Yama Kuma - Up and Running.

Had my business plan approved today, which means I am now officially in business. (Actual start date is the 17th of November). Here is the logo I designed. I actually designed a group of about fifteen and ran them past my fellow students. This one was unanimously chosen by all. The good thing is a lot of them chose it even though they hadn't been in the room when others had chosen it. SO I know it was by far the best one (which is a little strange, as I was tending towards one of the other designs, though this one was certainly in my top three). This is how my last few days panned out. Yesterday - the B'day of young Joshua (my nephew). Went to his party and realised how darn boring it is to be at kids parties all the time. I really needed a book to read! Was amazed at the audacity of both my sister and younger brother. Both of them KNOW my mother is ill, going into hospital in a month and isn't supposed to be doing ANY looking after kids etc! Both of them have approached my mother to ask her to look after their kids!!!! My mother lost her filling from her front tooth. We've been making jokes about it. Paul kept on making hillbilly jokes (Pass the beans Cleatus!) and stuff. I told my mother she sounds like Sylvester (Thuckering Thuccotatthhhh!!!) My mother has had some good laughs because of it. The idea is to be ingenous and invent new jokes. She's getting it replaced on Wednesday. I spent a long time discussing with her gettng some flooring done while she is in hospital. I received my funds today (only came to AUD$28,000 though). I'm still rather p***ed off by the whole thing! AUD $72,000 invested, plus all the money I paid over the years into this managed fund and I come out of it with a lousey AUD$28,000. It seems like I am cursed to work like a dog all my life only to have other people take my money from me all the time. I was paying $6,000 in each year on top of the $72,000 ... and that was over a few years, plus the extra $5,000 I put in one year!!!! Darn! That's like $72,000 plus $24,000 ($6,000 over four years) plus $5,000 = AUD $99,000 Minus the $28,000 I got out of it ... means I lost $71,000!!!! There is one born every minute and I guess I was the one this time!!!! Okay, September Eleven was the main problem I had because of it, and then AMP and Telstra took a few nose dives to finish it off!!! I'm so p***ed off by the whole thing! Especially when I wanted to exit on AMP and my Financial Advisor talked me out of it!!!! Arrrgh! My own fault! Should have followed my gut instinct!!!! Wooops! I went off topic! Though I wonder if the new business enterprise will waste what little I have left! Arrrgh! Today - Had the meeting in the city to get approval for my business plan etc. I had been asked to take my business plan in with me to change it if need be, so I bought a thumb drive the other day (128mb) and loaded it all on. (Because my computer eats floppies!!!) Was reading 'Diary of Anne Frank' on the bus. Am about a quarter of the way through it. I've visited her house in Amsterdam, so is good to read the book AFTER visiting the house, as it comes alive knowing the rooms etc that she is talking about! I think reading the book first ould have made the experience different - where going to the house would have brought the house to life imaging what the book had spoken of. I think this experience is a lot better. I was an hour or more early in the city, and went and joined the 'Music and Performing Arts' library. I am allowed three things on loan and got out

• Pearl Jam - Ten (for guitar)
• The Romantic Guitar (Music from the Romantic era, NOT love songs for Guitar)
• Bach - Le Quattro Suite Per Liuto (Four suites for lute)

The Pearl Jam songbook is just to satisfy my own ROCK 'N' ROLLIN' spirit. The Romantic Guitar stuff is because I don't think I've played anything from this era on ANY of the musical instruments I play (except maybe some clarinet stuff I just remembered whcih was boarder line Romantic/Classical era!!) I then trudged off to my meeting. Arrived at 10:50 AM. They'd asked me to be early (my official meeting at 11:30 AM). What I didn't know, was they were running late! I ran into Neville as I was leaving (one of the guys from my course!) He'd got through! Woo hoo! When I got inside Seanpol was there waiting for his turn! Officially he was supposed to go in at 10AM! Wooops! They were running late! I was supposed to see a lady named Veronica, but she wasn't there. Instead, I was seen by a lady named Jeanette. She ran through some stuff with me and got me to sign a form which basically says all sorts of stuf regarding my business. It was fourteen pages of - If You Do This We Will Shut You Down! It included such items as:

• If you veer from your business plan
• If you take a part time job to suppliment your income
• If you are not making enough money in a month
• If you do too much study
• Operate the business outside Australia

As I said, it was fourteen pages worth! I should read it! The basic jist of it was that I would behave as a law abiding citizen and run the business within the law etc etc. (Plus a few extra restraints). I then got to sit and wait a little more. By now Susan (another student) arrived. She was actually due to see the panel before me. I was able to find out some useful gossip from her concerning some of the other students! One of them John, had problems with the lecturer, and had moved to the course in the city. (Neville had told me John had been there while he was leaving). John knew a lot about Jungian Personalities, and we'd had soem good discussions about it. John had complained that he was a Sanguine, and that the lecturer was a Choloric, and that the Choloric lecturer wasn't bending to meet his needs. I offered some diplomatic advice. Eventually I suggested to John that, as someone who could see the problem, maybe he could bend to suit the lecturers style of teaching. After all, he could see the problem, but the lecturer (being Choloric) wasn't going to! John told me off for being too phlegmatic! (In a nice way of course! I actually got on well with both John and the lecturer, who co-incedently was called John also). I suspect that the lecturer also had a lot of Melancholic in him, which might have been the real cause for the incompatibility. Also, there as another lady in the course (who I've previously spoken about. She was going to start a councelling business and had an arguement with the lecturer and ran out of the classroom crying). Anyway, she apparently had a nervous breakdown. Very sad (and I won't name her for reasons of respecting her privacy). Part of her problem was that her husband had written the business plan, and she didn't know what was in it. If she'd come before the panel she would have failed pretty badly. I guess that's enough to cause anyone to stress out. Susan went in,and while I was waiting, Ellen arrived, and after fifteen minutes Terry arrived. So three of us were waiting to go in. Twelve came around and I was allowed in. I promised everyone I'd be as quick as I could. I spent the time explaining Network Engineering and why it differed from other computing stuff. (The funny thing is, one of the ladies wanted to know why her business couldn't find any Network Engineers listed in the yellow pages NOR advertising in the normal newspaper! Well, I think it's because we're in short supply and DON'T need to advertise! There is so much work out there, I think they're all knocking the work back!) They asked a lot of questions regarding my business plan trying to find a hole in it. I answered all the questions and they could tell I knew my stuff. I think I even impressed them when they discovered that I was on a course already for my Cert IV in Assessment and Workplace Training this week. I'd had to get permission to miss today, which was the first day of the course). Basically, they saw it as me being enthusiastic and not stopping for a breather since finishing the Business Cert IV. They asked for a look at my Business Card and I showed them the design I'd left in the appendix of the business plan ... they also noticed I had advertising and a BROCHURE! The brochure REALLY impressed them, and the guy noticed something I'd written on the brochure and asked about it! FORENSICS! He aksed if I really could do that. I didn't realise at the time, but he was thinking CSI type forensics, while my brochure was refering to Computer Forensics. I think my explanation of tracing malicious people etc made him realise what the brochure ment, though I didn't realise the mistake till I was halfway down the road after the meeting. [I should also have included the story about the time we had someone on a South Korean Server trying to hack into us via hole in SQL. They'd hit our firewall and couldn't get through. Naturally, as our firewall didn't run SQL! Pttthhh! Anyway, we sent a message to the ISP in South Korea with copies of what we were getting and asked them to investigate it in their country! ie get the police involved! I don't think they took any sort of action at all! Pttthhh!] Anyway, the brochure (like a lot of my business plan) wasn't supposed to be something concrete. They were things I did as part of the course. I want to redesign them and do some other stuff. Well, eventually they told me I passed and congratulated me and everything. I was quite excited. I went out, and by now Ben had arrived. So there were three peopel waiting. Ellen remarked at how quick I was and we all had a bit of a chat regarding it. Then they called Ellen in. It was now only 12:25! Woo Hoo! I'd helped shave some time off the wait! I hope they all appreciated it! I walked out the door and Rob (another student) had arrived! I had long chat to him and explained the wait, and the panel and everything. As I said to him, it all seemed pretty routine and I think they were actually hoping we'd all pass. It's sort of funny. They want to pick holes, but they also want to know you've got those holes covered. I was then in the mood to celebrate. I also had a cravign for Vegetarian Lasagne!! YUM! I know a great place in Sydney to get it from, but I have yet to find a place in Perth ... till today! :-) Only, by the time I found it, they told me they'd sold out! :-( BUT, I know where to go first next time. (Or better yet, I need to make myself some! I hav eto admit, I don't make it anywhere near as good as the guy in Sydney ... oh, and he's chinese! Not even Italian!) Well, I settled for some overpriced spinach and three cheese pies from a pie shop! I won't be going back for that! Tasted bad! I think the girl was really tired from the day, as she wasn't very helpful. I asked if they had any vegetarian pies, and she just pointed at a list, which I couldn't even see a vegetarian pie on ... though there might have been. Then I think she clued into what I'd said and went, 'Oh, these ones are vegetarian and we have this other one from last season.' It seemed they only had a choice of the spinach (with 3 cheese) and a teriyaki vegetable. (Teriyaki??? Did they really cook it on a rock? I don't think so!) I then went and opened my 'business' bank account. Won't be getting the card for a few days. I would have had to wait for an hour before they could give me the card (for some reason) so I asked them to send it to me. (I wasn't even allowed to stick any money in it yet! So I have a balance of ZERO dollars!!!!) I'd spent so long looking for a Vegetarian Lasagne, I now had to leave on the next bus. Once home, I raced to where the course was that I was supposed to be attending, and picked up my official Manual and Workbook. I was given some homework to do (which I should do now I think!) :-) Apparently, the PCYC had installed Windows XP over the top and Win200 and it had lost the network. I spent half an hour getting the computers to work on a network again! Easily done. I then had a nice discussion regarding the business and everything. So, tomorrow (and the rest of the week) I am doing another course. Once this finishes (and I have another piece of paper to say, 'I am smart pttth!', then I can book myself in for my CCNA exam, followed closely by my CCNP exams (five). I'm wondering about the CCIE stuff too ... though I think the CCSP would be better. Don't worry if you're not following all those crazy CC-letter type things ... they're Network Engineering Certifications (of the Cisco variety). I'm just talking out loud (as per usual). Here is a revised list of topics:

• How to burp tunes and blow bubbles out your nose.
• Thesaurus - the dinosaur I can't find in a museum!
• Tautology, repeatition, iteration, duplication - how I fill out my blog posts. :-)
• Oxford, English Dic and Hary - worlds hardest book to follow the plot of!
• Alien Abduction Tale Part III
• The Day I became a Neurosurgeon
• The Art of Dumping a Girl You're Not Even Going Out With
• Baggy Trousers – Why my balls still work!
• Eddie – The guy who couldn't get a Date

As per usual, if you want me to talk on a topic, then just leave it as a comment and I'll either write about what I know or make something up! :-) I didn't do it as numbers this time, as I have no idea which order I will do them in! :-)

Apologies Once Again

Hi Everyone - sorry, no post yesterday was once again caused by my ISP. They either hate me, or want me to go elsewhere for my Internet experience. At present I can't remember how long I have left of my 24 month contract with them, but I'm pretty sure once it expires I might be looking elsewhere. That will be sad, as I've had the same e-mail address for the last ten years, but if I can't get professional ISP service then it may have to happen. As my nick has changed over the last few years from Bear to Dabido anyway, it's probably better to drop the cyber_bear e-mail address. (It was getting me into trouble anyway with 'cyber' coming to mean something else and 'bear' already having large hairy gay implications. I now have over 100 unread e-mails, so if you've e-mailed me and are awaiting a reply, I apologise. I'm most likely not going to get to it tonight, as I have a million and one things to attend to!!!! (Like preparing for my grilling tomorrow over my Business Plan - and other things). Today was another Nephews Birthday, and I was pretty much bored. I think I should take a book to such occassions in the near future. I had a chat to my younger brother Paul, who wants to get together and jam with me. (Why does every musician I know want to jam with me?) Anyway, was a nice birthday for young Joshua (His brother had a B'day Party two weeks ago, but there is actually only a week between their B'days!) I guess that's all I've got time for tonight. Hopefully will have some more time to post more tomorrow. Cheers.

Quick How To Guides (Part Seven)

Quick How To Guides (Part Seven) - Jungian Personality Types Most of my faithful readers will remember I promised to do Jungian Personality types as a Quick Dirty Guide a while back (I think it was a few months ago). Tonight, I was answerign someone's (iesnek's) question regarding Jung on ST's site. As it was basically the post I'd promised to write, I've copied it here, and will now alter it slightly for a more POST friendly read. Who was Carl Jung? Carl Jung was one of the forefathers of modern Psychology. Where as Freud was obsessed by sex and thought everyone else was, Jung was ... well, balmy in his own way. Let's refer to him as 'The Mystic' side of Psychology. Jung brought us Dream Interpretation, Personality types and Analytical Psychology. Jung brought the symbolic into Psychology. Today, we'll just talk about the four personality types - Choloric, Melancholic, Phlegmatic and Sanguine. The Personality Types: We start with what Jung calld the TWO PSYCHOLOGICAL ATTITUDES - INTROVERT and EXTROVERT. The Choloric and Sanguine are extroverts, the Melancholic and Phlegmatic are introverts. The names actually come from Hippocrates in the late 5th century BC. They were believed to be psychological temperaments based on he elements:

• Fire - Choloric
• Air - Sanguine
• Earth - Melancholic
• Water - Phlegmatic (Sounds like something moist!) :-)

The Choloric and Melancholic are more THINKING based. The Sanguine and Phlegmatic are more FEELING oriented (in the case of he Sanguine, their own feelings!) :-) This is the RATIONAL side of the equation as it is based on evaluated experiences from the person. Then, there is the IRRATIONAL side of the equation. Sensation and Intuition. The Choloric and Sanguine are more SENSATION based. The Melancholic and Phlegmatic are more INTUITION based. Cholorics are basically ACTION people (to throw it into one word). They like things to be happening and get quite frustrated if things aren't (and in lot of cases, they need it done almost immediately and in the way they say it should be done.) They tend to get a lot done, but in some cases it is a lot of spinning of wheels, as they don't care how it gets done and when it's done wrong they sometimes have to do it again. SENSATION - THINKING. Sanguines are more PARTY people. But they love attention to be focused on them and if the focus changes to someone else, they have to jump up and down or do something stupid in order to get the spot light back. SENSATION - FEELING Melancholics are planners. They think deep and you wouldn't want to argue with one, as they are most likely right. That said, they have poor people skills and often their message gets lost along the way, as sometimes things will seem like a personal attack by them, when really, they're just interesed in diseminating the facts. INTUITION - THINKING Phlegmatics are FEELY People - often friendly and always concerned for others, they often act as the diplomats between warring factions. That said, they often cause more problems than they fix by trying to please everyone and make sure everything runs smooth and no one gets upset. (Which is sure to p*** off the other personality types as the choloric just wants things to happen, the melancholic is concerned that things are not being done right, and the sanguine wants to take all the credit). INTUITION - FEELING CAVEAT Needless to say, most people are NOT completely one of these personality types, but are made up of combinations of all four. [In fact, it can be broken into EIGHT TYPES as well - using the two attitudes (Intro and Extro) and the four personality traits (Intuition, feeling, thinking, sensation)] However, most people have one dominating personality type and that usually comes through. Some people can have personalities with more than one type in close percentage, [So they will appear to be 50/50 almost] but that's a little more rare, rarer still is the person with three types [Which I happen to be, though my subconscious has a very phlegmatic nature, but my conscious is Phlegmatic, Melancholic and Sanguine in that order with one percentage difference]. Rarest of all, is someone who is almost balanced between all four personality types. These type of people make great managers, as they are able to communicate to all their workers as they can appeal to their personailities nature. Hope that all makes sense. WHY UNDERSTAND IT ALL? The usefulness of understanding which personality type someone is, is it allows you to communicate more effectively to them, and causes less friction. In the case of the Melancholic, just givethem the facts, don't worry about 'feelings' or 'attention' or trying to 'force something to happen NOW' [which would be the mistakes the three other types would make]. In the case of the Phlegmatic, you have to ensure that they know that no one is getting hurt. That everyone is fine and dandy. In the case of the Sanguine, they are really in it for tthe FUN. Make sure they know that it will be FUN based. (Otherwise they might run for the hills). In the case of the Choloric, you need to make sure that they understand that action is being taken (or will be in the near future). In most cases, you'll find the exact opposites hate each other. Melancholics and Sanguines will normally have problems are the Melancholic is an 'Intuition and Thinking' type person. The Sanguine is a 'Sensation and Feeling' type person. The Sanguine will want all the attention to be focused on themselves and want to party (regardless of who gets hurt along the way), while the Melancholic would rather be planning something useful. The Choloric and Phlegmatics will have problems as the Choloric wants to DO DO DO and the Phlegmatic wants to wait and chill till they know everyone is fine by what's happening. It's a lot more complex than what I've described. The Choloric is the 'Sensation Thinking' person, while the phlegmatic is the 'feeling intuition' person. So, hopefully what I've jsut described will be of use to you. Next time you run into someone who is really annoying and you can't figure out WHY, it's probably because their dominant personality type is the exact opposite of your own. The facts [crap] I've just written, hopefully will be of use next time you want to communicate with them (or anyone else). I hope you use this information to bridge the gap between yourself and others (don't use it as a weapon). And Smile a lot. I don't know why, I just thought I'd add that! :- ) :-) :-) :-) :-)

2AM Perth Time

It's now just after 2AM Perth time, and I've just finished reading (catching up) on most peoples blogs and still haven't started on my e-mail! Waaaah! Darn Internet Service Provider!!!!

Apologies for Yesterday

Hi Everyone. My apologies for not posting yeasterday, but my ISP was running like a dog, and I couldn't even log into my mail to download everything. Now I have 60 unread e-mails sitting in my in-tray. Dagnammit!!! Went to the local PCYC and set up there training network. One of the guys who will be running the training has also asked if I can come along and become a member of Rotary. I'm considering it. Next Monday I am having my business plan either accepted or rejected. I'm also going to be starting another course. This one is a Cert IV in Training and Work Place Assessment. (As opposed to the Cert IV in Small Business Management I just did ... both have Cert IV in the title, and I don't want people thinking I'm starting the same course again!) :-) So I got leave from the trainer to skip Monday but I will be picking up the training manual on Monday afternoon and then having to read it all and do a catch up of the first day. Apparently, the first two days are the most crucial, and if you miss one of those days, then you're screwed for the rest of the course. Another difficult task, but I'll do it easily! :-) I've been keeping my mothers spirits as high as possible with silly comments and jokes (so business as usual for me) :-) We were watching the news and they showed the Florida Hurricane. There were all these cessna's [planes] lying on their backs. I cracked my mother up by saying, 'Oh no! They've killed the aeroplanes!' [Yeah, migh tnot be funny now! Was one of those jokes you had to be there for, so I dont 'expect any one will laugh at it over the internet.] I also spent a lot of Monday & Tuesday shopping with my mother (and the other day as well). She was buying nightgowns for the hospital stay. I went in search of Terry Pratchet's Monsterous Regiment, but can't find it in any of the local stores! I think I might have to get it on Monday when I am in the City. I also went a little beserk yesterday. With the prospect of being all cashed up, I raced around and bought a few things. First was a thumb drive I need to take my business plan [in electronic format], into the city on Monday with. One of the panel has already told me she wants to make some changes. I also bought a copy of Red Dwarf IV. (I have I and III and my mother has VI - plus I've been meaning to borrow II from my brother, as I bought that for him last Xmas). While there, I thought, 'Hmmm, this game is only $5 ... and this one is only $18 ... and ...' you get the picture. Came home with a LOT of games. [All curencies are AUD]

1. Medal of Honour $18
2. Golf Resort Tycoon $5
3. Real Estate Tycoon $10
4. O.R.B. (Off-world Resource Base) $5
5. Jagged Alliance 2 $5
6. Europa Universalis II $5
7. Celtic Kings $5
8. Patrician II $5
9. Legion $5

With the PC off line most of yesterday, I spent a lot of time playing Europa Universalis II (which I've already won playing as Russia. Lots of fun), and then Medal of Honour (Till I realised it was midnight and then went to bed). Today I loaded Golf Resort Tycoon and already totally creamed that game. Glad it only cost $5, as I would have kicked myself silly paying any more for it. I'm already bored with it and ... well, it was too easy to play. I think my brother Jeff might like it ... he's run off with my copyof Sims. :-) Anyway, Medal of Honour I thought was going to be like Call of Duty. In Call of Duty you're with a squad and it's like being a member in 'Saving Private Ryan' or 'Band of Brothers'. Medal of Honour isn't like that at all. It's still a first person shooter, but instead it's more like 'metal gear solid', or some of the other ones where you're by yourself. You're more of a special agent dropped behind enemy lines rather than being with a squad. I've only played the first scenario, where you infiltrate behind enemy lines, save a British SAS guy, and then basically run around shooting a lot of Germans. It might change, but I've started the second scenario, and I'm still on my lonesome with the SAS guy. Europa Universalis II is my sort of game. It's basic Strategic take on the world type thing, set between the 1400's (from about the time of the Hundred Years War), to 1820. I was a bit sad that I couldn't play my beloved Japan. You can play China though. As I stated earlier, I've already won playing Russia. It has a slight incompatibility with my machine, and every now and then it just dies. (Stops completely). I messed around till I found an autosave, but it will only autosave every year in game time as a minimum. This means when it freezes, you might lose a lot of what you've done - especially if it freezes on December the 29th, then you've lost an entire year of gameplay if you didn't save sometime of your own chosing. Due to the freezing, I lost the first few games I played (I started as England in the American War of Independance scenario, then tried it in a Napolenic time). I liked playing Russia and after losing one or two of the first attempts due to freezing, went in search of the save. [Having not read the fine manual, (NRTFM), I had to go searching for all the options and stuff]. Once I found the autosave, I continued. It froze a few times during the game, but thanks to the autosave (and a few other mid year saves I did), I was able to complete the game. I got the hang of what I was doing. Early on, I was getting a lot of revolts in my own country, though my stability was at a maximum. I also had an early war with Poland (and annexed three of their provences), and then a war with the Ottoman Empire. I was trying to take Armenia, but they wouldn't accept my peace terms. Then, I was really surprised, when they turned around and OFFERED ME FOUR PROVENCES AND MONEY!!! It was one more provence than I'd been asking for and had some money attached! WOW! Anyway, annexing Armenia was worth a lot of victory points for me and put me well clear to win the game. I should add some descriptions about the game. First - It's strategy with NO tactical bits. (If you are familiar with Total War, it has both strategy and tactics. Strategy, for those unfamiliar with war/wargames is the BIG picture. Tactics are more battlefield sized related. If you are looking at a map with lots of differnet cities, you are probably playing a stategy game - if it's one or two cities and lots of land or water, then it's probably tactical. If it's a muddy field, it's definitely tactical). Second - It's more realistic than a lot of games. In Europe in the five hundred years leading up to Napoleon, a LOT of countries would gang up on any other power who got too big. Especially in Continental Europe. In this game a similar thing happens. Get too big, expect to be fighting almost EVEYONE!!! Due to the fact that it isn't a 'build up and totally cream everyone' type game (like a lot of them, where you just get more and more powerful as you take more and more land), it means the victory conditions can't be 'Total World Domination' as it's almost impossible. (Or maybe it is possible. I haven't tried). So there are a number of different things which can be set as Victory conditions. In the case of me playing Russia, I set the conditions to 'the country with the most Victory Points at the end of 1820'. In order to win victory points, you can do several things, but one of the main things for victory points is setting goals and achieving them. The goals will depend on the nation you are playing. One of my goals was to annex Armenia from the Ottoman Empire. I did that. Another one was to have a Royal Marriage with Georgia. I did that too. I didn't try for the Royal Marriage with Wallacia. I did try to build a 'ship building port' in the Crimea, but I didn't get that done in time! (Darn!) So I actually lsot points for NOT acheiving a goal. So, if you are into STRATEGY (Not tactical) games, then this one is a good one. I know a lot of these sorts of things are not everyones cup to tea, which might be why they don't sell as well as Civilization (another great game), Age of Empires, Warhammer etc. For someone like me they are gems to be found in the bargin bins. A lot of these good strategic and tactical type games don't even get mentioned in the PC magazines, so I often don't know what I am buying. I'm looking forward to trying the other games I bought. If you don't hear from me for a few days, it'll be a combination of the training course and the games! :-) [And answering my 60 odd e-mails!] :-)

Rolf Harris

Okay, decided to get the Rolf Harris post out the way, as it is rather short one. Like most Aussie kids, I grew up with Rolf Harris, though the remarkable thing abou tRolf, is he left our shores and went to the UK to become a hit. I've seen some of his art, and he was a great artist in his day. Rolf comes from the amazing city of Perth. I have no idea why I call it amazing, I want to leave and go back to Sydney, or London or anywhere bigger where you can go eat at midnight somewhere. So, we had Rolf Harris on record, tape and even books. One thing which ALWAYS used to occur whenever we were playing a Rolf Harris album, was my mother would remind me of my SIX DEGREES of SEPERATION story with Rolf Harris. Before I get to it though, let me point out the other Six Degrees story whcih is so lame that it's not worth mentioning ... but it fills in my blog. As an ex-member of WAMi (Western Australian Music Industry), our last years competition and stuff had Rolf doing the art work (and I think he was also one of the patrons, but I didn't pay that much attention to the properganda, so I'm not sure!) Told you it was lame ... but as a member of WAMi, I did get a letter from him last year. Admittedly a form letter sent to everyone in WAMi. So, having got that out the way, the BIG story (which I will place in the ALMOST LAME category), was that when I was young, I took my first steps in front of Rolf Harris's Aunties. So my first tender young steps, my beginning of life under my own steam was taken before the same eyes who had seen young Rolf walking for the first time. (Told you it was in the almost lame category ... or maybe it should be under the lame category and I am making out it was a bigger deal than it really was! Oh well, there is always tomorrows post!) :-) I will talk a little more. As a child, my favouite Rolf Harris song was about Maximillian Mouse. I'm no tsure how many of you have heard the song, but it's about a mouse (to state the obvious), and he is like a bull fighting mouse. I can't remember the words, but I assume he was bull fighting the cat. As a child, whenever that song was on, I'd get up and pretend to be Maximillian Mouse bull fighting. OLE! And that really concludes all my personal firsthand experience with Rolf (other than we used to own some of his books and used to draw the cartoon characters from his books and stuff). Plus, I remember a book from the seventies which was very much an environmental type book. About recycling and stuff that Rolf had written. Very advanced for it's day considering how 'environmentally aware' Rolf was when the rest of the world was buying HUGE cars and stuff.

Things Which Happened Today

Well, it's been an interesting time lately. My mother is due to go into hospital in a month. She's not supposed to do too much standing up or anything else. She phoned my sister to tell her the other day that she can't look after her kids for a while (as my sister normally dumps her kids on my mother once or more each week). Well, my nephew cut his head open the other day, and not my sister has my mother wrapped around her finger again looking after her kids. My mother's over there now, staying the night and looking after the kids. So much for my mother following Doctor's orders and stuff. So much for my sister NOT aggrevating my mother's medical conditions. Anyway, without my mother here, I am actually able to get more work done. Still, it isnt' good that my sister ignores my mother's problems. As per usual, everyone in my family does what they want, and I get left as the ambulance and everything else needed to pick up the pieces. At times like this, I really wish I hadn't of left Sydney. At least in Sydney I didn't have the family melodramas and such. Now that I am here, no one wants me to leave. The agrivation is getting to my mother though. She started an arguement this morning, and even though I kept tellingher I agreed (which is my usual method of deflecting my mother's wrath), she kept telling me , 'NO!' and kept telling me what was wrong with the world and telling me that I was wrong. I tried pointing out to her that I hadn't expressed ANY views concerning the world, but she just continued. Having failed in my 'I agree' tactic, I then tried reasoning with her. That didn't help either. She just kept trying to tell me what I beleived and why it was wrong. It was more than a person not taking, 'Yes' for an answer. It was annoying. I jsut kept biting my tongue waiting for her to stop. I so hope that she gets over this after her operation. It's rather sickening. She just starts on something and then tells you that you believe the opposite of whatever she is arguing against. I sent an e-mail off to my financial advisor before as I was wondering where my money was. I sent a letter exiting me from my managed funds on the first of October, bu hadn't heard anything. So I asked where it was up to. Today I got a reply. My money is one week away. Woo hoo! So I will be cashed up and able to spend it on stuff. I so much want to leave here. I get torn between the fact that I feel my family won't survive without me here, and the fact that I think they're becoming worse as they're taking advantage of me. Monday I get to see if my business plan is approved. If it isn't, I'll seriously consider going elsewhere. I'll be cashed up and I am thinking a move back to the UK is on the agenda! My family are driving me nuts! I still have no definite plans for the future. It's strange that at the age of forty, I still have unrealised dreams, and they seem as far away as ever. We'll see what happens. In case of doubt, I either jump into the fire and see if I get burnt, or I stay put and hope I'm not in the fire or the frying pan. I'll see what happens Monday. It might be the death of the business before it starts.

Haloscan Working Again

Haloscan appears to be working again, so you can comment away!!!!

HaloScan Problems

Hi Everyone, There appears to be aproblem with HALOSCAN at the moment, so comments are difficult to leave. Hoepfully they will sort it out soon. Cheers, Dabido.

Alien Abduction Tale Part II (Original appeared on Minishorts site on Oct 22nd)

I thought I'd tell part TWO of the Alien Abduction saga. I think I had the least amount of comments for any guest blogger on Minishorts site. Maybe I needed to be more controversial. Anyway, I did ask them to tell me if it wasn't funny enough to stick up, and they didn't say anything. Plus I ran it past my youngest brother who thought it was funny. Then again, my youngest brother isn't the best judge of 'comedy' or 'satire' or well, almost anything. Alien Abduction Part II - Let The Probing Begins. (This time, it's personal!) Many a time a strange person has turned up at the hospital with something needing to be removed from their private parts. In many cases, when the Doctor asks how the bottle, hockey stick, plastic power ranger doll or other miscellaneous item somehow got lodged in their sphincter*, the usual reply is, 'I was taking a shower and slipped.' [*Please note, a Sphincter is a circular ring like muscle. Even though the anus is a sphincter, it is NOT the only one in the human body. There are in fact four. So if someone tells you a sphincter is another word for anus, they not only wrong, they are making an ass of themselves! A guy I used to work with used to like calling me a sphincter and thought that was it's meaning. What a huge sphincter he was!] One of the odd things about this remark is it leaves us open to all sorts of questions as to how the object in question ended up in the shower. Now, as this is a Alien Abduction story, you probably think it might have been left there by the aliens! No, sir! The simple and most rational explanation is that it had got jammed while the aliens were probing. Being unable to remove the aforementinoed object, they left a hypnotic suggestion in the mind of the person to believe that they were actually having a shower and slipped. It leads us to another question. Why do aliens find the need to shove things up peoples bottoms? I'm glad you asked. This is another simple question to answer. Many things have been suggested. One being that there are in fact no aliens, and that most of the alien encounters have occurred due to Narcolepsy (lucid dreams) or Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. Many a respected Doctor has suggested these things. Let me tell you, no self respecting conspiracy theory could be complete without the belief that someone is paying someone off to lie. So it pains me to say this, but I have to reveal that the Aliens are in fact paying respected doctors to say this obvious mumbo jumbo. So, using Occam's razor, we find that the simplest explanation is down to earth, normal everyday homemade Alien Abduction and hush money. So, now I will answer the question: The reason aliens are constantly probing the human anus region is because it is the aliens belief that all human psychology can be explained through a complete understanding of the colonic cavity. It certainly explains most politicians, and why we vote for them. It also explains why most managers are the way they are and why we allow them to boss us around. (And as the Managing Director of my own company, I can safely say that with no disagreement from any of my non-existant staff! I assure you though, if I DID have any staff, they would all agree whole heartedly.) For the sake of clarity, I will now colour code the following conversation which took place on an alien spacecraft on the night of July the 35th sometime in October. ME - BLUE ALIEN DOCTOR - RED ALIEN NURSE - GREEN ELEPHANT - PINK EXTRA WITH NO SPEAKING LINE - BLACKISH WHITISH PUCE Hey! Are you a Doctor? No. What are you doing with that? We have to do an anal probe. Really? It looks rather large for a humans back passage. Don't worry it won't hurt a bit. Hello. Hello, are you a Doctor? Do I look like God? No. Really? Are you sure, because I am a Doctor. That nurse says she's going to shove that elephant between my butt cheeks. Why do you think it's an elephant? Well, it's large, it's grey, it has a trunk and two tusks and it's sort of wrinkly. No! No! I assure you it isn't an elephant. You see, those two sharp looking white things you think are tusks, they are just special probes. And this long hose like thing you think is a trunk, it's just a feeder tube for nutrients. HEY! Get you bleeding mits off my trunk! No one mentioned anything about being shoved up some cobblers buttocks! Well, too late for that I'm afraid. Have to proceed. It's all done in the name of medicine you know. Say what? Pip pip! Toodles! It was at this point that the elephant stomped out of the spacecraft crushing the Doctor and half the crew. I searched around the spacecraft for something in order to help with the scientific experiment. Alas, there was nothing worth probing myself with. I then had to catch the number ten bus home. This was difficult for two reasons, first of all, I was no where near a bus stop, and second of all, the number ten doesn't go anywhere near my home. Luckily, as I opened the door to the spacecraft in order to find the bus stop, I realised I was still in my backyard. The Rhino asked for a lift home, but I made him scab a ride off the Hippopotamus. And thus ends my experience as an Alien probe guinea pig. All done in the name of medical science furthering the understanding of the human psyche. It also explains why so many people who complain of alien abductions walk a little funny afterwards.

My secret life as a sex god.

1. Fight or Flight? How to run away like a real hero.
2. What Beatles Songs REALLY mean.
3. My secret life as a sex god.
4. How to burp tunes and blow bubbles out your nose.
5. Thesaurus - the dinosaur I can't find in a museum!
6. Tautology, repeatition, iteration, duplication - how I fill out my blog posts. :-)
7. Oxford, English Dic and Hary - worlds hardest book to follow the plot of!
8. Alien Abduction Tale Part II (Original will appear on Minishorts site on Oct 22nd)
9. The Day I became a Neurosurgeon
10. The Art of Dumping a Girl You're Not Even Going Out With
11. Baggy Trousers – Why my balls still work!
12. Eddie – The guy who couldn't get a Date
13. Rolf Harris

My secret life as a sex god. One thing which has always annoyed me in life, is that often someone likes you, but you never hear about it until well after they've got over their initial crush. Or, there are the times that someone comes out and admits they like you (or love you) and they somehow expect that the world is going to change and you're going to sweep them off their feet and gallop off ona white stallion to some stupid castle somewhere. These are of course both sides of the same coin, because in one case we are desperate to KNOW that we are liked ... in the other case we wish WE HADN'T FOUND OUT who liked us. I've had many strange occurrances of things like this happen to me over my life. Of course, the other part of the problem is when we have a crush on someone and can't tell them, or we do eventually get the courage to tell them and they go, 'YUCH!!! THAT'S GROSSSSS!' The fact of the matter is, we all want someone we like to like us. It still annoys the living daylights out of me that I often find out that the girl I had a crush on, had a crush on me, but was only able to tell me AFTER she's run off with one of my friends or married someone else!!! Of course, the fear is, if I had of admitted to her I'd liked her back when she liked me, I was always afraid of the 'OH NO! NOT YOU!' sort of moment. One thing I did notice in my growing up years, was this tendency fro some guys to get absolutely GORGEOUS women, dispite the fact that the guy was ugly, bald, fat, stupid (insert horrible adjective here). In the case of one of my (insert horrible adjective here) friends landing one of these girls, I was of course extremely happy for him. (And possibly slightly jealous ... except when I was with someone, because then I really don't care) :-) Of course, the shoe often lands on the other foot too ... one of your absolutely fabulous friends (male or female) ends up with some total (insert horrible adjective here) person and you wonder what they see in them. Which leads on to my SECRET LIFE as a sex god. Now, I know a lot of you will be disapointed by this story, because you've tuned in to hear my secret tips and juicey bits and pieces of stories. The problem with MY secret life as a sex god, is no one told me till after the fact. Imagine this, young thin starving guy, worked his way off the streets of Sydney by taking a factory job. He turns up at church. Only something really bad happens behind his back, and a little in front of him. That young guy was me, aged about twenty. I started attending a church with one of my friends from school, Gregory. First night at the Christian Fellowship meeting, and soe guy I've never met before walks up and tells me to my face that he knows me and that I am a car thief. The dumb thing about the accussation, was that I couldn't even drive. I'd never had the opportunity to learn. (In fact, I didn't learn till I was twenty three). I ignored the guy, thinking he was some form of idiot. (Idiots take many forms and most aren't listed on the human periodic table as they'd take up too much space). The guy went off to a corner, and I'd keep seeing him talking to people and pointing at me. The rumour mill had started! For some reason, a lot of young girls suddenly started taking an interest in me. At th time I wasn't sure why. Some of it had to do with the rumour of me being a BAD ASS CAR THIEF. They wanted to be the girl to change the bad guy into the reformed evil dude. The NEW cool, somehow rebelious, yet totally nice person. Unfortunately, it wasn't going to happen. There wasn't anything to change. I couldn't drive, I wasn't running around stealing cars and if I ever did try to steal a car, I'd probably kangaroo it into a tree. The rest of the rumours were the interesting things. We went on a camp (like fellowsip groups do), and while I was talking to one of the fellowship leaders, he let slip. 'I hear you are into some pretty wild women,' he said. 'Huh?' 'You like, run around with some wild women.' 'What? No! What do you mean?' 'Like, you're out picking up women every night having sex.' 'No, what gave you that idea?' 'Um, uh, I thought I heard it somewhere.' That was it. THAT WAS THE REASON THE YOUNG GIRLS WERE HANGING AROUND ME! They all thought I was some super experienced SEX MACHINE! The funny thing was, the more I denied it, the more people believed it. They kept telling me I was being 'UNREPENTANT'. I thought I'd stopped the rumours. I eventually moved in with a friend of mine, Craig. One of the house mates at Craigs, was a girl named Lisa. Eventually Craig got married, and Lisa and i had to find another place to live. So we did. We moved into a flat. After about two years, I was ordered by the church to move out, as apparently I shouldn't be living with a girl. So I moved into a place with my bass player Paul. Now, by this time, I was going out with Christine, who would becoem my future wife, and then ex-wife. She had an interesting story to tell me. At her church (she was going to another one), they apparently used to use Lisa and Me as examples of TWO CHRISTIANS LIVING IN SIN!!!! Yes, apparently, everyone though that I and my flatmate Lisa, (who was ALWAYS like a sister to me), we HAVING SEX!!!! Why? BECAUSE HOW COULD SHE RESIST A SEX GOD LIKE DABIDO!!!!! WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA????? Yes, it was all a big surprise to me too. I wish I really did have this SEX APPEAL thing happening. Why am I a sex god behind my back? Why can't I be one to me face???? :-) Anyway, it wasn't the end of my 'SEX GOD' Status. As a musician, I was pretty unaware of how girls felt about me. After I got married I had a few funny epsiodes. A few of the girls from church admitted to having been totally smitten by me when I'd been single (and because I'd got married they suddenly felt they could confess). One young girl (not realising I was married) made a pass at me. I told her I was married, and she kept telling me I wasn't. I kept pointing at the wedding ring. M A R R I E D!!! She had trouble understanding. THAT GIRL THERE! CHRISTINE! SHE IS MY WIFE!!! She still didn't understand. She thought I was joking. I had to get Christine and another girl Cindy to explain it in English for them. AH! Now she understood! Maybe I just don't talk teenage girl. Darn alien languages!!! And that my friends, was my secret life as a sex god. [Girls, please tell me if it's still happening. I'd hate to be wasting my charisma!] :-)

Quick Note For Those Who May Be Visiting For the First Time

It occurred to me, after visiting Minishorts site tonight, that as it was my turn to 'Guest Blog', that a few people may be venturing this way who haven't been here before. (Or maybe my guest blog scared them all off forever! Bwahaahaaa!) Anyway, for those visiting for the first time: On the next post down, you will notice a list of things. This is the list of 'subjects / Titles' I am going to be blogging on in the near future. The way it works is this, if you wish for me to blo on something, just add it to my comments section. It can be a subject, such as 'Rolf Harris', or it can be a title, like 'what does it mean if I wear pink underwear'. Or, if you like, you can ask a question. Everything gets added (though I may censor any naughty words), and I'll do my best to blog about it. Don't worry if what you suggest might seem weird, strange or completely off someone elses wall, I'll do my best to make head or tail of it, and write something. And if you are visiting for the first time, Welcome. And all those return visiting, 'Thanks, and please come again' [said in my best Apu impersonation]. And the twenty to fifteen of you who return visit and never speak, please, say something! :-) Cheers, Dabido.

What Beatles Songs REALLY Mean.

Before I get started, here is the REVISED list - I chopped the top off the list. You can link to the other parts from 1. (Fight or Flight)

1. Fight or Flight? How to run away like a real hero.
2. What Beatles Songs REALLY mean.
3. My secret life as a sex god.
4. How to burp tunes and blow bubbles out your nose.
5. Thesaurus - the dinosaur I can't find in a museum!
6. Tautology, repeatition, iteration, duplication - how I fill out my blog posts. :-)
7. Oxford, English Dic and Hary - worlds hardest book to follow the plot of!
8. Alien Abduction Tale Part II (Original will appear on Minishorts site on Oct 22nd)
9. The Day I became a Neurosurgeon
10. The Art of Dumping a Girl You're Not Even Going Out With
11. Baggy Trousers – Why my balls still work!
12. Eddie – The guy who couldn't get a Date
13. Rolf Harris

What Beatles Songs REALLY Mean. A long, long time ago, in a Galaxy far, far away, I used to be in a rock band. My lead guitarist was a guy named Brett. Brett absolutely loved the Beatles. One day, while we were speaking, I asked which were his favourite Beatles songs. He said, 'The ones which don't make any sense.' I replied, 'But, they all make sense! Why don't you think they make sense?' 'Well they don't! They were all off their rockers on drugs in the later years and didn't know what they were writing.' I had to disagree and asked him to give and example of a song which didn't make sense. The first song he chose was 'She Came In Through The Bathroom Window.' 'Ah,' I said. 'That makes perfect sense, it was written by Paul MacCartney about the time some girls broke into his house while he was away.' 'But,' replied poor Brett. 'What's it mean when he says "protected by her silver spoon"? Surely she didn't think a spoon could be used as a weapon.' 'Of course not Brett. Haven't you ever heard the saying, "born with a Silver Spoon in your mouth"? It means being born lucky. So she was being protected by her luck.' 'Oh, then what's the song "Sexy Sadie" about?' 'That young Brett, was written by Lennon after he became disillussioned by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi." "But! But! Isnt' "Lucy in he Sky with Diamonds" about LSD?' "Nope! Wrong again! John wrote it about a painting his son Julian had done. When he aked Julian what the painting was, he said it was "Lucy in the sky with Diamonds", and that's how the song got it's name." 'Really? Then tell me what the song lyrics mean. Yellow matter custard, dripping from a dead dog’s eye. Crabalocker fishwife, pornographic priestess, Boy, you been a naughty girl you let your knickers down. I am the eggman, they are the eggmen. I am the walrus, goo goo g’joob. Come on, tell me what they mean?' 'Um ... er ... ah ... well obviously John was completely drugged off his nut when he wrote THOSE ones!!!'

Fight or Flight? How to run away like a real hero.

A Quick Reminder of the LIST of subjects so far:

1. Crazy Dates I may have been on. Part I
2. New ways to take over the world. Part I
3. New ways to take over the world. Part II
4. New ways to take over the world. Part III
5. New ways to take over the world. Part IV
6. Fight or Flight? How to run away like a real hero.
7. What Beatles Songs REALLY mean.
8. My secret life as a sex god.
9. How to burp tunes and blow bubbles out your nose.
10. Thesaurus - the dinosaur I can't find in a museum!
11. Tautology, repeatition, iteration, duplication - how I fill out my blog posts. :-)
12. Oxford, English Dic and Hary - worlds hardest book to follow the plot of!
13. Alien Abduction Tale Part II (Original will appear on Minishorts site on Oct 22nd)
14. The Day I became a Neurosurgeon
15. The Art of Dumping a Girl You're Not Even Going Out With
16. Baggy Trousers – Why my balls still work!
17. Eddie – The guy who couldn't get a Date
18. Rolf Harris

I'll give the World Domination a bit of a rest for tonight, and will skip to the next subject. This performs two things. First, it keeps the regulars in suspense. Second, it gives me something else to blog about - a bit of variety, whcih probably wouldn't hurt the readers also. Fight or Flight? How to run away like a real hero. In history, a lot of people remember the heroes who stayed, fought, died, and then had statues erected in their honour. In some cases, they stayed, fought, died, and everyone else died and no statues were erected. What a waste. Enter history, a Hero, who was cool underfire, was able to have horses shot from under him, have bullets go into his coat, yet still able to run away without loosing any of his credibility. If you choose to be a hero, then this is probably the hero you should choose. A man who lost more battles than he won, yet was still able to command the utmost respect from his peers. I'm not talking Ghengis Khan ... he won every battle. I'm not talking Sun Tzu ... he also won every battle. I'm not talking Patton, Rommel, Hannibal, Julius Caesar, Pikachu, Yamamoto, Musashi, Alexander the Great or Ramses. I'm talking someone who the American's revere greatly. I'm talking George Washington. At 20 years of age, he was attacked by smallpox. This, he couldn't run away from. As such, his face became scarred for life. At 22 years of age, George decided to shoot at some French Canadians. Those French Canadians had deliberately wandered into Ohio, which is a good enough reason to shoot at anyone. This started the French and Indian war, though no actual Indians were involved, just Native Americans, the French, the English and their colonists. It's also called the Seven Years War by people outside America, but most American's can't remember how long it went for. George built Fort Necessity. The French turned up, and told him he wasn't a necessity for Fort Necessity, and George promptly surrended it. Thus, learning how to run away for the first time. Well, this was more a meander away, as he wasn't underfire and didn't need to run. George later went with the English to fight at the "Battle of the Monongahela". Here was where four shots were fired into his coat, and two horses were shot from under him. It is said his third horse was heard to mutter, 'Oh well, I've had a good life.' This is where George proved he was a man worth running away with. While the English were basically being slaughtered, George organised the retreat, staying calm and cool. Many men (and horses) owe their lives to George that day. His third horse was heard to mutter after the battle, 'Oh, yeah! Lucky number three!' George was involved in only one more battle in the seven years war, and that was a win for the British at Fort Duquesne. Brigadier General John Forbes, the English commander was heard to say after the battle, 'Didn't need you after all Georgie boy. We didn't run away this time!' 'I did fight in the battle to you know!' replied George. 'Sure you did old chum! Sure you did!' 'Bloody British!' George mumbled! 'You'll keep!' 'I say, we're going to rename Fort Duquesne, Fort Pitt, after Brad Pitt. Say what?' In 1775, during the American Revolution, John Adams realized the Continental Army, which was made mainly of volunteers, was no match for the Professional British soldiers. 'What we need,' said John. 'Is someone who knows how to run away a lot, while still keeping the army together. I suggest, George Washington, the bravest man ever to organise a retreat.' The Continental Congress agreed. A year later, at the Battle of Long Island, George was able to prove John correct. After realising there were no long island ice teas on the island, George successfully organised another retreat. The amazing thing being that he kept the majority of his army in tact with few losses or desertions. (No drinks, no dessert ... are they out of everything on Long Island?) George wasn't all running away though, and on Christmas night, he crossed the Delaware and his forces hid in the English stockings. Imagine their surprise on Xmas day when out popped George and his men. He then followed this by going to Princeton, (Oh, an Ivy League man!!!) and giving General Cornwallis the shock of his life. 'Charles, I'm here to give you a lecture.' Said George. 'Sorry George, have to take a feather from your cap, and run away like a hero! Exit, stage left!' The Battle of Brandywine saw George using his patented retreat methods again. Later that year, an aid ran up to George saying, 'General Washington, The English are in Germantown!!!' 'They can't do that! They're not GERMAN AT ALL!' Unfortunately, dispite his outrage, George was unable to dislodge the Ebglish from Germantown, and was forced to retreat. They wintered in Valely Forge, which was nothing like Valley of the Dolls, and only slightly better that the Valley of the Shadow of Death. June 1778 saw the Battle of Monmouth. Washington and his men atacked the British forces. One of Washington's men, General Lee, seized his opportunity to run away like a real hero and sounded a general retreat. Washington, argued with Lee as running away like a real hero has a lot to do with choosing the right time to run away. Washington rallied the men and fought on. At the end of the battle, no one had won. Heat Stroke and Sun Stroke claimed more lives than the bullets and cannon, and subsequently declared themselves the overall winners. General Lee was later court marshalled for running away, which was sort of ironic, as he should have run away from the court marshalling. Clearly a man who didn't know when to run and when to fight. The French and American forces eventually trapped General Charles Cornwallis at Yorktown. Yorktown was more of a seige not a battle. George marched his army down from the north and joined the seige. Cornwallis eventually surrended, thus ending the US War of Independence. Though I have told this in a humourous way, there are some things that canbe said about George. Though he ran away more often than not, he was up against a professional army. His own army consisted mainly of volunteers and weren't really trained until 1778 when Baron Friedrich von Steuben started to give them a hand. The secret of his success lay in choosing his battles. Knowing when to stand and when to run. Also, his character made men followers. Many another General would not have been able to hold such a rabble together, but George could. Though other Generals throughout history have also had the good sense to run away when they couldn't possibly win, none had the ability to keep a mish mash army together after many defeats. I take my hat off to George Washington. A man who could run away like a real hero. The lessons learned here: Choose your battles carefully. Stay focused on your eventual goal. Know when to run and when to stand and fight. There might even be some more lessons, but hopefully, we've all learned how to run away like a real hero.

New Ways to Take Over the World Part IV

New Ways to Take Over the World Part IV - Computer Power We've managed to get our Anti-Personnel bits working, plus, we've also got the greatest Anti-Tank weapon knopwn to man kind. It's time to get some heavy heavy computing power. After all, if we're going to get a Secret Moonbase (The one th eUS used to film the moonlanding which never happened), then we need something equal to the computing power the US used to get there. As some of you know, NASA actualyl used less processing power then 64k. So, we want something to equal that enormous processing power.

Enter, the C64.

Now that we have the computing power to get to our secret moonbase, we also need some awesome power to do all our supercomputing needs. For this we need our very own Cray supercomputer. I give you the Cray!!! Next, we need to network these two silicon Giants together. We get the supercomputer controling the Space Program Commodore 64. Not only can we now control our rocket ships between the Moon and Earth, but we can also use this for CBM fired at other nations, any missles launched from the moon, and ordering pizza on line. We can also play Pacman and a multitude of other retro games. I was going to include a Beowulf Cluster I was working on, but not having a Beowulf, I substituted Shrek. We grab about ten Shrek plastic models and melt them together. (Unfortunately, I am too lazy to take a photo of it ... um ... well, too lazy to GIMP the photo's together, as I'ma bit under the weather and there is a Japanese Movie on TV tonight that I want to watch.) This masive computing power can also be used to control the Table Legs we have scattered over the earth, as well as working out the best placement for these devices by mapping them with a nice program written in Commodore Basic (complete with Commodore graphic Sprites). Poke this and Peek that!!!! :-) (Oh geees, showing my age with that reference!) Result - All your bases are ours! With our new found computing power, we are also able to hack any of our enemies computers, even using brute force, because our C64-Cray supercomputer is unstoppable! [Insert manic Super Villian Laugh here!] Tomorrow - Taking control of the High Seas!

Before I continue.

Before I start, there is some good news and some bad news I'd like to share. Good News First - Yesterday, I got the results from my Business Course exam, and I passed with 97%. (And kicked myself when I realised why I dropped the marks. Daggnammit!) Bad News - My mother was once again at the Doctors today. Regular readers might remember I did the mercy dash with her to hospital a few weeks ago, and then she had an operation shortly after. Well, the news is, the polyp they removed wasn't completely benign, and she's still been bleeding. She has to go into hospital for another operation to completely remove a large chunk of her. She's pretty scared, so any prayers for her will be much appreciated. She goes under the knife in a bout a month. She's not going to be able to drive or anything for a month or two after the operation, so looks like I'm going to be the taxi service once again. (Starting from today, as the Doc told her not to drive and stay off her feet and stuff). She was worried her pot plants might die while she is in hospital, but I assured her that we'd kill thme before she goes in, so that way she'll have nothing to worry about. She thought that was funny. (I better not tell her about the Dogs though!) :-)

New Ways To Take Over The World. Part III

New Ways to Take Over the World Part III - The History Primer continued With the end of WWII, Russia decided to use it's Ice Vodka in what was eventually called, the Cold War. The main aim of the cold war was for the US to sell a lot of bad movies based on Russian Spies played by American's with bad Russian accents (or in the case of 'The Hunt For Red October' a Scotish accent who believes all Russian Submarine Commanders speak with a Scotish accent ... which in some cases is true after you get some scotch into them). The Russian really cemented their intent, when they built a large wall in Berlin so that dissidents had something to write annoying slogans on. Two important things happened during the cold war. First of all, Elvis was drafted into the Army to devistating effect. Second, the Russians were going to put missiles on Cuba, but settled for paying the Mafia to shoot JFK from a grassy knoll. This is not to be mistaken for Beyonce's Knolls which are much larger and nicer to look at. Shots were not exchanged during the cold war until Korea and Vietnam. Two important reasons why these wars were important. One, it stopped communists playing dominoes. Second, it gave Hollywood some much needed material to break up the monotony of creating WWII movies. With Korea they were able to bring us M*A*S*H, and with Vietnam they were able to bring us protest songs, Full Metal Jacket, Platoon, Tour of Duty and many other movies that utilised the aforementioned protest songs. Many other minor wars occurred, leading into Iraq I and the sequel Iraq II. The only good thing to come out of both these wars was possibly the movie 'Three Kings' which in many ways was just a retelling of 'Kelly's Heroes' which is still a better movie by at least three out of five stars. This leads us to the latest ways people, countries and organisations are trying to take over the world. Ignoring Doctor Evil for a moment (and many other Super Villians), we move onto the latest research being performed by the US Government in it's attempt for world domination. Marketing itself as the 'World Leader' (though no other country ever remembers voting for it ... nor do they remember being invited to play against the US in any of their 'World Series' sporting matches!) With Lady Di (Princess of Wales) having successfully removed most land mines from the world (with third world nations being ignored, because well, not many American's live there. Plus land mines still having a use there as a deterent against children), the US needed a replacement 'Anti-Personnel Weapon'. They needed something silent and unsuspecting which looked non-threatening, yet would prove lethal on the battle field. MacDonnell Douglas (the aircraft builders) were able to supply the answer.

THE TABLE LEG!!!!

'After all,' they reasoned to the US President. 'How often have you accidently knocked your knee against one, spending several minutes rolling around. This is by far the greatest cause of incapacitation, with a possible exception of MTV Hypnosis being used on teenagers!' The President gave his approval. Then knocked his knee getting up from his desk, delaying the press conference to announce the new weapon by an hour. The US first started testing the weapon in their normal markets, where they test most of their weapons of destruction. A place where violence never ends, and death is a common everyday occurrance.

The European Soccer field!

The Table Leg proved to be a much better weapon than the previous attempts the US had made to develop an anti-personnel weapon. The Lava Lamp had been a dismal failure. It failed to explode when the military expected. The Bean Bag had failed utterly to suffocate enough soldiers in it's trials. And the common everyday 'Blue Screen Of Death' had failed to accually live up to it's name. The trials continued, slaying many a European star. Europe was in a state of crisis. The USSR tried to counter act the table leg with it's own devices. First it tried sarcasm. When that didn't work, they tried reading it 'The Selected Works of V.I. Lenin'. There was limited success. The KGB tried a last ditch effort with some bad results. They drenched table legs with vodka (sorry, no ribena) and waited for Russian Politicians to like the legs. Some success was acheived when some of the politicians got the taste for wood and gnawed their way through the table leg. Unfortunately, this was lethalto the politician as large wooden tables and desks landed on their heads. The KGB had to cover up this fatal mistake, and so invented a lie that they were secretly getting rid of dissidents for not writing enough graffiti on te Berlin Wall. Thus began the rumour that a 'gulag' prison system existed. Knowing it could not conteract the table leg, the Soviet Union collapsed in a dismal heap. The US continued in it's testing. Reasoning that if a table leg could take out a man, then surely it could take out tanks, and even entire battalions of tanks. During the first Gulf war, they tried the new weapon. It was amazing! Just leaving giant table legs around brought the entire of Saddam's army to it's knees ... and then some. The second Iraq war, actual a hunt for missing table legs. So secret was this weapon, that the CIA could not divulge the real reason for attacking Iraq. Apparently, several hundred undetonated table legs were still unaccounted for after the first war. When they found Hussien hiding in his rat hole, the soldier screamed at him, 'Where are the table legs Saddam?!!!' 'I was just looking for them down that little hole! Honest, I was!' 'In your underpants?' 'Hey, it's a kinky sort of a hole!' A cavity search then occurred, but no table legs were found. Three tanks with six table legs. Circled in red, the three tanks just didn't have a chance. Note the accuracy of the Table Leg. Left standing in the middle of a desert, it actually attracts tanks to it, before proverbially knee capping them! The tank in the middle is the new WWI Retro tank. Looks exactly like a WWI model with all the warmth of the old analog model from the turn of the last century, with all the firepower of a hamster.

Which Greek God Are You?

Morpheus

?? Which Of The Greek Gods Are You ??
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New Ways To Take Over The World. Part II

NEW WAYS TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD (Part II) - The History Primer Continued After the dark ages of history, the quest to take over the world continued. First of all, Europe decided that it owned the entire world. Spain and Portugal decided to split the world in two at Toledo and decided Spain owned half, and Portugal the half. Not wanting to be out down, England also decided she owned half ... along with France and Holland and Belgium etc all deciding they owned half. It wasn't too bad, as the discovery of the New World (The America's) meant there were more halves to go around ... so everyone could own half. Of course, this was all news to the Chinese, the Indians, the Japanese, the Africans, the Aztecs, Incas, and assorted Native Americans. They wer enone too pleased when crazy European Foreign dogs turned up telling them they no longer owned the land they were standing on, but it was now part of [place Europen power name here]. It's no wonder the Chinese were totally Minged off, and then later Chi'nged off! The Ottomans, other than being a piece of furniture didn't want to be out done. They took over control of most of the Muslim world, hoping to make some impact. The French decided to have a stab at World Domination with a foreign dude names Napoleon. He was nicknamed the Little Corporal, even though he'd never actually held that rank. He apparently ran around with a copy of Sun Tzu's 'The Art of War' in his pocket. Whether this is true or not is a matter of much debate. He probably grabbed a copy that had been left by Ghengis on his travels (left gathering dust under his copy of Lonely Planet Guide for World Conquest). Napoleon was going great guns. Mainly as the French (being lovers and not fighters) had left the majority of the fighting to the Grande Armee which was largely made up of foriengers. The world was quaking in it's proverbial boots for a while (except the parts of the world which didn't own boots ... they didn't see much of the action at all). It was all a big party, till on the way to Moscow, the Gande Armee ran out of food. This was caused by a Russian 'scorched earth policy'. The tactic works a little like this, to stop your enemy coming into your country and burning your crops, poisoning your wells and raping your women and children, you do it all first. It worked fantastically and because of it less Russians died. Napoleon made it to Moscow, but found everyone had left for a bigger party in st Petersburg. In frustration, he set fire to it and ran away like all good teenagers do. The English upper classes were appaled. After all, they hadn't been invited to the party, and had to make do inviting themselves into Portugal and sinking French fleets at Egypt (battle of the Nile) and Trafalga. Eventually, Wellington made it to a place called Waterloo. With his Prussian ally Blucher, they decided to kick Napoleons butt. Which they almost didn't do, as Blucher was a little late, having to fight another of Napoleons forces a little down the road. The world was so happy they named a pair of boots after Wellington and deicded to invent quotes like, 'The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton'. Wellington of course couldn't have said this, as there were no playing fields at Eton when he was alive ... and if he did say it, it probably shows he was completely off his nut! The tussle over the world continued in a tit and tat sort of fashion until World War One. (Yeah, I skipped a LOT of history there to get to the exciting bits). Named the War to End all wars, everyone decided to turn up. The marketing department had certainly done their homework and everyone was excited, except Archduke Franz Ferdinand who missed the whole thing except the very beginning. Now amongst that piece of history we missed, was a side conflict called the English Civil War ... which lead to the US war of Independence (which was English Civil War part II ... but no one ever calls it that). Which eventually lead to the US deciding that they needed a Civil war too, because if the English had one, they were going to do one bigger and better. Now the reason this was important, was it lead to a great advance in technologies. The siege of Petersburg introduce the use of the TRENCH. England decided that if the trench was good enough for the US (who were obviously so much better as they'd whooooped their butts), then it was good enough for English lads to stand in too. Of course, the rest of Europe decided to follow and soon everyone was standing knee deep in mud and waste products. WWI saw the introduction or popularisation of such things as the Air-eo-plane, the Tank, the machine gun, larger artillery, submarines, Battleships, the Battle Cruiser, the suicide run at a machine gun, mustard gas, more mud and trenches, fire and movement, the risk theory, air craft carriers, chemical warfare, the Xmas tree, James Bond (Mata Hari reference!), and bad posters telling us that someone 'WANTS YOU!' Imagine everyone's surprise when twenty odd years later there was a sequel. 'We'll call this one World War Two', said the marketing department. 'But, we just had the war to end all wars!' exclaimed the world. The marketing department just gave a knowing smile, tapped the side of his nose and laughed all the way to the bank. Where as World War One didn't actually involve EVERY nation on earth ... World War Two didn't either! Um ... yeah! By this time the English had helped the Ottoman Empire collapse on itself (with the help of T.E. Lawrence ... aka Lawrence of Arabia). This time however, Japan decided to emulate the Europeans by creating an Empire as well. This totally infuriated the Europeans, as they'd been telling the rest of the world to be more like them for years, and they didn't like someone actually taking them up on the offer! More advancements in technology followed. Planes became metal, Battleships became unimportant as the Aircraft Carrier proved a more worthy weapon. Hitler, a foreigner in German who unlike Napoleon ACTUALLY WAS A CORPORAL at one stage, decided he could rule the world. Not wanting to be outdone by Napoleon, he also attacked Russia. Russia had a new taactic by this stage. Stand, freeze to death, and have the enemy do the same. The Germans liked Lenningrad so much, they stayed and froze there for about four years. The Germans had discovered Rocketry, but had not invented the astronaut ... so they used their rockets on the English. They also invented the Blitzkreig (Lightning War), though very little lightning was actually fought against. Admiral Yamato told the Japanese he could only guarantee victory against the American's for six months. At Midway, he discovered he was right. Somedays, it doesn't pay to be right. The Americans respected him so much, they later shot him down in a plane. Eventually, the US discovered that using the NEW PHYSICS of Einstein and other German speaking people, they could blow up rather large quantities of anything they wanted. Rather than using against a military target (such as the Japanese Fleet at Leyte Gulf), they kept it and used it against a civilian population. The Japanese parliment decided they would fight on. So the US dropped a second one on another civilian population. The ever popularly stuborn Japanese Government decided agin they would fight on, until Emporer Hirohito told them to get real and surrender already. Beign told to 'get real' by their god was enough for the Japanese parliment to give it some thought and actually surrender. This war left the Americans believing they owned the world. I think I've now successfully insulted almost everyone on the face of the planet in some way or form ... and will continue with Part Three tomorrow. :-)

My Apologies

My apologies everyone - Normal service will hopefully resume soon. I had some computer problems over the weekend. Somehow some malware got onto my computer in the form of an Anti-Virus Blocker - which explains why my Anti-Virus software wasn't working properly. Spent most of the weekend trying to find whatever it was that was causing my computer to act weird, and the seventh application I ran found it. (I run my anti-virus / Ad ware remover / spy bot removers etc every week ... plus have the usual firewalls and stuff running). Computer is working again. It meant that I couldn't finish my business plan on the weekend, so was hard at it today. Tomorrow is the last day of the course, so hopefully will get it finished then. Plus, have the exam to do and the bookkeeping assignment. Hasn't been made easy, as my sister and her husband has dropped her sons off here. So am constantly being interrupted to look after them. So once again, my apologies for not finishing off the story etc.

Why can't some people take YES as an answer?

Before I get to Part II of that thingy abou ttaking over the world blah blah blah - I will digress with my usual complaints, whinges, rants about my life. Some people just liek to argue. My mother is one of these sorts of people. Today, she claimed that the only reason both people in a relationship work in Australia, is because of GREED. I disagreed and told her that for lower income families, it was a necessity for both to work. She disagreed and told me it was 100% pure greed. I recognised her mood, and decided that regardless of what followed, I'd just stand there and agree with her. To my surprise, her arguement actually backed up what I'd said. She continued:

• In her days people didn't own cars! Cars were a luxury item! You need them to drive kids to school now, because you can't let them walk to school in case they get kidnapped or assulted! In her day, they let all the kids walk to school! Now you can't do that!
• In her day, there was a baker, and a milkman and a butcher who all deliverd yoru food to your door! Now you need a car to go shopping, as no one delivers. (NOTE: I did pay to have my groceries delivered once, and they arrived four hours after purchase and all the frozen goods were melted!!!)
• In her day, you could go out and leave the doors unlocked! Now, you have to have insurance and have security! No one had even heard of insurrance in her day.

While she babbled on, I didn't correct her about her 'GREED' hypothosis. Sure, there is some truth that people are more materialistic today. That wasn't my point. The difference between the 'haves' and 'have nots' now a days is growing larger. Lower income families do need to have both parents working in order to have some of these things ... like a car. I also know a lot of these families who can't afford a car. The very point I was trying to make, was being made by my mother and her examples. I decided to stand there agreeing with her. (It would have been dangerous to point out she'd swapped her ide of the arguement). Only, agreeing wasn't enough. As soon as I said, 'Yeah!' in agreement to something she said, she repied with, 'NO!' and repeated her point, as though I had disagreed with her! I thought, 'Okay, it's one of those days.' I then stood there without saying a word and let her rant. Sometimes, people just need to rant to get something out of their system. She was in a bad mood yesterday, though I don't know why. She was yelling at everyone (my brother and the dogs). I escaped and sat on the computer taking over the world (as I usually do) 'Shogun Total War' ... well that's taking over Japan 'Axis and Allies' - a war game of WWII, and then I reloaded. I absolutely kill it on the most difficult level. 'Railway Tycoon II Gold edition' - I reloaded it and started from scratch. I've won that on the hardest level before. I must have forgotten how it works, as I got stuck on the third scenario. Kept repeatedly getting silver medals instead of gold. DARN! I realised something about the game too ... often I don't like the aim of the scenario and prefer to do my own thing. In the third scenario, you are supposed to create a train line from the US East to the US West Coast. I find I prefer to just join up all the things and make money. (Like connecting the iron and coal mines to th Steel mill to produce steel. Or connecting the grain to the cattle ranch and then connecting the ranch to the meat packing plant!) You get the idea. In the end, I played the scenario through without even trying to get to the West Coast (This was about my seventh attempt to do better than Silver Medal). I just connected everything in the east. If it was the real world, I probably would have been considered a great success, as I made a lot of money (well, the railroad did). Actually, it was absolutely gushing money!!! I lost the game though, as I didn't complete the task set. Isn't life sometimes like that though. We are set one task to do, but there is always something more intersting somewhere else. Why do we spend our lives doing the tasks set by others, when we can follow our own paths? I guess that's one of the reasons I'm starting my own business. I'd rather go off in directions I want to explore rather than being placed in a situation where I am at the mercy of someone else. Of course, the danger in doing this, is we are then subject to the tides of life which may take us in directions we can't control. We have to steer our own boat, and hope that we don't hit rocks and that we have some skills in navigating our way to our chosen destination.

New Ways To Take Over The World. Part I

List of Subjects So Far:

1. Crazy Dates I may have been on. Part I
2. New ways to take over the world.
3. Fight or Flight? How to run away like a real hero.
4. What Beatles Songs REALLY mean.
5. My secret life as a sex god.
6. How to burp tunes and blow bubbles out your nose.
7. Thesaurus - the dinosaur I can't find in a museum!
8. Tautology, repeatition, iteration, duplication - how I fill out my blog posts. :-)
9. Oxford, English Dic and Hary - worlds hardest book to follow the plot of!
10. Alien Abduction Tale Part II (Original will appear on Minishorts site on Oct 22nd)
11. The Day I became a Neurosurgeon
12. The Art of Dumping a Girl You're Not Even Going Out With
13. Baggy Trousers – Why my balls still work!
14. Eddie – The guy who couldn't get a Date
15. Rolf Harris

NEW WAYS TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD (Part I) - The History Primer Before getting to the actual mechanics of taking over the world, we need to do a brief History Primer. That way, we know what people have tried before, and can succesfully learn from their mistakes. Let's begin. In recent years it's become popular to try to take over the world. Recent years, of course starting sometime in BC, with Arthur C. Clarke's gorilla's in Kubrik's movie '2001: A Space Odyssey'. (A lot more popular than Dabido's film "2001.333 re-occurring a calculator malfunction"). They of course, tried the jaw bone of an ass. Something the US has been trying recently too, but I digress. Let's start with the Chou Empire, which resulted in a split. TheEastern Chou empire, and the Western Chou empire - leaving both Empires Half Chewed! (Did I relly make that joke? Yes, I did!) :-) The Assyrians were next, not realising that if you attack all your neighbours, eventually, they all get the same idea for world conquest. Of course, the senior citizens at the time blamed it on that younger generation with thier new 'GAME' called Chess. An obvious bad influence which leads to them displaying much violence. After all, it is the worlds first war game, even if it was invented in China ... and India ... and Syria ... and well, who hasn't claimed they invented chess first? With their neighbours liking the idea of killing people, Babylonia and Persia decided they'd have a crack at the World Domination Game too. Babylonia took Israel captive, only to have it all turn into a song about the Rivers of Babylon. As retaliation, to the song, the Babylonians hung some gardens! The Persians of course, fell foul to the Greeks, who decided to send 300 gay warriors. It showed the world, that no matter how much you look like Boy George, you can still stop traffic with a short skirt, a long hard spear and a tight space! I'm talking about Themopylae!!!! The Persians did eventually sneak up on them and gave it to them from the rear. This of course inspired Alexander the Great, who tried to conquer the world till he discovered it was a big place. His army was eventually stopped when Alex decided that dying young would stick him in an 'immortally' remembered category similar to James Dean and Elvis Presley. (Whom he greatly admired, even though neither had yet been born. Alex was of course a visionary of a sort). Of course, his title 'The Great' was actually adorned on him by his numerous boyfriends, because after sex, Alex would ask, 'How was I?' And they'd all reply, 'Great! Great! You were just Great Alex'. They said this regardless of his performance, because after all, he'd have trampled them to death with his horse if they said anything otherwise. The Roman Empire was next. You might think that all the action was happening in the west at this stage. It was. After a while though, the Romans decided Alexander had been right about the world being a BIG PLACE. They decided to build a few puny walls around the place (Hadrians Walls etc). This was mainly to keep the Scots out (who loved to drink too much and start fights ... 'Hey! Who yooooou loookin' at Jimmy?') . It was also to keep the Germans out of the Humour section of the worlds library (which is why to this day, most Germans still don't have a sense of humour. I know this is true because my German friend Marcus told me.) Meanwhile, in the East the Indians decided to have half a go. Unfortuntely, the Maurya Empire stopped it's expansion when King Ashoka got to the Himalayas and asked where the escalator was. Finding it hadn't yet been invented, he decided to wait ... and wait ... only to discover on his death bed that it was going to be a LONG time before anyone did invent it. His final words in this world were, 'Why didn't you tell me earlier? I could have taken a helicopter or plane!' No one had the heart to ask him what he was babbling about. (I might point out, that had King Ashoka realised he couldn't get his elephants up the escalators, the world would have been a very different place). The Chinese decided to get chins waging by introducing the Ch'in Empire. This resulted in China being unified for the very first time, but alas, they also realised the world was A BIG place ... and decided to invent mahjong instead. At about this time, Jesus came along and invented religious door knocking. It became so annoying, that the Romans nailed him up in order to stop him ringing door bells. Rather than having the desired effect, it actually produced more door knockers. Nero later discovered that they also made great candles! In China, the Han Empire came into being. Eventually it split in two, as it was discovered that the left Han didn't know what the right Han was doing. India was taken over by the Gupta Empire. This was started by King Chandragupta, who, after marrying the right girl, found her dowry was the half of India that he just co-incidently didn't happen to own. Imagine the shock on his wedding night when he discovered THAT!!! 'The other half of India dear? The bed's not big enough!' At about this time, a short guy named Atilla decided that he and his Hun friends should rule the world. Atilla was a dwarf, and was very upset that he was always cast as Doppy in all the plays at school. This is enough to send ANYONE over the edge, and in Attila's case, sent him first to the Roman Empire. Not only did his troops kick Rome in the balls, but also wrote grafitti over half their empire. Not wanting to be outdone by Rome, the Gupta Empire decided they needed their butts kicked too! The Chinese, upon hearing of this, decided they wanted a turn. So in one decisive blow, Attila rampaged across the known world and then died of a heart attack while trying to mount a maiden in bed! She was far too big, and he always exerted himself too much climbing, but he insisted on top! Apparently, he liked the view. Unfortunately, Attila wasn't into empire building. He was an anti-monopolist, so he left very little in the way of an Empire behind. The previous Empires were in ruins. The Celts decided to get a little Frank ... and France was born. Or more precisely, the Holy Roman Empire was born, though it wasn't very Holy, wasn't Roman and not much of an Empire. In the Eastern part of the West, Byzantine tried to pretend to be the remnants of the Eastern Part of the glorious Roman Empire. It was constantly being battered by the Caliphs, who had arisen because of Islam. In China, there as turmoil for a long time, with pig calling (Sui) and eventually they started selling Tang, a left over from their original space agency. (We've all heard the story of the Chinese Philosopher who tried to go into space by tying fireworks to his chair. No? Darn! That's a waste of a joke then!!!) Anyway, they liked Tang so much, they named the Dynasty after it. In the west, there was a long period of Papal domination. In the middle East and Africa there was domination from Islam. Several huge holy wars broke out between these two ideologies. It is my educated belief though, that it may have started at a party when both sides realised neither had turned up with any Tang. What were they to drink???? The Indians were still having trouble inventing escalators for their Elephants. Though they'd stablised by now, they broke into small factions ruled by Sultanates and other grape derivatives. China had now got over it's Tang period and was getting into Karioke. They started with a Beatles catalogue with 'Only a Northern Sung' ... but later went South with a Southern Sung. Ghengis Khan eventually had a crack at World Domination. It was from him we get the word 'Hordes', because of his military organisation. The Mongols were able to get into China once they discovered a trick. They told the Chinese that the Great Wall was actually the flower wall in Mahjong, and kept pretending they had a flower tile and wanted another off the wall. This is why some of the Great Wall is now lying in ruins in some places. Ghengis world tour took him all over Asia and Europe. He didn't venture to the US or Japan, as their record buying markets were yet to be well developed. Africa was completely off his list, as there was no way he was playing Sun City ... especially before it was built! (Showing my age with that reference!) And Thus ends Part one. The World History Primer lesson. Tomorrow, I will continue with Part two. Rise of the Modern idiots! From 1500 to modern idiots who still couldn't take over the world.