So let’s begin with my very own pet topic, booze.

I know, I know, Aussie = booze, what’s the big deal? Well the big deal is my wife is an alcoholic.

Now for those that aren’t aware what the deal is with living with an alcoholic let me try to fill you in a little. Imagine you live with two people, one the caring, sharing loving person you like to spend your time with. The other an anti-social, grumpy, smelly, liable to break things over your head for an imagined slight sort of person. This person will smother you in a sea of used alcohol vapour as they tell you how much they love you and how much they mean to you, or they’ll call you every name under the sun, or if you are really lucky, start throwing shit at you, depending on what sort of mood they are in.

A mood that can change at the drop of a hat mind you, just to keep you on your toes.

So you like / love can stand the nice person, but you have to accept that the Alkytroll comes as part of the package.

Or you can not and walk away, except you can’t.

I know, I’m not making sense again. See the thing is if you do walk away it’s not the Alkytroll you’re hurting, it’s the sweet loving partner that’s copping it in the neck, the one that breaks your heart for even considering walking out on.

Of course it’s the same person, I know it’s the same person, but it’s not, you know?

The good person knows that they are hurting you when they drink, but I think they manage to convince themselves that they aren’t hurting you that much, after all you’re still here aren’t you?

Catch 22 with an extra serve of smack upside the head for your trouble.

Does it sound like I’m trying to make out that drunks can be violent? Maybe I am, all the ones that I know that had it bad can be very violent, including my wife (yeah I married her, pretty smart huh?)

I’ll tell you right now, there’s nothing that cures the male ego faster than waking up in the morning with a face full of cuts and bruises.

“Yup the missus beat the living bejeezus outa me last night and how about those bears?”

You know how your Dad told you when you were a kid that you never hit a girl? That’s something that kinda stays with you, even when you really need to be forgetting it. And no I’m not saying lets start wailing into her, but a little self defense would be nice.

Except it’s not really a little because that won’t get the job done. You get to a point where you realise that she is not going to stop unless you put her down, and I mean to the point where she won’t get up again because the booze is making her go at it like it’s all she can think about, like there’s no stopping, it has to be done and done right.

So you have a choice, you can swing back with enough force to put her down so she can’t get up again, something I know I couldn’t live with, or you shut up and take it like a man because that’s all you have left.

So you have the two black eyes and the scratches from those fingernails and whatever rings she had on at the time and you try to go on like it’s no big deal and who needs balls anyway?

Fun huh?

But that’s not the best bit. Oh if only that was the best bit.

No, the best bit is their drug of choice is something that is easier to get than a glass of water. Seriously. Booze is always within staggering distance, be it  pub or a bottle shop or your local friendly neighbourhood supermarket that just wants to make sure you can get your booze and cigarettes in one handy location.

And those bastards aren’t just happy to make it easy to get either, they make sure that if you’re an alcoholic then they are there to help you with your addiction. Well to feed it anyway.

In the state where I live it is illegal to serve someone that is visibly intoxicated. They even put a nice big sign behind the bar / counter that says that you may not be served if you are intoxicated. Does that stop them?

Hell no.

My wife has literally staggered into a bottle shop in a state that makes it obvious that she’s drunk, usually by the way she’s using solid objects to lean on, and still they serve her.

“Here you go Ma’am, watch the wine display, do you want me to carry it out to your car for you?”

Bastards.

Fucking greedy money grubbing bastards.

There’s no let up you know? There’s no “well you’ve run out, you might as well sleep it off” because they can go to the pub and buy more. And the bastards know this, and they don’t a flying fuck about her, or you, they just want the money.

“So hide the money,” I hear you say. Good idea, and lets pour out the booze while where at it. Great idea that, wish I had thought of it myself.

Except I did, which means she’s cut off, which means you’re in trouble because you don’t just cut them off like that, that’s when the violence really ramps up. I know there are some of you out there nodding your head right now.

Hell hath no fury like a drunk deprived.

That’s a taste anyway. More of a vent than a rant but hey, it’s my blog so I make the rules.

There’s more, I’ve barely scratched the surface, but I’m tired and need to sleep, even though I know I can’t.

Enough, I’m off, cya later.

Reality TV is the new Prozac, deadening our senses and killing off brain cells faster than a bucket full of Tequila Slammers. And the funniest thing of all is that this form of television is as close to reality as a 21st birthday party is to alcohol-free.

Put a group of people in an enclosed house, or maroon them on a desert island with no food or whatever, then stick cameras in their faces and ask them to “act natural”. It doesn’t work, and it never will. What you end up with is stressed show offs trying to be anything but who they really are.

Then there are the media “Personalities” that host these shows. Gretel Killeen used to host BB until she was axed (more like mercy killing) to make way for Jackie O and Jabba the Hutt, oops, I mean Kyle Sandilands. These two want to “shake it up” and “mix it up” while the rest of us “throw up” at what they laughingly call entertainment.

Yes, Jackie and Kyle are going to save Big Brother from another year of television mediocrity by causing all sorts of shenanigans in the BB household. At last, a refreshingly new take on BB that we haven’t seen since… LAST SEASON.

Honestly, how much more of this pseudo voyeurism crap will we have to put up with until Ten finally puts a bullet in the entire concept. Oh wait, maybe they could have some controversy that will get blown out of all proportion in the media, that should save it. It will have to be something bigger than a turkey slap though. Maybe they could seriously injure one of the housemates this time.

I guess the only way forward now is if BB could persuade one of the housemates to off themselves in front of the cameras. Then we would have to have celebrity suicide shows, then “Hunt a Celebrity” and Celebrity culls until there’s no one left to present any of this mindless drivel.

Hmmm, I may be onto something here, and just think of the royalties. In the meantime I’m off to turky slap Sandilands… with a real turkey.

This is one of those times.

The Australian Government has decided to save binge drinking teenage girls by raising the price on “Alcopops“. Alcopops, for those that are wondering, stands for pre-mix drinks like Bacardi Breezers and such.

The thinking behind this marvelous piece of societal crap is that teenage girls won’t be able to afford to buy these “Alcopops” and will therefore stop drinking and go on to live happy and fulfilling lives.

At this point I would like to warn our younger and/or more impressionable readers that there may be some profanity on the next line.

BULLSHIT!!

Ah, much better. Now, unlike politicians I live in a place I like to call REALITY. Anyone who has spent more than fifteen seconds with a teenager, or even possibly been one themselves in the deep distant past, will know they are not idiots.

Mostly.

If they can’t afford to buy these drinks then they will simply switch to cheap wine and beer like the rest of us did when we were their age.

Ah yes, I have fond partial memories of spending many a Friday night, Saturday, Saturday Night, Sunday getting hammered on beer and goon (look it up), though not necessarily at the same time. That was saved for special occasions.

Remember Passion Pop? I do, I even have some memories of actually drinking it. Passion Pop, for the uninitiated, is an extremely cheap wine that has the uncanny ability to effect the drinker from the ground up. You can sit and drink for hours, just so long as you don’t try to do something silly like drive, operate heavy machinery or stand up. It is evil tasting crap but you didn’t drink it for the taste, you drank it to get cataclysmicly drunk.

This is what today’s youth are doing with these Alcopops, they might taste sweet and have the extra function of being something pretty to look at after losing the ability to speak in coherent sentences, but the basic intention of drinking them is to get drunk. You take them away and kids will drink something else.

“Okay,” I hear you say, “But what does this have to do with you?”

Well I’ll tell you, if you would be so kind as to stop interrupting.

I have been known to have the occasional tipple and my drink of choice is Johnny Walker and Cola. This is not the choice of your average teen single-mother-to-be yet the cost of my drink will also increase.

Why?

Am I a binge drinker? Not as far as you know, yet I must suffer so someone in the federal government can say they’re doing something to address the problem of teenage binge drinking.

Sure, I could buy Scotch by the bottle and make my own drinks but nothing beats the convenience of NOT NEEDING TOO.

But what choice do I have now? The price will go up whether I like it or not which means my simple pleasures will cost even more than they do now.

But wait, there’s more.

Anti-smoking groups, not happy enough with being able to fine people for smoking, are now demanding the same tax to be imposed on cigarettes. It’s a filthy, disgusting habit that offends many in the community yet they still insist that people stop smoking.

This is a free society, I should be able to kill myself in the slowest, most pleasurable way possible without some loony jumping up and down and demanding I pay extra for the privilege.

Why must we continually be harrased by wankers who seem to feel it’s their God given duty to tell us how to live our lives?

Honestly, it’s enough to drive a man too drink. Now where did I put that case of Passion Pop?

With an opinion rating lower than Lindy Chamberlain in the early eighties, John “Don’t ask me, I’m just the Prime Minister” Howard is currently wondering if it’s just him, or does the Australian public hate all Liberals.

It’s a dark time indeed for poor Johnny. He has a country to run and being less popular than a pair of budgie smugglers on The Biggest Loser is not helping. But not to worry because his good mate, Treasurer Peter “Keating is my role model” Costello is here to help.

By telling the Australian public that John Howard is an utter… utter… utter bastard.

Yes, he’s still upset that John didn’t give him the top job after one and half terms in office. And there’s a good reason for this.

Look, I think maybe I should talk to Peter privately about this. Could the rest of you just busy yourselves with other things until we’re done?

Okay, Peter me old china, mate, buddy… no one likes you. Now don’t go getting upset, it’s nothing personal. It’s just that you come across as this smarmy, arrogant guy that no one likes being in the same hemisphere with.

Don’t get me wrong, we think you’re doing a great job as treasurer, keeping us in the black and all, making sure the jobless rate doesn’t get out of hand, keeping interest rates down… actually we won’t go into that one. But all told you’re doing a marvellous job.

But we still don’t like you. I’m sorry, but that’s the truth. And to be honest we would rather have John in the top job than you. Actually we would rather have Rudd than you, and Gillard, and Beasley, and you know that Doctor they got locked away for talking to terrorists? Yup, him too.

In fact, of the twenty-one million Australians that are available you would probably come in around 20,999,990th, just above Ivan Milat. Now excuse me while I talk to the rest of the folks.

Now where was I? Right, Peter Costello for PM just doesn’t have the same ring to it as say, Die Westerner Scum or This Bathroom is Closed. But hey, is John Howard any better?

According to his wife, Janette, Howard had a habit of promising things to people and then reneging on the deal. He was only looking out for the one that mattered most… himself.

Now you can believe John or you can believe Peter, the choice is really up to you. But come November when this nation goes to the polls we will find out the one great truth of this Howard versus Costello debate.

Does anyone really care?

No it’s not the rebirth of Eugenics, it’s the new found sport of smoker bashing.

That’s right, it’s fun for all the family. Come one, come all and join in the bigotry that we can all partake in (well mostly all) because we’re the majority and they’re a minority.

Plus, they smell.

Smokers, the great unwashed masses that are easy to spot, they’re the ones huddled together outside their place of work, trying vainly to warm themselves over the smouldering embers of their chosen vice. Come rain or shine, if they want a smoke they are OUTTA HERE!

Here in sunny Queensland, the only Australian state worth mentioning these days, our lovely Premier Peter Beattie took it upon himself to ordain the legalisation of minority bashing by making it a criminal offence to smoke.

Yes, you can be arrested for smoking.

Sharon stone would be rolling over in her botox grave.

Well okay, you can’t really get arrested, well at least not straight away. If you don’t pay the hefty fines they throw at you for lighting up within 4 metres of a doorway, or in a wide open area like a beach, then they can do whatever the court says they can do to you, and that includes locking you up and throwing away the key. Ironically once inside prison then you can smoke with impunity, as well as take drugs and other… things.

But public clubs and bars are the best. They are allowed to have smoking sections, but they must be outside and way from everyone else, plus they have to be in special sealed off areas. These areas are typically small, I mean what establishment wants to spend a fortune one what is basically a minority client? So you get a pile of people crowded into a small smoke filled area. If you didn’t have lung cancer before you went in there you will most likely have it by the time you leave.

I wonder how many law suits will ensue from enforcing lung cancer on smokers.

Not that it matters really. They’re a small minority and getting smaller by the minute. Dying off or converting to the majority, these smokers really are a dying breed.

Pass the Winnies Dear, I’m starting to feel stressed.

God I love environmentalists. Their happy warm thoughts and views about how we’re all going to fry to a crisp, if we don’t drown first. And to that end we have Live Earth, brought to you by the King of all that is warm and glowy, Al “Dude, where’s my Presidency?” Gore.

Yes you to can join the growing movement of people willing to pay for their cause. That’s right, pay. Just take a look at the site. You can buy a T-Shirt for the ever so cheap price of $50AUD.

Fifty dollars.

For a T-Shirt.

It doesn’t make you coffee, or tell you nice things about yourself, you just wear it for a few weeks then use it to wipe bird crap off your SUV.

Of course Live Earth is really part of a legitimate ground swell in popular opinion. That opinion is that we have been pumping CO2 into the atmosphere at an unprecedented rate, like nothing that has ever happened before in this planet’s history (please ignore any and all volcanic eruptions thank you) and now we are going to pay for it.

And pay for it we shall with the new economy of carbon trading. Basically that allows people to start up industries that sell us… nothing. And for that privilege we will now pay through the nose for those things that rely on non-renewable resources like coal and oil.

Now I don’t know if anyone ever told these idiots but most of the world’s production of anything relies on fossil fuels, so when the price for these goes up, everything goes up.

It’s not just a few extra dollars for your electricity or a couple extra cents per litre for your petrol, this will bump up the price of EVERYTHING.

Your bacon and eggs are going to go up, your fruit and vegetables are going to go up, your clothing, your mobile phone, your public transport, even your dope is going to go up.

Now this is all well and good for Al and these wonderful artists that performed at Live Earth, they can afford to pay extra for the little things in life (like private jets and six-packs of mansions) but for the rest of us poor folk, we are going to cop it in the neck.

So you may want to think about how much it’s really going to cost to feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Meanwhile I’m going to put up my feet and watch the tractor pull on my Big Screen TV.

Now for us this is what’s classified as a good night out. A few drinks, some good music plus some not so good music and some god awful music thrown in to make you appreciate how good the other stuff really is.

While we were relaxing in the “Cancer Clinic” (which is what they call the spacious 2×2 foot cubicle the pub sets aside for those who wish to have a fag, but that’s a different rant) we realised that a great deal of todays music has become what we classify as “Tanty Rock”.

Tanty Rock, for those that are wondering, is basically that classical form of rock music where the artist vents his or her spleen about shite that makes their life miserable. This can range from when their Dad did stuff to make them miserable children to when the Dole office cut off their supply of goverment funded cheese, or whatever.

Basically it’s three and a half minutes of whinge, whinge, whine, insert guitar solo, then whinge some more. Whatever happened to positive upliftng music?

What about “Shiny Shiny”? I had no idea what the hell they were talking about but at least it sounded happy. The Divinyl’s “Touch Myself” was, at least for her, pretty uplifting. AC/DC’s “JailBreak” was good uplifting, exercise based rock music. Okay, the ending wasn’t great but hey, he made it out and that’s the important thing here.

My point is you can make good rock music without whinging about how screwed up your life is. So all you young people with musical instruments get out there and writes some good old fashioned Rock ‘N’ Roll.

Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to put on some Hank Williams.

Scalping threatens Big Day Out.

Apparently The Big Day Out is in danger of being canceled because there are
people out there that are buying tickets and then reselling them to other
people. That’s right, people are paying for a commodity.

It’s capitalism gone mad folks. I knew this whole supply and demand thing would
be the death of us all and now here’s the proof.

The deal is people are stocking up on tickets for big events then reselling
them online using sites such as eBay, usually for a decent profit.

The organisers are of course outraged. The thing I don’t really understand is
why they’re so upset. Let’s face it, the tickets had to be purchased before
they could be resold. That means the organisers of the concert / cricket match
/ useless waste of public space have already made the money they intended to
make.

The scalpers are selling their tickets which means there is a market for them
and people are willing to pay the price that the market demands. The end user
does have the right to not pay and therefore not attend the event of their
choosing but they do pay and they do attend.

Of course the organisers could ban any tickets they found were resold but who
does that really hurt? The scalper already has their money, it’s the poor slob
that’s willing to pay extra for their ticket that cops it in the neck. That’s
hardly looking after the viewing public now is it?

So now the event organisers want the government to step in and stop these
people from making the profit that properly belongs to them. I mean it’s not
like they can do anything to stop it (like making the viewer present the credit
card or id used to purchase the ticket on attendance) so it’s definitively a
job for the government.

But until then the scalpers will continue to make money while the event
organisers whinge about all that money that’s so rightfully theirs.

Now if you will excuse me I’m off to buy a heap of Burt Bacharach tickets. I
here they’ll make a mint on eBay.

www.news.com.au/entertainment/story/0,10221,20920568-10388,00.html

Australian Idol’s answer to Jabba the Hutt wants to do a Jessica Simpson and televise the horror show that is his pre-wedded life.

Kyle, whose claim to fame is making little girls cry on national TV, is currently trying to sell the idea to Channel 10. Hopefully the execs at Ten will come to their senses and axe it faster than Yasmin’s hopes for wedded bliss.

Of course I could be wrong, I never thought Big Brother would last more than six months so maybe Australia needs it’s own version of white trash with money.