Warlach’s World

So, yeah, I’ve started updating the site again. For some unknown reason people had visited when there was no new content and I found I’d been tagged. Fiona had thrown a small, pale small mammal in the family Leporidae of the order Lagomorpha – a White Rabbit, if you want to use the common term.

Well, as an impetus to return to the world of spewing forth regular inanity as a text and visual soup for the internets to feast upon, I present my contribution to this meme. I’m writing this at work to get it done right away because, as my little friend on the right there knows, time has a way of getting away from the best of us…

The rules:
1- Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
2 - People who are tagged need to write a post on their own blog (about their eight things) and post these rules.
3 - At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
4 - Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

8 Random Things

1. When I was little I had an imaginary friend called Damus. No idea where I pulled the name from, but I can tell you right now that I neve actually saw him. Damus was a purely a construct – I had seen that kids with imaginary friends sometimes got extra dessert, lollies etc for the friend and could use this overly cute device to manipulate adults. Damus, supposedly, looked just like me, making him the perfect scapegoat for whenever I was in trouble. I just wish this technique still worked…
2. Another odd tale from my childhood: I used to do ballet, mainly because it was next to my mum’s work and I had time to kill after school. It all ended, soap opera story arch style, with a recital. My piece, King’s and Fairies (yes, I even had a the lead role) went well, but when a younger girl got stage fright during a solo piece the teacher locked her on the stage saying she wasn’t allowed off until she’d danced. With the lights pointed at her all this girl could see was a dark void and the locked door behind her and she started screaming. It was horrible and I never went back.
3. When I was about 10, some kids at the National Folk Festival in Canberr, used folk festival bumper stickers to write FUCK OFF in blocky letters on the office windows at the top of the grandstand. My friend and I jumped the fence and moved the top of the C to the U so it spelt FOLK OFF, because that’s just the kind of uncool hippy kid I was. Halfway through we were caught by the guards who thought we’d done the whole thing, but managed to escape. Good times.
4. During my time at UTS I was arrested twice for carrying toy guns. One time saw 50 cops stake out the university housing I was living at, and embarrassingly enough the elected representative of, while the second saw the TRG (Tactical Response Group, Australia’s version of the SWAT) storm the UTS tower during our prohibition themed ball. No charges were ever pressed, but due to the bullet proof shields, attack dogs and semi-automatics, the latter was a little fricken scary. The cause? The first was a little cap gun, the second, a year later, was due to shot guns that were part of my gangster costume.
5. Due to a condition known as microphthalmia I am totally blind in my right eye:
   
   “Micro-ophthalmia, microphthalmia, and microphthalmos are all words that literally mean “little eye”. It is a rare congenital (present at birth) eye condition. The small eye is usually totally blind because it did not develop a healthy cornea, lens, retina or optic nerve. There is no treatment for this condition.”
   From http://www.netwellness.uc.edu/
   
   Exciting huh? So I wear prosthesis, and most people can’t tell or think my eye is just lazy. I’m fairly self conscious about this and spent most of my childhood in sunglasses to hide my eyes. I’m still uptight about it, as I think so many people, even if only subliminally, associate unusual eyes negatively with someone’s character. The result is, I can’t see depth, I can’t enjoy 3D movies, and my girlfriend will often stop and I’ll keep walking and talking not realising she’s not there anymore.
6. On a lighter note, when I was little my dream was to be a LEGO Designer. I figured it would be a magical place, where orders would come through for new models. “Lachlan, we need a new medieval castle, and increase the number of skeletons and trap doors!” Unfortunately, it looks like this won’t happen, and I know I’d probably be disappointed by the realities of the job, but the LEGO Digital Designer, and upcoming MMO based on the similar concept, still get me really excited.
7. Some favourite foods off the top of my head, in no particular order: blood oranges, thick juicy pork spare ribs, apple cider, V, pad thai, massaman curry, inari sushi, Miso soup, takoyaki, black pudding, chicken burgers, spinach, tofu, the Darbar Chat from the Indian restaurant of the same name in Glebe, soft cheeses, hard cheeses, scotch and dry ginger ale, corn, potato and roast dinners (lamb, pork or beef, I’m easy…).
8. Finally, I did Latin in high school. After years of talking about it the school finally did an excursion to Italy and England, the year after I left. Me and two friends still went, as ‘ex-student leaders’, despite me being partially responsible for getting my school banned from Latin Camp in year 8 (but that’s a story for another day.) The trip was pretty successful, and I got to flaunt my fluency in a dead language by translating The Wombles Theme Song into Latin. ‘Wombling’ defied translation and was eventually changed to our custom Latin verb meaning ‘to Womble’, Vomblere’

So, I guess I’ll tag (and yes, most I know through Twitter, but what the hell, I’m grabbing these from my RSS subscription list and they’re the people who’s blogs I read):

• Paul Jenkins
• Will Hughes
• Nathanael Boehm
• Brad Kellett
• Monnie
• Ryan North (Why not, I like his blog. Doubt he’ll respond though)
• Tegan Lyons
• Cassie Britland

Enjoy!

Just noticed this on the front page of Twitter, although I’m probably behind the news. I love these videos, nothing beats the beauty and simplicity of explaining tech through little pieces of paper moving around. Plus, this does a great job of showing off what makes Twitter so great and why it works.

Twitter in Plain English from leelefever on Vimeo.

For more on how these awesome fellows “use video and paper to make complex ideas easy to understand,” head on over to their website.

10/04/2008 - The Silence

Originally uploaded by Warlach

We’ll call this a sequel to The Scream from last Wednesday - while that consisted of me static in a spinning world, here we see the opposite.

It feels like it’s been a much longer week than it actually has, and I’ve been running just from appointment to appointment to appointment.

Maybe I’m channeling our fearless leader K. Rudd on his world wide tour?

As someone who reads three papers, at least, per day, and spends the rest of the time on the net and Twitter, it’s clear the story of the minute is Kevin’s Chinese speech.

All in all I think that it’s pretty mild, compared to what could be said, but it does seem that we are one story away from reviving the ‘yellow peril’ mantra.

I’m not saying I see war with China as unlikely, just that the rhetoric, through this story and the ongoing Olympic torch relay protest saga, seems intent on framing China as the other, blurring the line between people and their government.

Besides, as a comedian once said, "There’s 2 billion Chinese. They could kayak over and put a good fight."

But for now I, and the world, just keep spinning…

07/04/2008 - Subpar: Eat Flesh!

Originally uploaded by Warlach

Another day where a quick, cheap sandwich from Subway seemed like a good idea, and another day where I left the store baffled and enraged.

(Please stand by, this rant has been coming for awhile.)

1. The smell. Why must it smell like you’re drowning in the breath of a thousand toddlers who have each returned from the Easter Show? Worse still is when you realise the thick, sugary scent is caused by the bread, so laced with crap, that you may as well make your sandwich between two Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

2. The ingredients. You know what, I don’t care how fresh it is, if it’s been sitting all day in the sweaty little tubs, it’s no fresher than something Maccas defrost 30 seconds before you order it. I’m not saying Maccas is good, but let’s not lie to ourselves.

3. The carrot conspiracy. When they came for the beetroot I said nothing because I wasn’t a beetroot eater, but now they have removed carrot from the menu. Where will the madness end? I say we will go this far and no farther. If not for your own toppings, but for your children’s, and your children’s children’s toppings. When you reach into your friends sandwich and it’s a pile of lettuce… Forget it Jake, it’s Subwaytown…

So, arise ye lunchers from your slumber, arise ye prisoners of take-away, together we’ll raise our plastic forks and at last ends the age of Subway!

*ahem*

4. And the final grievance, the cutting. Every single time I go to Subway, and get a foot long sub, I ask them to NOT cut it in half. Every time they smile and nod, and every single time the very next thing they do is cut it! I know this is a small thing, really, but this draws of up the wall more than anything else.

*Sigh*

It feels so much better to get that off my chest!