a sockful of instant karma

Had a boozy dinner party on Saturday. was awesome. woke up with a serious throbber and just enough time to dress and drive out to the temple to meet up with the folks for "pray for whatever day" (yes yes! I know, my atheist ass will burn in hell) . I lost an hour due to daylight saving, that would have otherwise been used to sober up a little. damnit.
anyway I get there. mumble incoherently through some prayers. then it hits me.
The contents of last nights indulgences.
I rush to the toilet. Now monks must be a masochistic lot because the toilet at the temple you need to take your shoes off and walk down an infinitely long corridor of the coldest concrete floor outside of Siberia; while busting. I get to the toilet, slam the door and realise, some bastard has urinated all over the floor. first things first, i do my business. relieved, my mind wanders...
should I saw off my foot at the ankle before frostbite and gangrene set in?
what did I do recently to warrant this dose of instant karma? was it

• sending my guests home over 0.5?
• lampooning of a friend who unfortunately looks like Kim Jong Il?
• plotting to "out" a relative?
• too many Ben Cousins jokes?
  
• my general bastardry?

My thoughts are interupted by a brusk rap on the door. and again... and yet again. impatient loser. I flush and to my horror the bowl fills but does not recede. I decide its best not to think about whether I'm standing in number 1 or number 2. (Doh too late!).
The elderly lady gives me the hairy eyeball, to which I return a wry smile. Spread the love!

Next fad please

I've over Facebook, yawn! okay, next fad.
Facebook was fun when I started. but the novelty quickly wears off and its now just annoying. The two biggest problems is clutter and privacy.
My facebook is weighed down by clutter due to all the add-ons. Its just like spam. its off putting. You get so many requests to install this add-on, install that add-on. I hate how the default for most of the add on programs is to notify all your friends to install it. A lot of the programs are just crap and some are almost impossible to remove. I've started deleting unwanted add-ons but it still get spammed. ARGH!
Then there's privacy. it was cool at first, you have your core group of friends, some you don't see that often because they're overseas and its easy to communicate with them, everythings cool and fun. Then fringe friends and acquaintances infiltrate your facebook. guys you didn't really like back at school. I'm the kind of guy who thinks its rude to decline a friend request. even worse to accept and only give a limited view profile. that's like confirming yeah I know you but I don't really like you. Hence I've got all these fringe dwellers in my friends list that are ruining it for me. first you have to answer their messages, reciprocate drinks and gifts etc... but more annoying is that you don't really want them to know what you are up to. I'm comfortable with the core group knowing what I'm doing, but the fringe dwellers, its kinda creepy.

whoo! we men might still useful

Back in high school I had a militant lesbian / female supremist biology teacher who single-handedly put me off a career in medicine. She was relentless in trying to prove female superiority. She had the schools science classes segregated on gender and then proceeded to deduct marks off the male class for mucking around with our dissection lab subjects. Yes she had found our gender's great weakness. A gender biologically conditioned to hunting can't possibly resist the urge to celebrate a kill by throwing its internal organs at one another.
Her dream future was one in which the human race had perfected itself to a super-species of assexually cloned Amazons and men had become *gulp* extinct.
No good for me. like couldn't we just hang around to be sex slaves, 'breeders'?... NO ... in her vision of the world men had to become extinct. it was the only way to achieve world peace and amazonian utopia.
but all is not lost. recent research has shown that stem cells can be harvested from testes. (cue our favourite pic again) So? that doesn't help the Amazonian super-race I hear you say. well, yes it does.
So if my high school biology teacher ever assumes control over the world I can have this scenario to present to her on behalf of MAN-kind ... you can use to stem cells to grow organs. Men can be kept around as testicle farms in battery cages so our organs can be harvested. so Ms ********* HA! you can't kill us all off just yet!

Walking the wheelie bin

last week my green waste wheelie bin filled up due to all the weeding I've been doing in the back yard (no not THAT kind of weed). There still another weeks wait to have it emptied and I've still got half the block to do. I had this brilliant brainstorm to sneak over to my mother-in-law's place and 'swap' bins without anyone being any the wiser. It's only a 1km walk. easy. so easy that I decided to take alonger scenic route to get in some more exercise. It's a pretty good work out, towing 100kg of garbage for 1.5kms.
The problem is all the strange looks from the neighbours, while I was dragging the big green bin around the neighbourhood. you'd think i was hauling body parts around or something. I'm sure one of the old farts has tried to dob me in to the police, neighbourhood watch, Today Tonight and ASIO. Yeah they're pretty alert, alarmed and senile in my part of the woods.
I'm starting to think that this wheelie bin thing can catch on. like its a great way to intensify your workout, you don't have to pay for expensive designer weights, everyone has a wheelie bin.A wheelie bin is much better behaved than a dog and you don't have to pick up after it. Its also the perfect way to discard any unwanted evidence(dead bodies, tax evasion documents, old boy band posters) by swapping your bin with someone else's. Just keep mum when ASIO comes and drags away your neighbours.

Rotten lawsuits

Two currently running lawsuits are annoying me today.
Firstly the Patent Trolls at NTP are at it again. Secondly a small company from Queensland is trying to set a precedent in shutting up critism of a product.
1. Die Patent Trolls!
now the patent system is broken in a very bad way. the system that was designed to promote innovation and protect inventors is instead doing the exact opposite. It thwarts innovation and has turned the Tech sector into a Casino of frivolous lawsuits. Companies are set up that don't create new research, don't produce anything, they just buy up patents on the cheap, usually from failed companies/inventors and then try to extort others when they successfully commercialise a product with a loosely matching description.
You can get just about anything patented, regardless of quality of your claim. Some things are just plain obvious and others just plain stupid. Example, the famous patent for the bald dude comb-over. The reason being a lack of resources at the patent department and political pressure leading to the default position being to approve new patents without full investigation by qualified experts.
NTP after successfully extorting Blackberry for patent infringement is at it again. this time they may have bitten off more than they can chew (well one lives in hope). NTP are taking on AT&T and Verizon and anyone that delivers email wirelessly.
Now a wireless network is really just a regular IP network delivered through a different medium (okay give or take a few extra protocols but essentially the same). So isn't it obvious that any application that is deliverable via a wired network will be eventually delivered in wireless? So NTP's patent is rubbish because it is too obvious and should be scrapped.
hopefully the lobbyists at the big Telcos will be able to push for some long needed patent reform.

2. My 2Cents on 2Clix
Little known (until now) Australian accounting software company 2Clix is suing popular Australian tech forum whirlpool for 'injurious falsehood' for user comments posted on 2 forum threads. if 2Clix wins it will set a dangerous new precedent on web use. we all will have to think twice about criticising products online. which is a shame because I personally find frank first person reviews from the online community valuable in making purchase decisions.
Having read the threads out of curiosity, I find it difficult to see how 2Clix has a case. The users were either expressing an opinion or telling their personal experiences of the 2Clix product. sometimes with additional colourful language but hey they felt strongly negative about their experience. I can't see how they could prove that the statements constituted 'injurious falsehoods'. take one of the offending statements in 2Clix claims

"I was put onto this forum recently after discussion with peers, about how frustrated, dissatisfied and ultimately ripped off I feel after purchasing 2clix earlier this year"

thats a statement of their opinion and its most likely fact the individual who posted it is frustrated, dissatisfied and feel ripped off. Now if they claimed your product turned their workstations into a botnet propagating kiddie porn, then that's 'injurious falsehood'. you'd think that the prerequisite for an injurious falsehood is that the statement is indeed false! but hey I'm not a lawyer.
You can't build a bad product and expect unhappy customers not to complain. The old saying in marketing goes 'A happy customer tells 5 friends, an unhappy customer tells 20'. Sooner of later feedback from unhappy customers will catch up with you. Whirlpool just provided a more efficient medium for those unhappy customers to warn the public. You can't blame whirlpool for accelerating what was going to happen through word of mouth anyway. Now if you have evidence that the postings on whirlpool were a smear campaign initiated by a competitor then I take my words back. If not then 2Clix should fix its software and stop blaming others for its problems.
The greater danger is that if 2Clix succeeds, this will only encourage the big bully boys to exploit it to shut up critics. Imagine Microsoft closing down every 'My Vista won't work and it sucks' thread. yes folks you can bet on it!

new music. its all noise

No, I don't hate the current crop of chart toppers. I'm feeling old but I'm not quite yet a geriatric complaining about "what young people listen to these days!".

I'm talking about the current trend by record labels to artificially compress music to make it "louder". Ever get really tired or headaches while listening to music? the culprit is the over-compression that makes the music "louder", but it also doesn't allow your ears to relax during the song. hence after a few songs your ears are too stressed leading to tireness and/or headaches.

Its yet another reason why live music is so much better than any recorded music experience (unless you're watching Britney), but thats rant for another time. For a good explanation on how it all works check out this article.

There are 2 main reasons for the current loudness war.

1. To get noticed.
   
2. Our listening environments have changed. most people enjoy their music in their cars these days. The inside of a moving car is typically a very noisy environment. Music in cars has to overcome other noises ie engine, road/tyre and wind noise. thus the louder the music, the easier it is to hear over the other sources of noise.

Now I can agree with the 2nd reason for digitally remastering tunes to sound better for where you listen to them. but with the current digital formats it isn't difficult for this to be done at a hardware level instead of in the music format.
The 1st reason won't work and will lead to catastrophe. the reason being it disregards the fallacy of composition. That is if one person does something its good. If everyone does it then its usually bad. This is exactly what's happening in the music industry at the moment. There's a loudness war, everyone is compressing the bejesus out of music to gain loudness.
The end result? nada! no one gets an advantage out of something that everyone is doing! What the current loudness war will give us is a generation of iPod users who are destined for deafness. (maybe a good time to invest in Cochlear shares). perhaps this is a window for someone to forgo the loudness and compression and dazzle us with unadulterated music with some dynamic range!

Rocky Mountain "Oysters"

Whilst we're on the topic....all this talk of cooking testies has made me remember my all time favourite (and most cringe worthy) episode of Fear Factor. The episode where the contestants had to eat bull testicles after biting through the membrane.....take a look at the picture....read the article.....look at the picture again....enough said!




Article and picture from http://www.nbc.com/Fear_Factor/gross/stunt_buffalotesticles.shtml

Eating animal testicles is not as unusual as you might think. In some ancient cultures, it was believed that eating them could increase sexual vigor. And, depending on where you live in the U.S. today, you might not think twice about popping an animal testicle in your mouth.

Anyone who has spent some time in Colorado or certain other western states has probably heard of Rocky Mountain Oysters.

For the uninitiated, that's the name typically given to bull testicles that have been thinly sliced, breaded and fried. They're also known as Barnyard Jewels, Montana Tendergroin and Cowboy Caviar. They're so popular in Colorado, in fact, that I'm told you can even buy them at Mile High Stadium.

For our purposes, the trick was finding animal testicles so unappetizing that even a Colorado native might think twice about chomping down on the suckers. My first stop was checking in with Rod A. Lincoln who organizes the annual Testicle Festival at the Rock Creek Lodge in Clinton, Montana (yep, that's the real name of the town).

Rod explained to me the rich history of bull testicles. Each spring, cowboys round up and castrate their beef cattle to help fatten them up and tenderize their beef. It's part of the cowboy ethic of not wasting any part of the animal, he said. Rod estimates he has served up tons of Rocky Mountain oysters over the years at the annual festival, a 5-day event complete with dancing, a motorcycle parade and a wet T-shirt contest.

Unfortunately, the type of testicles Rod served sounded a bit too tasty. So I decided to call a mail order company that specialized in exotic meats and order some animal testicles of our own. He told me he could send me some buffalo testicles, each about the size of a baseball, three to a pack (seemed like an odd number to us, too). I asked him what would happen if we boiled them. Well, they would probably expand, he said. I placed a rush order.

The buffalo testicles arrived at our office in a box with some dry ice. They were shrink-wrapped and looked kind of like chicken breasts. We thawed them, boiled them, and found a willing participant in the office to test one. Well, if the truth were told, I found the tester with the help of a $20 bill from my wallet. The testicles had been boiled about 10 minutes and shrank to the size of eggs by the time they came out of the pot. Our tester didn't care for it; especially the spongy texture, but he did manage to swallow it down.

I still couldn't help wondering if there were some way to make eating a buffalo testicle more challenging. I called a supplier in South Dakota that had just the thing; buffalo testicles that were still in their membranes. It was pretty shocking when they arrived in the mail and we saw what they actually looked like. They were like giant horrible Easter eggs, covered in swirly purple and blue veins and shrink-wrapped in blood-filled plastic. Now we knew we were onto something.

We tried boiling one for 10 minutes and were pleased to see that they didn't shrink. But would the contestants be able to break through the membrane and get to the meat inside? Only one way to find out. I chomped down on the freshly boiled jewel. Yeccchh. Milky, warm water squirted out. And, man, was that membrane rubbery. There was no way we could have the contestants eat that membrane in a short period of time.

We decided that each contestant would have to bite into the testicle, peel away the membrane, and eat the boiled, spongy meat inside within four minutes. I honestly thought they'd all do it, especially given the prize money at stake. But they did smell really horrible, kind of like boiled sheep eyes (these are the kinds of things you learn on a job like this).

We ordered plenty of extra testicles. And it's a good thing we did. Some of the testicles had little tears in the membrane and when we went to boil them they popped open in the pot like frozen crescent roll containers. We also needed some extras for display purposes because we realized it would be extra tough for the contestants to eat them once they saw them raw.

The day of the shoot, we had plenty of testicles ready for action. When the contestants first walked in and saw the tray of raw testicles, they made it clear this was not going to be easy for them. Mission accomplished. On to the next stunt.

Gordon Ramsay's right testicle

news today that potty mouthed celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay has accidentally scorched his nuts at his restaurant.

Hillarious! well also it gives me a chance to recycle an old favourite photo. see left.

Apparently, in true scottish style, he was going commando in the kitchen and accidentally placed his nads on a hot hob. like eeeewwww! i don't like to imagine a kitchen full of commandos. apart from the agonising thought of seared testicles, the thought of accidentally getting one of Gordon's short and curlies as a free side is highly disturbing. Ramsay's comments were

"I burnt my right bollock and I'm in absolute agony. You wouldn't believe how much this hurts."

like ywah I'd believe it hurts like hell. pain and bollocks are two things that I personally don't like to mix.

now I've had the pleasure of experiencing Ramsay's cuisine and it is indeed exquisite. All his short-comings as a total asshole can be forgiven after tasting his food. seriously its that good. The whole story would make a great chapter for Anthony Bourdain's next book or TV series.

Westpac outage. pretty p*ss poor

Westpac's 'online' banking has been offline since yesterday. Today at least they're displaying a holding/redirection page (see left). Yesterday, you just got an error. As it stands this morning its still not properly fixed.

Now this is the second time in the last three months. the last outage was because a cleaning contractor pulled out the wrong plug??? like WTF!!!

now there's certain services which you expect guaranteed uptime. Banking is definitely one of them. to have a major problem unfixed for so long is unacceptable and inexcusable for a major bank.

millions of businesses (mine included) and individuals rely on your service and you charge hefty fees for it. Stuff like a cleaner pulling out a plug should not bring down a system. At this level, their system should be designed fault tolerant and robust enough to handle such a situation. its not difficult as these systems and techniques have been around for decades, ie remote mirror sites, rollback procedures etc ... Looks like they're either not investing enough in their IT budget to ensure uptime or hiring unqualified staff or both. either way its very bad.

Now I've got anxious staff bugging me on when their pay is going in. To the folk at Westpac sure one or two days delay to someones pay is nothing, but to many workers this could be the difference in getting charged hefty credit card and loan/mortgage fees. oh hang on, who does that benefit??? you guessed it, the folk at Westpac.

Jag XF is ugly!

why is everyone making such a big deal of the new Jaguar XF? using superlatives like stunning. I mean it might be a great car underneath and it might even be something that no Jaguar has ever been before ... RELIABLE ... but sytling just doesn't say exclusive. take your Rule Brittania rose coloured glasses off and what you have is the lovechild of a Hyundai Sonata and Lexus GS.

if you ever have a screaming kid locked in the car

Some mates of mine are here from overseas at the moment. Unfortunately not for a holiday but somewhat unpleasant business. To make things worse, the other night one of them calls up pretty frantic. He had somehow locked his kid in the car. you can imagine the situation. hysterical kid, frazzled parent.
So I had to call the RAC for him. Now here's the good news.
The good folk at the RAC have a policy where if there's a child stuck in a car, their closest driver will drop whatever they're doing and attended to you first. You don't even have to be a member and they don't charge anything!
So the RAC-dude came to the rescue and saved the day. However the kid is still traumatised by the experience but that's the dad's fault. We've all vowed an oath of silence not to let the mum know this event ever happened.

Facebook ban

I must be the most unpopular guy in the office at the moment. I've just gone and banned facebook.
don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of facebook. I love its interface and all the cool add ons. I've been having a blast since I joined a month ago and have been reunited with guys I haven't heard from for 20 years. Its highly entertaining and addictive, and thats where the problem lies.
I just can't have staff mucking around on facebook and checking their friends messages and statuses every 10 minutes and not doing work. Its distracting and highly unproductive. Part of the blocking of the website is to stop myself from being distracted too.
As I said before, I think its great, I'll still check it at home in my own time, just not on company time.
sigh now back to work.

Name it.....McMonster, McCardiac

"Eight all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun."

Its been a while since I last had Maccas but lately i've been bombarded by advertising for a campaign to name a new burger at Maccas and now from the McPeople who bought you Son of Mac is the mutha of all Big Macs.

If Morgan Spurlock had had a few of these during the making of "Super Size Me" I don't think he would have been able to last the 30 days nor would the girlfriend be only complaining about lost of sex drive. I guess its a bit harder to perform when you're dead!

P.s. please note that the folks here at "Wheel the Big Cannon" in no way condone the consumption of this burger and indemnify ourselves from future legal actions (i.e. you can't sue us if after reading about the monster burger here you decide to stupidly go and have one and end up keeling over)

This article was taken from www.news.com.au

MONSTER-SIZED McDonald's hamburgers stuffed with up to eight meat patties and nine slices of cheese have been slammed as "a heart attack waiting to happen".

Some of the fast-food chains sell super-sized Quarter Pounders, which contain about 220g of fat and 11,500kJ each, on request.

The "double pounder" is the equivalent of more than three days' worth of fat for a grown man - or almost five Pizza Hut deep-pan Hawaiian pizzas or 45 Tim Tams.

At about $18, it is not listed on the menu, nor under nutritional information.

It has developed a cult following as a challenge for teenagers, after a video was posted online of a 17-year-old boy ploughing his way through the burger at a McDonald's restaurant.

Rival chain Hungry Jacks is also allowing customers to order mega-burgers under its Have It Your Way ordering system.

Nutrition Australia senior nutritionist Aloysa Hourigan described the double pounder as "obscene" and a "heart attack waiting to happen".

Meet George Jetson......

As interesting and informative as it is being able to recognise when you have explosive diarrhea some of us know their poo already! =) Here's an article I came across the other day that triggered up childhood memories of The Jetsons AND how cool it would be flying around in a spaceship. Now thanks to Dr Moller, it can be yours for a princely sum of A$146,000 (possibly including GST)....unless of course he receives a visit from GM heavies and gets knee-capped...lets hope not!

A famous saying from Henry Ford, the man who revolutionized transport, was "Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black". Perhaps Dr Moller can adapt this to "Any customer can have a flying pod painted any colour that he wants so long as it is silver". Feel free to use that Dr Moller....that one's on the house!

This is an article from www.news.com.au

US company Moller International has put a flying saucer into production that looks remarkably like George's perspex topped transportation.

Flying pod lifts off - three metres above ground

The personal flying pod, called the M200G Volantor, can glide three metres off the ground and carry two passengers.

The M200G is the size of a small car and takes off and lands vertically.

Video: See the M200G volantor fly »

Company founder Dr Paul Moller said the craft was "the ultimate off-road vehicle" because it can travel over any surface.

"It's not a hovercraft, although its operation is just as easy. You can speed over rocks, swampland, fences, or log-infested waterways with ease because you're not limited by the surface."

The flying saucer is governed by computers to fly at a maximum altitude of three metres so that it doesn't require registration as an aircraft.

That enables it to sit on a cushion of air and travel at 80kph in any direction.

Flying saucer may have military uses

Other versions are being developed to dock with skyscrapers for rescues and for military use.

The craft are powered by eight rotary engines, each driving an enclosed fan to produce lift.

It can still hover if one engine fails while a second failure "will lead to a survivable hard landing."

Moller, which has been researching a variety of flying cars since the 1960s, is expecting the M200G to be available to buy from next year.

With only two simple hand operated controls, the craft will present a licensing and registration quandary for authorities because it doesn't actually travel on roads but is not an aircraft.

Initially, the flying saucer will cost around $146,000 but the price might fall further with mass production.

Talking sh*t

no seriously. this blog is about shit, so don't read this during your lunch break. hence it will be in various shades of brown
I've been accused of talking a lot of shit in my life but during a recent conversation with a few doctor mates of mine, they pointed out that no talk about shit is complete without talking about the Bristol stool form scale. what is that you may ask (too late, you can't run now!). well its everything you wanted to know about shit and then some. see picture. It helps our medical professionals identify what item of the hospital food menu your faeces most imitates. Then the orderlies can correctly sort and recycle them back into the food chain no doubt. Other uses? ermmm they didn't mention any.
The fact that it compares your poo to various food items i highly disturbing. especially if you're a patient as these items are highly likely to be served up on the menu. puts a whole new light to hospital food is shit. The other disturbing thing is how respected researcher could dedicate decades of their productive life producing it.
I'm feeling kinda smug and highly achieved because I can manage to conjure up any form on the scale.

Second Dump
You can lure people with honey, you can even lure people with a carrot but few will be lured by shit dangling from a stick. So WTF was the government thinking by trying to "entice" school leavers to do their Gap Year in the army???
I personally would have loved to have done a gap year. Taking a year off after completing high school to travel would definitely have helped me mature and figure out what the heck I wanted to do for the rest of my life. However by far the biggest drawcard would be the travel and unsupervised fun. I seriously don't see the fun factor in joining the army and even if you get to travel, you're not going to be able to decide where you go and lets face it, the destinations are unlikely to be holiday party towns.
Now its a pretty difficult choice. Do you
A) Spend a year getting pissed, partying, and making out with the locals in exotic locations
B) Spend a year doing push-ups, getting yelled at by a drill sergeant, and getting shot at by pissed off locals.
Anyone who chooses option B deserves to, well be forced to do option B.

Three times a charm
keeping with the shit theme. I'd like to complain that the last 24hrs have been frankly shit.

1. my client is grumpy through no fault of mine but is taking it out on my team.
   
2. I broke my umbrella
3. I got super glue all over my hands trying to fix the umbrella.

So shit really does occur in threes.

its the food

We keep going to a particular vietnamese restaurant, despite all the crap they've done we still keep going back because the food is really good. The service there is really bad, half the time they get your order wrong (the waitstaff can barely speak english). The toilets are filthy, you sometimes have to clean your own table... However by far the biggest wrong they've inflicted on us is on of their waitresses stole a $600 pair of sunglasses from my sister which I gave her for her birthday. my sister was dumb enough to go to the toilets and leave them on the table. I have no idea why a bunch of girls would want to hang around in those toilets (and why must you girls always go to the toilet together?)
The thing is we keep going back despite all this. I was pondering this while having dinner there on Thursday night, over a steaming hot bowl of noodles that I didn't order (but they were good). Am I a sucker for punishment? should I move to Melbourne so I don't have to put up with these b******s?

(image from Sports Illustrated si.com)

Anyway a big cheer for Joakim Noah (see pic above). Not for being drafted 9th in the recent NBA draft, but for having the courage to turn up wearing this outfit. Being prone to crimes against fashion myself, its refreshing to see a young man who arrives for the most important event in his career to date, looking like he's interviewing for Cirque du Soleil. Extra kudos to young Joakim for being French. Bravo! Bravo!

Some ancient Chinese wisdom

The whole family is sick at the moment. I think the boy caught it at school and passed it a nasty flu to everyone.

So the story from the beginning, we're at the grandparents for dinner on the weekend and after dinner the kids usually have a bath over there. Grandma is bathing the boy and turns to me and tells me "better watch it cos he's going to be sick" I ask how she can predict these things and she tells me
"ancient Chinese technique, see his testicles are droopy, not high and happy. mean no good. boy is going to be sick" . After taking several minutes to recompose myself from hysterical laughter. I vow to take extra care of him while thinking the old woman has totally gone bonkers.
Well lo and behold, she was right. the next day the boy started with a bad cough, developing into a full blown epidemic.
So there you have it. Guys check you nuts daily to see if you're going to be sick.

The Complete Poseurs' Guide to Golf

Golf is a game that takes decades to master. Most players will spend their whole lives without reaching a single digit handicap. So how can you look like a decent player without doing the hard yards and years learning the game? Well you've come to the right place. Welcome to Poseur Guides where we teach you all the short cuts to creating the facade of competence.

The Poseurs' Philosophy It's not what you do, its more important to look good while you're doing it. If there's a half arsed, easier way to do something, then we'll do it. Why be a fool and put in the blood, sweat and tears to gain proficiency, when you can make people believe it by looking the part and talking the talk.

Comparing your equipment
This is where it all begins. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter who shoots the lowest score. Its about who's got the best, latest and most expensive equipment. Your golf set is an extension of your phallus. This of course goes without saying since as a poseur everything in life is an extension of your phallus, be it your job, your car, your house or your trophy wife.

No self respecting poseur would be caught dead playing with a golf set costing less than AUD$3000. For those of you without $3000 keep reading and pay extra attention to the "scam your way to a better set" chapter.
Not all clubs in your set are equal!
There are really only 2 clubs in a golf set that will leave an impression and these are the clubs you have to get right or lose any credibility as a poseur. They are

1. Your Driver
2. Your Putter

You and your BIG STICK
Your driver must be big. The bigger the better. In fact there is no such thing as a driver that is too big. Here is a list of rules for choosing your driver.

1. If the head of your driver is smaller than a [Burger King] Whopper, then its too small.
2. Ideally get a Japanese brand driver that no one has ever heard of. This will give you instant credibility among your peers. Also Japanese social golfers are notoriously bad and thus Japanese golf equipment is loaded with the latest high tech advancements to compensate your lack of golfing ability.
3. Converse to rule 2, never get a branded driver that no one has ever heard of, for any drivers that are not Japanese. Your peers will just assume you purchased it from the bargain bin at Bob's Discount Golf Shack.
   

Your little stick
Your putter may be small but it should be the second most expensive item in your golf set after your driver. This is because it is the stick that gets the most exposure during any round of golf and therefore the eyes of the world shall see it. So here are some basic rules for choosing a putter.

1. Your putter must be made out of the the latest exotic space age materials eg its made from recycled ceramic tiles from the space shuttle or it's hand forged from an element not even defined on the periodic table.
   
2. It must have a highly visible groovy insert panel. Insert panels are way cool, don't consider a putter without one. There's no point of having an insert panel if your playing partners can't see that you've got an insert panel. Thus the insert panel must be in a highly contrasting color to the rest of the putter.
3. Under no circumstances shall you get a broomstick putter. Let me repeat myself. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHALL YOU GET A BROOMSTICK PUTTER! Nothing screams "I am a retard who cannot putt" more loudly than having a broomstick putter. Just don't go there. While the rule is Bigger is Better for Drivers, putters are the exact opposite. The more compact, the more it shows you have class.

Scamming a better golf set For many of you $3000 will seem like a lot of money to part with. The good news is that there are ways of getting a $3000 set without paying $3000 yourself.
The best way of course is the rich hacker uncle. These are important to identify and everyone is only 2 degrees of separation away from one! This is the uncle who is filthy rich and absolutely hopeless at golf. Every time he hits a bad shot he will curse his useless new set and retire it at the end of the round to get the new latest and greatest.
After identifying him, you must weasel your way to playing with him. Always let him beat you on the round but also always have one AND ONLY ONE (showing off may backfire on you) hole where you absolutely trounce him. This will trigger a subliminal reflex mechanism in him that he A) needs to get a new set of clubs B) the snotty nosed kid (aka you) has talent and should be nurtured. Thus you inherit a one week old golf set valued at the cost of a small Korean car.

The clothes maketh the man
Ah, "the clothes maketh the man" one of our all time favourite Poseur Guides sayings. To be a pro, you need to feel like a pro and to feel like a pro you need to look like a pro. Hence you need to dress like a pro. There are 2 guaranteed winning outfits for poseurs.

1. The Tiger
2. The Payne

Be a Tiger
Tiger is by far the greatest thing ever to happen to golf. Yes I hear a few of you old timers mention Jack Nicholas and Ben Hogan, but Jack is a fat old man with a beer gut and no one under 80 remembers Ben Hogan. Tiger however goes into the Poseur Hall of Fame for making golf (which is essentially an nonathletic game for old farts) cool. So you can't go wrong outfitting yourself like Tiger. So head out to Niketown and OD yourselves on Nike apparel.
However a word of warning. DO NOT get a Nike golf set. Having a set of Nike golf sticks will not only break your facade of poseur coolness, you won't have a snowball's chance in hell of a decent round. They are so bad that even Tiger can't play them. In fact Tiger uses an old set of Titlest clubs dressed to look like Nikes.

Be a Payne
The late great Payne Stewart was one golfer who knew how to dress snazzy. His signature Tam o'shanter hat and plus four happy pants intimidated opponents by shouting I'm such a great player I can beat you looking like a Scottish circus clown (not to be confused with the Scottish restaurant clown which are an entirely different genus, contrary to the name, Scottish restaurant clowns are actually native to North America).
To get the Payne Stewart look you need 3 essential items

1. The Tam o'shanter hat. These are caps like your grandfather used to wear to keep his little balding noggin warm. These can be found at any Good Sammy's store. Alternatively you can make one yourself by taking the stuffing out of any tartan cushion and glueing a pompom in the middle.
   
2. The argyle jumper. Ideally a Pringle argyle jumper.
3. A pair of loud plus fours. The louder your happy pants the more likely it will throw your opponents off their game while mesmerised by the intricate patterns on your buttocks and thus giving you a competitive advantage. Now a good pair of plus fours are pretty hard to come by these days so we suggest you can improvise by getting 3/4 pants or just getting regular happy pants and cutting them off mid-calf. Then get a pair of long socks, we recommend school socks, footy socks or any socks stolen from a maths teacher. Pull the socks over the bottom hem of your shortened happy pants and Voila! Plus fours!

Extra Balls: These always come in Handy. Especially when executing an Ivor drop (see details below)

Hip Flask: An essential item of equipment. Your hip flask should be made from silver or pewter (optionally leather bound) with an personalised engraved message from your grandfather. These are the kind of finer details that a true poseur would notice and appreciate. Even if you only recently purchased the flask yourself, make up a personalised message from your grandfather and get it engraved on it. In true Scottish tradition your hip flask should be filled with whiskey. Preferably a decent single malt. Being inebriated gives you an excuse for a bad game. Getting you partners inebriated brings them down to your level.

A big fat stoogie: To complete the look, you need a big fat cigar. Remember as with all things in poseurland, the cigar is most definitely an extension of your phallus. So no wimpy cigarillos or cafe cremes. Nothing smaller than a corona is acceptable. Ideally your cigar should show ridiculous length (like a Churchill) or a gauge so big it'll give your girlfriend lockjaw just to look at it.

The Royal and Ancient Modified Poseurs Rules to the game of Golf
Now that you look the part, you're still only half way there. You'll still need to show enough game to not embarrass yourself. I can see you're worried, but fear not. By applying the Royal and Ancient Modified Poseur Rules you can still put up an impressive score despite your lack of ability. Here are the 3 most important rules you need to remember

• The Mulligan: perhaps the most important rule you need to know. This gives you the right to take your shot again. You need of course to have a valid reason to take a mulligan, so always keep your mobile phone handy so you can blame it for vibrating on an incoming call or message just as you took your shot. Also use any noise eg a bird, passing car, partner breathing heavy to claim a mulligan if needed.
• Preferred Lie: No this doesn't mean you take 9 strokes and write down 3. This rule allows you to move your ball a club length away from a "hazard". Under Poseurs' rules anything can be deemed a hazard. This is also where your ridiculously large Japanese, self swinging, perpetual motion driver "with Super Handling!" and "Maximum Happy Returns always!" becomes valuable as it'll allow you to move the ball a full 3 meters from where it actually landed!
• The Gimme: This rule may be claimed if your putt is close enough to the hole to claim that you will be guaranteed to get it in with your next putt. You should always take the gimme. Systematic abuse of the Gimme Rule is a poseurs' prerogative. This not only improves your score, but will save you countless times the embarrassment of missing a short putt in front of the gallery. Technically you may claim a gimme if your ball is within a club length of the hole. You guessed it! Once again your trusty ridiculously large driver comes to the rescue allowing you to claim gimmes at twice the distance of any opponent.
  

Advanced technique

• The Ivor drop: A move named after the infamous golf cheater Ivor the Swede (who ironically was Norwegian). In an extraordinary coincidence, whenever Ivor sliced a ball into deep rough, he would inevitably "find" his ball in light rough, just off the fairway about 50 yards ahead of where his ball actually landed. To this day no one really know how Ivor achieved such miraculous feats. However after hiring expert visual illusion consultants including David Copperfield, David Blaine and Michael Jackson, Poseur Guides have devised a method to achieve virtually the same effect.
  

1. First you need to slice you ball into the deep rough. This should be easy as our recent Morgan survey showed that 90% of you poseurs had a big slice as your natural swing. It also showed that the other 10% were lying.
2. Head in the direction your ball entered into the rough
3. If you find your ball, make sure no one is watching while you pick up your ball. Alternatively you may execute the Ivor Shuffle (detailed later). If you cannot find your ball or can't be bothered, use a replacement ball from your bag.
   
4. Keep on walking through the rough pretending to look for your ball.
5. Once you have reached a distance 20 yards further than your best positioned opponent, find a spot in light rough with a decent flat lie and an open approach to the green and place your ball there.
6. Take your shot as normal.

• The Ivor Shuffle: Another signature move perfected by Ivor the Swede. Whenever your ball ends up in the rough or in a bad lie, you can execute the Ivor Shuffle to get yourself out of a sticky situation without wasting a valuable stroke. The secret of this Technique is in the positioning of your eye line. After sighting your ball, at no time afterwards should you look at your ball again. This move relies on the illusion that you are searching for your ball, when in fact you are slowly kick the ball through the rough to a suitable new position. Advanced poseurs may even attempt to end an Ivor Shuffle sequence with the Ivor punt.
• The Ivor Punt (Advanced Poseurs Only): If you find your ball in the light rough, wait for an opportunity when none of your playing partners are looking and casually kick your ball back onto the fairway. Be warned that this move has an extremely high level of difficulty and should not be attempted without having first spent many hours in simulation training with a professional coach. It should NEVER be attempted during a tournament. The potential of being caught out attempting this move is high. Repercussions may be severe, at some clubs this is enough to get you expelled. Legend has it that the great Ivor's career ended while trying to execute this move one too many times.
  

The games people play
To further distract you playing partners away from the fact your handicap is golf, we suggest playing games. This not only masks your incompetence, but its also highly fun. Start with these games and in no time you'll be so good you'd be making up your own games.

1. Ambrose: An oldie but a goodie. You play your next ball from where the best shot in your playing group landed. At the end of the day, your score looks respectable and no one will have realised that they never once used your shot.
2. The bunker hole: This game requires every player in your party to land their ball in a chosen bunker before continuing to the flag. This game increases the difficulty of the hole and usually inflates everyone's score to the point that relatively the fact you took 5 extra strokes on the hole is immaterial.
3. The driver hole: This hole must be played only using one club, the driver. This relies on the same score inflation theory as the bunker hole. This game also gives you extra opportunity to show off you fabulously expensive new driver.
   
4. The putter hole: This hole must be played using only your putter. See the driver hole above.
5. Putter Polo: WARNING! this game is for advanced poseurs only and should not be attempted by amateurs This game is played with the aid of an electric golf cart and may be played in doubles (where a partner drives while you do a drive by swing at the ball or solo which greatly increases the degree of difficulty.
   

Congratulations!
You've now been blessed with all the knowledge to allow you to be a total golf poseur. Now go out and impress!

Stay tuned for future Poseur Guides. Coming as soon as I can be arsed (could be a while so don't hold your breath)
The Poseurs Guide to Cycling
The Poseurs Guide to Sailing
The Poseurs' Guide to Country Clubs

The Krispy Kreme diet

people have been telling me that I've lost weight lately, so in an effort to return to the status quo I've devised the "Krispy Kreme Diet". Thanks to my sponsor Kublai who personally air freighted and hand delivered my first batch of Krispy Kremes all the way from Sydney (we don't have Krispy Kreme in Perth, much to my disappointment). I've been addicted to Krispy Kremes since my first trip to NY but I've been forced to go cold turkey being here in Perth. Before anyone suggests Doughnut King, let me point out there is not substitite, KK's are vastly superior to any doughnut in the know universe.
Instead of the expected rapid weight gain, I've actually lost more weight.
I finished the 11 out of 12 doughnuts in one sitting and felt kinda ill. In fact I could barely touch food for the next 2 scheduled meals. I actually lost half a kg over the next 2 days due to loss of appetite.
Now I'm thinking I may be onto something here. I might have to patent this Krispy Kreme Diet - Eat enough Krispy Kremes to put you off food for the next few days. Hey, I've got irrefutable evidence of 100% success rate from my sample control group (statistically numbering uno). This could be worth big bucks. It can't be any more damaging than the water diet, the chocolate mousse diet or the wafer biscuit diet.

Eep! I'm an old fart with p*ss weak injuries

A topic brought up by Merrick and Rosso yesterday got me thinking about this and I'm come to the realisation that OMG! I'm an old fart!
Gone are the days when I could brag about tough, manly injuries like being fouled so hard playing basketball that my shoulder popped out or the time I face planted while trying to surf my bike. This year, my list of injuries is looking really lame. The results are still there but the execution in getting my injuries are just too lame. In the last year I've
- pulled a hammie getting off the sofa while watching TV. serious!
- sprained my knee while doing up my shoelaces
- put my back out by sleeping on my side
sometimes I swear I can hear myself creaking when I walk up the stairs.

On the same wavelength involving defective body parts, check out this cool animation on defective robots

Brave Predictions #1

2027: Shanghai becomes the gay capital of the world. This will please all the rice queens of the world.
Swinging Shanghai overtakes Sydney and San Fran for the title of the world centre of Gay culture. After decades of the one child policy creating a surplus of over one million men, many men are drawn towards being homosexual or bisexual. They will be drawn to the booming metropolis, historically the most liberal of Chinese cities.
The staggering increase in the gay demographic forces radical changes both socially and politically. It is no longer taboo to be opening gay in public. No event demonstrates this more than the annual Shanghai Gay Mardi Gras which is held simultaneously with the Sydney event.

whoo! miss universe time

yup that time of year again. time for Donald Trump to gel up the old door mat glue it to his head and get stuck into the new round of sweet young things.
for the rest of us non billionaires, we get to watch it on TV, get a group of mates together and bitch about the ones with big asses, bad nose/boob jobs and vote on which one blew the most judges. for all you girls feigning revolt, admit it, you all do it too. just for the record, our annual Miss Universe gathering/bitch session has several female regulars who get stuck in more than the boys.
Somehow, no matter how fugly Miss USA is, she'll always make the final cut. It's a darstardly ratings, adverts thing. Well with old Head-Rug running the show how can it be anything but rigged and sleazy.
Miss Japan the winner this year which is a surprise. Historically the Asian block has been pretty lean on talent, with Miss Singapore/Malaysia/Taiwan perpetual favourites for the Miss Canine Award.

Monaco Grand Prix *yawn*

I stayed up to watch the Monaco GP last night and couldn't will myself to stay up until the finish. I found myself wondering why I was up so late watching this rubbish. I used to like watching formula one but the last 3 years have been awful. Monaco being the most boring race of all. Aside from the usual glamour and beautiful people that they don't bother to show on the telecast anyway, there's not much to get excited about. Despite the hype, the Monaco GP is the least viewer friendly race. seriously it's like going to the dentist (ironically I was at the dentist on saturday). Traditionally, Monaco is the hardest circuit to pass on. Add to that the stupid aero-dynamics rules put in place 3 years ago that have made the cars less stable and now unable to take advantage of slip streams to overpass, the only excitement is the pole position qualifying. The only way drivers can pass others is in the pits after that or pray for accidents and mechanical failures.
Although I can admire the skill involved with pit stops, it's not exciting enough to be the main event.

Sunday was also the golf tournament for my esteemed alumni association. It was a shocking day for golf (showers and strong sea breeze). The course was definitely not one for the inaccurate, exposed, tight links course with no barriers to protect the public. Our team was lucky not to attract a law suit, endangering the lives of the public several times by spraying balls onto busy public roads and footpaths. I didn't win my trophy back but as the only member of the original team to show up (Kublai, thanks for piking!) it was tough going with the newbies. At least I've got 2 new *Company Name Withheld* range rocks to sacrifice to the quarry at Joondalup.

I got a mac!

I got a new macbook laptop 2 weeks ago after a "fault" with my old laptop, which turned out to be not a fault at all but an act of stupidity on my behalf. So now I have two really cool laptops.
I guess I'll have to give my 2 cents on the mac vs. PC debate. I'm not interested which one is more powerful, which can process more flops, video, floating point calcuations etc... That debate is purely academic and it seriously doesn't make a noticable difference. What's more important is the user interface and how easy it is to accomplish what you want. lets just say that some things are easier to do on Mac (eg graphic design) and others easier on PC (eg business tools like Word and Excel).
I'm still getting used to the single button mouse.
iLife is a nice interface but I wish it would integrate an option for my elgato TV tuner.
Comic life is brilliant so expect to see some comics when i can be bothered.
A few annoying bits. like mini DVI??? given the size and weight of the macbook (it's a bit of a porker for its screen size) there's no need to use a non-standard port that doesn't save that much space. mini DVI is rubbish and is just a cynical ploy by apple to suck more money out of you by having to buy their proprietary connectors. Most of the time the mac does what you want, and automatically second guesses you. except when you want to do something unusual. then it's over-simplified user interface make it impossible to get it to do what you want.
A pleasant surprise was the native UNIX terminal. vastly superior to terminal emulators on PC. makes life easy for me to connect to UNIX and LINUX servers.
They say once you try mac you can't go back. well from what I've found so far, this is a load of rubbish. mac is a great machine excellent at some things but inferior at others. for my needs, I'm not giving up a PC just yet.

what if google became EVIL?

many of you know Google's unofficial motto is "Don't be Evil". So far so good. They haven't done anything evil. They give you lots of goodies either free or as loss leaders. which brings me to my point. Their business model relies on internet advertising and marketing. This has been an unproven and not too profitable market sector. The correlation between clicks and cash is pretty low and thus correlation between userbase and revenues is also pretty weak. they've added all these services like maps, checkout, spreadsheets etc. problem is that while these are great for us users, for Google they're all free or loss making.
so they'll have to either use their advertising income to substitute them (reducing their not so spectacular profitability) or eventually turn them into profitable businesses. Do you really think google office can take on Microsoft without subsidisation? What happens in a few years time when shareholders want a better return and decide a PE of 40+ is unrealistic?
Google's core strength is its searching capabilities. given it is currently storing and OWNS zillions of Terrabytes of your personal information and data stored in gmail, Writely, Google Spreadsheets etc... will the temptation be to onsell this info to third parties for data mining? those third parties will be able to intrude into your personal life on a scale never seen before.
Even more frightening a scenario is what if google sells access to your data to Big Brother? Can you imagine life under Googlevore!
its all good now, but remember things can change in a hurry. Google's now a public company and as such subject the the same performance criteria and pressures as everyone else. If the shares don't perform, the board and management can be tossed out pretty quickly. don't think for a second that a privacy statement protects your private personal information either. That's simple to get around with creative company structuring. There are no guarantees that google won't turn. They've already started lobbying US presidential candidates. Is this the beginning?

one for all you heathans

I'm one of those individuals who fills out census forms claiming he's a Jedi Knight. Well more like a Padawan, I haven't mastered levitation or that mind control thingy yet.
anyway, no surprise i found this post on how to start your on religion by Captain Smack hillarious. praise be to Steph for pointing it out.
now to start my own religion. whats there not to like. you get groupies, offerings and you become a tax exempt entity.

Duck Confit

I made Duck Confit for Mother's Day lunch. anyway for those of you not familiar with it, Duck Confit is basically salted duck slow cooked in duck/goose fat. quite possibly the most heart attack inducing substance known to man *god bless the french*. technically confit should be left a few months to "develop" (mmm moldy old meat) but I didn't have the organisation skills to start the process in January. honestly I didn't figure what I was going to make for the mums until late friday night.
To my credit I did manage to plan for some extra duck legs and a clean jar, so I did get some proper confit out of the exercise. at the moment I'm slowly watching the duck fat congeal and thinking of my abused arteries.

Miami Vice

back in high school, miami vice was about the hottest show going around. I even did the suit and tshirt thing. embarassing as that may seem, its not quite as bad as the jacket and bike shorts look or the MC Hammer bolero jacket and parachute pants look. but my crimes against fashion are another story.
anyway i decided to check out the remake movie of Miami Vice on dvd and I gotta say... WHAT A LOAD OF STEAMING EXCREMENT! I've realised now that I only liked the old series for the ultra cool toys. what this movie needed was a bit more blatant product placement, enough Ferraris, Learjets and speedboats oh yeah and explosions can cover up a lack of plot and bad acting. then there were the chase scenes *yawn* and the hot women were totally missing. instead they cast Gong Li (who is usually a great actress) as a Latino drug queen??? WTF!!! Apart from the obvious, her Latino impersonation was as good as David Carradine's or Peter Ustinov's chinese, and don't get me started on that.
At least they gave up on the neo-nazi white supremist subplot early on in the movie. Imagine sending a black vice cop to infiltrate a neo-nazi group.

Nerd Wars?!

In the tradition of such great cult flicks as Revenge of the Nerds (1984), Revenge of the Nerds: Nerds in Paradise, Revenge of the Nerds: The Next Generation, and Revenge of the Nerds: Nerds in Love comes yet another attempt to glorify nerds.

Check this video out (http://www.thenewbestsite.com/showVideo.php?vidId=171)

What can I say but: Nerds, too much time, and very cool! The only thing that could have made it possibly better for me was if they had gotten Jaleel White (aka Urkel) to fight against Will Hung (aka American Idol wannabe)

cellar raid

with W in town its always a good excuse dig up something ancient from the cellar. well mostly his cellar :) A lucky coincidence that it was the ANZAC day public holiday so we could drink and be merry. we managed to consume 2 bottles of Dom (1982,1985) and a 96 Vasse Felix cab Sav.
The 82 Dom was spectacular.
Its great having a public holiday in the middle of the week. feels like you get 2 weekends.

Boring first post - Best home loan on the market

Howdy all, thought i'ld post some random boring post to add to the countless other boring posts on all the countless other boring blogs. Hopefully, this blog will become a little less boring in the universe of blogs....but alas I doubt it will be because of this little contribution today. This my friends is because I can't really think of something witty to say so I'll try and tell you something useful which I'm currently have to go through. Mortgages!!!

At the moment i'm dealing with a guy from Mortgage Choice here in Sydney who is proving to be a bit of an idiot. Home loans aren't rocket science but you would expect someone who does it for a living to have some practical sense or at least be able to put it into context with real life. Case in point, did you know that a loan in the name of the company or a trust still requires the lender to discount income produced by ~30% AND (wait for it) living expenses!! 30% haircut on income...fair enough...but the last time I checked a company doesn't eat, pay rent or need money for social lubricate on the weekend....i don't ask for much but a little commonsense in your mortgage broker isn't out of the question I thought!

Enough ranting and back to the topic....after running through the hundreds of available loans, I found a winner which I think is a good deal....a fixed interest loan with a 100% offset account....which means you get to lock in your interest rate but can effective pay as much as you want to reduce your loan and can still redraw if you want! There are apparently two loans of this type in the whole Australian market...adelaide bank provides one and credit union australia (CUA) provides the other one. I'ld recommend you go with CUA as the interest rates, establishment fees and probably more importantly exit fees are quite reasonable.

Stay tuned for something less geeky and less informative next time!

Rent-a-car reviews

whoo. I get to drive an old 2005/2006 Hyundai Accent 3-door auto hatch rent-a-car this week. with an invasion of in-laws this week, I've had to get another car. Unfortunately, the budget didn't allow for anything cool like a convertible or the totally gangsta looking 300C.
I was expecting to hang lots of crap on this car but its actually not too bad. performance and handling is not great but a pass. cornering was actually not too bad but zero steering feel. The fun thing is that if you stomp on it, the "beast" will rev all the way to to redline before changing up. The engine makes a lot of noise that doesn't translate to go though and it isn't a pleasant engine note either. the ride was a bit bumpy and the brakes were spongy and not that responsive.
Seats are supportive and comfortable although headrest is a bit hard.
interior. materials and build quailty are cheap but so is the car. The standard stereo/CD is utter rubbish massive bass distortion at even low volume.

Saddle Fitness

Cyclist are a wierd bunch with their own subculture. they have strange terms and get excited over large thighs and carbon fibre seat posts. Anyway I learned some new cycling lingo I can sprout down at Barrets to impress all the other poser wannabe cyclists there on saturday mornings.
Over coffee with my mate Brett (mad keen cyclist) today I was complaining about my sore ass (somehow we end up talking about our asses a lot) from riding to work yesterday. He brought to my attention the term "saddle fitness". basically how thick and desensitised the skin on your bum is where it contacts the seat of you bike. I'm getting disturbing images of big calluses on my butt to the extent where I can start sanding down my outdoor furniture (which could be handy).
overall the ride to work was good. I'm finally getting some exercise and reducing my carbon footprint, also managed to push down the per usage cost of my bike to under $500!