with them take away the impulse to create?Doughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01465644000149066476noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248232.post-1154777561380569512006-08-05T20:30:00.000+09:002006-08-05T20:32:41.400+09:00High notesTo pinch a joke from my friend Pat: Q: What did the Jamaican dudes say when they ran out of weed?A: What's this shit music?Why are drugs and genres of music so inextricably linked? Is it because the drugs and music work in tandem to produce certain headstates? The soaring emotions of ecstasy and intricate uplifting beats of techno / Weed with introspective genres - chillout and reggae /Doughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01465644000149066476noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248232.post-1154353804865925302006-07-31T22:41:00.000+09:002006-07-31T22:50:04.906+09:00MissionI get to interview the director of a missionary organisation on Wednesday and already my mind is leaping ahead to the showdown. The scene: a too-quiet compound reminiscent of Waco in the outer burbs. Doug enters, a suave product of the post-enlightenment. The missionary is seated behind a desk, levitating slightly out of zeal. Our eyes lock. The battle is on! I launch many questions at himDoughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01465644000149066476noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248232.post-1153639087548050622006-07-23T15:59:00.000+09:002006-07-23T16:18:07.580+09:00What youse up to?Hating bogan-speak is one of the principal joys of the middle class, myself included, and for this reason I've always winced at 'youse'. But B and I were talking about it yesterday and I was surprised at the linguistics factoid that youse offers something new to the language - a helpful delineation between you plural and you singular. This was news to me, but remnant Indonesian Doughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01465644000149066476noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248232.post-1153055203503487232006-07-16T22:01:00.000+09:002006-07-16T22:06:43.526+09:00SnipI've been struggling to get out of a dire mood of late and wondering why, when I found this in a book of essays (penned by a La Trobe uni academic who heaps praise on Australia through the prism of sport, strangely):...the strange mixture of taking the activity, whatever it might be, with ultimate seriousness, with devotion, striving to complete it with godlike perfection, while realising Doughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01465644000149066476noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248232.post-1152525641124631852006-07-10T18:59:00.000+09:002006-07-10T19:00:41.140+09:00Australia-only reference: Cigarettes and road killWith the entry of cigarette-packet advertising into the hitherto closed market of government shock health tactics enjoyed for many years by the TAC, I foresee a raising of stakes and an escalation of said shock tactics. No doubt TAC strategic planners are grimly contemplating the new cigarette packets, replete with pornographically-tender images Doughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01465644000149066476noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248232.post-1152081473880273862006-07-05T15:36:00.001+09:002006-07-05T15:37:53.880+09:00Failed punsDespite my occasional dreams of being a lauded and much loved subeditor, whose divisive puns are loved and reviled worldwide, I don't think I'll get there. Two of my proudest moments didn't make the cut past my editor, much to my disappointment. Perhaps they were a little tasteless, but that doesn't make me less of a proud father. So, without further ado: On a story about a kid who Doughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01465644000149066476noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248232.post-1152081021777191632006-07-05T15:23:00.000+09:002006-07-05T15:30:21.793+09:00SuperChrist is back!Ok, so I've missed the boat on this, what with living in Australia and all. But I saw Superman Returns last night (don't ask) and was astounded at the film's overt Christianity. Sample scenes: When will I see you, pines Lois Lane. Answer: "I'm always around" (Nice Holy Spirit hat-tip)- Lois has lost faith as Superman takes off for five years. The fickle woman! That's an order Doughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01465644000149066476noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248232.post-1151909722850458232006-07-03T15:53:00.000+09:002006-07-03T15:57:14.776+09:00Quick! Follow the link! (If you're Australian) If you go here very quickly, you'll see an amusingly muffed banner ad on behalf of Telstra "Big Bond" internet services. Big bond indeed - must have been a Freudian slip on behalf of a frazzled ad exec. "Ok, so our selling point is that we lock people in forever until they can't be bothered attempting to escape, all the while taking advantage of our Doughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01465644000149066476noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248232.post-1151649286368396092006-06-30T15:22:00.000+09:002006-06-30T15:34:46.386+09:00SnipEdited from the BBC: Nigeria is routinely ranked as being seen as one of the world's most corrupt countries. According to Centre for Law Enforcement Education (Cleen) director Innocent Chukwuma, their survey was conducted across Nigeria between October and December last year. He said that those surveyed were asked about their "perception of corruption - whether it had decreased or increased Doughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01465644000149066476noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248232.post-1151637185829861142006-06-30T12:11:00.000+09:002006-06-30T12:13:05.850+09:00Three anecdotesI know, I know - public transport stories are for teenager angstophiles and journalists desperate to fill a column. But these three anecdotes from the past week are decent, I hope. #1: Scene - Clifton Hill station, 6pm. Two guys are sauntering along the platform and come to a Crimestoppers billboard. For your prejudiced pleasure, the two men have patchy skin, unshaven with unsteadyDoughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01465644000149066476noreply@blogger.com0