TongMaster's weblog

Woah there!

2005-12-05T10:59:00+11:00

If you're still reading this feed, I'm currently hosting my site over here as I'm in a slow process of changing systems :)

Blog Closed

2005-06-21T23:23:00+11:00

Back in 7 Days

Sorry for any inconvenience - Management

"Do We Have Any Bananas?"

2005-06-20T21:37:00+11:00

"Are We Having Sex?"

Spent the weekend surfing up the coast with Kim, Anne, Christoph, Louise, Kristin and Stacey. One of the best weekends I've ever had, easily the equivalent of a week off work. I'm so chilled this is all I'm going to write. I'll leave you with this photo of Kim fire twirling:

Climate Criminal Carnivale

2005-06-15T00:25:00+11:00

You are Invited!

When: July 8th
Where: Town Hall Steps, 5:30pm

- Dress to Impress, wigs, masks, colours, your undies, pyjamas, anything goes
- Bring friends, musical instruments, (let's make some noise!!), pets, kids, your mum
- Walk, ride your bike, roller skates, skateboard, whatever

Another World is Possible!
Party for Social Change, Not Climate Change

Come and expose Australia's most heinous corporate climate criminals in our carnivale - from John Howard to BHP, Xstrata and of course the US embassy. This event is to coincide with the G8 summit in Scotland.

This will end in a giant party at an undisclosed location

Join the mailing list at risingtide@cat.org.au - more info at http://risingtide.org.au/

AFAIK so far there have been roving minstrels, cheer leaders, salsa bands and all other kinds fun planned for the carnivale. It ought to be a Reclaim the Streets meets Rio Carnivale as we tour the climate criminals in Sydney. Ought to be fun :)

シャープペンシル

2005-06-14T12:04:00+11:00

ここかれはシャープペンシルについて説明させていだだきます。 ● シャープペンシルというのは機械的な鉛筆です。 ● 特徴というのはペンの使い方があるのことです。 ● 長所というのは鉛筆削りを使わないのことです。 ● 他に何時でもに黒煙は鋭いです。すれからきれいな手紙を書かれるのことです。上手なスケッチも描かれります。 ● でも、短所というはレッドは細いので、シャープペンシルを使る中に黒鉛が割えることは多いです。ご設問はございませんか。

Bright Ideas, Dull People

2005-06-11T19:30:00+11:00

Kfish was caught musing this dilema recently:

 catch you all in a few days, probably won't have net access in cologne

I see this as *the* pre-eminent challenge facing the Free Software movement today. Why can't kfish have internet access in cologne? We all know you can get 'net access on a CD, why not in cologne? "Splash on Internet"(tm) - forget making rock solid servers, forget offering freedom to the enslaved desktops of the world, this is where every single freedom loving free software hacker / activist needs to be expending their energies - net access in cologne.

Counting Sheep

2005-06-08T01:18:00+11:00

No surprise that you've found yourself in too deep
Blame your checkered past for your lack of sleep
But make sure you count your blessings while you're counting
While you're counting sheep

On Monday, on a warm winter's afternoon, I took part in the Rising Tide backwards march from Town Hall to Governor Phillip Towers, where Premier Bob Carr's offices are (Indymedia report here). With 50-70 people walking backwards we certainly got a lot of attention down George St. It was a protest full of humour with people walking backwards calling for more coal and nuclear fueled power plants. I was dressed resplendid in my finest suit and the bright red pollution mask that I wear when cycling - stood out enough for the Australian's photographer to take a number of snaps. I'm unsure if any made it in, does anyone out there read the Australian?

Anyway, it was a postive afternoon with a good, fun vibe and some great yarns back at the Century. One wiley compaigner even got a flyer out to state treasuer Andrew Refshauge who happened to pass us enroute to Bob Carr's office.

I'm not sure how much influence these and previous protests are having on decision making, with Bob's recent stunt of raising the nuclear bogey being squarely aimed at taking the public eye off coal. Judging by the media response it's been a good tactic. Combine that with flippant comments about windpower "killing every kookaburra" and I'm certain we have a man with his mind made up.

Lyrics by Sarah Blasko.

Daydreams and Flights of Fancy

2005-06-04T17:29:00+11:00

Jessa says to me on Tuesday, "Let's move to Maleny and spend the rest of our lives planting trees at Woodford." I laughed and said something patronising like "it's a nice dream" and "but that would mean living in Queensland" or something else equally condescending. The only problem is, that I can't get that idea out of my head, move to Maleny, plant trees for the rest of my life. Daily it's gaining credence and plausability. I must be due to go on a surfing trip :)

Accident Waiting to Happen

2005-06-02T00:16:00+11:00

I've always been impressed with a girl Who could sing for her supper and get breakfast as well
That's the way I am, heaven help me
He said, "We don't like peace camapigners 'round here" As he nailed another one to the wall
And that's what gets me in trouble, heaven help me

Goodbye and good luck to all the rubbish that you've spoken Goodbye and good luck to all the promises you've broken
Your life has lost its dignity, its beauty and its passion You're an accident waiting to happen

Give it to us Billy! ;) That song really hit the spot tonight :) Anyway, working in tandem with Pabs, the Melbourne Indymedia Centre dev website lurched into life this evening and another child of Drupal was spawned. There's nothing to see there right now, it's far too early :)

Same.

2005-05-31T23:52:00+11:00

It's me, I have returned, I got a proper education but I haven't really learned.
I took my time, I took a train, took in the scenery, took liberties, can't make me explain, away.......
I changed my name, I changed the game, I became so different that I remained the same, same, same, same, same.
And this is my, unbroken heart, I shouldn't be this happy as it falls apart.

So, all day today I feel like a weight's been lifted, my hands and feet are unbound, my vision no longer obscured. I don't recall how many years have passed since I last felt like that. It's a good feeling and I'm clutching at straws to explain why that feeling's come about but I think I'm clutching at the right ones. I no longer feel held back, I feel free :)

Free.

Lyrics by Frente! from the recent "Try to Think Less" EP

The Air Near My Fingers

2005-05-30T15:27:00+11:00

Don't you remember? You told me in December,
That a boy is not a man until he makes a stand.
Well, I'm not a genius but maybe you'll remember this,
I never said I ever wanted to be a man.

I get nervous when she comes around.

Read about some new green technology, about converting algae into biodeisel from power plant CO2 exhaust. The whole thing sounds bloody brilliant, I just hope the technology is successfully commercially and starts turning up all over the globe. The only drawback I can see is it's use of technology leased from NASA and the use of venture capital[1] to fund it which *may* end up in it being a technology for the rich. Here's hoping not :)

The algae are fed with sunlight, water and carbon-carrying emissions from power plants. The algae are then harvested and turned into biodiesel fuel.

If my flat mates and I die in a fiery inferno, I did some hardware hacking on the heater today.

[1] There are so many other ways to fund this work, why are people so continually lazy and greedy in their use of venture capitalists?

Lyrics by the White Stripes.

Sleepless Nights Produce Strange Fruit

2005-05-27T13:22:00+11:00

Instead of sleeping last night, I stayed up and re-designed this website and everything else in the arseclown.tv domain. Purely on a whim but I much prefer the new style over the old, so I'll probably be happy with it for a week. After that I'm likely to do this all over again. I haven't tackled the gallery yet but I'll get to that eventually.

I also accidently got involved with the Sydney off-shoot of Rising Tide last night who are up to some interesting events and of course I wound up doing the net side of stuff. Rising Tide will, of course, be hosted by Cat@lyst. One of the things Rising Tide are doing at the moment is keeping a vigil on Bob Carr as he prepares to announce a new coal fired power plant in the Hunter:

Until Carr says �no� to coal and �yes� to clean energy, our peaceful
Sydney vigil continues. Join us each Monday from 4.30pm to 5.30pm at
Premier Carr's office, Governor Macquarie Towers, 1 Farrer Place,
Sydney.

Please wear black and bring a sunflower to remind Premier Carr about the
clean energy revolution that will provide more jobs, clean air and
climate protection.

If you're in the city on a Monday and can spare a half hour on your way home, head along :)

Ticket to Ride

2005-05-23T23:50:00+11:00

Well, hardly but I bought a ticket to Woodford last week. Not a moment too soon either, as this year attendence is capped and they're close to selling out. I managed to snag season camping so I'll be joining the mob from last year plus Kaz and her lot, making their way up for their first Woodford, for the whole 8 days. It's weird buying tickets seven months out but I've got 'em and I'm glad to be going. After mising Splendour and the East Coast blues festival, I wasn't mucking around here. If you're thinking of going, buy now :)

Also got a new bike helmet, a respirator (so I can breath clean air instead of sucking exhaust) and some das blinken lights for the bike so cars have less excuse for nailing me to the asphalt.

Found the cash that the NAB lost for me. Very happy there. I hope to have my motorbike licence and a motorbike to go with it by the end of June now the cash is found. I made a pact with Anne so we ough to be able to see it through :) I've been convinced by a number of experienced riders to get get a Kawasaki ER-5. If I buy new (unlikely) I'll most likely get the black one (the other choice is blue).

I'm also studying for my boat licence, hope to have that by Friday. Everything else is on hold, except for procrastinations like GDM themes ;)

Self Censorship

2005-05-19T23:32:00+11:00

Tonight I pulled a blog entry. I'm concerned about some of my content but I need to write it so I'll be moving to paper instead. So this blog will be decidedly less interesting and very infrequent. There's heaps of cool shit going down I need to write about but I'm concerned about possible legal ramifications, so no more blogging of a whole large slab of my life. I also realised I was self censoring heaps of shit anyway, at least on paper I'll probably write more complete stories anyway.

If you're ever sharing my bed, reach for the diary Kaz bought me and have a read.

Red Right Hand

2005-05-09T22:36:00+11:00

Been flat out lately. So flat out I'm just going to just write down some things in point form to remember that they all happened.

Sunday - beers with horms, Chiz, kfish and Chie
Monday - Cat@lyst monthly meeting
Tuesday - Dressed up as "Men in Black", I paid a visit in the morning with Randwick and Sutherland shire councillors/Mayors and local Menai residents to the Lucas Heights reactor to inspect the weapons Silex are manufacturing there. We weren't made very welcome, the police came and had biscuits and tea with us for a few hours before we left. Had a Sydney Local Group meeting in the evening.
Wednesday - Boat team training - oh, I actually remember this night.

I was wandering the city with Corinne, getting to grips with GPS nav, when we stopped in for a pizza at an al fresco place next door to the Pyrmont Bridge Hotel. Some old drunk wandered out, made some attempts at speech, looking alternatively between Corinne and myself and mumbling something. Eventually his gaze settled on me and the only word I can make out is "eyes" and he's making wierd facial expressions and wonky eyes in my direction. I stare back as he keeps repeating the unintelligible sentence containing the word "eyes" and continuing to make wonky eyes. After a minute or two of this, I finally make out what he's saying "if you want to win her, look her in the eyes". I blink slowly. The air is thick with the smell of stale booze.

Out of the left field of my peripheral vision strides Bruce Porter and I, more as a reflex, call out "Hey Bruce!". Without realizing it, Bruce cuts off the drunkard breaking the spell of the long awkward moment. The old codger has the last word though, cornering Bruce, pointing at me and getting out his only clear sentence, "he has good eyes". All this time, my target market has been blue(or green)-eyed brunette 25-30yo females with an independent, fiery spirit but it appears I should be going for drunken, male pensioners. Hrm.....

Thursday - I was supposed to be at a South Sydney Greens meeting but when I got there I conveniently remembered we'd changed venues. My only problem was..... to where....
Friday - Low key BBQ at my place for Horms. Good night, winding up about 2am. Some interesting conversations were had and Stacy brought a much needed gift.
Saturday - Up at 6am, had Ewan at his football match by 8:00, was at the warehouse for open day from midday til 5:00, the kids had a ball before heading out to Homebush to watch the Swannies beat Essendon in a plucky match. A very long day and I bet the kids slept all through mothers day.
Sunday - I headed out to the Bairne Track at West Head, in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park. I walked out to picnic at the cliff top of Long nose Point with Sarah, Silvia, Chezu, horms, and Marcin. We also took the track down toward Portuguese Beach. The weather was brilliant and it was such a recharging day to be back home and relaxing in the park.
Today - I started work on migrating Melbourne Indy Media to Drupal.

Like I said, busy. Too busy and broke to buy camping tickets to Splendour in the Grass, only to find out today camping tickets have sold out. Guess I'm not going this year.

C@T Hack - Installing Freedom

2005-05-09T18:07:00+11:00

The second in the Cat@lyst "Get to Know Your Freedom" series is on this Thursday night.

When: Thursday, May 12th, 19:00 til 21:30

Where: Corner of Henry and Cook Streets, Turrella, Sydney. Directions.

Who: This session is suitable for both complete Linux beginners and those with more experience who wish to share their knowledge and skills.

What: In the last session, we learnt about PC hardware by pulling apart a roomful of dis-functional machines and making over 13 functional machines out them. This time we'll take those thirteen machines, add a few more (or your own if you wish to bring it) and take the next step in getting to know your freedom - installing Free Software on the PC.

We will be installing the Linux distribution Ubuntu for this exercise in a choice of server or desktop configuration (depending on your choice and the machine you choose to install it on).

Costs: Attendance is a gold coin donation to help feed the C@T. For a double digit note donation, you can take home the machine you've installed Linux on (all bar five machines are available for this purpose). There are about 20 machines to choose from, from PII's, Dual Pentium Pro's, Apple Macs, Sun Sparc Ultra 5s and assorted odds'n'ends.

- Community Activist Techknowlogy
- Free Software Foundation
- Ubuntu Linux

Lumps of Lead

2005-04-13T00:09:00+11:00

Everybody's pinching their guts
Young lumps of lead, floating on the harbour
They pick themselves up, now they're falling down again
Big lumps of lead floating to fruition

La la la

Like tickets worn, sometimes stolen
Like foreign languages, squashed into the ferry floor
One ticklish kiss will kill the itch around our ankles
And today moves in wave motion
Tomorrow's failing in the bath
And big lumps of lead, floating out to Pinchgut

And your eyes, watching this, they begin to cry
Your eyes, one ticklish kiss, they begin to cry
Your eyes, lumps of lead, they begin to cry

La la la

I've so much to blog and so little patience to write it all. My head is swimming with the flotsam and jetsam of the last five days, so much so that I don't know where to begin.....

I had full weekend of training. I'm really getting a lot out of these monthly weekends and completely digging the skills that are being picked up and the purpose to which they're going to be put. Saturday's training was some basic nav skills across Botany Bay and then a sunset run up the St Georges river. We had dinner at Jewfish Bay where Simon cooked up a vegetarian storm (we had a token Vegan). We then spent the night nav'ing deep up the St Georges River to some part of the Shire I'd never heard of before making a sprint back to the launch ramp in Botany Bay. I managed to make Jodie's birthday party at Shakespeare's with 30 minutes to closing. Not a bad effort and I was happy with that :)

On Sunday after a 6:00am start we made our way to Bundeena honing different skills as we made our way down the coast. We were about one nautical mile off Cronulla when we paused to wait for one of the other boats when the crew in my boat, myself included, took a moment to take in the view. The view was a sweeping view of Cronulla. What an eyesore Cronulla is (no Sarby, I'm not having a dig). It looked just like Surfers Paradise, jutting sharply up into the sky from the Cronulla sand. I've never particularly rated the Shire but that was really a clincher, the wall of high rise surging from the sand deep into the sky. Seriously unpleasant. Had some great grilled fish and a swim at Bundeena before making a bumpy way home directly into a nor east swell and wind. Taking my rashee off at Bundeena and keeping it off for the trip home was mistake :)

We had a CAT meeting on Monday night which promises to bear some serious fruit. More on that later.

Digressing a bit, I want to dwell on the complete lack of press coverage, bar Indy Media, for the protest of more troops leaving Australia to fight in Iraq. There were about forty protestors (on 24 hours notice), all calling for the troops to be brought home, fully supported and cheered on by the crew of the HMAS Tobruk, people leaving the base, honking their horns and cheering their encouragement, support and thanks from family members of the crew were abundant as was the support from random passers-by.

What was completely absent, which surfless raised tonight, was the press coverage. Surfless, a bit of a media hound, only heard of the HMAS Tobruk departing from me tonight, let alone hearing of any protests. As a result, once again it was pointed out how the Australian media self censors events in an attempt to manipulate a gullable and falsely comfortable population. All the reason for which most people voted in the "coalition" government are slowly but surely proving to be as false as we all knew they were. Interest rates are rising, the cost of living is hiking ever higher, more Australians are being sent to die for US oil companies as part of a desperate pitch to control an ever reducing commodity. What's amusing to me, is the start of the fracturing of the Liberal party as July approaches. The Liberal party is a seriously fractured party of self interested one-issue groups who all see the full control of the Senate as their chance to push their agenda though. Not all these factions agree with each other and it's starting to show. The public spats and positioning of Abbott (the pig) and Costello vying for future leadership post Lying Johnny (with his fake smile) is just a taste of the fracture that is to come. Some how, Lying Johnny has managed to hold the beast together but it's all going to come apart in glorious fashion over the next two years.

Combined with ever hiking interest rates, $2/litre petrol prices, the lack of public transport in "aspirational" seats, a crash in property values, the next three years will be interesting. I'm glad I'm debt free and no longer have a mortgage and there's cash in the bank. I may be in a good position to do well.

So tonight, I'm having the mostly fortnightly soup'n'beer with surfless at the Trinity Bar. Enjoying some Amber Ale, chowing down some pumpkin and lobster soup, chewing the fat over more topics than I can recall and casting an eye over the passing cuties here and there. Suddenly there's a loud "clunk!" over my left shoulder. I turn around in response to see some tool coming down the stairs on his segway. I was completely gob smacked as he made his way around the bar, ordered some food and a beer before motoring outside to the al fresco dining area.

Seriously, who goes into a crowded bar on a friggin Segway? Perhaps I shouldn't have locked my bike outside but rode it in doing wheelies and pulled off a few bunny hops as I ordered my soup? I just wanted to scream out "Geek!" or at least ask him if he was a Windows developer. Luckily surfless had the good sense to whip out his phone and take the above photos. This bloke gets the arseclown award for April. You, you lame Segway riding tool, are the arseclown for April. Congratulations.

Change Your Taste in Men

2005-04-11T08:55:00+11:00

James recently blogged that he had a re-occuring case of pharyngitis. This is more commonly know as "cock suckers disease" but that is, of course, not the only way to get it, just one of the more common. After James has blogged recently about his blossoming love life he may want to correlate the pharyngitis with his love life a little and factor it in:

Streptococcal pyoderma of the penis following fellatio.

Drusin LM, Wilkes BM, Gingrich RD.

Gonococcal pharyngitis has been correlated with fellatio in both heterosexual females and homosexual males. This report describes another complication of fellatio, group A beta-eaemolytic streptococcal pyroderma on the penis after exposure to a male who probably had pharyngitis. the erythematous, purulent lesions should be cultured. After the organism has been identified, adequate treatment with either a long-acting parenteral penicillin or a 10-day course of oral penicillin is important in order to prevent the possible life-threatening complication of post-streptococcal glomerulonephritis.

Source: Entrez PubMed via Google, so it must be true!

Your GP clearly isn't comfortable about questioning your personal life but they definitely should have raised it. Next time, raise the question yourself, persue the sexually transmitted angle and hopefully he/she will give a better range of treatments. Hope that helps, James.

My Barber Knows Better than I Do

2005-04-07T18:18:00+11:00

On Wendesday morning I managed to stop off at the barbers on the way to see a client. I like my barber. He's a cheeky, short old Greek bloke, more hair on his face than his head, with a mischievous (mis)demeanor and the self assuredness that comes with operating from the same premises for about 40 years. "Morning young man" he greets me cheerily in a thick Greek accent. I smile wanly. I'm feeling less than cheery this morning as a perpetual existence of 3-4 hours sleep every night is taking it's toll. I grunt something resembling a response and assume the position in the barber's chair. "Haven't seen you this year" he notes, observing the length of my hair. "Yeah, I'm growing it out. A few weeks back a woman I know suggested it was starting to look like a mullet, so I just want the sides and back trimmed a bit to let the top catch up". He responds with a comforting "Okay" and starts hacking away at the back. I start to zone out, lost in my own thoughts and before I know it, he's proceeded to lop off big chucks off the top of my noggin. I looked on in a moment of alarm but it passed quickly as I relaxed into the reasoning of "He's started now, may as well let him finish it". Some twenty minutes later, the barber finished with flare and a click-click of his scissors and exclaimed as he stepped back "See, now that's *much* better!". I know this haircut's all my fault but part of me still want's to pin the blame on Bec, after all she did make the mullet comment. There's several morals to this tale, I'll let you pick your favourite.

Planet Cat@lyst

2005-04-03T15:49:00+11:00

Finished Planet Cat@lyst today. One job down, several thousand to go :)

URGENT! Mon, 4 April, 9am: Protest Picket Against Warship Leaving for Iraq from Woolloomooloo

2005-04-02T12:24:00+11:00

No more troops > Protest warship leaving for Iraq

Protest Picket, 9.00 AM, Monday, 4 April, 2005
@
Fleet Base East, Cowper Wharf Road, Woolloomooloo, Sydney.

On Monday, the Royal Australian Navy amphibious ship, HMAS Tobruk, will depart her homeport at Fleet Base East, Sydney, for passage to the Middle East to provide sealift for the Australian Army deploying to the Al Muthanna Task Group in Iraq.

The Stop the War Coalition (Sydney) has called an urgent action to protest the deployment of more troops to Iraq.

Support our troops : Bring them Home!

End the Occupation of Iraq!

More info from 0412 139 968 or 0419 135 019

April Fossil Fools

2005-04-01T15:57:00+11:00

Woke up this morning to the sound of my phone alarm screeching at 06:00am with a sore head and nausea. A couple of catch-up drinks with Wildfire had turned out to be a few too many and crashing at mates place had seemed like a good idea at the time. Although now, I'm 15k's from the city, I need to be there by 07:00, my only mode of transport is my push bike, I feel like I'm going to throw up and there's a strange SMS on my phone - "Das sind keine Maennertiten."[1].

The ride to the city was brisk although the early bird commuters weren't to happy with me taking a whole lane ;) and the crisp morning air kept me awake and alert when my body was screaming for me to pull over and sleep - *RIGHT FUCKING NOW*. I made it the city OK and the rendezvous on time (a miracle really). Scoffed some brekky in the back of the troopy as we drove to the briefing. An hour or two later I was dumping a tonne of coal outside NSW Parliament House to highlight Premier Bob Car's intention to approve another coal fueled powerstation in the Hunter.

Loads (no pun intended) of fun in well organised and clever event (there was much more to it than just dumping coal that I can't be arsed writing about now). I've a new found sympathy for coal miners, shovelling a tonne of coal back into the truck was serious hard yakka. The only downside is that I'm sitting here in yesterdays clothes, unshowered and covered in coal dust. I'm out and about tonight, if you bump into me, stay up wind.

[1] "That is not a man boob."

MRET Lite

2005-03-23T00:45:00+11:00

I've never been one for lite beer but this one is very much to my taste:

Definitely a new show piece in my bar :)

War is Not the Solution

2005-03-20T20:16:00+11:00

DebSIG on Wednesday was good, although a little late due to a couple of local culprits getting lost ;) and a not-too-late finish post DebSIG of about 1:00am. I'll admit I was too busy working on my own things to pay too close atttention to the talk but it was well received. Headed out to a mate's place for dinner on Thursday, late as usual but a good time was had. Friday night saw me at a GP farewell drinks which morphed into Indian on Cleveland St then a fundraising gig for the "No War" two (now on weekend detention) at Madame Lash's converted church also on Cleveland St. An interesting showcase of music. At one point during the night, Isobel wondered what was at the top of the stairs disappearing mysteriously into the ceiling behind the bands. I grabbed Tiy and the two of us headed cautiously up the stairs.

I won't go into what we saw up there but I came bolting back down the stairs faking a scared manner, which raised the curiosity of everyone else at the gig and before long, there were streams of trepidatious people climbing the stairs to find out for themselves.

Saturday morning saw me standing bleary eyed outside Leumeah Primary School handing out "How to Vote" pamphlets for the Greens in the Werriwa by-election caused by Mark Latham's resignation in January. In the afternoon I did Busby High School then headed to a party at the Alexandria Hotel to celebrate almost doubling the Green's vote in Werriwa.

This morning I headed down to Hyde Park at 11:00am to help organise the Greens side of the Global Day of Action against the War on Iraq. It was a fairly good day and they estimate about 3,000+ people marched. John Pilger spoke, amongnst others and I think everyone enjoyed venting their frustration during the march which was well received by the hapless commuters caught in the traffic jam. I threw some photos up in my gallery over here.

When the World Said No

2005-03-18T09:32:00+11:00

"This weekend marks the second anniversary of the beginning of the war on Iraq. On March 19 and 20, peace and justice related orgainisations around the world are trying to get the huge numbers who demonstrated against the war in February 2003, back on the streets.

John Pilger opened the When The World Said No To War exhibition on February 2. In his speech, John mentioned that the official statistics showed that 35 million people demonstrated around the world on that February weekend back in 2003 - and these were official, well-documented stats, not some hyped-up number dreamt up by interested parties. John also spoke about that weekend having signified a shift in consciousness and awareness. For someone of John Pilger's stature and experience to use such terms, gives me a great deal of hope that bringing about the change that is so desperately needed in our world is possible.

All of us have special memories of the 2003 demonstrations. One of my favourite memories is of walking down Crown Street, here in Surry Hills, Sydney, and realising when I hit Oxford Street, that every single person on that street was heading in the same direction I was. And I had such a feeling of happiness and pride in the human race, in us as a species, in finally coming together for peace.

We live on a beautiful planet, we have a magnificent world that we all call home. I often think that the governments we have in power today are like the head of a household who spends a huge percentage of the family budget on buying machine guns and bombs and landmines and destroying the garden out the back of the house, so that the children in the family have no money for food, or clothing, or education and have no place to play. Not only does the head of this household buy weapons for his own use but he sells them to the guy down the road who's a murderer and dictator, at exorbitant profits so that the family of the guy down the street is condemned to a life of poverty and most of his children die young. Then the head of this household lies about the weapons the other guy has and incites all the neighbours to make war on him and his innocent family.

If we all get back on the streets this weekend, if we all give up just one day out of our lives, then we will be sending out such a powerful message of strength, of unity, of caring, of determination and anger, to the governments who are wreaking such havoc on this planet. And maybe, just maybe, we can - as Bono said in an interview after the September 11 concert - help to bring about world peace in our lifetime. It's not a matter of giving up your whole, entire life to this - some do but most of us don't - it's just a matter of dragging yourself away from the TV for one day, bringing the kids with you, telling your neighbours, and coming into town to meet up with millions of like-minded souls who want to see this world become a better place so that all of us can live and be happy here on earth. Please come and see how it feels to be proud of being a member of the human race, come and see how powerful we can all be.

I've just come in from my garden out the back of the house and I did my sometimes-usual 'Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish that I wish tonight' [come on, we all do it now and again, when we really, really, really, want something] - and my wish is to see those 35 million people back on the streets all around the world this weekend.

Sometime last year, when bringing together the When The World said No To War exhibition seemed like such an impossible, Herculean task that I almost gave up, I received the attached photograph from Jenny Carleton, titled Lily and her Dad, and it gave me the strength to get my act together and continue. I hope it gives you pause for thought and makes you realise that this is our world and we should have the final say in how it's run. I hope it encourages you to take a day out of your life and be at the rally on March 19, 20.

Many thanks and see you there,"

Karen Adler
Coordinator
A Better World Incorporated

Gasoline for Two

2005-03-16T20:28:00+11:00

Right now my ute is resting somewhere along the Hume Highway as it makes it's way to it's new home in Diamond Creek, Victoria. See ya old girl :)

With the capital venture raised, I'll be getting one of these.

Catch a Fire

2005-03-15T21:12:00+11:00

I recently finished reading "Catch a Fire". The first book I've enjoyed reading since Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. An interesting, informative and enlightening read about the turbulent life of an amazing musician.

Old Shoe Horn

2005-03-14T14:47:00+11:00

From Wednesday to til Friday I was down in a large old guest house in Robertson, nestled in the Southern Highlands, with the GP team workshopping for the entire three days (and partying at night). It was a great three days, learnt a lot but only got five hours sleep between waking up on Wednesday morning and going to sleep on Friday night :) I'm not going into any tour stories as what happens on tour, stays on tour but my pushy helmet did go missing :/

As the bus pulled into Sydney on Friday night I saw Hannah-Beth through the window of the bus but didn't get off in time to catch her. I keep bumping into this girl. Weird. I then attended the "Sydney Greens Forum: Holding Multinationals to Account" at the Tower Building, UTS, chaired by Greens MLC Ian Cohen, which was quite interesting, before collapsing in a heap at home, allowing sleep to finally draw me in. I spent Saturday on Botany Bay with the GP boat team fanging around the bay in high speed boats, learning to handle them and general action drilling manouvres, interesting, fun and tiring.

I bolted from there to Circular Quay to board a ferry for a harbour cruise, only just making it. One of the crew was a bloke I used to play footy with at the Manly Warringah AFC. The cruise was okay but the aftermath certainly was more interesting for Pasc than the cruise itself ;)

Sunday I was on Sydney harbour for day two of boat team training, spending about 7 hours on the water, up to several miles out to sea and as far north as Curl Curl. Stopped in at Manly for some Shakespeare's pies for lunch (16 vegetarian pies left them with no stock for the rest of the day) . We also caught up with the James Craig, the Young Endeavour and another tall ship who's name I forget right now, several miles to sea off North Head and used them for GPS targeting, speed analysis and nav training. Impressive ships and it was exciting to be pulling along side of them. Stopping in at Point Piper on the way home for some coffee and short bread was nice and amusing, if only for the expressions on the patrons as bedraggled people pulled themselves from speedboats, soaking wet and wearing life jackets, to sit amongst them ;)

One sight I won't forget in a hurry, was seeing the harbour bridge arch over The Gap from point to point, as we made our back to the harbour. We had to pause for a moment, it was a breath taking and rare sight. I've made a pact with myself to take a dry bag and a camera next time in case that opportunity ever presents itself again.

Say "No" to Drugs

2005-03-09T01:19:00+11:00

There are many effective ways to get your message across. When it comes to amphetamines I particularly agree with the "say no" message (although I'm far more lax on more natural highs) but I'm not sure this is the most effective way to sell a message:

How seriously can you take a message that you are pissing on?

Thanks for using your phone camera for the purposes of good, surfless.

Feed the C@T

2005-03-08T00:37:00+11:00

Had a busy weekend building three (two unfinished) Pokemon stadiums (a woodwork project) with Ewan and Connor. Nice cheap fun effort and the boys are really happy with them. If my woodworking skills are up-to-scratch they'll get a few years out of them. Photo's pending. On Sunday I packaged thousands of Greens pamphlets, for the by-election in Werrirwa later this month, until my fingers bled. More importantly, tonight I made a CAT meeting way out at Turrella.

CAT have a bloody nice setup there but it was an eerie place to be for me. I don't know how much of an impact had on the look and feel of the place but it felt like him. I spent the whole evening expecting his head to pop around a corner at anytime. It's also weird to be kind of re-tracing his steps, now that he's passed away, into a place I really ought to have been involved in already anyway and now I am there I can see the void he's left.

I can understand why C@T excited . I can see an awful lot of potential for CAT to grow in leaps and bounds upon it's already solid base. There's so many untapped possibilities easily within grasp I really had to struggle to keep my mouth shut and allow myself to digest everything rather than blurt out all the exciting options that were fillng my mind up.

Should be an interesting time.