Ivan’s Quote of the Week

“Where is African America anyway?”

- courtesy of the Venture Brothers on Adult Swim.


The Venture Bros, yesterday. Absolutely addictive stuff, I’m ashamed to say…

Special Advertising Supplement

Need piss-poor quality at not-terribly-low prices? Look no further than SCOTCHMAN™ brand convenience stores, serving the surly and disappointed folk of the coastal Carolinas since 1923.


Now featuring:

Passive-aggressive staff
27 different types of menthol cigarette
Extortionate mark-ups on luxuries like milk and baby formula
Authentically Glaswegian pools of piss in the restrooms
Tam-O-Shanters

Ask us about our ethnic stereotype sensitivity training!


SCOTCHMAN™ – the name you can trust… to be open at 3am, provided it hasn’t been robbed yet…


A Scotchman (sic), yesterday. Satisfaction guaranteed, or no money back…

There is no such thing as coincidence…

Today on Siteminder:

Domain Name adelphia.net ? (Network)
IP Address 24.53.36.# (Adelphia)
ISP Adelphia
Location Continent : North America
Country : United States (Facts)
State : California
City : Ventura
Lat/Long : 34.2991, -119.2339 (Map)

Time of Visit Oct 19 2006 11:56:46 am
Last Page View Oct 19 2006 11:57:39 am
Visit Length 53 seconds
Page Views 2
Referring URL http://problemchildbride.com/blog/
Visit Entry Page http://diesirae.blogspot.com/
Visit Exit Page http://diesirae.blogspot.com/
Out Click 8 comments
http://www.blogger.c...D=116117016899878491
Time Zone UTC-8:00
Visitor's Time Oct 19 2006 8:56:46 am
Visit Number 30,000

A hat tip to Sam, our very own PCB, for breaking the 30k barrier for us. It’s somehow especially appropriate, given tomorrow’s post…


A typical Scotsman, yesterday. The shape of things to come?

Off the hook

“Vibrant, dynamic, gravitas, ambitious, hungry and 17 other words or phrases have been banned by one of Britain's top recruitment agencies for fear of falling foul of new anti-ageism laws” reports the Telegraph. Energetic, youthful, vibrant, quick-learner and self-starter are among the others to be blacklisted.

Thank God the pressure’s off! It’s been a decade since I could credibly apply any of those words to myself, and I’m still over twenty years from retirement. At least now I don’t have to lie so shamelessly on my job applications. That kind of sustained creativity is too much like hard work for my taste.

It’s also high time we saw the older generation doing something useful for a change, instead of sitting around whining and wearing beige. What have they done for us lately, after all? Time to stop living off that whole “Greatest Generation” thing and get back in the game.

They’re forever moaning about poverty and crime, but they bring it all upon themselves. When I see them tottering out of the Post Office on pension day fumbling with fistfuls of fivers even my fingers start to twitch. If they want a retirement free from fear, we should stop giving them so much money. And no-one can accuse Wal-Mart or B&Q of that, at least…


In the first wave to hit Omaha Beach? Then a little clean-up on aisle five will hold no terrors for you.

D’ohnuts

The local chapter of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation is holding an event on the Virtucon™ campus today. They’re selling donuts.



I’m not sure whether they’re fundraising or recruiting…

In your Sunday Irae Magazine this week

Anglophilia

…why is there no equivalent word for the Welsh?

Ivan’s Site of the Week

This week’s winner is Cheating Spouse Private Investigators - featuring an inexhaustible supply of tawdry and depressing stories of human frailty and weakness.

The signs and portents are particularly good value. A few minutes review of the top giveaways was sufficient to establish beyond any doubt that I am not having an affair with anyone. That’s a load off my mind, frankly, as otherwise it would’ve nagged at me all day. That kind of uncertainty can destroy a marriage.

On the other hand, their top tips don’t help much with the wife, who’s at home all day with the pool boy. I suppose I should be more trusting but it’s hard not to wonder a little, given that we don’t actually have a pool.

A hat tip is due to Randall for bringing this one to our attention. But don’t be alarmed on his account, gentle readers – being a lawyer, his interest is purely professional…


My God – they’re wearing sunglasses and looking around furtively! Does their low cunning know no bounds?

“We are all individuals!”

For reasons too varied and involved to go into, three women have recently confessed to me that they have tattoos. Not only that, but they show remarkable consistency in their placement – two are of the spiky, neo-Maori abstract variety on the small of the back, and the last a butterfly on a hip.

I’ve never really understood our generation’s infatuation with tattoos. Did I miss a memo? My brother and sister, who have not spoken to each other for ten years, have independently acquired almost identical celtic crosses on their upper right arms. Whoever tells them, it’s not going to be me.

Whatever. Tired of swimming against the tide, I have finally succumbed and gotten myself what was meant to be a bucking bronco, but inevitably more closely resembles My Little Pony. I even had a scroll added with “Ride ‘Em Cowboy” on it to distinguish it more clearly, but that has only made matters worse, given where it’s located.

According to the terms of their injunction, I am now required to point out that I am not affiliated with Mattel in any way. Damn them and their legalistic quibbles.

So, what tattoos do you have?


This was not what I had in mind, dammit!

Phone sex

The Catholic Church presses the panic button again, this time claiming that Indian call centres are sinks of iniquity, leading innocent young girls into sin. Tho’ as they’re mostly heathen Hindus to start with, it’s hard to fathom why the Papists should care.

Turns out that a potent cocktail of a relaxed co-ed working environment and salaries far above the norm for single twenty-somethings have unleashed the inner party-animals of 1.3 million call centre staff across India.

“an informal, American-style college campus atmosphere, where there is plenty of après-shift drinking and partying”
“You're together all night in this cool, hip atmosphere and you end up getting intimate”
“staff have been caught by hidden cameras having sex in cubicles... on the staircase, in the gym and car parks during breaks”
“drains … found choked with condoms”

If that’s an example of Third World squalor and wage slavery, then sign me up. Seems the only white collar sweatshops left in the world are the ones we poor Western saps go to every day. I’ll be embarrassed to call in for an account balance from now on. Who knows what I might be interrupting?

At the very least they could let us in on the fun. Maybe get our account details, and then describe their underwear, if any. Add stockings and a web-cam, and some extra hold time for the masochists, and it’s pretty much your complete full-service offering.

It’s that kind of value-add that will truly differentiate the Indian service economy from its competition in the 21st century.


An Indian call centre, yesterday. With all those young single girls, it resembles nothing else so much as a well-stocked lake…

In your Sunday Irae Magazine this week

Mel Gibson in recovery:

Hot, or not?

Ivan’s Site of the Week

This week’s winner is engrish.com, an inexhaustible supply of East Asian butchery wreaked upon our defenceless mother tongue. Orthographical errors, poor pronunciation, wholesale translation failures – all are grist to the mill of this site and its snap-happy contributors.

Low comedy? Perhaps. But then again, every example featured is genuine, so it’s not deliberately offensive. If nothing else, you’ll learn that the stereotypical Japanese confusion between “l” and “r” is well grounded in fact.

That said, it’s probably fair to say that we’d make a far worse fist of Mandarin or Japanese if we were ever moved to attempt them. There could be half a dozen equivalent sites in China and Japan having a field day at our expense and we’d never know it, ignorant cow-eyed gwai lo that we are.

But there we are. If they want to insult us in such a way that we care, they’ll just have to learn proper English, won’t they?


Japan’s export-driven economy misses a step…

What women want

Interesting insights courtesy of Woman & Home magazine as they publish their survey into mature women’s greatest fears

So what keeps women over 40 awake at night?

Children's future 55 %
Health risks 45%
Financial difficulties 43 %
Breast cancer 36 %
Rising crime 27 %
Immigration 19 %
Threat of terrorism 12 %
Menopause 12 %
Splitting with partner 11%
Trapped on capsized cruise ship with B-list movie stars 9%

This top ten list is superficially uncontroversial, until one notes that international terrorism edges out divorce, despite the relative frequency of the latter compared to the former.

It’s a sad reflection on the modern male that, once he’s fathered her chosen number of kids (or at least naively paid for the pool boy’s ‘til they are old enough for her to go back to work), the female has very little reason to keep him around. Only inertia and some fragile residue of sentiment stand between hubby and an abrupt exile to the local roach-motel apartment complex down the street, minus his SUV and his 401k.

Now that my own sweet wifey has the four kids she’s always pined for, I don’t mind telling you, I’m treading a little more carefully myself. The last thing I need is to be forced back on the market at my advanced age. It was bad enough before the grey hair and the furrowed brow. In my experience, what women want is almost invariably someone else…


A broken nail, yesterday (7%). One of the very few things that scare women over 40 less than dumping their husbands, alongside losing their glasses (6%), laddered tights (5%), and running out of milk (3%).

Making a virtue of necessity

An acquaintance at work directs the conversation towards the subject of vices, during one of our occasional smoke breaks.

Sadly, I reflect that I only have the one vice left, and I’m doing it. He looks to see if my hands are in my pockets, but I waggle my cigarette at him, and comprehension dawns.

After further reflection, he says that if that’s the only vice we have, we’re not so bad, but I’m not so sure. After all, I don't have time for any of the other solo vices, and no-one seems interested in the mixed doubles events, so I can hardly claim to be good on those grounds alone. Where there is no temptation, one cannot have resisted it.

Maybe some particularly kind-hearted or otherwise mentally-impaired female will offer to go halves on another vice sometime, and then I can put my mettle to a genuine test. In the meantime, the most I have to struggle with is walking past the break-room snack machine without emptying all my change into it. And as long as they refuse to stock fifths of Bourbon in the damn thing, that is no great sacrifice.

So what’re your vices?


Some vices, yesterday. Curiously, smoking, sexism and fatty foods are omitted in favour of Idolatry, Greed, Lust and Anger. Somebody’s overdue for some sensitivity training…

Ars gratia fascium

This week - the damning verdict that every artist dreads…

Ivan’s Site of the Week

This week’s winner is Modern Drunkard Magazine - an invaluable repository of all things lush-related.

About three articles in you realize that this is not some trendy tongue-in-cheek lifestyle deal after all – all of the subjects are genuine crash-and-burn alcoholics, as are most of the contributors. In fact, that realization will be unavoidable halfway through your first article if you start with Drunkard of the Month:

If I’m on the street I’ll buy a fifth of Early Times and a 16oz Coca Cola and get to it. Or I buy three cases of American Beer if I think it’s gonna be a long night. The other option is a bottle of good ol’ Irish Rose. It’s like Mad Dog 20/20. You could get mashed on that for five dollars…

The humour is a little forced sometimes, a bit like the 4am stragglers at a dying party who know it’s over but carry on regardless in the hope of recapturing the mood. But it’s almost worth it for the disquisition into alcohol in Star Trek, where the Vulcans are dismissed as “the designated drivers of the Universe”. At last a Trekkie who gives Scottie his due.


James Doohan, yesterday, idol of nerdy alcoholics everywhere. Also remembered for the classic line: “Laddie, if I had Alzheimers, I think I’d remember!” Slainte Mhath…

The Laughing Noam

Noam Chomsky’s already ample retirement fund gets an unexpected boost as Hugo Chavez’s impromptu recommendation of his latest work sends it shooting up the Amazon hit list.

In other reviews, a Herr Hitler of Salzburg warmly recommends The Merry Widow, by Franz Lehár.

It’s not hard to see the appeal that “Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance” might have for our Hugo…

“America is just as much a terrorist state as any other government or rogue organization”
“the repression of other nations' citizenry is, in fact, the very reason Americans support certain foreign leaders”
“current U.S. policies in Afghanistan and Iraq are … the continuation of a consistent half-century of … "imperial grand strategy" in which the United States has attempted to maintain its hegemony through the threat or use of military force"

I’m sure that the elegant Mr Chomsky would be the first to point out the shortcomings of Chavism, and the dangers of religious extremism, or even the fundamentally corrupt nature of the UN. But alas he has not yet found the time to comment on these matters in print, while of course anything trashing the US flies off the shelves at $28 a pop.

Still, doubtless he is suitably shame-faced.

As for the readership, in case they’re still insufficiently outraged by the abyssal evil of American foreign policy, Amazon is on the case:

People who bought this book also purchased…
“Why I idolise all peoples and cultures except my own”
“Flag-burning for Dummies”
“The Little Rich College Girl’s Guide to Making Daddy Angry” - now comes with free software for selecting the most alarming ethnic boyfriend!
“101 Ways to Avoid Work for Yet Another Damned Year”
“Harry Potter and the Prisoners of Abu Ghraib”

One commentator likened Chavez’s foray into literary criticism to Oprah’s Book Club. Oprah? That woman’s a monster…


The Boyfriend Select-O-Matic, yesterday. This miracle of modern science caters to all combinations of colour, creed, and elite social status to identify exactly the right type of boyfriend to guarantee Daddy’s first embolism…

Manbird of Alcatraz

I make my daily visit to the company gym.

Another of the regulars there, apropos of nothing, vouchsafes to me that she is ordering a special backpack for her African Grey parrot, so that she can take it out with her on hiking trips, presumably to torment it with panoramic views of freedom while it remains trapped in its hi-tech mobile cage. Pounding the treadmill next to me, the proud owner is happily oblivious to the irony of the entire concept.

And hiking is not the only extra-mural activity she shares with her bird. According to her, it also enjoys drive-in movies, with a marked prediliction for Hitchcock retrospectives. That’s not to say that the poor creature is some sort of sad, unidimensional character. “Sleepless In Seattle”, starring Meg Ryan, is another favourite. We are dealing with a complex and well-rounded personality here. The parrot, that is, not Meg Ryan, who tends to attack her own reflection in the dressing room mirror whenever left unattended.

While I sympathise – who could ever get enough of “Rear Window”, after all? - I can’t say I approve. I wouldn’t give a parrot the car keys no matter what, and I doubt that it’s insured.

Experts advise that the African Grey is one of the largest and most high-maintenance parrot breeds, and provide a handy three-step guide to recognizing one in the wild:
1) is it large?
2) is it grey?
3) does it have (a) feathers or (b) a trunk?

If the answer to 3 is (b), what you’ve got hold of there is an elephant. Superficial resemblances to the contrary, these are not actually parrots at all, and respond very badly to being placed in small cages and expected to roost on a twig. Let it go and try again.


Some African Greys, yesterday, in their natural habitat. Polly wants some trail mix…

In your Sunday Irae Magazine this week

Chernobyl, twenty years on – and the Sunday Irae asks the question that’s on everybody’s lips…

“Where are all the mutant superheroes, then?”

Ivan’s Site of the Week

This week, why not sample the manifold pleasures of Crap Towns by The Idler?

The possibilities are endless. Look up your own, or learn about others. Plan your next holiday via a process of elimination. After all, if your destination is on this list, chances are you’re not going to want to go there. Or at least you won’t want to after you’ve looked it up. Think of all the money you’ll save.

Thanks to this site, I now know that I was born in a low level concrete disaster, full of anorak-clad deformed pensioners… one of the few places I know of that you can still buy a lime green shell suit, and grew up in a town full of grubby drunks, Poundsaver shops, middle-aged Goths, and… seething towers of adidas trash. Explains a lot, really…

What’s your nomination for crappest town?


Crap Towns, yesterday – also available in book form for the truly discriminating nihilist.

From Brussels with love

Another small milestone is passed, as visit 25000 is clocked up on Sitemeter. I wouldn’t have bothered to mention it, only the address of our mystery guest caught my eye…

Domain Name eu.int ? (Unknown)
IP Address 158.169.131.# (Commission Europeenne)
ISP Commission Europeenne
Continent : Europe
Country : Belgium (Facts)
State/Region : Brabant
City : Linkebeek
Lat/Long : 50.7667, 4.3333 (Map)

Time of Visit Sep 18 2006 11:07:04 am
Last Page View Sep 18 2006 11:09:05 am
Visit Length 2 minutes 1 second
Page Views 3
Referring URL http://chasemeladies.blogspot.com/
Visit Entry Page http://diesirae.blog...arth-in-balance.html
Visit Exit Page http://diesirae.blog...arth-in-balance.html
Out Click
Time Zone UTC+1:00
Visitor's Time Sep 18 2006 5:07:04 pm
Visit Number 25,000

Two full minutes, they spent – which translates into nearly EUR 300 based on the pay scale of the average EU flunky. That might seem a lot to you or I, but of course in the European Commission that’ll barely buy you a quickie with the office catamite, with nothing left over for having any awkward investigative journalists arrested. Happily for our hard-pressed public servants, that’s a service the Belgian Police are content to supply for free.

Sharp-eyed and/or overly retentive readers will spot something of a pattern emerging here, seeing as #20,000 was someone in the Australian Ministry of Defence. Could it be that all my readers are tax-fattened hyenas leaching off the public tit and surfing my feeble offerings in their ample free time? I’d hate to live in a world where that could be true. I’d go and check a sample of other visits to find out, but that’s too much like hard work, which would wreck my chances of ever landing an equivalent job someday.

Of course, this could just be Aunty M swinging by to see if I’ve produced anything fit for human consumption lately. Even from here, I can almost hear her heartfelt sigh of disappointment. Sorry, Aunty…


Aunty M, yesterday. To paraphrase my good friend Bender, whenever I say “Destroy all Eurocrats”, I always whisper “…except one”.