Author: Purple Wyrm

Music

After agonising over it for weeks I eventually decided to simply jump in and vote for the first 10 tracks I thought of for the Triple J Hottest 100 of Australian Songs. This worked pretty well, except for the realisation a few days later than I’d left out Wide Open Road – a sin so grievous I expect to be asked to return my Western Australian citizenship at any moment.

In any case, here’s how I went…

Yes, it’s pretty old stuff but I am old and someone has to stand up for the classics.

Here is a clickable list for those who like that kind of thing

(As much as I love Long Loud Hours it probably would have been shuffled out to make room for the Triffids if I’d been thinking straight).

In addition to the Hottest 100 there are a few songs that have really caught my ear lately. First up, Shy Girl by Haute and Freddy. I have no idea who these people are, but they’ve come up with something incredibly 80s sounding in this, the Year of Our Lord 2025, and I’m 100% there for it.

Secondly is this effort by G Flip. I’ve always through G Flip is cool, but their music has never really done that much for me – Disco Cowgirl though grabbed me from the very first time I heard it. The acapella bit followed by the key change at 2:30 is clichéd as hell, but it works so well!!

And finally a surprising blast from the past. I’ve always been a Florence and the Machine fan (not least because Florence Welsh is clearly some kind of ethereal goddess from the realm of the Fae) and I’ve known of Shake it Out ever since it first came out back in 2011, but I’d only ever heard some kind of chopped down radio edit, and never heard it before through headphones. The full version happened to pop up on my playlist at work and it just about blew my eyes out my head! It was like a goddamn spiritual experience! Honestly, you could found a religion on that song! OOOO-WOO-OOOO-OOOO!! OOOO-WOO-OOOO-OOOO-OOOO-WOO-OOOO-OOOO-WOO!! OOOO-WOO-OOOO-OOOO!! OOOO-WOO-OOOO-OOOO-OOOO-WOO-OOOO-OOOO-WOO!! TAKE ME NOW FLORENCE!!

Ahem. Sorry about that. Suffice to say I quite enjoyed it.

So, it’ll be interesting to see if any of my choices end up in the countdown. Roll on the 26th!

For Each A Road

(I’ve been avoiding blogging because I’m in the middle of hauling this antiquated pile of code across to a new server and adding content complicates matters, but what the hell. I refuse to be silenced! Even by my own common sense.)

When I was a kid something nasty happened to me. Not terribly nasty by world standards – in fact a normal person would have completely shrugged it off in a couple of days. But to a naive, overly sheltered, undiagnosed autistic kid it was devastating. I don’t think it’s inaccurate to say that it gave me PTSD. It broke me badly and left me with fears and insecurities that I’ve lived with for over 35 years.

Except I woke up on Monday last week, and they were gone. Vanished. Evaporated. Disintegrated. They’ve run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. They are an ex-terror.

Maybe years of therapy have actually worked? Or is it that getting older makes you more content with life thing?

It’s weird, but probably good?

I guess we’ll see what happens next.

Things I Want to Buy

This is a list of things I would like to buy. It’s mostly just for my own benefit, but if anyone wants to use it as a gift guide, then feel free!

Naturally I shall add to this over time.

(Also some of this stuff is so ludicrously expensive that I shall never be able to acquire it. C’est la vie!)

INANE LUXURIES
A piece of Mammoth Ivory
A flanged button australite
Weta Workshop Minas Morgul Environment
<brian_blessed>A CRASSUS ARMOURED ASSAULT CARRIER!!</brian_blessed>

GENERAL STUFF
Large hot-wire foam cutter
Record player
A second monitor for my PC
A hard drive adaptor thingy I know what I mean damnit!

BOOKS
Iron Council – China Miéville
Interceptor City – Dan Abnett
The Infinite and the Divine – Robert Rath

GAME BOOKS
The Silver Bayonet – Joseph A McCullough
Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying
Rivers of London the RPG

GAMES
Metro 2033 Board Game
Fallout Board Game – New California Expansion

GENERAL NERDERY
Warhammer Old World Cathyan Sentinel

FURNITURE
IKEA Nordli Top and plinth, white, 40 x 47cm
IKEA Nordli Modular chest of 2 drawers, white, 40 x 45cm (x3)

Gladiator Song

For fifteen pennies and a box of matches,
He’ll tell you about the things he catches,
Up in the rafters,
Down in the basement,
Running to the window sill to open up the casement,

Leaping high above the daily drama,
Only stopping for a Swedish Llama,
Quick with a jab,
Then with a cut,
Slamming all the windows shut,

You can’t tell exactly what he’s going to do,
Asking everybody for a light except for you,
Fifteen pennies and some matches from Peru,
If you doubt, call it out, with a shout!

A List of Entirely Fictional Women I am Embarrassingly Obsessed With

One of a series of posts documenting my precarious mental state for purposes of education and enlightenment.

Miranda Feigelsteen – Mysterious Ways (TV Show)
Miki – FreakAngels (Comic)
Abby Lockheart – ER (TV Show)
Lorelai Gilmore – Gilmore Girls (TV Show)
Claudia Donovan – Warehouse 13 (TV Show)
Talla Keyali – The Orville (TV Show)
Adora Belle Dearheart – Going Postal (Novel)
Abby Sciuto – NCIS (TV Show)
Susan Ptolemy – Giant Days (Comic)
Sara Sidle – CSI (TV Show)

I’m sure there are more, so I’ll add them as I think of them.

Farewell Pete, We Wish We Hardly Knew Ye

Opposition Leader Job Seeker Peter Dutton

So, Labor won the election in a total landslide, and Peter Dutton became the first opposition leader in Australian history to lose his seat. I would have much preferred the Greens to hold on to their seats, but this is an outcome I can live with.

I spent most of the day ignoring the election (having voted early on Friday) and turned over to the ABC just in time to see Antony Green call it for Labor. Then, maybe a half hour later, he declared that Peter was out and the panel turned to their Liberal representative (James McGrath I believe) for a comment on this “massive repudiation” of Dutton’s policies. He stared, frozen, at the camera with his mouth hanging open for what seemed like a full five seconds before stuttering to life. It was glorious! (Schadenfreude is undignified, but by god it’s delicious!)

It would be nice to imagine that the Libs will now realise that Australians don’t want nuclear power and don’t react well to American-style identity politics, but I won’t be holding my breath.

It also looks like Clive Palmer and his inane “Trumpet of Patriots” party won’t get a seat in either house, and not only has Clive stated that he would have got a better result if he’d stuck with the “Palmer United” name, he now claims to be too old for politics and won’t bother any more. This is fantastic news for every right thinking person. Personally I numbered all of the 50+ boxes on the Senate ballot paper simply so I could put Clive last, so this pleases me immensely. Piss off, Clive!

It is a good day to be alive in Australia.

Pooches and Popes

On Monday (Australian time) the Pope died. So did my parent’s dachshund Rudy who managed to make it to 21, which is not just extremely good going for any dog but pretty close to the longest recorded lifespan for any dachshund.

Rudy was a good boy, but what about Pope Francis?

In my personal opinion Francis was one of the better Pontiffs of recent times – keeping in mind that the bar for Papal decency is simultaneously pretty low and disturbingly difficult for so many of them to reach. He made some good statements and implemented some good policies, while not being outstandingly horrible to the Vatican’s usual punching bags. With an institution as ancient, hidebound and prejudiced as the Catholic Church that’s about the best you can hope for.

So now the race is on for a new Pope. Unfortunately the prophecies of Saint Malachy have now run out, so we can no longer have fun speculating on which Cardinal best fits whatever nonsensical aphorism he (or a 16th century forger more likely) scrawled down. The big question is whether a progressive (for the Papacy of course) like Francis will make the cut, or if there’ll be a conservative backlash and we end up with someone only slightly to the left of Attila the Hun. There’s also the increasingly traditional speculation over whether they’ll choose someone from the global south, or go with yet another European.

Time will tell I guess. However the dice fall, as long as they don’t elect anyone named Peter the wider world will probably be alright.

Anyway, here’s the song I always think of whenever a Papal conclave rolls around.

Shaggy, this isn’t a Weed…

Alan Titchmarsh: This is a holly, but it’s not spiky, it’s a small leaved form named Ilex crenata…

Me: Ilex crenata! Prowl off! Jump an prance! Ilex crenata! Prowl off! Jump an prance! Ilex crenata gal prowl off! Gal yuh fi jump an prance!

Eat Me, Bobby!

“These are kids who will never pay taxes. They’ll never hold a job. They’ll never play baseball. They’ll never write a poem. They’ll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted. We have to recognize we are doing this to our children.” — RFK Junior on autistic people

There once was a moron named Bobby,
The CDC he liked to lobby,
Already insane,
When a worm ate his brain,
He spreads medical lies as a hobby,

RFK Jr.’s quite yappy,
He lacks the good sense of his pappy,
If you do as he bids,
You’ll kill millions of kids,
But the worm in his brain will be happy,

Anti-vax RFK teaches,
Raw water and milk’s what he preaches,
Before very long,
If we let this go on,
We’ll all be relying on leeches,

Stick that in your all natural crack pipe Bobby!

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