I was going through some of my parents' junk the other day, and I came across a collection of their old badges from various points in their starry-eyed leftie days (now they're just old, jaded lefties who sit around moaning about how fucked the world is... without using the word "fuck", of course. My mother still exclaims, "Uh-mahhh!" when she hears such profanities. Violent clashes with police during the Springbok protests in '71? Great. Four-letter words? EVIL).

Anyway, they're actually kind of interesting... in a historical way, so I figured I'd share a few of them.

posted by Ruth at 5:20 PM

I'm going to geek out for a bit here, so if that's not your thing, ignore this post...

So you're all using Firefox now, right? RIGHT? Hey, I don't care that much about all that open-source shit, either (uh, sorry programming geeks, I'm sure it's important and stuff, but... meh), but it's just a much better browser. My favourite part is that there are heaps of really good extensions for it. Maybe IE has extensions too, I don't know or care, but some of the Firefox ones are pretty nifty. I didn't even know about them till I read this article on .net Magazine many months ago, in which they list their favourite extensions.

Anyway, I thought I'd share mine:

• Flashblock. Nothing shits me more than those fucking flash ads that take up the whole page and slow everything down and make sound and are annoying. This extension stops all flash objects from being shown, and replaces them with a little button that you can press if you actually want to see them. It's occasionally annoying in sites I visit frequently that have flash menu bars, but it's so worth it for all the annoying ads and shit that get blocked.
  
  
• FoxyTunes. This puts compact, unobtrusive little audio controls into your status bar (yeah, I had to look up what it was called. It's that thingy above the Start bar) so you can control your audio player (it's compatible with all the main ones) without having to leave Firefox. It sounds lazy (and it is), but if you're running quite a few programs, while the music may play fine, if you re-open the actual audio player, it tends to slow things down a lot and will often stop the music for a bit. It's like a much better, less annoying version of that Windows Media Player mini mode thing.
  
  
• ForecastFox. I know there are plenty of weather forecast thingys that you can get for your computer, but this one sits wherever you want on your browser toolbars (I don't really like things going in that tray thing on the right of the Start bar, it takes up too much room) and tells you the forecast with pretty little pictures (a bright sun or a rain cloud is more informative to me than some number), and you can hover your mouse over for more information. It tells you the forecast for the day as well as the current temperature. Frankly, I wouldn't feel so good about downloading some separate little weather program, because it'd probably be riddled with spyware, pop-ups, compulsory registration, trial mode or SOMETHING annoying. To me, that sums up why I like all these Mozilla things more - because they're honest and don't make you do/put up with things you don't want to.
  
  
• Gmail Notifier. This gives you a little icon in your status bar that tells you when you get a new message to your Gmail account. Not much more you can say, except that it actually works a hell of a lot better than the email notifier on my msn seems to these days.
  
  
• RiteOfTongue. I write by hand so rarely these days that my spelling has deteriorated badly. It really sucks a lot. But none of you would know (unless you've had the pleasure of an IM conversation with me), because I have this little extension. If you're typing in a text box, and you think you've misspelled a word, you just right-click on it and the right-click menu thing that appears includes the correct spelling of the word. It's not perfect, but if it's just one or two little words, it sure beats going to Dictionary.com or opening Word.
  
  
• ieview. It's nothing too flash, but this extension is really useful. It adds a "View page in Internet Explorer" option to the right-click menu. Some sites still don't work in Firefox, and it's simpler than copying the link, opening IE and pasting it in. It's also useful if you're designing a site and have to check it in both browsers (which you really should do).

I use plenty of other extensions, but those 6 are the ones that make me smile and go "Man, that's cool" every time I use them.

Why don't you share your favourites with the class?

posted by Ruth at 10:49 PM

Alrighty, time to put you kids out of your misery and announce the winner of my Three-Second Musical Challenge. Things got off to a slow start initially, which annoyed me, because I'd put a bit of effort into making this one easier and better than the first. Fortunately after a few days, entries started coming in, and I was not at all disappointed with the response. So, without further bullshit, the winner is...

Funkwit Paul...aaand apparently a few of his workmates. When their powers combined, they identified thirteen* correct songs. Go Planet! I guess some would call it cheating, but I think it was quite clever and resourceful. The rules never stated that you can't team up with other people. In fact, there are no rules. I also would've accepted bribes, though no one was that ambitious. Other high scorers were Supermercado Adam with nine and Flashman with six.

For his efforts, Paul (and I guess his workmates, if they want one too) wins a mix CD and a bunch of other stuff that I haven't thought of yet, but rest assured it will be awesome and you should all be very jealous. Well, not that jealous, because as usual, I'm more than happy to send anyone else a mix CD too. All you have to do is email me your mailing address and your SOUL.

Anyway, the songs were:

1. Easybeats - She's So Fine
   
2. Charlene - I've Never Been To Me
   
3. Kyuss - Green Machine
   
4. Blur - Parklife
   
5. Hoodoo Gurus - Death Defying
   
6. Electric Six - Danger! High Voltage
   
7. The Saints - (I'm) Stranded
   
8. The Replacements - Can't Hardly Wait
   
9. Guided By Voices - I Am a Scientist
   
10. Hüsker Dü - Could You Be the One?
    
11. Alice in Chains - Them Bones
    
12. Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - Where Have All the Rude Boys Gone?
    
13. Custard - Apartment
    
14. Archers of Loaf - Web in Front
    
15. Hard-Ons - Girl in the Sweater
    
16. Judas Priest - Breaking the Law
    
17. Real Life - Send Me an Angel
    
18. Sonic Youth - Bull in the Heather
    
19. Buzzcocks - Ever Fallen in Love?
    
20. Metallica - Seek and Destroy

For the record, no one got numbers 3, 8, 9, or 17. Shame on you all.

*This was originally twelve, as Paul et al. identified number 2 as "No Room to Bleed" by Ben Lee. But after downloading the song aquiring the song legally and listening to it, it appears that the ugly little cunt (Ben Lee, that is, not Paul) has sampled/ripped-off the piano bit from "I've Never Been to Me". Thus, I am willing to go all Sale of the Century and agree that both are correct even if that wasn't the answer I was looking for.

posted by Ruth at 11:03 PM

Ok, the winner of my Three-Second Musical Challenge will be announced on Wednesday, so you only have one more day to rack your brains or ask your more musically-knowledgeable friends for the answers. There will be prizes galore.

posted by Ruth at 10:34 PM

Remember "Chris"? The psycho freak I went to High School with that we all hoped would come good in the end? Well, I did a bit of research (and by "research" I mean that someone just happened to tell me what he was doing) and it seems like things are looking up for him. Turns out that Chris failed year 10, so he quit school to study music at TAFE. Now I know you're going, "Uhm, but isn't that BAD?" but it really isn't. The main problem Chris had was that he was at school. Our school was a particularly bogan one, but he was the kind of kid who would have been teased mercilessly at any school. On top of that, he wasn't particularly academic and even if he'd finished year 12, I suspect he would've ended up at TAFE anyway, just more fucked up from 2 or 3 extra years of bullying.

The only thing that ever seemed to make the poor kid happy was music, so good on him for making a positive change to his life. Most people are still forming their identity at 16, so hopefully he can put all the shit of high school behind him and still become a relatively OK person. Now all he needs to do is shave the bum-fluff moustache, grow up a little bit (well... a lot. He was never very mature), and stop wearing tracksuit pants, and Chris may live out our dream of being cool after all.

posted by Ruth at 2:08 PM

Here's a bunch of things that are interesting*:

• It's been in my links thingo for a while now, but I think the online comic A Lesson Is Learned But the Damage is Irreversible really deserves a proper mention because it is really, really, really good. Not only is it weird and funny, but the art itself is really, well, art. Two thumbs up.
  
  
• Seppo with a soul, Ross "Rosso" Lincoln, has written a great post about cunts who whinge about swearing and why they should shut the fuck up. Not only is it fucking hilarious, it's full of swear words. Fucking great.
  
  
• I know that the irony of Pitchfork hanging shit on indie kids for being music snobs is so overwhelming that your eyes may roll right out of your head, but their review of the latest "Music From the OC" compilation is a pretty apt critique of people who are precious and elitist about indie rock and whinge when "their" bands have mainstream success and feature on TV shows. Quoth the raven:
  

  You're not special. That complex, detached, artfully depressed persona you've cultivated isn't unique; in fact, it's so easily simulated, the network that also brings you "Life on a Stick" can replicate it

  
  Word. Now who wants to go make copies of this review and hand them out at the next Shake Some Action?
  
  
• I'm not very good at making things or coming up with creative ideas or doing technical things, but if I was, I'd really enjoy Make: Blog. In fact, I enjoy it anyway. This guy is really into making things or modifying things to be even better. It's like how in kids' films there is always one brainy kid who can make his (or occasionally her) computer do anything they need, or turn their parents' vacuum into a robot with a missile launcher, or pretty much anything out of Revenge of the Nerds. If that kid had a blog, it would be this one.
  
  
• Has the ALP finally jumped the shark or did that happen years, if not decades, ago?

* Probably

posted by Ruth at 7:43 PM

I have nothing to write about, so I think it's time for another...

Ruth's Three-Second Musical Challenge

For those who don't remember how this works - I have taken the first three (3) seconds of twenty songs and recorded them onto one track and you must identify as many as you can. Exciting. I learned a few things last time, and have thus made a few changes. Firstly, I discovered that people are stupid, so to make things easier, there was no randomness in my song selection. It is MUCH easier this time, and I'm confident that most people can get at least a couple. Secondly, last time the songs were accused of being too "cool" or something, so there are several very uncool songs in this one. I have tried to get a good mix of old and new, and Australian and International (in fact, there are more Australian ones. Sorry overseas readers, though you can probably get most of those too).

The audio track is here (right click and "save as"). Email me at "lineofcontempt AT gmail DOT com" with as many as you can identify. The prize will probably be a mix CD or something, but maybe something even cooler. It depends how many the winner gets right.

Oh, and DON'T post the answers in the comments section, fuckwits.

posted by Ruth at 10:51 PM

Here's a bit of an ethical dilemma for you:

I was sitting on everyone's favourite tram, the 86, in the late afternoon/early evening today, when a group of barely-clothed, shrill-voiced girls of about 15 or 16 got on. You know the type I mean - tenuous grasp of the English language, make-up applied with a trowel, and skirts so short you can almost see their Playboy g-strings poking out... at both ends. I was hungry, tired, and I'd just endured a whole hour at uni, so if there was one thing I wasn't in the mood for, it was being surrounded by skanky teenagers shrieking, "AW MAH GAWD" and discussing who they were going to pash-on with at underage Metro or wherever they were going so early in the evening.

Anyway, after they succeeded in giving me a headache from their relentless squawking and the combined aroma of their cheap perfumes, I noticed a few of them were drinking from bottles hidden in bags... or at least they would have been hidden if they weren't clear plastic bags, which really only served in drawing more attention to the Vodka Cruisers and Smirnoff Ice Reds contained inside. "Aw mah gawd, is that ya forf?" The token fat one asked her Kmart-jewellery-wearing, stick insect friend, "Save some fuh me!"

So here is the thing - they were drinking underage AND doing it on public transport. I wouldn't normally give a fuck, but they were pissing me off. I knew from their loud conversations that they were going to the city and would thus be on the tram for quite a bit longer, and I really wanted to call the cops and pay the little slappers back for annoying me. Public transport makes me a bit irrational like that.

Now on one hand, I didn't want to be a narc. I did a lot of underage drinking in my time, and I know it usually relies on the discretion and support of legal adults, whether they be dodgy bottle-o staff, older siblings, irresponsible parents, or members of the community turning a blind eye. But on the other hand, even as a dickhead 16 year-old, I knew that if you want to get away with it, you have to keep your head down, not piss anyone off, and be fucking grateful that people are letting you get away with it. Because everyone hates teenagers, and I say this as a teenager. I hate myself for the lame teenage things I do and say a lot of the time. Underage drinking is a privilege, not a right, and these girls were taking it for granted. Mainly, though, they were just shitting me. I'd probably tolerate that shit on a tram on a Friday night, but 5:30pm on a Wednesday? Pushing your luck.

In the end, I didn't call the cops, but I came oh so close. The looks on their spray-on-tan-blotched faces as I loudly explained the situation into my mobile would have been priceless, but I realised that 16 year-old me would have been disgusted with present-day me for doing it. Of course, 16 year-old me was a self-righteous little tard, so hummm... I don't know what the right thing to do was.

What do you think? Should I have dobbed the little moles in, if only to scare them with the call, or left them alone to have a little bit of fun in their otherwise insipid lives?

posted by Ruth at 11:20 PM

I hate paying reasonable prices for things, so I spent the last six days in Sydney. It was totally fun, but I can't really be bothered writing about it (plus it'd be like those boring travel emails people send you when they're on holidays - "and then we saw an old building, and then we went on a bus, and then we went to the hotel, and then we zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz"), so I figured that I'd draw (badly) some things that I saw there in the...

Illustrated Adventures of Ruth Sydney Edition




Huge, massive, gigantic apologies to Darp, Kartar, Sam, and Ms Hairy Legs for the pictures. For the record, they're all very hot in real life, but I am very shit at drawing.

posted by Ruth at 1:39 AM