TwistedTripper’s Nightmare!

Audio - The art of spending money

The search is over. After many a night and day obsessing over audio equipment, my final choice has been made - for better or worse. I already mentioned that I had purchased the Zhaolu D2.5 DAC as my source for conversion from digital to analogue from my PC sound card via a digital co-axial output (the DAC and my sound card also have optical but after trying optical I reverted back to co-axial, which is  something I’m more familiar with and probably makes no difference in the end, however it looks sturdier than optical cable, to my eye anyway) and a Pop Pulse T70i T-Amp to power the speakers that I was frantically trying to research and acquire. When desire enters my head and the obsession is well and truly invoked then the outcome is always the same -  I want it yesterday and will not stop until the object of my desire is satisfied. Well the Pop Pulse arrived on Saturday (once again thanks to COEM Audio Australia for their prompt delivery) and I had no speakers to test this little amp out on, I was itching to get this new toy up and running, my patience virtually extinguished and I just had to have what I wanted that very moment and nothing was stopping me from getting it.  I have next to no insight in High Fidelity audio and my desperation to acquire the speakers that very same day was peaking. I had some idea on the budget but not much time to appease the itch that was burning a hole in my pocket or rather credit card. With little time on my hand and a dentist appointment in the morning, time was not on my side.

Apprehension was limiting me, where do I go to get speakers from? Hi-FI shops seemed daunting, I’d never seen myself as someone who’d ever be walking into a shop with a boutique flavour attached to it and while searching online for local Hi-FI outlets the impression I got was that these places were for high society types to indulge themselves in and that clique was something I saw myself far removed from. What I wanted was to just order some online but unfortunately that was liable to end in disappointment and more than likely a few hundred wasted dollars; as if this obsession wasn’t already leaving a heavy burden on my hip pocket. My anxiety levels were peaking to match the lack of patience I was exhibiting and the only solution was to swallow fear and take the plunge and frequent the place of my anxieties. I know I sound pathetic and perhaps that is what I am but anxiety and fearful imaginings are something I’m adept in. Anyway I settled on The HI-FI Trader in Newtown as a place to check out, so after the dentist that is the direction I took.

I hadn’t been to Newtown during the day for quite some time and the traffic is hectic, let alone trying to find a park but eventually I parked the little Elantra by the side of a back street and made my way to the HI-FI shop. The sun beating upon me and fear pulsating with the suns rays but this was a mission that I couldn’t back out of - well my drive to get speakers outweighed the fear, only just. Well I almost backed out and caved into fear, the irrational beast that likes to whisper all sorts of despicable and horrible tales into the ears of the beholder, but a moment to  gather my wits and courage and open the door to audio bliss.

Well walking into the shop was something all together different than what I imagined it to look like and was put at ease somewhat by the minimalist appearance and also by the fact that there were a few people shopping and the sales people were tied up, so I had some time to ground my self before having to dive straight down to business. The web site sort of gave the impression that the place was bigger and perhaps a little more flamboyant  than what it was but one shouldn’t judge a book by its URL as they sort of say.

It wasn’t long before I was approached by a friendly down to earth staff member and was immediately led into the listening room to be shown what I was after. After asking me what I wanted and inquiring what amp, its wattage and the budget, I was given a couple of recommendations. The Monitor Audio Bronze BR2 and Krix Equinox V2 and after listening to both, I was quickly sold to the more expensive of the two, which as you can see in the above photo (which doesn’t do it it justice as it looks rather more magnificent than what the photo depicts) was the Krix. Doing an A/B test of the two, the Krix was easily a superior speaker in sound quality, well to my ears using Pantheists’ - Loss of Innocence as a musical reference. The Br2 sounded dull and lifeless compared to the Krix, the vocals were significantly more in your face and clear compared to the Br2. I was sold, not that I’m a hard consumer, I know what I want and if it’s suitable I’m unlikely to travel far and wide to search for something better or more cost effective. The asking price - 700 dollars and right on the maximum limit I’d initially set, although I would’ve been persuaded to go up to a grand if the 500 to 700 price range sounded crap. My only criticism is only of myself - I should of asked for a better price but I’ve never been much of haggler. Next time I’ll try to leverage a better deal but I’m happy that I got as far as I did. Having an anxiety disorder can be such a pain.

Okay once I hauled the package home the real test of sound came into play. Not really having much insight into what the gear I’d purchased sounded like, other than the speakers which I had a rough idea of capability with the in store demo, using expensive amplifiers, sources and a proper set up, but the baby amp I got that same day was untested. Well once I hooked it all up it didn’t have quite the same impact as my brief in store audition but it had potential and after numerous tests and some burning in the sound is finally coming out. My set up isn’t ideal and I’m coming to understand positioning of speakers can make a hell of difference. Having them on the desktop is not giving them justice and you’ll notice that I’ve had to place sound dampening material under the seakers and I’ve got quite a few layers of foam and rubber matting to try and isolate the reveberation through my desk, which without seems destroys the quality of the sound with way too much hollow bass coming off and through the desk. The dampening has improved the sound considerably but I’m gonna need to experiment more with either some kind of stands, to raise them up, or standalone stands off the floor. I may also move the desk a little further away from the walls and see what differences come out. But the sound now is a little less smudged with reveberation from the desk, the mids are now more defined and highs crystal clear, although they are a little too bright at the moment for my liking but with some tweaking I’m sure the right balance can be achieved. All in all I’m becoming more satisfied and happy with this set up and with extra tweaking I think it’ll sound exactly the way I want.

What if?

I keep thinking how bad the economic downturn will be next year and it is easy to envisage a dire scenario where unemployment will be a reality. Already the company I work for are laying off contract staff and by the end of this year they’ll all be gone. Next year’s outlook doesn’t look very promising and I’m left wondering how long before it’s my turn to start queuing up at the dole office? I also wonder if I ought to be putting in extra effort to brown nose to give myself some edge or in some way a level of confidence and assurance that I won’t be the first person given the flick but is it a strategy that will really work? I somehow don’t think it will bear a great deal of significance one way or another, although I should be giving more effort than I have been regardless because I can tend to become a little unfocused and slack. When push comes to shove I can put in extra to achieve an outcome but it seems that it is becoming increasingly more apparent to me that I am slacking off a little too much. Can I pull myself out of this rut I keep finding myself in?

I don’t know but what I do know is that my heart and soul has long evaporated from the job that I do and I fail to see any compelling reason to sell my soul to a corporation that really has it’s own self interest at stake and no matter how much one is willing to give, when the threat of survival is present, it will serve its own benefit before those that rely on it for survival. That is simply the nature of the beast and is no different from the individual perspective. There are no assurances when the shit hits the fan and if things become that catastrophic then perhaps there will be people who pull the shortest straw and those that don’t but depending on how bad things go the straws will invariably become shorter and shorter.

In the end what good will worrying do? None! Unless I gain access to a reliable crystal ball then all the speculation regarding future events are merely mind games that only detract from what is real and that is today, right here and right now. With the games I play in my mind, imagining a possible future where catastrophic events are inevitable I only do myself a disservice by adding anxiety that is unnecessary and undesirable. When my mind goes into the future it is never a pleasant place so why do I do it? To prepare myself for the pain I will feel I guess but it is a pointless waste of energy that could be better placed with more constructive expenditure. Although employment security has been playing on my mind it is not the most pressing concern or activity that has taken my mind hostage, that is reserved to researching audio equipment that has preoccupied my thoughts with something other than doom and gloom.

What if? The question that is possibly the most futile question to ever be asked. What if? What if I lose my job? What if I can’t find another? What if I haven’t got an income? What if I lose everything? What if I become homeless? There it is the progression of what if. What if I become homeless? Well a question that is rather unpleasant to contemplate but even more difficult to imagine in any real sense considering I’ve never been homeless. I can imagine that I would be feeling pretty low, depressed and scared. I’d probably feel like the worlds biggest loser and possibly inhuman in some way. I might feel totally destitute and hopeless. I might even feel angry, lonely and hungry. OK so what if I feel all those things? What would it mean in the grand scheme of things? Could I survive? Others have and have regained their status for what it’s worth. Would I somehow be less capable than those that have survived such devastation? What if none of that is likely to happen? The worst case scenario is that I lose everything but do material things define who I am? Or do they merely give me a false sense worthiness by superficially declaring to the world of my status and success? That’s what the fear of losing everything amounts to, the loss of social status and of being looked down upon as being unworthy, along with the pain of the existential experience but I’d say more so because of the former. Some people even choose to end their lives because of it and it is sad that so much of our lives and identities are tied to the status of being enslaved to consumerist materialism, of being seen to be enmeshed in the grid of capitalism and how far up the ladder we are in the pyramid scheme. It is understandable that some people would rather die than face the possibility of being turned away from the social group they are accustomed to being in. It may seem absurd but surely that is why suicide rates increase with economic loss and it certainly makes one wonder at the the fragility of life when a set of seemingly superficial and extraneous circumstance can compel someone to rather die than experience loss of status. We all have our self destruct button even if we like to believe that we are immune to such folly. Press the right buttons and even the best of us is liable to crumble, nature will take care of it once it realises that our usefulness has expired.

It is a fearful proposition and it is not something enjoyable to presuppose but it may become reality in a particular set of circumstances. The head games that leave me contemplating the absolute worse possible outcome in any situation often robs me of the moment but it isn’t without some intrigue as well - to imagine in what way I could survive. Although I wouldn’t want to experience it first hand it is the domain of many in this world and one that could, given a set of unprecedented circumstances, eventuate; although unlikely given that I do have a place to go in the event of catastrophe and that is with family. In a way it curbs the worry of uncertainty because what can I do if things became so bad as the worst happened? Not much and besides there is an awful long progression and journey for it to end in this way and trying to imagine all possible happenings requires far too much energy and creativity to think about so I’m left with no option but to think about something else.

So the moral of this story is; when the question of what if begins to rear its head, cut to the chase and think of the worst possible outcome. Now try and construct the whole journey to that end and see how long before you lose interest and say Bah! What nonsense!

Audio Slave

Well the year is winding down and it really can’t come soon enough. I think I’ve tried to articulate my distaste for being enslaved to corporate machinery and the symbiotic relationship it has with consumerist ideology in previous posts and even though I have no way of escaping the nine to five treadmill any time soon lest the recession/depression takes care of that for me or if I even have the inclination to do so , I can nevertheless appreciate the brief reprieve of annual leave that is days away now, 10 days and counting, which will give the illusion of freedom. However brief it is, I will try my utmost to embrace each day as a celebration of emancipation that annual leave is akin to.

The television is off now and it has been to more or lesser extents recently, the only programs that I’ve been watching have ended for the year, so I see no reason to turn it on, to only have crap infiltrating the background with unappealing noise. As a result of poor Australian FTA viewing I have been enjoying my new found past time which has been an old favourite that has reinvigorated itself with technology and the advent of legal MP3 downloads. My interest in music has readily replaced the television as the primary mode of entertainment and there really isn’t much to miss having the television off, not that I’ve been watching a great deal of it since I moved back in March because the only channels that I pay any attention to are SBS and ABC and reception is poor or non existent here so the decision was essentially made for me, SBS is removed from sight and I have to contend with crappy analogue for ABC so switching off the TV is easily accomplished. However music it is proving to be an expensive venture, my new obsession with Hi-Fi is finding ways for me to spend and although I can’t claim to be an Audiophile I do like technology and have some dollars burning a hole in my pocket so why not do my bit for staving off the recession and spend big - well big for my bogan ways.

I received a Zhaolu D2.5 DAC last weekend and have it plugged into my PC emitting tunes form my hard drive into my Logitech speakers which I hope to replace very soon with proper bookshelf’s when my T-amp arrives hopefully this weekend .

I bought these from Coem Audio Australia http://www.coemaudio.com.au and the DAC arrived painlessly so went for an AMP to power the speakers that I have yet to choose, which has been keeping me awake at night trying to madly research which ones are worthy beasts to grind and ache to the abysmal sounds of Doom Metal powered by this combo of audio pleasure.

Well back to the search.

Global Gathering - Mission complete!

We can all feel safe and secure now that the coppers have arrested some 50 odd people at the Global Gathering festival on Sunday for possession and the more serious offense of dealing illicit drugs. I don’t know all the facts but it seems preposterous that they should claim a small  victory in the war against drugs for nabbing a few handfuls of drug users and a few people who probably had more than one ecky on hand, who are now deemed as hardcore drug dealers for over indulging in some ‘e’. The irony of the whole fiasco is that the Police were praising the 10000+ party goers for behaving themselves particularly well and condemning the few bad apples who floundered the law by indulging in some party drugs. Now it isn’t too far a stretch of the imagination that people were generally well behaved because instead of choosing to consume alcohol they perhaps were partaking in a little communal drugging themselves? If there were 10000 people getting off on juice the vibe would’ve been a little more rowdy to say the least. To say that only few baddies were found with drugs in such a large crowd is ridiculous. The more believable scenario is that the more opened mined folk chewed their pills before heading through the doors.

Even if they caught “all” the party folk who were drugging what does that really achieve? We now have to tie up court time, waste even more police resources preparing paper work and what not, all so a few generally law abiding citizens can get a slap on the wrist and have a black mark placed against their name. For What? Will it deter anyone? Will we see less drug possession at next years Global Gathering? Or will it merely appease a few naive mum’s and dad’s or concerned citizens with a media presence of the great job the police are doing to clean up the scum? If anything people will over indulge before hand and perhaps place themselves at even more harm by over doing things so they don’t get caught. Is it worth the possibility of overdose even to catch that one person dealing who is probably only  trying to fuel an addiction anyway? Is it worth the resources that could be put to better use?  Somehow I’m unconvinced by the praise the NSW Police are giving themselves for a job well done. Will this silly war on drugs ever come to an end so we can focus on effective discussions and measures to tackle the so called drug problem?

ISTP

Introverted Sensing Thinking Perceiving. I did one of those personality tests that you find online, in fact it was this one http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp and I received the high honour of scoring an ISTP. Well the high honour part is my contribution to the said label. Now I hear you ask so what? And so what indeed, because that is precisely the usefulness of these sorts of pigeon holing personality tests that some people find intoxicating and meaningful with their alleged insight into the soul of man. Although, having acquired this new knowledge of myself, I admit, it gave me a certain inner musing whilst gathering further information on this ISTP continuum I seem embedded into and even defined by. However I have come to the conclusion that whilst it allowed me to chuckle in agreement with some of the assessments claimed about this ISTP personality trait I possess, I can essentially find no real discerning relevance for anything other than it being an instrument used to pull one’s own dick.

I know, perhaps it is my ISTP speaking and my apparent intolerance for placing any weight upon feeling that is speaking, but can anyone tell me in what way are these type-casts of personality useful for? Unless it is just a glorified horoscope to amuse oneself with while reading the morning paper I cannot really make heads or tails as to why anyone would place any significant weight in trying to extrapolate further meaning from it.

I lie, there is one way that it can be used in a practical sense and that is by perhaps trying extract money out of your hip pocket, whether it is with a Jungian Myer-Brigg expert using some Archetype metaphorical language to flatter your subconscious into paying the 100 dollar plus an hour for a therapy session to examine the true nature of last night’s dream; where you were running through a rosy garden, when suddenly the petals all fell from the rose bushes and the Sunshine vanished behind ominous clouds and a dark shadow appeared out from the pond and then….. Or it may benefit those Scientologist’s when using some adulterated form of the Jung-Myer-Brigg personality test and giving you a Dianetic reading of your fucked up personality and concluding that you are a PIST (Pure Imbecile In Treatment) instead of ISTP and that it can only be cured by forking out cold hard cash to Ron hub Hubbard in your cub cub cupboard.

Anyway what more can I say, the forum that had the link to the personality test that I performed tonight also had a true believer declaring with rapture, testifying to the truth and accuracy of such tests while in the same paragrapgh extolling the virtues of reiki healing and other such psuedo therapeutic nonsense. Need I say more?

Clocking In

Today was a hard day. Although my thoughts seem to observe everyday as a hard day, it was particularly difficult today. On a scale between 0 and 10, with 0 being “slashing wrists time” and 10 being the rare “sheer ecstasy…I don’t want it ever to stop”, I rate today around a 3 or 4. It started when I looked at the clock this morning, my eyes flick open with a start and I look at the bedside alarm clock to see what time it is, certainly things seem ominous and the feeling I have closely resembles panic even before my eyes focus on the red digits glaring its mocking indifference and the damn thing is reading 9.03am. My next thought is what day is it, Saturday? Fuck no! It’s Tuesday! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Not good.

I jump out of bed, adrenalin surging through my nervous system, the fright or flight instinct is confusingly present and I’m disorientated by the influx of wakefulness that is abnormal for this time of day. My head starts scanning the options and after walking around aimlessly for a couple of seconds I make myself something to drink. Pouring the water in the glass reminds my bladder to take care of business. Even when the piss is gushing I’m panicking and in disbelief that I’d slept in, cursing myself for being..being what? Tired? Somehow it is my fault and it is, but what good is telling myself how wretched and inept I am? Well I tell myself that what’s done is done and proceed to continue with the usual routine, sitting down with a cigarette and a drink, dragging hard on the cigarette trying to make up lost time by smoking fast, but it’s pointless. I’m late! Smoking, thinking about how I can wind back time so I don’t have to face this predicament, so I don’t have to feel the shame of sleeping too much and not being an “early bird”. Then the crushing blow hits as the thought “fuck I hate this life” stirs from the abyss of self pity. My life force slips as I exhale the venomous fumes or perhaps the adrenalin surge ends and I seriously contemplate this thought, my focus narrows on these five words , savouring the truth of how wretched it is being enslaved to a clock. It reminds me of Camus’s Sisyphus rolling the rock up and down and the absurdity of doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result but the result is invariably the same. Each day I’m usurped from oblivion into a world that is governed by the hands of time.

The five words wrecked my day and I curse my insight and pessimism for revealing the truth of life. I say “truth” facetiously but the idea of being ruled by the cruel master of someone else’s time is one that I am constantly battling with. Acceptance is the crucial element in overcoming this formidable foe however it is one that frequently is overcome by the “truth”. I’m constantly racking my brain for escape from the slavery of the clock but am dumbfounded and almost beaten into submission and in effect that is the sense I get from life. Submission and Servitude, the great theme attached to working the nine to five grind, making my masters wealthy while the reward I receive is meager and unassuming, without passion and joy. Yet I am bound to at least appear grateful in my subservience but it is merely an appearance and it can’t be anything but a superficial acknowledgment that I serve in order to receive. However it is not without the acknowledgment that life is passing by while the clock hammers the seconds away, counting production output while the cashiers registers ka-ching the rhythm of profits filling the executive bonus pool with gold.

Like I said, acceptance is key to grappling with the existentially absurd and something I am yet to embrace. I keep trying to find the fortitude to foster the mind set of optimism required to ease the load of absurdity but pessimism prevails for the most part and days like today reinforce the possibility that I may be in for pain and suffering for a while to come and that my master will be the red digits on an alarm clock for the better part of the rest of my days. In truth accepting my plight or resigning myself to adapt to the long haul of many days and years performing the same scenario is probably the only source of relief that I possess but one that merely manifests in cognitive dissolution, a dissolution yet to resolve itself one way or another. The constant nag in my mind tells me that I only have thirty more years before I can own my time but the dread this vision stirs in the soul is unbearable and intolerable to entertain as a form of consolation.

Well the clock is telling me that it is long past the hour of calling it a night and the fear of a repeat of the calamity I faced this morning is now in the cortex of frontal lobe tissue, but my body is seemingly working on a different clock than that of the nine to five grind and it is why I feel so repulsed and helpless when staring at those menacing hands who unaware just circle in loops for the sole purpose of marking episodes in history.

Caffeine

I’m in an agitated state of intoxication. And what intoxicant am I on I hear you ask? Well my primary drug of choice is nicotine but that is not the drug that has so scrambled my brain cells into a mash of hypertensive jitteriness. That pleasure can be given to the exquisite elixir of the Gods, the black nectar; Coffea arabica . It is pulsing through my arteries, twitching and stimulating the fibres of my soul with heightened awareness and wakefulness. I bought a new coffee maker tonight and I just had to test it out and am now so caffeinated that I’m about to burst with jitter bugs.

Well I exaggerate but don’t let that stop you from brewing up some of your own, just to experiment a little and develop your tolerance just that little bit more. It’s Thursday night and a sleepless night before Friday isn’t anything you haven’t experienced before right? I had to make it sound more extravagant than what it really is just for proprietaries sake but it will undoubtedly give me untold nights unrest, considering I can brew up some ultra strong coffee in this new fan-dangled contraption and take caffeine toxicity to new extremes. I’m excited by the prospect of taking sleep deprivation into unchartered territory, although my limitation is around three nights without sleep, reality begins to shape shift into hallucination and delusion after that period however it might be different this time (famous last words of any junky).

A friend of mine has one, not exactly sure the technical name of it but I’ll call it the stove top brewer upper-er, it produces some nice coffee and I saw one at the supermarket and on impulse I had to have it, to add to my collection of caffeine paraphernalia. My leg is moving at the moment so I’m far from detoxed from that last hit. Writing seems to be boosting the hyper activity and now both legs are twitching in unison, the rhythmic dance of the wired.

Just thought I’d share the trivialities of my ever so ordinary night. If it’s good enough for Facebook then it’s good enough for twistedtripper.com

Goodnight ‘n’ don’t let those jitter bugs bite

Classical musing

As it says, presumably buried deep within the Bible, “No rest for the wicked” and so it is for this wicked soul. My apologies for the ignorance I exhibit to sacred texts but never fear coz Wikipedia is here which has confirmed the origin of the aforementioned quote as The Book of Isaiah. Although the Bible is oftentimes praised for its poetic and beautiful verse, I admittedly find it somewhat tedious to read and for the most part, my aesthetic is too base to find admiration in a series of books that speak in colourful language to articulate the meaning of existence. That is ostensibly defined as the glorification of God. Well that is the impression I get from Bible Bashers and from my limited knowledge of religious matters.

It has been pointed out to me from the most unlikely figures that the Bible is fundamental reading in order to appreciate some of histories great literary figures, like Shakespeare, whom I’m lead to believe, sources Biblical texts in many of his plays. I’m fond of some classical literature but I seem to have an aversion to Shakespeare, perhaps because I have shady memories from High School where we attempted to de-construct and analyse a couple of his plays, Othello was one and I also recall Macbeth, but it all flew over my head. Interest in poetry was pretty non existent at the time and even today it isn’t too appealing. Having to decipher Old-English and to then decrypt metaphorical speech into some contemporary point of reference is too hard for a simple and feeble minded person such as myself. Perhaps I could go back now to acquaint myself with such great literary heritage, now that I have a better grasp on language, however care factor is essentially zero and I have more pressing matters that need fulfilling. It isn’t to say that I wouldn’t mind possessing greater awareness of cultural heritage but it is something that requires extensive research and study to make gains, a big call in these times of idle distraction and the fast pace to nowhere we seem driven by. The best I can do is the occasional reading of poetry I find compelling and pleasurable, The Rhyme Of The Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is a favourite and the beauty of it is that Iron Maiden has a cut down version of this lyrical beast, set to music - I recommend having a listen if you are metallurgically minded. I was also directed to Faces In The Street by Henry Lawson when I was doing a short course in creative writing as something that would be up my alley. I found Faces In The Street chilling, provoking a profound sense of sorrow but the lecturer was right, I did find it fitting to my aesthetic. Perhaps one day in retirement the classical aesthetic will draw me into examining the gifts to be garnished from the masters of yesteryear.

Anyways more to the point, my weekly dose of insomnia has been fulfilled and I have no real idea if my wickedness has been attoned for by the sleepless angel keeping watch over my weary body but I sure could use some sleep regardless.

It’s over….at long last!

A new era is born and we now await to see if anything really changes or if the spectacle of the greater part of this year’s US presidential election campaign has been merely an extravagant infomercial or just plain old rhetoric. Although having a black fella as the President of The United States of America is a great milestone in history and certainly a symbolic event to mark the transition from slavery to equality, it remains to be seen if the great super power is ready to re-evaluate its position in the world and make changes that will liberate all humanity from the tyranny of its desire of world governance.

I liked Barack Obama, perhaps only because he possesses a fantastic talent in oration and also by the fact that he is not all that bad to look at either, I think I’m allowed to say that as a male without feeling queer. But my scepticism and cynicism is unperturbed by glossy looks and flashy rhetoric, on the face of it Obama is but one man and the White House is made up of many men and women who undoubtedly have their own agendas and visions they wish to enact. It is hard to imagine that all but the most superficial things can be changed with Obama or any other President Elect. One only need to watch Question Time in our own Parliament to be persuaded into disillusionment and it probably isn’t too far a stretch of the imagination to envisage a similar scenario happening in Congress. Next time you’re up late with insomnia flick the channel to Question Time and ask yourself “And we’re paying these guys to bicker like some bitterly married couple?”  It’s phenomenal, the amount of wasted time these parliamentarian’s get up to; couldn’t they just answer the questions without the nonsense? Even on prime time television they stomp on each other’s rhetoric without even trying to resolve the issue at hand, the same party line is slung from one side to the other and nothing seems to be achieved except greater confusion and a steadfast strangle hold of some slogan to batter the viewer with.

Perhaps the best outcome of the Obama victory is that it is now over, the long campaign that we’ve all become so acquainted with, is finished and we no longer have to bear witness to some foreign circus of bullshit. At least Australian election campaigns are over in a matter of weeks so we can be thankful for small miracles and being spared from extended infomercials inculcating us with some lame slogan. It has to be stated that I am now more famliar with US politics than I am with Australian, so one thing has been achieved with the media bombing and obsession with all things American and that is that I am ready to vote. The comedy of it all, shouldn’t we have polling booths ready globally considering more air time has been extended to the US presidentail election than any other cause so it seems hardly fair that we aren’t permitted to cast our votes. To be fair though, I did notice on Channel 7’s Sunrise Program that they were conducting a phone line poll on who would you vote for. Fucking Madness! “Australia! Don’t become America!” isn’t that a line from a song? Well are we now able to focus on the Australian politcal circus now that America has voted? One can only wish eh?

Self Indulgence

Another day goes by and nothing has happened. Events happen but it seems that each day is essentially the same. Sometimes I’m eager that something should happen but nothing ever does and when I think about it, there is absolutely nothing that can happen. That sounds a little over dramatic or excessive, boldly stating that nothing can happen but what is there that can? Seriously? Isn’t that why we create dramas within our minds, imagining some terrible outcome about arise and preparing ourselves for some misfortune. I’m pessimistic so I’m endlessly embodied within some catastrophe about to unfold but it could be that the opposite is true that you, the optimist, may be be confabulating the great fortune that you are about to receive. Perhaps I am merely projecting my own fanatical thinking upon a wider population which is totally errant and ill conceived, however I am of the opinion that human beings are for the most part selfish in nature and more often than not preoccupied with self. Well there are perhaps exceptions to the rule but the majority of people, I think, are in a constant dialogue with themselves over the events that are taking place and how it relates to them.

Call me cynical and I won’t deny it, but in all honesty if you examine the last 24 hours how much time was spent thinking about yourself? I’ll confess that pretty much the whole of the time that I’ve been conscious today has been thinking about me. But I’ll grant you that I am an exceptionally self absorbed individual and I’d say even narcissitic but that wouldn’t be correct in the true sense of the word. I know I am not painting a flattering image of myself and it is probably a caricature of my  flaws and how I see myself at moments of weakness but it is perhaps a telling indication of the level of involvement that I place on self. My excuse is only that I derive some senseless satisfaction from it and that it is a nasty habit I’ve developed and perhaps even a malady of my depraved mind,  like a parasite that has attached itself into the deepest caverns of consciousness, feasting upon the abundance and indulging itself on self.

But that isn’t to say that something won’t happen tomorrow, I know that I can certainly imagine some abominable event which could befall me and give me something at least to justify my deepest fears. But I can also imagine that it will be just another day. Now I’m not sure which is the lesser of two evils, nothing happening or something happening. You can begin to picture the anguish I face with having this uncertainty. That terrible something or that equally mediocre and deadening nothing. Which would you choose? I bet you’d think that tomorrow will be a great day but how can you be sure, isn’t there something that could go wrong? Just a tiny little thing that you couldn’t try and inflate and examine with a fine tooth comb, looking for the forensic evidence to prop up the self indulgence of thinking about yourself?