Hear Ye! Since 1998.

Archived Posts for March 1998

Please note: The posts on this page are at least 3 years old. Links may be broken, information may be out of date, and the views expressed in the posts may no longer be held.
29
Mar 98
Sun

Daylight Saving

Daylight saving ends today (in NSW, Australia anyway), clocks are set back one hour.

Starcraft goes GOLD!

Finally!! It should arrive in Australia within a month, or even a fortnight. Read it at Blizzard.

Battlezone

Got a copy of Battlezone from my cousin (thanks a million!) as a 2-month in advance birthday present. It’s totally awesome, sort of like a cross between Heavy Gear/Strike Force Centauri where you can also control the battle from an overhead view… see Activision for a better description :)

Getright

Checked the Getright about dialog box today. Didn’t realise I downloaded so much with it! I guess I should register it now :)

gright.gif (2059 bytes)

Eight gigs :). I think that if you do the maths and assume a 3kb/sec download (yeah right…), if you were to download 8Gb in one shot, it would take one month (31 days), 24 hours a day non-stop.

25
Mar 98
Wed

Blood

Finally got around to writing an entry. Donated some blood yesterday. Got some free food and stickers (oh wow) for my trouble. Painful? Only when the needle goes in and when it comes out. And also when they prick your finger to test if “you’ve got enough blood” (nobody told me about getting your finger pricked beforehand).

Food & Veganism

I don’t understand this Vegan crap. As far as I can see there are two reasons behind Veganism.

1. “It’s cruel to animals” (many citing Christian ideals). Well that’s crap. What about all the omnivorous animals out there? What, are they cruel too? Should you shoot them so they don’t kill any more animals? I mean, there’s nothing you can say to justify an aversion to the consumption of animal products. Really. Our appendix is about 5cm long (or something like that), and useless. There’s good reason for that. We’re not grass eaters. We’re also meant to eat meat.

2. “Do you know what’s in your food?” (for example, they express their disgust at what is rumoured to go into McDonald’s beef patties, like all sorts of body parts). Well I think that if (1) Food tastes good and (2) It won’t kill you in the long or short term, then there’s nothing wrong with it. Honestly, who cares what’s in your food if it tastes good and isn’t too unhealthy?

I could go on and on but I can’t be bothered.

Only in America…

Two kids 11 and 13 gunned down 5 of their classmates yesterday. One of them rang the fire bell to get the school to file out of class, and when they did, they fired around 30 shots at them. 11 were injured. Pretty shocking, but I guess that’s what you get when a state doesn’t make it illegal for minors to possess firearms(!!). They shot from about 100m away, and had four shotguns/rifles between them. Link to CNN.

Yeltsin

Haha. Russia has “political stability”? I think not. A couple days ago, Boris sacked his entire cabinet, including the Prime Minister. Too much Vodka probably.

21
Mar 98
Sat

Car

It arrived yesterday. The whole garage has got that “new car” smell. You know that they even sell spray-on “new car” fragrances? Bagged myself a new CD as well – a freebie we managed to get out of the Lexus dealers. In fact, I’m listening to it now :)

19
Mar 98
Thu

Athletics Carnival

Ouch. I knew I was asking for it. My second toe on my right foot is pretty much shredded. Anyway, today I had my last ever school athletics carnival. They held it at the place that’s going to be used for the Sydney 2000 Olympics Warm-Up Track, so it was one of those rough red rubbery surfaces. I ran the 200m (non-c’ships) and the 100m championships. Now I run barefooted as I don’t have spikes (never saw the need to shell out $70-100 for something you’re gonna use so little). The 200m was sort of alright. I came first, but since I hadn’t run since last year, I was really buggered. In addition to this, running barefoot is a killer on these surfaces, and in the space of around 25 seconds (I didn’t get my time), one of my toes had already developed a fairly large blister. The 100, was much much worse. I had pre-qualified for the championship event from last year (I didn’t even know until about 1 week beforehand), and unlike the rest of the guys, I had done absolutely no training. I hadn’t even run a 100m since last year. Worse still, they all had spikes, and I was, like, the only one without spikes. Yeah – a little el cheapo Asian kid running in the c’ships? Worse yet, although I’m in Year 12, I’m only 16, so running in the Under 17 event meant that everyone else was a year below. I was gonna get kicked for sure.

It turned out that I came 6th out of 8th which is in my mind pretty good, seeing the no training, no spikes and cut up toe. As soon as I came out of the blocks, I felt the blister split open. Rip. Not a nice feeling, so I sort of grimaced and kept running. I think I ran 12 point something seconds (again I didn’t bother to get the time). The winning time was a friggin 11.11s or something – a school record. Fast? Bloody lightning! I inspected my injury and a whole chunk of skin had ripped off, not completely, but a three-quarter circle patch. Painful and really inconvenient. I’m gonna be hobbling around school tomorrow :). Never again barefoot like that. It’s alright if you’re only running one race, but two? Nope. Apparently, someone else got all his toes cut up worse than mine by running barefoot, so I really can’t complain too much.

  10:35pm (GMT +10.00)  •  Life  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

More Athletics

Cherns you bastard :). I’ve got this friend, and basically we spend every lesson bagging each other about how good we are at things. Yes, getting bagged out for being good instead of crap :) Anyway, he used to be in the swimming team (but isn’t anymore by choice), and I used to be in the athletics team (but I aren’t, again by choice). So basically, he’s really good swimmer, and I’m a good athlete (but not as good an athlete as he is a swimmer, although he’ll say it the other way around :). Every class we’ll pay each other out about how fast each of us can swim/run. Unfortunately, he got the upper hand today. I broke the school 50m record all the way back in Year 3, 1989 – 8.21s I think. There’s a misprint in the school homework diary which meant that I’d been gipped of my record (ie: I wasn’t listed), but Chernih brought back the records listing from the primary school competition held last Tueday. And sure enough, my record still stood. So for the whole bloody day he’s showing everyone, making a big fuss about how I’ve held a record for 9-10 years and so on. Luckily he doesn’t know I was age champion the same year (it’s unlikely he’ll be reading this page, so that’s why I mentioned it), or I’d be in an even worse position. And my comeback about, “I’ll see you swimming in the Olympics” is sorta useless when he has actual physical evidence with him. Grrr.

  10:35pm (GMT +10.00)  •  Life  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 
16
Mar 98
Mon

New Car

The new car’s coming in this Saturday. Woohoo! I’ve decided to add a car odometer reading on the left column, just so you can see the mileage click up. We travel further in a fortnight than some do in a whole year :). Click on more info for past readings, and perhaps a graph if I get the time… The full page should be up by the time I upload this, including stats like kilometres a day, the story behind why it’s rising like that and so on.

  6:43pm (GMT +10.00)  •  Life  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 
11
Mar 98
Wed

Why Write?

The “why write” section has been written. Now to create a nice header pic and to upload all the stuff.

English Oral Assessment

Had an oral assessment today. I had to give a 5 minute speech to a panel of teachers on how an article related to topic of “Crossing Boundaries”. Anyway, there were three teachers listening. One of the things I noticed was that the whole thing was a total setup. Firstly, I noticed the mannerisms of each teacher. One had a smile, was attentive, nodded his head in acknowledgment of a point, and generally was polite through the whole of my speech. The one in the middle was seated forward slightly, and he stared at me with a frown or grimace through the entire speech. The one on the right didn’t event look at me! He had his head down looking at something (I think it was my article, or the marking roll). Teachers simply do not do that. I’m willing to bet money that it was a set up. Why would they bother? Well I have a couple theories : in public speaking, you have to make eye contact with everyone. With only one teacher being attentive (that stare is really offputting), it’s all to easy to spend all your time looking at that person, and thus in effect you are speaking to only one person, and not the rest of the audience. Secondly, they’re testing confidence or something. As I said, the stare is offputting – it makes you think that you’re saying something wrong, or the teacher doesn’t know what the hell you’re on about. Not true (they said my presentation was “very clear” and they didn’t have to ask any questions, so that must have been a good thing – and the one that said I was very clear was the starer :). In fact, the only thing that put me off for half a second was when the “supportive” teacher nodded his head. And it was a big nod. Distracting.

The time limit of 5 minutes was strictly enforced, and a teacher would ring a warning bell at 4 minutes. Now, the “supportive” teacher was really slack. I was halfway through my second card (I used 3 cards), and he held out his hand as if I was drawing up towards 4 minutes. I knew this was in no way the case, but I still had a smear of doubt in my mind. Anyway, he holds his hand over the bell for a whole minute, then withdraws it. At this time I’m thinking “What the Hell?”. In the end I made the five minutes right on the dot. I reckon this set up was to see if I would speed up my speech and talk faster (not a good thing). I’m not sure if I did, but if I did, it was just as well – I wouldn’t have otherwise made the time limit.

So why have I bothered typing this? Well, it’s just a couple of helpful observations in case you are in a similar situation. You may identify if it is a set up, and act accordingly. I still think it’s slack though. It is a speaking assessment, but still, you shouldn’t try to put off the speaker…

Hahahahahaha

I got this off Shlonglor’s page, and I just had to put it in …

Fresh off of the Associated Press Wire

AP – Monica Lewinsky, in a statement released today, countered President Clinton’s firm denial: “I have had enough. This whole experience has left a bitter taste in my mouth, and I can’t stomach any more. I feel as if I am getting the shaft, that this ugly matter has come to a head and blown up in my face.

“This may be a load to handle, but when things are hard, that is when I am at my best. I have faced hard things in the past, and I know what is coming. I will meet this challenge the only way I know how: head on.

“I have licked bigger things than this before, and I will again. No one will ever be able to say that Monica Lewinsky isn’t a finisher, that she quit before the job was done. I will work non-stop and fight this, blow by blow, until I am wiped clean of this dirty affair. I will not be stained by it. Thank you.” Monica Lewinsky

  10:04pm (GMT +10.00)  •  Humour  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 
9
Mar 98
Mon

The New HSC

All 2 Unit subjects?? The new HSC system sucks. Simple as that. Thank goodness I finish school this year. The government should listen to the independent schools board – the standard of students graduating will drop. If everyone can do well, where’s the competition? Anyway it’s funny that Sydney Grammar School (I think that’s the one) is threatening to pull out of the entire HSC system if the new reforms go through. Haha, I’d like to see that. Bloody government doesn’t know what the hell they’re doing…

8
Mar 98
Sun

Aqua

There’s something about Aqua’s music that makes it fun to listen to. I know that it sounds stupid or annoying or whatever etc. etc., but I find their music enjoyable. As the band says about their own music: “it’s so … it’s so … corny”. So it is intentional. Secondly, they’re Danish, and they have strong foreign accents, but when they sing, that accent disappears. It’s the same with any other foreign based bands/singers (Celine Dion, The Corrs etc.) … they all seem to revert to an American accent when singing. How do they do that?

  9:33pm (GMT +10.00)  •  Music  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 
6
Mar 98
Fri

Why write?

The why write a journal should be up soon.

4
Mar 98
Wed

Stereograms

You know those really weird pictures that are just a load of coloured dots? The ones where you have to look at them funnily and then you’re supposed to see a 3D image come out? Well after five years, I finally managed to get one to work! I know you’re meant to focus your eyes so that you’re staring beyond the picture, and there are a few ways of doing this. However, the one I was looking at was framed, and there was light reflecting off the glass, and you could see what was in the room. So I ignored the picture itself, and looked at the reflection of a desk in the room. Five minutes later POP, I noticed an eagle sort of extrude outwards. Three seconds later, it was gone, but I saw it! I saw it! No – stereograms are not a scam (as one of my friends think) – just keep staring.

  10:15pm (GMT +10.00)  •  Life  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

Police Murderer Found

Amazing. The police force managed to track down the cop-killer within a couple days. Good on them. Maybe it’s not so amazing since they were only teens and one of them turned themselves in. Four people were arrested, one charged with murder and attempted murder, and the other three charged with concealing a serious crime. What happened to the drugs though? Aren’t they getting busted for trying to sell them?

1
Mar 98
Sun

In the News…

On the front page of the SMH today was a story about two off-duty policemen who got stabbed (one who’s now dead) by two teens (aged 16 and 18) on the street. Allegedly, the two teens were trying to sell off some crack to the policemen, and when the policemen tried to arrest them, one of the teens pulled out a knifed and stabs two of them. The other policemen (there were 3) gives chase, but has to abort because of his wounded companions. Obviously, the teens didn’t give a stuff that they were police (they showed them their badges before they got stabbed). The bastards that exist in the world today are incredible… Well I think the only way to stop this sort of thing is to give the police more power. This may or may not be wise, due to the corruption present (although thankfully much of it has been weeded out), but if you have a society in which police lose their power, and society loses respect for them, then you have a society in deep $#!+.

Oasis

Hosers. All o’ them. And their music isn’t too much better either. This letter to the SMH (2/3/98) says it all :

Lords of the Skies
If I, as an average citizen, became drunk and annoyed and harassed others on an aeroplane I would be restrained and then placed into the hands of police with charges ranging up to and relating to “Safety of Aircraft”.

But if I was a sportsman or a pop group…

C. J. Macpherson,
Tamworth.

Haha, Tandberg’s drawn a cartoon above the letter with one of the Oasis guys, guitar in hand, yelling at a couple of extremely irate passengers : “IT’S COMMON COURTESY TO REQUEST AN F’N ENCORE!”.

  10:55pm (GMT +10.00)  •  Music  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

Journal Mods

A modification to the journal page – added words for thought. Don’t worry – it won’t always be as morbid as the one currently (the Leviticus quotes). It might be quotes such as “I smoked marijuana but did not enhale” (from the “oral sex is not sex” man). I’ll update it whenever something new pops up. And I’ll probably move these words into the Random Quotes thingy at the bottom of the page (need to make a note of this).

Mardi Gras — Go Fred Nile!

[Please note that the views held in this post have changed to a certain extent over the many intervening years. This post has been preserved, uncensored, but should be read in the context of the thousands of posts which follow it.]

I can’t believe it. The friggin’ Uniting Church marched in the Mardi Gras. Tolerance they preach. Yes tolerance by all means. Diversity, yeah ok, I’ll even buy that. But marching in the Mardi Gras is supporting the damn thing.

I don’t care what people say, but homosexuality is wrong. In a society which is predominantly Christian, it is incredible to see how much it does tolerate this behaviour. In Biblical times, people were stoned. Homosexuality is immoral, no matter what people say. It’s abnormal. It’s plain wrong.

Okay, it’s obvious we can’t stone them in today’s society. Hey, we can’t even persecute them. We even conceded that gays shouldn’t be discriminated against. Okay, but discrimination on the basis of sexual preference is difference from that of race or gender. Being a different race, or gender is actually natural. People can’t help it. The Bible even preaches racial tolerance (although the gender issue is a little wonky). Check Leviticus if you don’t believe me. Yes, people can restrain from homosexual acts. It’s not all in the genes (everyone has a tendency to blame things on genes nowadays). No homosexuality is not natural. Take a look at animals. How many male cows do you see trying to hump other male cows? But you do see different species of cows (sorta equivalent to different human races), and you do see male and female cows (duh).

Okay, back to tolerance and non-discrimination. This attitude’s okay. God lets us make our own choices in life (he may know what path we’re going to take, but we choose what path we take). Fine, as long as you don’t affect us with your “alternative lifestyle”, we’ll leave you alone to your “activities”. But this isn’t the case. The Mardi Gras is an in-your-face “you kicked us down 20 years ago and we’re still going, stronger than ever so @#$@ you”. Why do these idiots need to advertise their homosexuality? Is it something to be proud of? “Oh we’re different, and we’ve managed to get through all this adversity. We must be legends.”. We give them tolerance and support anti-discrimination, and what do they do? Frickin’ shove their homosexuality in front of our faces.

“We’re normal, gays are just like me and you … only we need to advertise that we are different through the Mardi Gras etc.” … WTF?? I mean, isn’t this a contradiction?

The gays preach “you should do whatever feels right”. Essentially, they have anarchistic ideals. Despite what people believe, an anarchistic society is not one which is fun to live in. Sure, using anarchistic ideals in an ordered society is fun to live in – people clean up the mess you’ve made and you get to go back and mess it up again. But in an anarchy, people are gonna come and mess you up, and no ones gonna come and help you.

Homosexuality? Fine. We’ll tolerate it. It’s not morally right, but since you’re not affecting us, fine, go do what you feel you have to do. But don’t advertise it! To have church members supporting homosexuality is the last straw. They haven’t read the Bible, or they think the Bible is old-fashioned. It may seem stupid that I’m saying this, but society is degrading. The Bible is old-fashioned you say? Well this passage from Genesis sounds surprisingly plausible, and modern :

He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate. Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom–both young and old–surrounded the house. They called to Lot. “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Being them out to us so that we can have sex with them.”

Lot went outside to meet the, and shut the door behind him and said, “No, my friends. Don’t do this wicked thing. Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.”

“Get out of our way,” they replied.

Genesis 19:3-9

Society needs more people like Fred Nile. After all, he is standing up for what he feels is right (and it’s true, he is right), but yet he gets shouted down. The gays stand up for what they believe is right, and they get applauded. WTF again? People poke fun at him, and no one objects. People poke fun at gays and you get friggin litigation. People discriminate against gays, and you get front page news. Yet, a “straight” gets kicked out from a gay bar, and … no action. Maybe a one column, half-page write up in a tabloid. Sheesh.

Okay, the above words are my personal opinion. I am entitled to one aren’t I? Don’t agree with me? I’ll live with that. Just don’t flame me with all these swear words.



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