tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-46959664652318514152024-02-20T20:04:52.533+11:00Diary of an ExtrovertThe day to day diary of an Extrovert, a Poet, a Prophet, an Artist, a Developer, a Musician, a Philosopher, and a Nerd.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02764609392229128811noreply@blogger.comBlogger113125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4695966465231851415.post-74986936679851367522013-07-27T23:55:00.000+10:002013-07-29T08:33:08.406+10:00AI Gone Wrong<div style="text-align: justify;">
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This is a great little story I just heard about. An anonymous person posted on a forum the details of an elaborate little experiment using a video game called <i>Quake 3</i> and a learning AI.</div>
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The bots in this particular game had the ability to learn effective strategies where the aim is to kill the other players and not be killed. He put sixteen of them in a match together to see how good at the game they would get, and if they would become essentially invincible against a mere human...</div>
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And he completely forgot about them. He remembered <i>four years later</i>, and went to check on them.</div>
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After learning, adapting, and evolving for four years, he came back to his bots and assumed something was wrong.</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4Gq_PpkaeUA/UfPQaoUsg2I/AAAAAAAABFY/Dpiz4ZxJBr4/s1600/Quake+3-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4Gq_PpkaeUA/UfPQaoUsg2I/AAAAAAAABFY/Dpiz4ZxJBr4/s320/Quake+3-2.jpg" width="320" /></a>"I just checked on them but for some reason all the bots are just standing still. I'm gonna try changing the map... I guess it got stuck or something."</div>
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Various other posters commented:</div>
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"The only winning move logically for them, is to not play."<br />
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"Maybe they have learned that the best technique to survive is to make [sic] peace and to stand there for an eternity, waiting for a purpose or salvation."<br />
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"They've achieved something we couldn't. World peace."</div>
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It's pretty crazy, to think that sixteen AI programmed to kill each other in a free-for-all deathmatch could possibly find a peaceful solution and coexist in harmony.</div>
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But there's more. The story only gets better from there.</div>
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Assuming that something was broken, or bugged; the programmer decided to enter into the match to try and change the situation.</div>
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This was his report:</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fjd2DDaAEyc/UfPQa9B2FTI/AAAAAAAABFc/7SDdiUiNtYs/s1600/Quake+3-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fjd2DDaAEyc/UfPQa9B2FTI/AAAAAAAABFc/7SDdiUiNtYs/s320/Quake+3-1.jpg" width="320" /></a>"I joined the server and the bots still just stood there, but the [messed] up thing was [that] they would rotate to look at me, I walked around a little bit and they all just kept looking at me. So I grabbed a rail gun and [killed] one of them, they all ran for the nearest weapons, took me down, and the server crashed."</div>
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Not only did the AI achieve world peace, but they killed an intruder who threatened their peaceful existence.</div>
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It's certainly a scary thought. I've <a href="http://extrovertdiary.blogspot.com.au/2012/11/artificial-intelligence.html">posted</a> about AI before, and about how robots could never take over the world or kill humans unless they were programmed to.</div>
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This story is the perfect example of what could potentially happen if you told an AI to be an effective killer, and also survive.</div>
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This just makes you shiver.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02764609392229128811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4695966465231851415.post-65058876196477905272013-07-18T05:57:00.000+10:002013-07-18T05:57:24.845+10:00McDonalds Still in Tecoma<div style="text-align: justify;">
It was eight months ago that <a href="http://extrovertdiary.blogspot.com.au/2012/11/mcdonalds-in-tecoma.html">I wrote an entry</a> regarding the state of affairs between McDonalds and a tiny little community who want nothing to do with it. If you haven't read the other post, I'll make a long story short:<br />
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For over two years now, a little town has been fighting to keep McDonalds out of their town. It started as one person with a Facebook page and a petition. It became the support of hundreds who flooded local government meetings to let their opinions be heard.</div>
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Democracy was ignored, the government's decision was overruled by the Supreme Court, a pediatrician sold the land across the road from a primary school to McDonalds, and now they're trying to demolish a historically significant building just a few hundred metres from a national park to build a 24/7 fast food outlet.</div>
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Now, over 10,000 people have liked <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/NO-McDonalds-in-The-Dandenong-Ranges/220419864641673">the Facebook page</a>, McDonalds have hired private security at the site, and there is a permanent protest with people camping out on the proposed building site, even on the roof of the building to be demolished.</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lxCwIKT1S04/Ueb2c-WcKXI/AAAAAAAABFI/LbCMNNuhim8/s1600/Protest.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lxCwIKT1S04/Ueb2c-WcKXI/AAAAAAAABFI/LbCMNNuhim8/s320/Protest.jpg" width="320" /></a>The story has been covered by every major television station, radio station, and newspaper in Australia at least once a week for months, and has reached major networks across the world.</div>
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To put it into perspective: <a href="http://www.burgeroff.org/media/press-coverage/international/">this</a> is a list of news coverage just from <i>outside</i> Australia. Tecoma was once an unknown town, not even big enough for it's own postcode, now it is the talk of the country.</div>
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But the reason why I'm bringing it up again isn't just that. It's what has happened just recently. Amidst McDonalds hiring security, the protestors enlisting the support of lawyers on standby for any arrests made, and the 24/7 stand off, is the suing that has happened.</div>
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It might not be what you think. McDonalds is suing the protestors. Eight of them to be exact. Eight ordinary citizens with families to keep safe and bills to be payed, have been slapped in the face with an injunction from the Supreme Court.</div>
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These people are expected to pay for legal costs, security costs, land tax, rates, and more.</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Jyjxy758Il0/Ueb2bi0rjII/AAAAAAAABE4/4GhLaeLlvOY/s1600/Gnomes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Jyjxy758Il0/Ueb2bi0rjII/AAAAAAAABE4/4GhLaeLlvOY/s320/Gnomes.jpg" width="213" /></a>The protestors are describing this as blatant forms of bullying and terrorizing, in an attempt to scare the locals away.</div>
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McDonalds have stated that they "needed to seek relief from the court so that they can safely build the restaurant in accordance with planning approval.</div>
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Is that fair? Or is it bullying?</div>
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It didn't take long for this situation to be compared to the <i>McLibel</i> case in England. A lawsuit in which two environmental activists represented themselves against McDonalds in a ten year David and Goliath battle, making it the longest running case in English history.</div>
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It went on to become a documentary, which is described as "almost essential viewing up here in the Dandenongs," by Garry Muratore, a spokesperson for anti-McDonalds group <a href="http://www.burgeroff.org/">BurgerOff</a>.<br />
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Will Supreme Court interference and injunctions stop the protesting? Or is this battle only just beginning? </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02764609392229128811noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4695966465231851415.post-32318602605162505112013-07-16T11:46:00.000+10:002013-07-16T11:46:50.439+10:00Trend-Setting<div style="text-align: justify;">
My natural leadership has always lead to me being a bit of a trend-setter, especially with my younger siblings. I'm constantly finding people just do what I do because I'm often in a position of leadership or authority, especially children.</div>
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Even sometimes when it's related to fashion, like when I started wearing fedoras. But not like this before.</div>
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On one of the camps I spent the last two weeks on, we had a whole heap of nail polish, so the girls could get into the Christmas spirit by painting their nails green and red, gold, sparkly, etc. (It was a Christmas in July themed camp)</div>
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So in good Christmas spirit (and also because I'll do anything for the sake of true comedy) I asked one of the girls if she could paint my nails.<br />
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She promptly obliged. She barely even waited for me to sit down before one hand was bright purple and the other hot pink. Not long after that; they were covered in golden, sparkly glitter.<br />
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What happened next was truly remarkable.<br />
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Obviously; no other guys had even thought of getting their nails done, I'm not exactly a normal person, you see. But I went around the campsite showing them off and getting feedback. Everyone was very impressed.<br />
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As a joke, I suggested to one other guy that he should get his nails done, at first he blatantly refused, but after plenty of peer pressure from the nine and ten year old girls manning the nail-painting station, he eventually crumbled under the weight of their expectations and had his nails painted.<br />
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To make a long story short: After just one hour, myself, a grandfather of six, the stud leader that all the girls secretly like, the first aid guy, and a nine year old boy in my cabin <i>all had their nails painted</i>. I kid you not.<br />
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If you're the sort of person who can start trends just by jumping head-first into something seemingly ridiculous, just do a little experiment. See how far people will follow you.<br />
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But also watch out. Everything you do is always being watched. And it's scary how far people will go to follow the guy in charge. (WWII anyone?) </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02764609392229128811noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4695966465231851415.post-26023789949212498532013-07-15T18:41:00.000+10:002013-07-16T11:47:17.735+10:00Winter Holiday Camps<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Hqvi97naMnA/UeO1HWqLj1I/AAAAAAAABDE/FErB5jH15b8/s1600/Dress-Ups.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Hqvi97naMnA/UeO1HWqLj1I/AAAAAAAABDE/FErB5jH15b8/s320/Dress-Ups.JPG" width="320" /></a>The last two weeks were right up there as two of the biggest weeks of my life, right next to my trips to Mexico and India. I spent my entire school holidays, bar three days, leading on children's camps, specifically seven to twelve year old camps.<br />
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There were two camps: in the first week I had a Christian Youth Camp on Phillip Island, nearly two hours from my home in Melbourne, and a Southern Cross Kids' Camp just across the road from my church.<br />
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There was really only one vital difference: the kids.<br />
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CYC camps (Week 1) often attract kids who have likely grown up in Christian homes, or are otherwise connected to leaders on the camp, they're all well-off enough for their parents to pay upwards of $200 to spend half their Winter holidays on camp, and a lot of them will go on a CYC camp every time there's school holidays.<br />
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SCKCs (Week 2) bring in kids on the opposite side of the spectrum. In fact, the only way to get onto the camp is to be referred by a social worker, a chaplain, or similar. You see, every child on that camp had been the victim of some form of abuse or neglect.<br />
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To go from one camp to another with only one day's rest in between was a truly amazing experience. On the CYC camp we were wrestling with kids, cuddling kids, giving them piggy-packs when they behave, and putting them in wheelie bins when they don't.<br />
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Two days later, I was on a camp where because on the situations some of those kids have been on around physical or sexual abuse, and because of the delicate security of the leaders, we couldn't even pat them on the shoulder unless they gave us permission.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ok3fgiy0Ur4/UeO1IMmnPQI/AAAAAAAABDQ/Wi9_srK55JQ/s1600/Leaders.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ok3fgiy0Ur4/UeO1IMmnPQI/AAAAAAAABDQ/Wi9_srK55JQ/s320/Leaders.jpg" width="320" /></a>On the first camp, I led a cabin of four boys that I shared with one other leader, some rooms only had one leader, one room had seven kids in it. On the SCKC, every camper had their own personal buddy, and the two of them had to stick together like glue for the whole camp.<br />
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Having a one-to-one kid to leader ratio meant that I really got to know one kid, and he was really the only kid I got to know at all on the camp. But it also meant I could really get to know him, invest into him, guide him, and teach him.<br />
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On the CYC camp, I had to deal with kids wetting themselves, wetting the bed, wetting their clothes. I had to deal with a kid who bounced off the walls if he so much as looked at sugar, and one kid who spent half the camp discussing quantum physics and paradoxes, but that was it.<br />
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On camp number two, I had a kid who was the second youngest of five kids, and whose father ended up in hospital when he was very young. His poor mother was torn between an invalid husband and a newborn baby, and my camper was missed in all of that.<br />
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But that was one of the happier tales amongst that camp. There were kids on that camp who had been subject to childhoods I wouldn't inflict on my worst enemy, kids living with fifteen other foster children, kids forbidden from contacting their biological parents, kids who disrupted and behaved so badly it felt like a scene from a horror movie.<br />
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On camp number one, I shoved chocolate mousse into a girls face after she put tomato sauce in my hair. On camp number two, I couldn't be alone with my camper at any time.<br />
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On camp number one, we gave kids presents because it was a Christmas in July themed camp. On camp number two, we gave kids presents because they might not have any toys of their own.<br />
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On camp number one, we went to bed at nine thirty because the kids in our cabin did. On camp number two, we stayed up 'til all hours of the morning making photo albums for the kids so they had a happy memory to look back on.<br />
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On camp number one, we let the kids go down the street to get soft drink and lollies for a party on the last night of camp. On camp number two, we made absolute certain that no kids had any lollies or chocolate while they were on camp.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-v2WzH8GgGjE/UeO1H4NdqrI/AAAAAAAABDI/4x05KNAxyW8/s1600/Cabin+8.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-v2WzH8GgGjE/UeO1H4NdqrI/AAAAAAAABDI/4x05KNAxyW8/s320/Cabin+8.JPG" width="320" /></a>After camp number one, most of those kids would've gone to church a few days later with their parents. After camp number two, a lot of them wouldn't be going home to their parents, and a handful of them would have the bibles we gave them taken from them and thrown away.<br />
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I couldn't possibly pick a camp I enjoyed more. They were both so special in their own ways. So unique, and yet so similar. But they were simply too different to say that I preferred one over the other.<br />
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But I think I can say with absolute certainty that if I can do them again next year, I will. <br />
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So much happened, I have a bucket load of stories to write about, stay tuned, there'll be posts all week.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02764609392229128811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4695966465231851415.post-85452539864038406562013-07-06T22:57:00.003+10:002013-07-06T22:57:54.452+10:00Happy Birthday To Me<div style="text-align: justify;">
There's this prank we always pull on camps in my youth ministry where we choose a person, and regardless of who it is, or what day it is, during a meal on camp; we will tell everyone it's their birthday and sing Happy Birthday to them. Then for the next few hours at least, everyone will be asking if it's really their birthday.</div>
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I was on a camp last week so I couldn't pass up the opportunity to pull that one on someone. Being a new ministry, these guys hadn't seen this before, so one breakfast, I got up in front of all the campers and told them it was the director's birthday, and started a round of Happy Birthday.</div>
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I only told a couple of people that it wasn't really his birthday, but the kitchen staff came up to one of my collaborators and asked if we would like them to bake our director a birthday cake. My collaborator told them it was just a prank, so the kitchen staff took it one step further.</div>
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By the time lunch rolled around, only four hours later, they had made a huge chocolate cake that would feed every camper and leader, and they went so far as to make a giant fifty out of chocolate freckles right on the top of the cake.</div>
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Here's the kicker: our director is twenty-nine.</div>
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I've seen this prank done what must be a hundred times before, but I have never seen it go so far as to have the campsite staff go along with it, bake a cake, and then nearly double the supposed age of the prankee!</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VetP0fe0P4k/UdgT_K-_DpI/AAAAAAAABCs/QKNJCTvY2NM/s1600/Forty-Two.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VetP0fe0P4k/UdgT_K-_DpI/AAAAAAAABCs/QKNJCTvY2NM/s1600/Forty-Two.jpg" /></a>So now the director was in so deep he couldn't bring himself to tell the kids it was just a prank, so he went along with it and let the kids all think he was fifty years old. I remember the kids on my table that lunchtime saying "Wow! He looks a lot younger than fifty!" and "I thought he was like, thirty-something!"</div>
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Two days later, without any warning, he got me back. Without telling me beforehand, he got up one lunch and told everyone it was my forty-second birthday. Now, in case you don't already know: I'm eighteen. I look about twenty-five according to the kids on camp, but not forty-two.</div>
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So in good spirit, I went along with it. To the point where I deliberately tried to convince kids I was that old. Being an actor, I created a back story and a history for myself. Kids started asking if I was married, and had kids etc.</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kmvSkjoKw60/UdgT_nNBJXI/AAAAAAAABC0/4GgcupSyd-0/s1600/Lucy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kmvSkjoKw60/UdgT_nNBJXI/AAAAAAAABC0/4GgcupSyd-0/s320/Lucy.jpg" width="240" /></a>I became really good at answering the tough questions the skeptical kids were trying to stump me with. I was apparently born on the fourth of July, 1971, I'd been married for six years to my wife, Ellen, and I have a four-year-old daughter called Lucy.</div>
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And just because one particularly clever camper asked why I didn't have a wedding ring on, it was because I'm a carpenter, and I don't wear the ring because it could potentially be dangerous.</div>
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It got to the point where I had to produce a photo of my "daughter" to really prove myself to one girl who was adamant I was not forty-two. So I went through my iPod and found a photo of myself, my friend, and another friend's daughter.</div>
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So by the end of the camp, I had convinced not just the campers, but a couple of the leaders too, that not only had I celebrated my forty-second birthday this week, but that I had a wife and daughter waiting for me back home. </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02764609392229128811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4695966465231851415.post-50780187802393194902013-06-28T09:34:00.000+10:002013-06-28T09:34:16.711+10:00I'm Sick<div style="text-align: justify;">
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It's currently nine am, and I'm sick. Trust me, it's not a new experience, and I'm not putting myself up on a pedestal, I'm sure you've all been so sick that you've been burning up, had splitting headaches, watery eyes, runny noses, unrelenting coughs and asthma attacks all at once, but I just have to rant about how much it's driving me nuts.</div>
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I didn't sleep at all last night, besides the gnawing pain in my chest and throat, every time I was on the brink of falling asleep, I relaxed, and suddenly couldn't breathe and had a coughing fit.<br />
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I've spent the last entire week in bed, I haven't left the house in four days, not since I went to the doctor to get medication...</div>
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Which, by the way, has done absolutely nothing. Seriously, since I started taking a handful of drugs every day, I've only gotten worse and worse. They may as well be placebos, but now that I think about it, placebos would probably be more effective! It might look like I'm trying to get a vote of sympathy, but honestly I'm just venting.</div>
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I feel like it's four in the morning, I'm totally drunk, and my girlfriend just dumped me. So logically, because I'm clearly thinking straight, the first thing I would do is jump on Facebook and tell the whole world how much my life sucks.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Awbj1IbLINo/UczK3ch7_4I/AAAAAAAABCI/fNk0IZc2uG8/s1000/Medicine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Awbj1IbLINo/UczK3ch7_4I/AAAAAAAABCI/fNk0IZc2uG8/s320/Medicine.jpg" width="320" /></a>No doubt this will be full of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors.</div>
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But I could care less. If anything, messing up spelling deliberately will add to the authenticity, but thank goodness for spell-check, even if it always thinks your last name is a mistake.</div>
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It doesn't matter anyway though, because no one is on Facebook at four in the morning so it's all for nothing, but the drunk girlfriend-less guy thinks he's Shakespeare, so he goes and posts about thirty times. Of course I can go one better than that because I have a blog, so I can tell thousands of people how much <i>my</i> life sucks right now.</div>
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But let's be honest, at least half of my "hits" are just people Google searching for images and coming across the images on my blog, most of which I got from other people's blogs and various other sites.<br />
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Pretty sure I've only got two consistent readers anyway: Lenner Fisher, cheers mate, and my mum: who by the way will probably be annoyed that I spent twenty minutes ranting about how sick I am on my blog.</div>
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Did I mention that I'm leading on two children's camps these holidays? Yeah. Starting tomorrow, I'm going to be babysitting a bunch of primary school-aged children. That's not exactly something I can just cancel, or choose not to go to.</div>
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I've got a whole week of one camp, and a one day layover, on which is my eighteenth birthday party. I come home from camp, totally ruined, and probably still sick, and I have a raging party that night. Brilliant. Course, my birthday was nearly a month earlier than that, but this was the only available date we could manage.</div>
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Here's the kicker though, the day after the party, is another camp. Same demographic, same length of time, same purpose in ministry. One vital difference though:</div>
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Camp number one is a camp meant for Christian kids who have probably grown up in Christian families whose parents are well-off enough to send their kids away to a camp for the holidays.</div>
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Camp number two has a one-to-one kid to leader ratio, and all the kids there were recommended by a social worker or chaplain because they've experienced abuse or neglect, and this could be the only chance the whole year where they can really have a good time and feel loved and appreciated.</div>
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So that one will be physically demanding, but also emotionally intense.</div>
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Don't get me wrong, I'm so glad to have the opportunity to help these kids and just be their friend, and I'm sure there will be plenty of highlights. But man, I'm so messed up already from this bloody cold.</div>
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I have absolutely no doubt that this sickness came just days before the most intense two weeks of my life, and possibly the most important two weeks of some of these kid's lives.</div>
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Because trust me, I know exactly how life-changing camps can be, of any shape and size. So I literally just slapped myself in the face. I gave myself a searing headache, but I stopped myself from crawling up into the fetal position and crying until I got better.</div>
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So I'm just gonna use the power of positive reinforcement to pretend I'm not sick. Because let's face it, the drugs are doing bugger all.</div>
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So, be praying for me, for sickness, and for not being overrun with small children and dying during some cruel game of stacks on or something, as well as for the poor kid I will be looking after on camp number two.</div>
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So even though lying in bed all night and not being able to sleep at all has been the story of the whole week, I'm so exhausted after using all the possible reserves of energy left in my body to write what may be one of the longest diary entries yet, and possibly the longest sentence I've ever written, that I'm either going to crash like a rock when I try take two of getting some sleep today, or I'm simply going to collapse on desk.</div>
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Apologies for the ranting, and for the meaningless tangents and nonsense that isn't really related to anything. Thanks for the prayers, thank you to my two favourite readers, Lenny and mum, as well as to the Google image searchers who are not going to read this but are only in it for the pics.</div>
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And be on the lookout for a follow up post where I'll go more into detail on the two camps.<br />
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PS. If you are a consistent reader; (Good on you for making it this far down the page without quitting) comment, or something. It's a long shot I know, but I feel like I barely know you, and twenty-two thousand hits can't all be Google image searchers, right? <i>RIGHT?</i></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02764609392229128811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4695966465231851415.post-41741557174171920292013-06-22T15:53:00.000+10:002013-06-25T00:14:08.397+10:00The GAT<div style="text-align: justify;">
Every year, around about two weeks ago in June; the year twelves partake in what can only be described as three straight hours of unnecessary boredom. Teachers call it a <i>General Achievement Test</i>, students simple growl and bear their teeth whenever it is mentioned.</div>
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You see, the year twelves are all forced into a room for three straight hours to sit an exam that will not have any impact on most of their lives.</div>
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The GAT acts as a backup, should we miss our final exams. If we were so unwell that we couldn't make it to an end-of-year exam; the examiners would look at how well we did in the GAT and derive a score from that, as well as from all the other work from throughout the year.</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eunAee7gM2U/UcU67HGqnsI/AAAAAAAABBY/3C9ouQ5R5Cg/s1600/Sleeping.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eunAee7gM2U/UcU67HGqnsI/AAAAAAAABBY/3C9ouQ5R5Cg/s320/Sleeping.jpg" width="320" /></a>Of course, very few people miss their end-of-year exams, and the derived score is never as good as the alternative would've been, but it's designed to be a life saver.</div>
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The test has to cover every subject because it's a backup for every subject, so it feels like an endless list of multiple choice questions, most of which feel irrelevant to anything you're actually studying. The examiners expect us to take three hours to answer them all, but in reality, it takes most students about an hour.</div>
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So for the next two hours at least, most of us sit there in silence, doing whatever possible to entertain ourselves. There's the odd exception who are working right up until the three hour mark, but the ones who don't try could be done in thirty minutes.<br />
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Being a test, we can't take in any electronic devices obviously. So all we have are some pens, pencils, and paper.<br />
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Two hours is a really long time when all you've got is pen and paper to entertain yourself with. Of course, fifty years ago that would've been fine to keep us happy, but not today with our fast-paced electronic games and whizzbang doodle-wops.<br />
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But here's the kicker: because this exam is so meaningless to most of us, half the students just won't turn up, or won't do any of the questions, or just randomly answer the multiple choice questions by guessing.<br />
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As long as you seriously try to answer all the questions, you're already in the top fifty percent of students because half of them won't try at all.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tIKTMtDzPR4/UcU66zfjAmI/AAAAAAAABBc/GsAIwaTmRUo/s1600/Paper+Aeroplanes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tIKTMtDzPR4/UcU66zfjAmI/AAAAAAAABBc/GsAIwaTmRUo/s320/Paper+Aeroplanes.jpg" width="320" /></a>If you actually do well, you'll find yourself in the top ninety percent in every section of the exam, even if it's not relevant to any of your subjects.<br />
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But wait, there's more. Because we all despise the GAT, the people who give it to us, and the process of actually completing it; we more or less abuse it.<br />
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Each year some secret phrase is circulated around the year 12s and they all include it somewhere in the written section of their extended answer.<br />
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Last year it was <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWNaR-rxAic"><i>Call Me Maybe </i>by Carly Ray Jespen</a>, so all the students put the phrase "call me maybe" into their written response. In the past it's been <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kffacxfA7G4"><i>Baby</i> by Justin Bieber</a>, lyrics to ACDC songs, "Kevin '07", etc. This year it was the infamous<i> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT1etr4qDDM">"I'm just waiting for a mate"</a></i>.<br />
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Personally, being the day after my birthday, I took out a pink highlighter and wrote the lyrics to happy birthday all over all my pages, then I decorated it with balloons, cakes, presents, and all my best friends holding my hands while we sang happy birthday.<br />
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It was beautiful.<br />
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Then I spent the next two hours doing English homework because, let's face it, there was no way I was going to let those two hours be a complete waste of time. I managed to write out five full pages of a stage play script I've been working on for a few weeks.<br />
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Ladies and Gentlemen, the GAT.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02764609392229128811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4695966465231851415.post-17476387270881770182013-06-18T19:54:00.002+10:002013-06-25T00:33:04.303+10:00Game Review - Don't Starve<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HZQAbYOcTT4/UcAt6djeC1I/AAAAAAAABA4/tAvXLFmx6nU/s1600/Cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HZQAbYOcTT4/UcAt6djeC1I/AAAAAAAABA4/tAvXLFmx6nU/s400/Cover.jpg" width="550" /></a></div>
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<i>Don't Starve </i>is an open-world survival game developed and published by <i>Klei Entertainment</i>, downloadable on PC. It originally looked promising in its teasers and website, but failed to deliver on one of gaming's oldest rules, achievement for the player's hard work.</div>
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The game throws you into the deep end with no way out, and an unrealistically steep difficulty curve. By the time night rolls around, you realise just how far out of your depth you are, and the game continues to abuse you from then on.</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7iFNwJ363aE/UcAt-I9BObI/AAAAAAAABBA/eySxKuiEIJI/s1600/Title+Screen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="172" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7iFNwJ363aE/UcAt-I9BObI/AAAAAAAABBA/eySxKuiEIJI/s320/Title+Screen.jpg" width="320" /></a>To say this is an unforgiving game would be like saying stepping on Lego hurts. This game will ruin your dignity. Enemies that kill you before you see them, Winter that forces you to huddle around a campfire for weeks on end, and armour and weapons that break after only a handful of uses.</div>
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This game is relentless in its efforts to kill you, and when it does; it's game over. You've got to start again. And even if you do well and survive for a long time, all you get is a measly amount of experience that will unlock new characters to use, all of which have minor upgrades that make surviving slightly easier.<br />
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I've played my fare share of games with permanent death, but this falls short of all the others for one vital reason:</div>
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There are no achievements, no high scores, no upgrades, and only a handful of unlockable characters. Restarting the game with nothing more than the previous effort is both frustrating for players, and also extremely boring due to the repetitive nature of the game.<br />
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You will spend hours simply chopping down trees, mining rocks, and killing things to eat, and you will not be rewarded for it, leaving a feeling of being ripped off. </div>
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To have a player work for hours on establishing a base of operations, collecting, building, and fortifying, only to strip it away with an enemy that kills them in one hit, is cruel. At least a highscore table would give players something to work towards, but this game offers no incentive to play again.</div>
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This game is not for the feint of heart. It's dark, borderline evil. The game explores very disturbing subjects, and the art style looks like something out of a Tim Burton movie.</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aW8usBbBC7A/UcAt_BnfjfI/AAAAAAAABBI/ouvXbxC-JJc/s1600/Campfire.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="172" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aW8usBbBC7A/UcAt_BnfjfI/AAAAAAAABBI/ouvXbxC-JJc/s320/Campfire.jpg" width="320" /></a>I would not recommend this game at all. Whether the game frustrates you to the point of rage quitting, bores you to the point of never going back, or creeps you out to the point of not sleeping at night, it's <i>not </i>going to keep you engaged, entertained, or feeling like you got anything in return for your hard work.</div>
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<i>Don't Starve </i>by <i>Klei Entertainment</i>.</div>
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1/10 stars.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02764609392229128811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4695966465231851415.post-77520383050812640842013-06-11T06:53:00.000+10:002013-06-11T06:53:22.722+10:00When I Woke Up This Morning<div style="text-align: justify;">
When I woke up this morning; I was ten centimetres taller than before, I had increased sensitivity in both my sight and hearing, I felt stronger, smarter, and braver, like I could take on the world with this new sense of wisdom and intelligence I had never had before.</div>
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When I woke up this morning; I could run faster, jump higher, swim deeper,
and hold my breath longer. I was funnier, sharper, and more friendly than ever before.<br />
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When I woke up this morning; I had a profound sense of responsibility and intuition, like I was a whole other person. I was more attractive than I was yesterday, I had huge biceps and abs, and flowing golden locks like something out of a Disney movie.</div>
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When I woke up this morning; I had a pair of wings and I could breathe fire. I had laser eyes and could teleport and move through time like water. I had control over the elements and I used them only for the benefit of the human race.</div>
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When I woke up this morning; I saved the planet from an alien invasion and solved all the world's hunger problems and poverty, I freed all the slaves and healed all the sick, and the people of the world made me their king.</div>
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When I woke up this morning; I summoned the avengers together and cast the final horcrux into the darkest depths of Mordor. I defeated the dark lord and the snow began to dry up as Spring returned to Narnia. Aslan let out a
mighty roar as I let the torpedo go and watched the death star blow up. Gandalf and the others cheered my name as we returned to Earth in the USS Enterprise.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-L1AXogqJ3R8/UbY8NM9_I1I/AAAAAAAABAk/Bpm-Hp65LYM/s1600/Happy+Birthday.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-L1AXogqJ3R8/UbY8NM9_I1I/AAAAAAAABAk/Bpm-Hp65LYM/s320/Happy+Birthday.jpg" width="320" /></a>Actually, nothing changed. I am no different than I was yesterday, except for a handful of birthday presents. But turning eighteen is meant to be some magical moment when you become an <i>adult</i>, and take on the responsibilities of being an <i>adult</i>. The whole world respects you and your new-found rights as an <i>adult</i>, as you take on a new life in a brave new world as an <i>adult</i>.<br />
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No, but seriously: when the clock ticked over from 11:59.99pm on the tenth of June, and it became 12:00.00am on the eleventh; all of a sudden, without any physical, psychological, or spiritual change in me, the world around me, or anything else...<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-giDw5_JFieE/UbY8MOSS5AI/AAAAAAAABAc/WUmVHYI86Ho/s1600/Waking+Up.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-giDw5_JFieE/UbY8MOSS5AI/AAAAAAAABAc/WUmVHYI86Ho/s320/Waking+Up.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
I was suddenly allowed to drink alcohol, buy cigarettes, watch R-rated movies, vote for my preferred leader, apply to drive without the supervision of an adult, be married, raise or adopt kids, and travel the world without the permission of a parent or guardian, and sign up for services such as eBay, PayPal, Public posts on Facebook, Google AdSense, and any form of pornography.</div>
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In the split second between the clock reading 11:59.99pm and 12:00.00am; my entire life changed, without anything around me or in me actually changing at all.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02764609392229128811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4695966465231851415.post-91420732289948835662013-06-10T06:20:00.001+10:002013-06-25T00:36:45.768+10:00Movie Review - Sync<div style="text-align: justify;">
This morning; I had the absolute privilege of watching an independent feature length film called <i>Sync</i> that was uploaded to YouTube by <i>CorridorDigital</i> and <i>BAMMO</i> earlier this year.</div>
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I wouldn't normally review a film on my blog, but the people that made this deserve all the publicity and praise they can get, because I'm not kidding when I say that this was one of the best movies I have ever watched.</div>
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There was no multi-million dollar budget, there were no award winning actors, it wasn't even released on DVD or in cinemas.</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YWHiI2lrL1g/UbTiYLsa-DI/AAAAAAAABAI/NCeTpAfSxNM/s1600/Fast+Car.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="172" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YWHiI2lrL1g/UbTiYLsa-DI/AAAAAAAABAI/NCeTpAfSxNM/s320/Fast+Car.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Imagine two YouTube channels whose strengths lied in special effects and CGI. Put together, they created an engaging and original story, with a deep plot and several twists. They took quality actors, and breathtaking stunt artists and filled a world that rivalled any Hollywood blockbuster.</div>
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There was a powerful soundtrack, detailed costumes, hilarious jokes, fast cars, machine guns, stunning fight scenes, and quite frankly, a production value that made me forget the fact that I was watching an independent film on YouTube of all places.</div>
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There were moments that made me jump, there were moments that made me cry. I have nothing but respect for all the talented, clever people who worked on Sync and understood what it means to make a great movie...</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rC-rmfkBQYs/UbTiXnsRQZI/AAAAAAAABAE/8pN_NLx4pmQ/s1600/Guns.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="172" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rC-rmfkBQYs/UbTiXnsRQZI/AAAAAAAABAE/8pN_NLx4pmQ/s320/Guns.jpg" width="320" /></a>...Without the multi-million dollar budgets and the award winning actors. </div>
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This film was better than the majority of things that Hollywood spits out nowadays and this was just a couple of YouTubers with a dream.</div>
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You can watch the entire film online <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRLWs0dFiK0">here</a>.</div>
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<i>Sync</i> by <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/CorridorDigital"><i>CorridorDigital</i></a> and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/bammo"><i>BAMMO</i></a>.</div>
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9/10 stars. </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02764609392229128811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4695966465231851415.post-74913492326128079512013-06-09T21:29:00.000+10:002013-06-23T15:35:53.500+10:00Creative Ways to Say Goodbye<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5MIgrSF_nTg/UbRmxjvd1GI/AAAAAAAAA_0/szgnd4ltqw0/s1600/Waving+Goodbye.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5MIgrSF_nTg/UbRmxjvd1GI/AAAAAAAAA_0/szgnd4ltqw0/s320/Waving+Goodbye.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
If you've been reading my blog for a while, you might have worked out that I'm a very unorthodox kind of guy, and one thing I started doing recently is coming up with more creative ways to say goodbye, because, let's face it, "See ya later." is just boring, repetitive, and predictable.</div>
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My way of saying goodbye sounds beautiful, poetic, mysterious, and quite frankly, a little bit medieval, or Shakespeare.</div>
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It's really simple, there's two rules. Instead of using the word "later" (What an ambiguous term to use)</div>
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Rule 1: Just be as specific as possible</div>
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Rule 2: Without ever mentioning any measurement of time.</div>
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I'll give you a few examples:</div>
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"I'll see you when the crows next fly over the red dawn."</div>
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"I'll see you next on the eve of the full moon."</div>
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"I'll see you when the wolves cry once more."</div>
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"I'll see you before the roses bloom again." </div>
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You'll notice I never said "week", or "day", or even "year". "Dawn", "Dusk", "Sunrise" and "Sunset" are alright. Seasons are okay, as well as lunar cycles. If anything, lunar cycles are my favourites.</div>
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Of course, if anything, these are nearly just as ambiguous as "later", and half of them don't actually make any sense at all, but they sound fantastic! </div>
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Seriously, you can't argue that that's a great way to say goodbye. The only downside is that it takes a little while. But hey, if you've got just a couple of seconds to spare, why not say something interesting for a change. </div>
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Because, let's be honest, otherwise, people are really boring.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02764609392229128811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4695966465231851415.post-59972908098722422132013-06-05T13:02:00.000+10:002013-06-05T13:05:38.650+10:00More Than I Need to Do<div style="text-align: justify;">
I had a test today, and I had a hundred minutes to complete it in. I finished it in twenty-five. But as I got up and left, feeling the eyes of everyone in the room watching this kid who finished the test in a fifth of the time we had available walk across the room, paper in hand, listening to the faint murmurs of kids exclaim at the speed with which he answered the questions, I couldn't help but wonder if I had been too brief with my answers.</div>
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The test had written responses, so it wasn't like I could go down and write C, D, B, A, C, A... etc. I had to describe, elaborate, and explain my arguments and analysis. But I only filled in one page of lined paper, and barely scratched a second.</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UxuMAQJfXy4/Ua6pUABw2NI/AAAAAAAAA_c/E1d1dUoUXRI/s1600/Taking+a+Test.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UxuMAQJfXy4/Ua6pUABw2NI/AAAAAAAAA_c/E1d1dUoUXRI/s320/Taking+a+Test.jpg" width="320" /></a>Why is it that we're constantly encouraged to write more? Last year I did a similar thing and the teacher told me I had to write more. But what if I elaborately explained everything I needed to in a very concise and precise answer?</div>
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I never feel right writing more than I have to. I find that if I keep trying to squeeze out more and more information; I will repeat myself, and become monotonous.<br />
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And who cares if an essay has a word limit of 1250. That's a maximum, it doesn't say anything about a minimum. Surely it should be fine for me to only write 600 words if I get out everything I had to.</div>
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On the flipside; there's something deeply satisfying about being the first one to finish and leaving the room an hour and a half before everyone else. Today, I had time to go home after the test and write this entry before I go back to school for the next two periods. Talk about a bonus!</div>
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I remember in grade four, once a day we would have a short maths quiz. It would only be simple questions and it was quite literally a race. We would race down the page, writing answers in a flurry of scribbles, and when we finished we would stand up and yell out "done!"</div>
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There was so much satisfaction from winning those quizzes, especially as often as I did. I would win four out of five times, and every day my time got shorter and shorter. See, we timed ourselves as well. The teacher held a stopwatch and told us our times as we finished.</div>
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At the start of the year it would take us nearly five minutes to answer the hundred questions. By the end of the year, the fastest of us were consistently finishing in less than a minute. We were penalised a couple of seconds for wrong answers, but we nailed it every time.</div>
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Those were the good old days, when rushing through a test, regardless of whether you were right or not, was encouraged. Nowadays, we get ten minutes in which to just look at the test and read everything about four times over before we're even allowed to pick up the pen.</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-182jM-I6Hdg/Ua6pUeI9aTI/AAAAAAAAA_g/vudsf5n9VtQ/s1600/Taking+a+Test+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-182jM-I6Hdg/Ua6pUeI9aTI/AAAAAAAAA_g/vudsf5n9VtQ/s320/Taking+a+Test+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Then we have three hours to spend writing non-stop. What began as a competition to see who could finish first, is now a competition to see who can write the most. Nowadays, we come out of exams saying "I did four pages!", "Well I did five!", "Ha! I did six and a half!", "What? Liar!"</div>
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Seriously, I don't find that impressive. I could do six and a half pages if I just repeated myself over and over and over and over and over and over.</div>
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But I don't. Because I don't want to write any more than I need to.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02764609392229128811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4695966465231851415.post-22795953023834889432013-06-03T15:13:00.000+10:002013-06-03T15:28:26.538+10:00King Kong<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VrE_X6dPiIE/UawlSaOQgwI/AAAAAAAAA_E/KnRkjykEO7A/s1600/King+Kong.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VrE_X6dPiIE/UawlSaOQgwI/AAAAAAAAA_E/KnRkjykEO7A/s320/King+Kong.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Last week I saw a preview of King King - the musical. I was so privileged to go and see a world premiering musical three weeks before opening night, and even more so to be sitting in the fourth row, but what was a greater privilege was to be witness to such an incredible piece of art.</div>
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King Kong is the second largest musical ever produced, and whether that's budget or man-hours or physical size, I don't know, but it's certainly one of the greatest.</div>
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It can't compete with classics like Phantom of the Opera or Wicked in terms of it's music. It was obvious from the get-go that this was a story first, with music written around it.</div>
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It might not have been the best musically, but it ticks every other box in my opinion. I could go on for hours about the lighting alone, or the sound design, the costumes, the multimedia, the set, <b><i>the 1.1 tonne gorilla puppet that roared so loud it shook the theatre like a clap of thunder!</i></b></div>
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It reminded me a little of <i>Life of Pi</i>. It's not a particularly great story, but my goodness you could just sit and stare at the special effects for days on end.</div>
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This musical could quite easily revolutionise the industry with its contemporary music, mind blowing lighting array, state-of-the-art sound design, an LED screen covering the entire back wall, <b><i>or the fact that they had a 1.1 tonne gorilla marionette jump from one building to another!</i></b></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HTwwaM4HvH8/UawlSULLaJI/AAAAAAAAA_I/JtQ2EF2DtX0/s1600/Eureka+Tower.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HTwwaM4HvH8/UawlSULLaJI/AAAAAAAAA_I/JtQ2EF2DtX0/s400/Eureka+Tower.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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To create a puppet of that magnitude is one thing, but to have its face move with such emotion that the audience becomes emotionally invested in his fate is extraordinary.</div>
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I'm not going to give away any other details, but I strongly recommend
seeing it, regardless of whether or not you're a fan of musicals.<br />
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This musical is simply stunning, even without the giant gorilla. Every single element of this production is beautiful, and mind-blowing in its size and scale. They've gone all out on every detail, and it shows.</div>
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It is the Mona Lisa of musicals.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02764609392229128811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4695966465231851415.post-82714435844787147642013-06-02T21:34:00.000+10:002013-06-02T21:34:10.899+10:00Things I Remember - Part Two<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iPRcaeW3WMY/UassNeqBpDI/AAAAAAAAA-0/Mt7PoKdGUmU/s1600/Remembering.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iPRcaeW3WMY/UassNeqBpDI/AAAAAAAAA-0/Mt7PoKdGUmU/s320/Remembering.jpg" width="320" /></a><a href="http://extrovertdiary.blogspot.com.au/2012/11/things-i-remember.html">I wrote quite a while ago</a> about some random snapshots of fragmented memories I have from when I was younger. I'm not even sure if they are all memories, some may be dreams, or false memories my brain put together from old stories and photos. But there's so much more in my mind than just what I posted then.</div>
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This is another list of strange and random memories from my black hole of a brain.</div>
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I remember the lyrics and tune to a song from my first school musical in 2007. I never even sang that song because I wasn't in the chorus, but I still remember it.</div>
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I remember the name of the horse belonging to the antagonist from a TV show called Saddle Club. It was called <i>Ruby</i>.</div>
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I remember Martha, from Mexico. Everyone thought she had a huge crush on me. I'll probably never know if that was true or not.</div>
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I remember getting a Bubble O Bill ice-cream on the way home from kindergarten.</div>
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I remember pulling an all-nighter in Japan one night. </div>
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I remember not wanting to go to bed one year when daylight savings started because it was still light outside.</div>
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I remember being too scared to fight the boss in the first level of Super Mario 64 and therefore, never getting past the first level for several years.</div>
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I remember my teacher telling me not to use coloured pencils for writing on my first day of school.</div>
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I remember the "love tunnel" from primary school. If a boy and girl were in there at the same time, alone. Rules are, they had to kiss.</div>
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I remember watching <i>Matilda</i> for the first time at school. It was pyjama day for the grade sixes in our last week of primary school.</div>
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I remember getting chips in a cup, a hotdog, and a milkshake after the service at my old church.</div>
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I remember eating an actual Mexican nacho while I was in Mexico. We were in an arcade at the time.</div>
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I remember having my grade one teacher read <i>The Never Ending Tree</i> to us at the end of every Friday while we lay on the floor and looked up at the ceiling fan spinning above us.</div>
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I remember being left behind at the beach on a camp in year seven. I had to hitch hike back to the campsite. When I got back; I had a shower and went to dinner where no one even noticed I was missing. To this day I have only told a couple of people that story.</div>
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I remember going on a weekend getaway into the desert while I was in Mexico. I remember having breakfast in a big room, and swimming in a pool for hours and hours with no sunscreen. I was so sunburnt I could barely sleep.</div>
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I remember trying to watch a movie in the reflection of a window in the lounge room whilst sitting on my bed upstairs in my bedroom. I didn't see a whole lot, I just didn't want to go to bed. That movie was <i>The Fifth Element</i>, and I finally watched it properly last month.</div>
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I remember nothing of real use, but I remember everything of real value.</div>
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It's memories like these that make me miss a simpler time: when the biggest problem you faced each day was what to have for breakfast.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02764609392229128811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4695966465231851415.post-42289173798993042452013-06-01T22:07:00.000+10:002013-06-23T15:35:57.239+10:00Messing With Telemarketers<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sfvLb_2eBMI/UaniP2J0vfI/AAAAAAAAA-M/ynhFZoj3Q4I/s1600/Angry+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="206" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sfvLb_2eBMI/UaniP2J0vfI/AAAAAAAAA-M/ynhFZoj3Q4I/s320/Angry+1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Telemarketers are such a nuisance in so many ways. But they don't have to be. I find it's best to take life's pains and turn them into pleasure. So here is a list of ways to make phone calls from telemarketers fun and enjoyable.<br />
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Order a pizza</h3>
This one works best if you identify a telemarketer before you even pick up the phone, with a caller ID for example. Don't even wait for them to talk, just start ordering pizza and see how long it takes for them to hang up on you.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>You can always start simple and if they don't hang up early, get more and more extravagant. Hawaiian, Margherita, and Meat Lovers are all simple, and if they don't hang up after that, ask if they have any pizzas with grapes, or chocolate, or salmon. Just make it stupid and fun, and see if they go along with it.<br />
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Chances are, they wont.<br />
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Sell them something</h3>
They're always trying to sell you something. Turn the tables on them. Try to sell them something of yours. Anything, a couch, a fridge, your pokémon card collection.<br />
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Start by asking a bunch of irrelevant questions, like if they earn more than twenty thousand dollars a year, ask if they're the bill-payer in their household, ask if they'd like help on their credit, etc.<br />
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If they're still with you after that, ask if they'd be interested in whatever product you have to offer. Here's the trick, you have to stay on the phone longer than them. You cannot hang up. I was on the phone with one guy for ten minutes before he got bored. <br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HWP_Wf3a8CU/UaniQiPVN2I/AAAAAAAAA-U/TyTJYbweRmo/s1600/Angry+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HWP_Wf3a8CU/UaniQiPVN2I/AAAAAAAAA-U/TyTJYbweRmo/s320/Angry+2.jpg" width="274" /></a></div>
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Go deaf</h3>
This one is a really good way to get out of a phone call without just hanging up on them. Say "Hello?" wait a little bit and then say "Hello?", and that's basically it. Just keep saying "Hello?" and "Is anyone there?" until you think you've made your point. You can hang up, or keep going until they do.<br />
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Say Yes</h3>
...To <i>everything</i>. In fact, all you can do is say yes to any question they ask you. Until they hang up, you have a one word vocabulary. This one will surprisingly take a long time, because telemarketers are notorious for asking questions where they want you to say yes. You might find the phone call going on for more than five minutes before they ask an open-ended question.<br />
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Phone a friend</h3>
This one also works best if you work out who they are before you pick up. You'll also want to get a friend to help you. The situation is that you're the host of <i>Who Wants To Be a Millionaire</i> and the contestant has just asked to phone a friend.<br />
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So when you pick up, immediately explain who you are and what you're doing. (You're the host of a game show and Bill or John or someone has asked to phone a friend, then say you've got thirty seconds.)<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PDGeEOdwpYY/UanjAOS2lZI/AAAAAAAAA-k/4lXhm3AOtvw/s1600/Telemarketers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PDGeEOdwpYY/UanjAOS2lZI/AAAAAAAAA-k/4lXhm3AOtvw/s320/Telemarketers.jpg" width="320" /></a>Hand the phone to a friend and give them thirty seconds to ask a question, and give four possible answers. As soon as the thirty seconds are up, hang up, even if it's half-way through a sentence. Really stupid and simple questions are hilarious, like "What is the colour of the sky?", but it's also fun to make it seem as realistic as possible.<br />
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I actually once had a telemarketer answer the question correctly like nothing was out of the ordinary.<br />
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Murder someone</h3>
This one is a classic. When they start trying to sell you something. Go along with it. Seem genuinely interested in what they have to say and make it sound like you're actually going to buy it. Then completely out of the blue, even half way through a sentence, start screaming like you're being killed. Just go absolutely nuts.<br />
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Then, while still screaming, hang up.<br />
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Go and get your dad</h3>
This one is good for messing with them without putting any effort in whatsoever. When they ask if you're the bill-payer in the household or whatever, say no, and then tell them you're going to go and get your dad. Put the phone down somewhere and leave it there. Put it on speaker so you know exactly when they hang up, and just see how long it takes them to get bored.<br />
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If you're with friends; place bets on how long it will be before they hang up.<br />
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Serenade them</h3>
Sing them a love song. If you're not the musical sort of person, put the phone up to a speaker and play a love song. If you like, you can give a quick intro like a radio DJ would. Say something about love song dedications in a really smooth, deep voice before you play a really cheesy love song. This one can actually make someone's day if you make it sound genuine.<br />
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Redirect their calls</h3>
If you come to recognise telemarketers numbers, you can use certain programs such as Skype and Google Voice to redirect specific numbers to any other numbers. You can send telemarketer's calls to your friends, your enemies, anyone. There are people who redirect telemarketers to the church of Scientology, annoying receptionists, even sex lines. <br />
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Of course nothing is more satisfying than sending their calls to <i>other</i> telemarketers. Seriously. Redirect every call from a telemarketer to another telemarketer.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VzsWCz0uuvQ/UaniRHN_huI/AAAAAAAAA-Y/UYyvnrfvZZg/s1600/Telemarketer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VzsWCz0uuvQ/UaniRHN_huI/AAAAAAAAA-Y/UYyvnrfvZZg/s320/Telemarketer.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Call them back</h3>
This is absolutely my favourite one. I had this one telemarketer who called me over and over and over. It was the same guy every time. It got to the point where I remembered his name and memorised the number on the caller ID. I saved the number in my phone as "telemarketer" so I knew who it was every time he called.<br />
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Whenever I got bored, I called him. I called him just to see how he was doing, ask him if he wanted to do something after work, maybe get a drink or see a movie, I even asked him for directions when I was lost once. The best part was probably calling him by name when he picked up the phone.<br />
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Of course, the conversations never lasted very long, and he stopped calling me after that, so I left him alone. But for that month where we called each other multiple times a week, it was pure bliss.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02764609392229128811noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4695966465231851415.post-67379490019221588122013-05-31T23:28:00.000+10:002013-06-01T13:20:50.674+10:00Shrek<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xKXiYAPb1E8/UailQ0D1bPI/AAAAAAAAA98/wNfxalM6pEI/s1600/Shrek.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xKXiYAPb1E8/UailQ0D1bPI/AAAAAAAAA98/wNfxalM6pEI/s320/Shrek.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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One year, just as the school year was finishing, and it was that last week of school where all the reports are done, there's no more work and there's nothing left to do.</div>
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We'd already packed up the tables and stacked the chairs in the corner of the classrooms and gone into the presentation space to chill for the last couple of hours before we could go home for the Summer holidays.</div>
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With nothing else to do; the teachers decided to put on a movie. That movie was <i>Shrek</i>.</div>
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So with the entire year level in the one room, (about two hundred kids) we started watching Shrek.</div>
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I kid you not, every single student in that room quoted the entire movie from start to finish, including the musical numbers.</div>
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Now, Shrek is one of those movies that everyone knows all the lines from, but I'd never seen anything like this before. Two hundred kids quoted <i>the entire movie</i>, no one complained, we just went along with it.</div>
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We didn't miss a single line, songs and all. It was truly one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02764609392229128811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4695966465231851415.post-71691251151271515772013-05-30T16:31:00.000+10:002013-05-30T16:38:56.964+10:00Typecasts<div style="text-align: justify;">
For anyone not familiar with theatre terms, a typecast is short for "typical cast", as in, a typical part for an actor. A part that an actor typically plays. Every actor has a typecast, some are blatantly obvious, like the ones I mentioned <a href="http://extrovertdiary.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/name-games.html">on Monday</a>, some are more subtle. But since I posted that entry on Monday about typecasts and such, I've had a lot of readers ask me what my typecast is.</div>
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The funny thing about being in a Theatre Studies class is that you do a lot of improvisation and experimentation. When you work with an amateur theatre and do three or four shows a year, it can take quite a while for a typecast to come out.</div>
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And even longer with movies. If you did a movie a year, it would take a long time for a typecast to be established, like Jennifer Lawrence for example. She's really exploded into the Hollywood scene in the last year years, and even still she doesn't have a clear typecast.</div>
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But as I was saying, being in a class full of improvisation means that every five minutes is something new, and after just a couple of weeks, everyone in the class had established a very strong typecast.</div>
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After a couple of weeks, you could go around the room and describe the persona that each student automatically jumps to in an improvisation game. You could even accurately portray them and the whole class would know exactly who you were pretending to be.</div>
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There's Karl the creep, Ellie the stuck-up princess, Josh the sweet-talking charmer, Olivia the bogan, and more. Some even have two typecasts, Saranne for example is either a creature resembling Gollum from The Lord of the Rings, or a posh Brit.</div>
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As for <i>my</i> typecast? I'm the punching bag. I am the disposable one that is either killed off, seriously injured, or dumped. It started a few years ago in drama class. We did a Disney princess spin-off, where I was "Prince Charming". Except that I was fat and repulsive.</div>
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The Princess hated me, the audience hated me, and I was beaten in battle by a blind, crippled dragon with fairy wings. Someone decided it would be funny if a shoe was thrown at my head during the play from offstage.</div>
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That quickly became a running joke. Every exercise and game we played eventually involved a shoe being thrown at me from offstage.</div>
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But it didn't stop there. Sometimes it was more violent than that. It was very common for me to end up dead, often brutally murdered. Even more common was having my wife leave me, my girlfriend leave me, or being rejected after asking someone out.</div>
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For the life of me, I'll never know how, but that tradition continued throughout the years, including the shoe throwing act. But in the last four years of acting, I have been shot, stabbed, strangled, suffocated, drowned, burned, mauled, haunted, and tortured, all multiple times.</div>
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I've been through nuclear wars, zombie apocalypses, and my own funeral, and I've had my heart broken by women hundreds of times.</div>
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Earlier this year we were studying Greek theatre, which is rather morbid. We looked at one play in particular called Agamemnon, in which a king had been killed. We did a number of different excerpts from the play, in various different groups, outdoors, indoors, scripted, improvised, for several weeks.</div>
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Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. It could be much worse. But there you go. That's <i>my</i> typecast. </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02764609392229128811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4695966465231851415.post-66543368815183812752013-05-27T01:03:00.000+10:002013-05-31T01:13:57.605+10:00Name Games<div style="text-align: justify;">
Every time someone says anything; you have an idea in your head of what it might look like. We don't put any thought into these images, they just seem to come out of mid-air. But they're always based on a past experience.</div>
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For example; when I started writing my novel, I couldn't help but picture the protagonist waking up in my bed, in my house. Eventually I was able to change that notion by thinking up a house for him to live in, but my intuitive reaction was to put him in something that I was already familiar with.</div>
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This week I've discussed this concept with some people, specifically around names. I realised that a lot of names have very strong judgements associated with them, for me personally anyway. Some names I hear them and immediately think of a particular type of person.<br />
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Kind of like a typecast, only backwards. A typecast is a role someone is always cast in because it's just what you picture them in when you think about casting them. For example; Arnold Schwarzenegger has a very distinct typecast. He will always play the stone-cold, robotic killer.</div>
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Cameron Diaz will always play the romantic lead, Morgan Freeman will always be a lovable character, and Eddie Murphy will always be very eccentric. Regardless of the character they play, those are some very blatant typecasts.</div>
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As I was saying, it works both ways. A Mafia Boss will always be slightly overweight, (Perhaps because they're always Italian) God will always have a soothing baritone voice, Henchmen come in twos, and one or both of them are stupid, and Disney Princesses will always have a lovely singing voice.</div>
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But what I noticed this week is that it goes further than that. All the way down to just names. Read this list of names and picture the person in your head intuitively, don't think, just imagine:</div>
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Lucy, Jared, Ellen, Bruce, Ellie, Sarah.</div>
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I'll tell you what, I immediately go to the same stereotypes every time. Lucy is a very young girl, five or six, and very cute. Jared is a crazy red head. Ellen has long brown hair. Bruce is a big guy, in height and girth. Ellie is a cute teenager. And Sarah has blonde hair, maybe a little bit wavy.</div>
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Most of those have been drawn on from very powerful experiences that I go back to whenever I hear those names. If I ever wrote a poem or a story or a song about a little girl; her name would be Lucy. If I ever wrote about a crazy red-head; his name would be Jared. That's just how it is.</div>
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And this obviously won't be the same for everyone, or anyone at all for that matter, and those names might not stick out at all to you, like <i>David</i> for example doesn't have any image associated with it for me personally. It's completely neutral.</div>
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But I'm curious to hear what other stereotypes people have of particular names.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02764609392229128811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4695966465231851415.post-23282930147488342602013-05-23T17:05:00.000+10:002013-06-21T08:39:20.633+10:00Yolo<div style="text-align: justify;">
I despise that word. I actually hate how significant that word has become in today's culture. It stands for "You Only Live Once." What began as a simple excuse to do things that you might never have another chance to do has become a phenomenon that has actually changed people's world views.</div>
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Similar concepts have existed in history for hundreds of years, but the term was popularised by Canadian Rapper <i>Drake</i> in 2011. It soon became an internet phenomenon, especially on Twitter. People would tweet something like "Wasn't sure about going skydiving, but #yolo." It made sense, you only live once, so make the most of it and take the opportunity to skydive.</div>
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Eventually it became stupid. "This milk is off but #yolo." What? No! Drinking off milk is not something that should be on your bucket list, and the thought that you only get one chance to live your life does not mean you should jump at every opportunity to anything at all.</div>
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Then it became nonsensical. "My dog is really cute. #yolo." That doesn't even make sense. But sticking #yolo at the end of every phrase regardless of whether it made sense or not is not what bothers me. Little kids on the internet will always say stupid things that don't make sense and that's never going to change.</div>
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What bothers me is what came next. "I was gonna quit smoking but #yolo.", "Got totally wasted tonight. #yolo.", "Got in a fist fight at the station. #yolo." Those are paraphrases of actual tweets/Facebook posts from people I know. People who are now using "yolo" as an excuse to do stupid things.</div>
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Don't get me wrong, I'm all for making the most of your life because you only get one chance, but "yolo" has become an excuse for people to do stupid things. It suggests to people that they should do whatever they want because you only live once, so make the most of it.<br />
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Unfortunately, too many people think that "making the most of it" correlates to hedonism. "You only live once, so take dangerous risks and do stupid things right?" Whatever happened to doing good things and changing the world because you only live once? That's what I call making the most of it.<br />
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The most notable example being a Tweet posted by aspiring rapper Ervin McKinness just prior to his death that described driving drunk at 120 mph (193 km/h): "Drunk af going 120 drifting corners #F***It YOLO."<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CFf09GAQd5E/UZ2_FJ7EtjI/AAAAAAAAA8w/Q6MeYQeTbeM/s1600/Binge+Drinking.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="219" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CFf09GAQd5E/UZ2_FJ7EtjI/AAAAAAAAA8w/Q6MeYQeTbeM/s320/Binge+Drinking.jpg" width="320" /></a>On top of that, it suggests to people that they should do whatever they want regardless of consequences. "You Only Live Once" not only blatantly disregards the concept of eternal life, but allows people to ignore the consequences of their actions.<br />
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Because if you're going to be dead one day, why should you care about what happens then if you're no longer here?<br />
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It seems an extreme example, but #yolo is apparently an ultimatum that portrays a blissful life, no matter who or what you hurt along the way. Or that's what you might think when people choose to binge drink and do drugs just because they're going to die one day anyway.<br />
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If everyone lived their lives with no regard for their health, or the health of future generations, we could wipe out the human race within weeks.<br />
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I'll never <i>ever </i>suggest that someone does something because they only live once. Because if there's eternal life after Earth, and even if there isn't; the choices you make today will effect your life and the lives of the people around you <i>forever</i>. </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02764609392229128811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4695966465231851415.post-37536746141189042252013-05-17T23:19:00.000+10:002013-05-17T23:22:40.038+10:00Poetry Friday - Don't Wake Me Up<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jq_f36v4LYs/UZYvDhgq1AI/AAAAAAAAA8Y/1dBNtCjv83g/s1600/Sleeping+Cat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="227" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jq_f36v4LYs/UZYvDhgq1AI/AAAAAAAAA8Y/1dBNtCjv83g/s320/Sleeping+Cat.jpg" width="320" /></a>I live in a world where,</div>
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Dreams come true.</div>
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But when I wake up,</div>
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My world says adieu.</div>
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In my dreams,</div>
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Everything’s right.</div>
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Everything’s good,</div>
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In the middle of night.</div>
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Memories become dreams,</div>
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And dreams become shadows.</div>
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Nights become fun,</div>
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And days become mellow.</div>
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Right becomes wrong,</div>
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And truth becomes lies.</div>
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Foes become friends,</div>
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And ground becomes sky.</div>
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Days never end,</div>
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And nights never start.</div>
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The truth in my head,</div>
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Are the lies in my heart.</div>
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Up becomes down,</div>
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Left becomes right.</div>
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Strangers are friends,</div>
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In the middle of night.</div>
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Don’t wake me up,</div>
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Wake me tomorrow.</div>
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Let me lie forever,</div>
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In the dreams of my sorrow.</div>
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Don’t wake me up,</div>
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Don’t end my dream.</div>
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Don’t make me go back,</div>
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To wherever I’ve been.</div>
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I’ll stay here forever,</div>
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Where everything’s green.</div>
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Don’t wake me up,</div>
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From the land of my dreams.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02764609392229128811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4695966465231851415.post-28236787171703094762013-05-11T13:33:00.001+10:002013-05-11T13:33:46.796+10:00"Where Are You Going To Go?"<div style="text-align: justify;">
Whenever I tell people that next year I'm going on a pilgrimage, they always ask me "Where are you going to go?" and the answer is always the same. I don't know. That's the point, I don't want to know. I don't want to have my entire life from birth to death planned out already for me.<br />
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If you've read my <a href="http://extrovertdiary.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/freedom-of-city.html">entry about freedom</a>; you might know what I'm getting at. People often think when I tell them I want to get away from society that I want to avoid responsibilities, or that I'm scared of those responsibilities. That's not it at all.</div>
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And it's not because I don't want to get stuck in a rut and live a mediocre, mundane life. I know I could still fulfil all of society's expectations and still have a fulfilling life, the point is that I don't <i>want </i>to <i>have to </i>fulfil all of society's expectations.</div>
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Once I've finished year twelve and gotten my VCE, I'm going to go on a pilgrimage. I don't know where I'll go or how long I'll be, but I know one thing, if I'm going to spend the rest of my life in uni, or working, paying bills and taxes with a house and a car, which is what I'm "meant" to do, then I at least want one year of my life that belongs to me, and not to the world.</div>
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I want one year to be free, to not worry about jumping through society's hoops, to not have to pay bills and taxes for things I don't need, to not worry about getting a job to get money so ultimately I can pay to keep working.</div>
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And don't get me wrong, I'm not running off into the bush to become a hermit, I'm going to volunteer in shelters, churches, and anywhere where I can do good and help the community. I'll still be contributing to society. Perhaps when I get back from my trip I'll jump through their hoops again, but until then, I'm going to be free.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02764609392229128811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4695966465231851415.post-41368992678211035262013-05-07T20:45:00.000+10:002013-05-07T20:45:08.909+10:00Happily Ever After<div style="text-align: justify;">
All my favourite movies are either Disney sing-alongs or animated family movies at the least. I love children's stories and fairy tales for one big reason. "They all lived happily ever after." I love my happy endings. In fact; I struggle to watch movies that are sad.</div>
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Sad movies are the ones I usually only watch once and then avoid because I just find them depressing. Even if they're only a little bit sad, I couldn't imagine deliberately putting myself through a depressing experience for entertainment.</div>
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Happy endings used to be the norm. It was very nearly a requirement of a narrative that it have a happy ending. "The good ended happily and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means." - A well known quote from Oscar Wilde's <i>The Importance of Being Ernest</i>.</div>
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Unfortunately, that's not the case any more. Someone decided that happy endings aren't <i>realistic</i> enough, and all of a sudden books, movies, plays, and musicals were being encouraged to be confronting, traumatic, and<i> "modern"</i>.</div>
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I find this to be a very stupid philosophy to have. First of all, since when were happy endings unrealistic? Some people legitimately live happy, fulfilling lives. Perhaps not all the time, but that's why protagonists have obstacles to overcome. They get through their problems and live happily ever after.</div>
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Someone once tried to convince me that children's stories shouldn't have happy endings because it creates unrealistic expectations of life for children. Seriously!? You want to offer children depressing stories because it will set them up for a life of misery and low expectations? No wonder there's such an epidemic of depression in western society.</div>
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Perhaps life isn't peachy for everyone, but if you tell kids that there lives will be miserable, then OF COURSE THEY WILL BE! Because kids won't strive for happiness if they've never seen an example of happily ever after.</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zBN1CMPgpo8/UYjY9VJyEhI/AAAAAAAAA7Y/7uugluVAufQ/s1600/Sunset.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="170" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zBN1CMPgpo8/UYjY9VJyEhI/AAAAAAAAA7Y/7uugluVAufQ/s320/Sunset.jpg" width="320" /></a>And besides all that; who wants to go and see a play or a movie for a realistic experience that perfectly reflects life? I certainly don't! I go to movies and plays to escape life and pretend I'm somewhere else, somewhere where they do all live happily ever after.</div>
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In fact, that's why we have art in the first place! Movies and plays and books' primary duty is to help the audience escape reality. That's why they have a suspension of disbelief! Because you don't want to be in the real world; you want to be in the fictional world presented in front of you.</div>
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Of course there's a place for traumatic narratives that leave the audience in tears, and seeking counselling, like true stories, and narratives based on real events, like <i>Titanic</i> for example. But there's no reason to shun happy endings.</div>
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I don't know why, but there's suddenly been a big push to create "realistic" art. That's just stupid. In a world full of problems, I think the best thing for us is a little more happily ever after.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02764609392229128811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4695966465231851415.post-76893345143818010142013-05-05T23:27:00.001+10:002013-05-07T20:36:30.010+10:00One Thing They All Had In Common<div style="text-align: justify;">
I was at World Vision's <i>Global Leadership Conference</i> a few years ago, and the conference opened with this fantastic video clip explaining the one thing all the great leaders in the world had in common. It showed pictures of all kinds of leaders: monarchs, dictators, ambassadors, politicians, etc.</div>
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According to the voice over in the video; all the great leaders in the world had one thing in common, one secret that made them a great leader, a secret that had been unlocked and was going to be shared with the people attending the conference.</div>
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<a name='more'></a>That secret was...<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RJUUBAJQ-2A/UYZYU1SxkFI/AAAAAAAAA68/ErgxBU71M1k/s1600/Barack+Obama.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="253" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RJUUBAJQ-2A/UYZYU1SxkFI/AAAAAAAAA68/ErgxBU71M1k/s320/Barack+Obama.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Their scarves.</div>
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The clip then proceeded to show us all the same photos, but with the various types of scarves worn by all the leaders being highlighted, and what's funny is that all the leaders in the clip were wearing scarves.</div>
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Now, obviously, they deliberately picked out pictures of great leaders wearing scarves, but it was a very anti-climatic joke, and we were all handed scarves at the start of the conference like it would actually make us better leaders, and they played a part in the rest of the conference and we got to take them home, and it was just a very funny joke, like we were all going to be amazing leaders because of our new superpowers.</div>
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That weekend, I was leading in the children's ministry at my church, so I thought "Why not?" and I put on my<i> </i>"leadership scarf" as I like to call it. Now, I don't think that scarf made me a better leader, but that night at church, our senior minister, our youth pastor, and our young adults pastor were all wearing scarves.</div>
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...Yeah. Weird, right?</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02764609392229128811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4695966465231851415.post-63308794890362848402013-05-01T23:13:00.000+10:002013-05-01T23:13:48.948+10:00Ghoughpteighbteau<div style="text-align: justify;">
The word <i>Ghoti</i> can be pronounced two ways. If you don't already know how to pronounce this unusual word; I'll give you a clue: It's not <i>go-tee</i>. It's not even close.</div>
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The word <i>Ghoti</i> has been around for at least a hundred and fifty years, and it's a brilliant way to describe the inconsistencies in the English language, specifically in spelling and pronounciation.</div>
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Ever had a teacher tell you to sound out a word to work out how to spell it? I think we all know that rarely works, and this word is an exaggeration of the problems associated with English spelling and pronunciation. </div>
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But I won't leave you hanging any longer, I'll tell you how this infamous word is pronounced.</div>
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<a name='more'></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lh9nLKkU0PY/UYES-Foz2JI/AAAAAAAAA6o/MWLBBoZjFyM/s1600/Fish.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="170" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lh9nLKkU0PY/UYES-Foz2JI/AAAAAAAAA6o/MWLBBoZjFyM/s320/Fish.jpg" width="320" /></a><i>Fish</i>. That's it. Fish. I'll explain:<br />
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The word <i>enough</i> has a <i>gh</i> making an "f" sound.</div>
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The word <i>women</i> (plural) has an <i>o</i> making an "i" sound.</div>
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And the word <i>nation</i> has a <i>ti</i> making a "sh" sound.</div>
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By this logic, we can conclude that <i>ghoti</i> should be pronounced like "fish".</div>
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But wait. There's more. A slightly lesser known pronunciation exists, using the same concept to further illustrate the problems in English.</div>
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<i>Though</i> has a silent <i>gh</i>.</div>
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<i>People</i> has a silent <i>o</i>.</div>
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<i>Ballet</i> has a silent <i>t</i>.</div>
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And <i>business</i> has a silent <i>i</i>.</div>
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Therefore; <i>ghoti</i> should actually make no noise. It is a completely silent word.</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ITJauNkGGfw/UYES9_XiPnI/AAAAAAAAA6k/OUsHTf2bjNs/s1600/Ghoti.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ITJauNkGGfw/UYES9_XiPnI/AAAAAAAAA6k/OUsHTf2bjNs/s320/Ghoti.jpg" width="320" /></a>Which brings me back to the title of this entry. Can anyone work out what that word is? <i>Ghoughpteighbteau</i>?</div>
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...</div>
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It's pronounced "Potato".</div>
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(If you still can't work it out, I'll give you a clue: The first <i>gh</i> comes from <i>hiccough</i>.)</div>
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See if you can do any clever shuffling of letters to make your own "ghoti words".</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02764609392229128811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4695966465231851415.post-2644814038706769732013-04-30T15:36:00.000+10:002013-04-30T15:36:53.644+10:00Song of the Month - Paradox<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-enDjdhUaNyE/UX9VF0LisaI/AAAAAAAAA6U/IRXH2aXaldY/s1600/Infinity.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-enDjdhUaNyE/UX9VF0LisaI/AAAAAAAAA6U/IRXH2aXaldY/s320/Infinity.jpg" width="320" /></a><i>Paradox</i> is an older song on the <i>Infinity</i> album that I wrote, probably my best. It's got a seriously catchy riff. Like all good techno songs it's repetitive, and I'll probably end up using it as the background music for a video game some time, probably a shooter of some kind.</div>
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This song took me a long time to get right, and even still I fiddled with it more. I have two remixes and I'm working on a third. The riff is great, I just want to get all the other parts to work together to make it perfect. This version I've uploaded is the original. The lame vocal part features my voice.</div>
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It doesn't have any depth or meaning, it's just an awesome riff that popped into my head one day that I just had to turn into a song. One day it might become the theme song for it's own flash game. </div>
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<a name='more'></a>Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. As per usual, please don't attempt to download the song or steal it in anyway.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02764609392229128811noreply@blogger.com0