self schadenfreude

In some ways I pride myself on my unpredictable routine. Aside from the crunchy peanut spread of weekly events I've carefully spread over the wholemeal bread that is my available time, my life is one unorganised mess - I never need to budget because I can never be sure when my next load of bills will come in, and I rarely stress about paying bills because I simply forget to. Taxes, anniversaries, lease expiry dates and fun runs are all of no concern to me for similar reasons. Carla is only now learning that getting any kind of agenda out of me is like pulling teeth on a chicken. You think you see flaws in my master plan already right?

I just discovered I've been disconnected from my mobile service. I vaguely recall getting an SMS to this effect about a month ago, so I'll trust that they know what they're talking about and won't take them to court. It was a hefty bill but it's all taken care of now.

The curious thing I've discovered is that writing about it gives me a wry sense of satisfaction. For some reason I looked forward to publishing the details of my unfortunate experience. I can only assume that schadenfreude, the pleasure you take in other people's misfortune, has no sense of personal respect or irony. This also leads to the question of why there aren't more whiny goth blogs on the net (I know there are some, but on reflection I'd expect bad poetry and auto biographical epitaphs would by now have made the Internet a worthless resource for poetry researchers and funeral directors alike.) But perhaps I just don't understand goths.

So shall I posit on what will become of the Internet? The answer is yes. It's obvious that soon everyone will have realised the potential to put your eternal stamp on the Google archives, to carve out a personalised county in the still untamed wilderness that is the intarweb[1]. Lets face it though - this freedom to easily jam whatever information you want into whichever parts of the global information sphere you can reach is one of the only real things the Internet has going for it. Hoards of bloggers are hardly going to decrease the signal-to-noise ratio in this already crowded p0rn-laden[2] vista. Although it sucked when AOLers began to get their own web pages, the sophistication that came with commercial attention to the WWW basically made blink tags and the colour fuschia. Plus, once your parents start spending a lot more time on line you'll be able to Skype them till your heart's content, saving heaps on phone bills and sticking it to those money-hungry telcos.

Or maybe it will be a fad for a while then die out. Either way...

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Footnotes:
[1] Note to self: remove tongue from cheek.
[2] I know I know - with a word I've just guaranteed that my site receives the patronage of any number of p0rn googlers. Or bin-laden googlers. Or p0rn-bin-laden googlers. Bleh.

The science of pub pool

Note: I acknowledge Scroop's infantile tantrum but will save my retort for another post.

Last night I played pool at the Rosemount Hotel. Cam and I played about four games before we retired undefeated. I believe I can safely say that I was older than any of the people I played; a fact made relevant when couple of our opponents flaunted the unwritten rules so flagrantly I was prompted to give them a bit of an education.

The unwritten rules to pub pool are many and varied but several stand out as immutable, having evolved over time in the interest of the common good. This is because adding a competitive element to a bunch of drunken bums would be disastrous if the outcome of said competition were solely up to the individual interpretation of correct gameplay.

There are four of these 'safety valve' rules that govern the immediate area around every pool table in Australia (perhaps even the world.) These rules are assumed, and must be abided by unless everyone involved (both players, challengers and potential challengers) agrees:

1. The winner of a game controls the table for the next game


2. He who controls the table controls the rules (within reason[1])


3. The order in which the challengers play is decided by a queue of coins on the edge of the table above the coin slot. A person will challenge by adding a coin (any denomination) to the end of the queue (the direction of the queue being arbitrary, and must be determined by observation or conversation) and play when their coin reaches the front. A challenger must remove their coin when they begin play


4. An incumbent must accept a challenge when offered or get off the table after they finish their game

The rules that may vary depending on who controls the table can be grouped into the following categories:

• Early game fouls - do fouls off the break count? or fouls before anything has been sunk? Can a player hit one colour onto another to sink the latter without incurring a foul (before anything has been sunk)? If the first player to sink a ball sinks each colour, which are they (they choose or first down)?


• General foul rules - where can you legally place the white ball when an off-table foul has occurred (along the line, anywhere inside the 'D' or anywhere behind the line at all)? Can you shoot backwards from the 'D'? Do fouls count if they fall in the opponent's favour (i.e., one player sinks his opponent's colour.) [2]


• On-the-black rules - do you pick pockets when on the black? Or only when both players are on the black? Or never? Do fouls off the black end the game? What about if both teams are on the black?


• 'Girl rules' - these only apply to girls and seem to have moved out of vogue. Rarely will a player seeking to enact them be denied. Can a player move the ball off the padding (by as much as the width of the fat end of the cue)? Can a shot that hits nothing be replayed?

When I control the table I tend to favour a set of rules that promote a speedy game. That is, you can shoot backwards if you damn well please, you can put the white anywhere behind the line, sinking your opponent's ball only incurrs a single shot and you don't pick pockets for the black ever.

There are also a set of social rules: in some circles it is customary for the loser to buy the winner a midi (winner's choice of brew), though usually this is only on a pre-arranged game-by-game basis. Generally opponents shake hands at the start and end of each game. A player is allowed to finish a conversation or anecdote before he has his shot without his opponents hurrying him up (within reason). The table is set up by the challenger, and should conform to the 'J' rule. A player who sinks the white must retrieve the white (they may give it to their opponent or leave it on the edge of the table.) Heckling while a player is shooting is discouraged, and distraction by jostling the player or his cue is absolutely forbidden. Opponents will usually (though not always discreetly) look the other way in the case of a player's cue accidentally touching a ball. Often also, games played with girls are less competitive, with far less heckling.

There is also the important 'pants' rule. If a player loses a game without having sunk any of his own balls he must walk or run a lap of the table with his pants down[3]. There are two opt outs for the pants rule: girls do not have to do it, and a player can buy his way out with beer (a pint or jug, generally up to the incumbent.)

Of note is Scroop's bullshit 'scratch off the break' rule, where if a player fouls off the break without having sunk any balls, he loses the game. Of course if you play the 'pants rule' the loser has implicitly been pants-ed. The only time Scroop and I played this rule I pants-ed him three times, so we don't play it any more. It is in everybody's interest for Scroop to keep his pants on, believe me.

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Footnotes:
[1] The rules must fall within the accepted super-set of pub rules.
[2] This always results in relinquished control and it should be noted that fouls incurred by other means still count.
[3] Underwear is optional, but in my experience few people enforce underwear droppage.

Too little time

There are certain advantages to being forced to take the bus to work each day. First and foremost of these is that it has renewed my interest in reading.

Above is a picture of two piles of books. The pile on the right consists of books I own but have yet to read or am in the process of reading.

On the left are a couple of the books I've read since I began catching busses. Not pictured is Not Happy John by Margo Kingston - this would have fattened the pile up quite nicely, but was a borrowed book - and Age of Consent by George Monbiot. The Monbiot book is missing because Scroop 'borrowed' it on the pretence of reading it, though I now realise he never intended any such thing and must simply not wanted me to have it in this picture.

Permutation City was a good book, but was far better as a short story (Dust featured in a Science Fiction omnibus I borrowed from Mostyn.) If you want to read a good Egan book (I highly recommend you do as he is not only a Perth boy but my favourite sci-fi author) start with Diaspora.

A Brief History of Time needs little review. Either you've read it or you own it.

Not Happy John proved particularly enlightening. I spend far more energy following U.S. politics than Australian so tend to rely on Packer/Murdoch for much of my local information. Margo's language is overly colourful at times but it's obvious she's a well-informed journalist with integrity.

I read Age of Consent at Mostyn's request - he wanted a second opinion on it so didn't tell me much about it. I see why now. The book is unlike anything I've read - it truly is a manifesto for a new world order. Most importantly though it's a practical one. I am now on the lookout for more activist literature that not only outlines the problems in the world but also propose viable solutions.

The rest of the image above is my home computer desk. I actually had to clean it up a bit to make room for the photo.

lesson learned - a eulogy to tyranny

This post is in lamentation of its recently deceased older brother post - the tyranny of telephones. A victim of a bizarre tragedy involving a Blogger server error and a composer (me) foolishly relying solely on the Blogger web interface to compose.

Tyranny was an unassuming post, relatively lacking in content given its considerable size, but dammit - it was my post! I put a lot of effort into its composition, venting various frustrations and espousing frequent witticisms. Yet not 20 minutes ago I watched in agony as my 'Publish Post' request was answered by Blogger's servers with an curt and somewhat flippant 'Internal Server Error' response. I can still feel my stomach sink as the back button yielded nought but a starkly bare composition form, the content of my aborted post forgotten by the overly tricky web magickery that is Blogger.

So here's to the tyranny of telephones... and the thousands of senselessly inaccessible articles floating in the ether just beyond the internet. Good night sweet tyranny... and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!

c'est mon anniversaire

It's getting on - I must soon seek the restless slumber that will help to see me through another day.

Why oh why must there be so few templates in Blogger? This thing better be highly configurable, or I'll be very upset. Lucien has chosen the only halfway decent theme on offer... the spell checker and upload image buttons dont seem to work - not impressed. I blame John Howard.

I am partway through creating a gallery. The version of the software I chose to use is still in alpha, however, so compromises may be necessary.