Cats and Kittens: An Internet Interlude

My Thoughts On Spammers

Being a person who spends a lot of time on the internet, I have seen my fair share of spam. Admittedly, I have completely ignored (and then instantly forgot about) most of it, but sometimes the audacity of what they are trying to get away with catches my attention. For example, the type of spam I see the most is probably through MSN Messenger, with fake accounts trying to add me in order to send me misleadingly titled links. At first they sounded a bit like real people, but after awhile, the spammers got more and more creative with what they would have me believe are the names of real people. I could maybe handle the likes of 'Dick Rimmington' (that is actually a name Meattrain came up with), but I draw the line at 'apolonia_bayliss556677@hotmail.com'. I mean, Apolonia? Seriously? What is that, a breed of horse? 

According to google, it is actually the name of a few ancient greek towns (I bet that was confusing. Imagine travelling across the country on horseback only to be told you had the wrong Apolonia, and the one you wanted was right back where you came from). I sincerely hope nobody actually names their children this. That being said, I have heard some ridiculous things that people have actually named their children. I would go into more detail, but that is a different story for a different time. Right now, I am talking about spam.

See though, I don't mind a bit of creativity in spam. I just don't think the fake name is the best place to utilise your creative prowess. Spammers are always trying to trick people into clicking on their links. It is how they make any money at all. Normally they stick to the classics:

Hey I just found out about this amazing new diet solution that really works!

Are you 'in the mood' for some cheap imitation viagra today?

Check out my profile on this new dating site for furries! Maybe afterwards we can have some totally creepy sex!

The problem with these is that, well, first of all none of them are really links I would be interested in. But mainly, everybody KNOWS these tricks by now. No-one is really going to fall for them. This is where you need to be a bit more creative. For example, some links I bet people would TOTALLY click on:

Hey, you know how some people look like magicians? Check this character out.

Oh man I am never eating that much beef ever again, not ever. I am serious this time.

Whose blood were you covered in that night, anyway?

So I hear your daughter is giving it away for free these days...

I could go on. But I won't. Well, maybe later. But you get the idea.

-Smackie Onassis

The Review Revue #1

The Review Revue was originally one of many blog ideas I came up with before things got kinda crazy and I didn't up creating them. Basically I decided that I would review one thing from my day, as many days as I could be bothered. Although it probably won't happen too often, I have decided to make it a regular segment here. For the first one, I will use the review I wrote when I first started trying out the idea.

Fear and Loathing In Unley Road Coles (originally written 15/12/09)

Today my shopping adventures took me to a previously unvisited supermarket: the Coles on Unley Road. Of course, Coles is everywhere, but nothing made me sadder about my recent move than the thought of not being within walking distance of such satisfying bargains as were provided daily by the Coles at Castle Plaza. I was hoping to find a replacement. The branch on Unley Road seemed like it had good potential. Although not within walking distance of my house, the complex is close enough to avoid being, as some would say, “a friggin pain in the arse”.

To put it simply, I was not disappointed. I was, in fact, quite satisfied. Almost too satisfied. Today, friends, I saw bargains the likes of which have never been seen*. Highlights include 4x500ml of V for EIGHT DOLLARS. This means that a four pack of 500ml cans was 70 cents cheaper than a four pack of the smaller cans. I don’t know how much is in the smaller cans, but I know enough to realise that this is a good deal. Where else do you even get charged less for a greater volume of product? Prostitutes maybe, but I bet that’s it. There were a bunch of other bargains, but none that got me as excited as that V. Hell, I don’t even usually drink V, and if I do I can’t usually get through 500ml of the stuff in one sitting, but I bought it anyway. It was too good a deal.

But the real highlight of the day, the thing that had me totally and completely won over, was at the checkouts. Not only was there a carton of spring water freely available for customer use, but there was a pile of complimentary plastic cups to make consumption of said water easy and trouble free! I must add that there was no easily accesible bin for cup disposal, but it is possible that Coles were trying to encourage patrons to take home and reuse cups, maybe for the benefit of the environment or something. I would have to be ok with that I GUESS.

One minor drawback is that the system of taking and calling out numbers at the deli section did cause me to accidentally yell ‘Bingo!’ when my number was called. However, some would say this is a flaw in my own brain rather than in their system. This is also a problem I have to deal with in most supermarket delis.

All in all, I left Unley Rd Coles thoroughly satisfied and will be partaking in future shopping experiences there, which I hope will be equally as enjoyable. Well done, Unley Road Coles. You get an A. With a smiley face stamp. Maybe even a sticker, one that says “Terrifyingly Good Work!” and has a picture of a ghost**.

*this week.

** I totally got a sticker that was something like this from my piano teacher once. I remember it had a ghost on it, but I don’t remember the caption. I assume it was something along these lines.

The Dude Ranch: An Introduction

Ok, so when this household began, way back before I knew any of these guys, it was christened 'The Dude Ranch', a name that has kept, even though we no longer live in the original Ranch (Now it's 'Dude Ranch 2: Dude Harder'). There was a minor amount of discussion when I eventually moved in as to whether we could still call it that when one of the residents had girl bits. The answer was obvious though, because I am totally a dude in 'tude*.

I have always said that the current Dude Ranch would make just, the best sitcom. This is how it would go:

What happens when an "alternative" vegetarian couple start living with a straight-shooting, fast-talking nuclear chemist who eats enough meat for the three of them? Throw in Richard Melons, the ultimate wacky neighbour, and you've got a recipe for hilarity! Laugh at their trials and tribulations as they work through their differences and go on the craziest of adventures! Wednesday nights, on the Laff Trax Network.

That is actually a pretty good description of our house. Also, I'm not sure when absurdist song parody became the most acceptable form of response in our house, but somewhere along the lines, that kinda happened. Here are some scenes so common that no-one even looks up from the x-box anymore:

A: Hey, this is a tasty snack!

B: If you like it then you should have put some cheese on it!

(That Beyonce song - also very good advice most of the time.)

Vegatrain: (playing Pokemon) Po-po-po-pokemon po-po-pokemon.

(Lady Gaga - Pokerface)

Smackie/Vegatrain: (sunburnt) They call me albino when I get this way!

(Quasi - The Rhino. This is specific to us because we are the only ones in the house who know this song. Everybody reading go find it and listen to it now because it is so great.)

Smackie: (at snack time) Snack box, snack box, you're my snack box! You can give it to me when I'm hungry for some snacks!

(Tom Jones - Sex Bomb)

Smackie: Where is my phone? Where is my phone? Where is my phone? Out in the water, shit it won't work now.

(The Pixies - Where Is My Mind?)

I will leave it there, because there is probably only so much humour to squeeze out of this comedy orange. But yeah, that, only all the time.

 - Smackie Onassis

*I'm sorry. I tried so hard to avoid using this turn of phrase, but there was no way I could properly express it that didn't rhyme, so I decided to throw sanity to the wind and just go for it.

Hey Everybody

As soon as Vegatrain heard that I was starting he blog, he first insisted that he have a guest column. When I agreed, he began to "negotiate his contract" and insisted that he get a credit on the front page as an 'Article Contributer'.

So, hey, everybody, listen up.

Thinly Veiled Credits:

Top Lady: Smackie Onassis

Article Contributer: Vegatrain

Assorted One-Liners of Varying Quality

-A Confession: Whenever I feel like I’m coming up with something funny, it turns out to just be the lyrics to ‘Kung Fu Fighting'.

-My alcohol rule: The worse an alcohol tastes, the stupider it has to make me act/look for me to drink it.

-A slogan that would have got the Kyoto proticol through for sure: Vote “Totes” for Kyotes!

-Oh man I had something really funny and insightful to say, but I opened the file and then forgot about it so I just started writing the lyrics of ‘Kung Fu Fighting’

-Is this acceptable in polite society: saying “clearing one’s tubes” instead of “clearing  one’s throat”?

-My favourite thing to say when on nice walks with friends at night is ‘You know, I’ve seen a lot of horror movies that started like this...’

-An idea for a photoshoot: I am a boxer, right, but the thing I am boxing is INJUSTICE

-The Smackie Onassis Third Law of Social Dynamics: Bitches get Stitches. This is also the first and second law.

-I really like that infidelity is always called ‘Cheating’ because doesn’t that imply that relationships are just a game anyway?

-If I were ever a teacher, and there was this total shit of a kid in my class, I would mark his final exam as follows: 

C

(me after class. Because you got a F)

-I am in favour of human cloning, just because I'd love to see a 7 piece one man band.

The Scarecrow: An Interesting True Story (hopefully)

There was a group of us who used to drink at this Croatian bowling club, universally referred to as ‘The Cro’. It wasn’t that we were particular interested in the culture, or the sport of bowling (I don’t remember seeing anyone use the green for anything other than drunken cartwheels). It was more that the drinks were cheap and the staff were friendly. The staff, in this case, usually consisted of a man named Pavo, who would give you a free drink if he liked you. If he didn’t like you he would cut you off and then brutally murder you ("probably"), but for a poor student, it was worth the risk for a free drink or two. Luckily, Pavo liked me. Apart from the awkward indie kids, there was a crowd of  mismatched regulars who used to drink there, the most interesting of which was probably a man they called ‘The Scarecrow’. But, as I was told very strictly the first night I was there, you must never call him that to his face, not under any circumstance. The first night I met the Scarecrow, he began the night by drinking alone at his table and hurling abuse at us. Being outcasts with a sense of humour big enough to cancel out our sense of caution, we invited him over to our table.

He was covered in wrinkled tattoos of naked mermaids. Every second word from his mouth was ‘fuck’ or ‘cunt’. He interrupted every other sentence from our mouths to recite his own spoken word songs.

When we distracted him from the subject of his musical prowess, he started talking about his businesses. According to him, he had run a number of successful strip clubs. According to everyone else, these were actually brothels, the success of which can’t really be accounted for. He went on to say he was opening up a new one in our town. It was then that he looked over at me and said “Hey, you look like you’ve got pretty big boobs. Do you want a job?”

I told him, going on the basis that it was, in fact, a strip joint he was talking about, that I was not what you’d call a very good dancer. He responded with a laugh, telling me that no-one would be paying any attention to my dancing. My friends decided to vocalise their support by agreeing that I did have quite excellent breasts, and recounting stories of the various times they had seen them, and how good that was. I’m not sure if it was their intention, but this managed to ensure that the conversation was well and truly changed from my potential career in the lucrative stripping industry (with perhaps, the possibility of a best-selling novel recounting my experiences. I could call it ‘The Stripping News’.)

I left town not long after that, so I don’t think I ever saw the Scarecrow again. I can only imagine that he is still sitting at his own table at The Cro, alternating between hurling abuse and asking strange women if they would like to be paid to take off their clothes.

List Of Potential Bandnames (Try not to steal them ok)

Holly Caustic and the Death Brigade

Fucking Joe and the Palate Cleansing Cats

Today’s Urban Youth

Joe and the Fucking Joes

Smackie O and the Suicide Kings

To My Old Friend, The Past (album title)

Team Captains

Avec le Coq

Soupy Danger

Hot Red Soup

Fuck & The Butt

Joe & The Butt

Big Nice Toasty Crusties

The Screaming Moist

The Kitten Wonderband

Dandy Lion and the Herbivores

The Follow-Through

Captain Handsome and the Teenage Heartthrobs

The Wholesome Family Band

The Dregs

Little Tiny Friendly Johnsons

Strawberry Tsunami

O I Say, You Joe

The Gradual Height Thieves

The Dirty Mints

Debonair Neck Zombies

Tipsy, Larry and the Wheelbarrow

R.H. Sweetapple

The Golden Fools

The Infamous Treble-Butt

Nobody Likes Jon

Mr Dr Professor

The Senators Mousington

The Chiquita Banana Conspiracy

Citroen Ella

Back Seat Bandits

Randy Bourbon and the Day of Regret

The Bad Ideas

Atomic Tomato

Mayhem Moth

Penguin Forest

Born Again Perverts

An Unnecessary Tautology - (album name)

I Sure Xylophone, Do I Xylophone (album)

The Sexy Fenders

The Taco Lettuce Crunch

The Down-Under Wonderdog

Let Them Eat Cats

Per Second Per Second

This list is being constantly updated by Vegatrain and myself.

So I bowed to popular demand* and made a blog. I can't promise to write regularly, or on any coherant subject, but, well, until I have fully recovered from the Unfortunate Circus Flip Incident of 09** I will most likely not be doing much other than writing. Aren't you a lucky internet.

I feel I should take this first entry, before I directly start cutting and pasting from a variety of word documents on my laptop, to explain a few things. I am choosing to go by the name 'Smackie Onassis' for the time being, because, well, I think that's a pretty sweet thing to call myself. For the sake of both privacy and hilarity, I will refer to the other people in my stories by codenames. The names of the guys I live with aren't actually Vegatrain, Meattrain, and Richard Melons, but that is what I will be calling them. 

Anyway, on to the cutting and pasting.

*My housemates will punch me if I tell any more of my idiot stories, so I need a new outlet.

**Ok, here's the deal. I thought I could do a backflip, but it turned out to be a very bad idea. I find if I preface this story with the words "Circus Flip Incident" people are more likely to go away thinking "Ha, that's kinda funny", as opposed to "Wow, that girl must be really stupid".