Booing and Cooing

When I see ridiculously cute dogs, I turn into a mushy, joyful blob making high-pitched cooing noises. I start talking in Ws. “This wittle woggie! Ohhhhh he wants to go walkies with DI. WuwuwuWU!”. And so forth. There are many variations, many made up words and yo-yo-like inflections. No doubt it is very irritating.

When I first saw this, I think I reached new levels of screechy-ness. I was cooing at an almost inaudible pitch. So I decided to wait a little while before posting. Otherwise this would’ve become a stream of words in caps lock, incoherently strung together. It still may turn into that.

This is Boo.

                                  




This is Bo taking puppylic transport.



This is Bo trying to Kill the Squeak.



THIS IS BO GETTING DRESSED.




This. Is. Over. Whelm. Ing

Pass or Sporcle.

I was warned about this site. I was told that by opening the link, I risked wasting days of study, losing hours of sleep and dropping entire letter-grades in courses. These grave warnings were expressed with sad, wise eyes, suggesting first-hand experience. I should have listened. Instead I saw it like any other temptation dangled on a string in front of me: a challenge. Of course I am capable of restraining myself and knowing when to stop, close the browser window and resume study! I can stay on-task and be productive when I actually want to! I just chose not to. Yup.

Sporcle is the ultimate site for the geek looking for distraction. It is brimming with pointless yet addictive quizzes on everything from European geography to Disney song lyrics. If this were a sporcle quiz, you’d have to make as many phrases as possible in four minutes using the acronym SPORCLE. Study Procrastination Online Resource Camoflauged (as) Learning Exercises. Splendidly Pointless Organised Rigorous Competition (to) Languish Education. Should Place On Restricted Content List (for)Ever. Now Cannot Stop Writing Acrostic Phrases.

How bad is my Sporcle addiction? Next week I am attending an event called ‘Sporclepalooza’, where three friends and myself will competitively sporcle for the title of Sporcler Supreme. And like any good(?) addict, I’m clearly set on bringing you all down with me. Go on, just one quiz can’t hurt. 

Thoughts on colonialism (but really just two sweet blog discoveries)

Currently the Commonwealth Games are being held in New Delhi. I had already written this blog post when an American friend, having listened to BBC a little too much in recent weeks, asked me about these strange, pseudo-Olympic, Games;

Is it me or are they weird? Isn't it a weird thing to do? "Hey, Britain used to rule all of you, very brutally, and you only play these sports in the first place because of said brutal rule, so why don't you try to assert your independence now and compete against each other to see who has made it farthest in recovering from colonization?"

While I am not going to open the 'To Republic or not to Republic' can of vexatious worms, this is a pretty apt (and awesome) take on my view of the Games. And it tied in well with what I had already written (pre-laptop death, hence delayed posting), on what the Games means to me: the occasional lofty click on an article featuring a vaguely familiar athlete, reflecting on how bizarre the whole blast-from-a-colonial-past event actually is, but also, a quiet time at work.

For the odd reader who doesn’t know what I do/who I am, I work part-time at a media intelligence company where we basically monitor what’s being said in the Australian media. And because of the Games, what’s being said is ‘not much’. Instead the shows I monitor are streaming live coverage of swimming, high-jump and a few not-quite-Olympic-quality-but-good-enough-for-the-Commonwealth-Games sports. While New Zealanders seem to be quite indifferent to the whole affair, Australia is embracing the Games. It’s probably got something to do with the 60-odd gold medals they won in the first week. Anyway, regardless of why Australians are so excited about an event that is rooted in an imperialistic past, it has meant that for ten hours last week I got paid to sit and find fodder for this blog.

So my two new favourite blogs, thanks to my kind employer and this outdated mass sporting event:

HiLoBrow slightly bewilders me. I’m not sure I entirely ‘get it’ but that’s the whole point; there’s nothing to ‘get’. I think. I keep trying to summarise the tone in a nice, tidy description, but it’s impossible. Again, this is the point, I think. Basically, put aside an hour and spend some time roaming around this brilliant site. It has the best slogan for life, if I ever heard one: ‘Middlebrow is not the solution’. Indeed.

Cake Wrecks is much easier to describe, but of a similar level of awesomeness. Cakes that are wrecks! I’m laughing already. It’s meant to be a blog on ‘when professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong’, but it contains some absolute gems from amateurs as well. This brutally honest depiction of winter is my personal favourite. I like to imagine a cake-decorator snapping one day when asked for yet another ‘seasonal cake’ in mid-December and coming up with this. Awkward staff Christmas party, right there.

Actually, this post could act as an allegory on internet trawling. You start off contemplating colonialism and issues that call into question the entire constitutional framework of your country, and end up looking at photos of hilariously tragic cakes.

Trawling (but not the fish variety)

I’ve never actually gone fishing. With my inability to swim and extremely impatient nature, I see little appeal. However, I have a picture in my head as to how fishing works. Basically, you sit with an already-dead fish on a strong string, waiting for a misfortunate and curious little guy to have a nibble. Then, with great excitement and surprise, you leap up, knocking buckets and other important fishing tools to the ground, to reel in this great, impressive beast. Except, more often than not, it seems that what emerges, after much heaving and groaning, is a disappointingly small and wriggly fish that falls short of some code pertaining to required fish size. For the fish, hurrah! Being small and/or unattractive (tried to google the nature of these requirements but quickly become disinterested) saves lives in the ocean. But for the overly excited person on the other end of the line, it must all be very disheartening. I expect that the fisherperson loses interest after too many almost-but-not-quite experiences. Failure is never fun. 

My picture of fishing may be way off. I will probably never know. But if it is somewhat accurate, then fishing is pretty similar to searching the internet. This is not exactly revolutionary; the term ‘internet trawling’ is neither mine nor remotely new. But it is something that has been popping up in many of my recent conversations. As I have honed my own tastes and views, and as my interest in my university studies has slipped to a new low, I’ve found myself spending more time reading blogs, watching clips, listening to interviews and, well, trawling the internet. When I talk about something I’ve read or discovered, many friends complain how they never know what blogs to read, sites to visit and where to find these internet gems; the big fish of the web, if you will. As the internet has expanded, and the amount of information and content we are exposed to has exponentially increased, we have become completely overwhelmed. There is some conventional wisdom around the idea that with too much choice, we effectively have no choice. When everything is a top priority, or a ‘must-see’, nothing becomes a priority; instead everything sits on the same, albeit important, plane.

This blog is about sharing what I’ve discovered on the internet, and in life generally, with the addition of my own insights and thoughts. I hope that it will also open me up to what my own friends and (presumed)(somewhat arrogantly so?) readers view, read, listen to and recommend.

As some of you will know, this will be my second attempt at blogging. Over a year ago I started a blog and, while I enjoyed writing it and receiving feedback, my posts became too long and time consuming to write. And so that blog fell into the dark hole of the internet where so many aspiring blogs remain perpetually. My new-blog resolution is that I will try and keep to shorter, snappier posts, so that I can post more frequently and readers remain interested. But that starts next post.