olilolo blog

Since writing about Plato, I’ve been reminded me of another poor soul who needs defending.

On August 24, 2006, one of the greatest atrocities since the release of Celine Dion’s first album was perpetrated. On August 24, 2006, the world as we know it ended… the International Astronomical Union classified Pluto as no longer a planet, but a dwarf-planet. I know, we here at olilolo are always on the forefront of news.

The act sent shock waves around the world and, much like Miss Dion, left many dazed, shattered and vomiting uncontrollably.

Tears were shed. Petitions were signed. Protests formed.

In the end though, the scientists ignore public pleas and stayed with ‘facts’… like the dirty, perverse factphiles they are, sitting all high and mighty on their giant fact-steeds, drinking fact-filled cocktails, and listening to Celine Dion. Monsters!

But now the years have moved on, as have many whom were previously so passionate. So many people have forgotten poor old Pluto.

And really that’s what this is all about. Pluto is the innocent one in all this. It’s spent billions of years, minding it’s own business, out in the freezing cold at the edge of the solar system.

We’re the ones who named it a planet in the first place. It didn’t ask for it. Now only 76 years later, a mere instant in the life of a heavenly body, we strip away the title. No sit down discussion for Pluto. No three warnings, or remediation proposals. Just a simple, thanks for entertaining us with your planet’ness now get your nitrogen atmosphere and fuck off.

You always hear those stories of presenters at award shows accidentally reading out the wrong name. Well there’s a reason why they never take the award back and re-present it. That’s because it’s worse to be wrongly awarded something, and having it ripped away then never receiving it at all. That’s what happened to Pluto. The butt of a big cosmic prank. One second it’s won Best Planetary Body for it’s role in Starship Troopers, next it’s being harassed by the paparazzi as it desperately flees from the ceremony while smug Neptune is inside being handed its award.

On a side note, no one’s thought about Pluto’s letterhead and business cards either? It costs a lot of money to change stationary.

But you know what bugs me most though? What above all else really sickens me. The rest of the planets were probably all too happy to have Pluto downgraded. Less planets to share the title with.

The party’s so much more exclusive when you can lock someone out, isn’t it? Can you here Pluto crying outside? Just turn up the Titanic soundtrack and have a dance the guilt away! Lots more astronomers will shower you with planet-love, Saturn and Venus… but the precedent has been set now fools! Any one of you could be next to go, you greedy, selfish bastards.

In fact I say we knock out one of these other indulgent traitors and give their place to Pluto.

I’m looking at you Mercury, you little barren shit!

So before I go and re-edit Encyclopedia Brittanica’s latest editions in the state library, I’d like to share these final thoughts, dedicated to Pluto.

Near, far, wherever you are. I know that my heart will go on. We’ll stay forever this way. You are safe in my heart, and my heart will go on and on.

Whitney Houston performed in Brisbane last night. Although, if you read the reviews or listen to anyone who went to the show, you might be forgiven for thinking that she actually punched everyone right in the kidneys and killed their dog. Vicious, hateful vitriol spewed forth from the internet and talkback radio today at a rate only seen since the last Schoolies Week.

But I think ultimately everyone is being a bit unfair on old Whitney. I think what’s happened here is that everybody went  in to the concert with a certain expectation which is actually wrong to have in the first place. They thought they were going along to see a diva perform some songs. That’s not the show they bought tickets for.

They saw a MASSIVE DRUG ADDICT perform some songs.

Seriously, the mountain of chemical substances between Bodyguard-era Whitney and today would make Hunter S. Thompson whistle and say “that’s a lot of drugs”. Houston was like a specially designed drug hoover for nearly a decade. She went so far off the rails the people she met had never heard of trains.

And therefore, judging her by that criteria, she actually did pretty damn well. Sure she was breathless, couldn’t hit certain notes, and frequently appeared disoriented. But you take some speed freak you find in the Valley and put them up on stage and they’re just going to scream and soil themselves. And while that could be entertaining, it’s no Greatest Love of All.

And yes, she may have forgotten several of her band member’s names. And that was probably embarrassing for them. But most junkies couldn’t remember their own names, let alone the names of their friends or loved ones, and they sure as shit aren’t going to remember the names of several employees they met a week ago for fit-out rehersals.

And, I will grant you, she did take several LONG breaks during the show, ostensibly to change costumes, but more likely to be injected with more of the stuff that prevents her skin from sloughing off in great waves. However most serious drug fiends wouldn’t even bother leaving. They’d just start convulsing and shitting themselves right there under the centre-front spotlight. The audience are complaining about her missing notes when they should be glad the first three rows weren’t covered in excrement stinking of mescaline and fear.

So lay off Whitney. She did her best. And just think- if she’s this bad NOW imagine what she’ll be like by the END of the tour. You’ve actually probably seen her best show of the Australian leg. And you weren’t stabbed for stash money, so you’re a winner out of this deal.

Plato; one of the greatest thinkers of the ancient world. Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, scientist and founder of the Academy – the first institute of higher learning in the known world. A simple google search will show just how much the modern world owes to him and his students. He has influenced ancient and modern thinkers alike, and will probably continue to do so for millenia to come.

However I wonder to myself sometimes, on cold lonely nights, about whether despite all his achievements, that maybe Plato got screwed. Let’s have a quick look at a few of the great minds of the ancient world:

Socrates – Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, and the teacher of Plato. He has the Socratic method named after him – a specific kind of debate between intellectuals.
Pythagoras – Credited for discovering the mathematical relationship between the hypotenuse, and the sides of right-angled triangles. It is now know as Pythagoras’ theorem.
Hypocrates – Known as the father of medicine, and after whom the Hippocratic oath is named.
Plato – Man of many great things, but had named after him – the platonic relationship.

The platonic relationship – anathema of the single man. The one thing seperating man from his true desires. How many times was Plato publically rejected before a whole society attibuted his name to what he must have found most dreaded – a deep but non-sexual relationship?

“Want to accompany me to the Theatre of Dionysus tonight, fair maiden?”
“Oh, Plato. Um… hmmm… I’m washing my hair.”
“I don’t think we’ve discovered surfactants yet.”
“Look, I love you… like a brother. Let’s be friends. Best friends.”

It’s a wonder he did any philosophising at all with the constant pain of rejection, and inevitable tearful masturbation.

During those moments, after another local Athenian girl broke his great, big, knowledge-loving heart, he was probably so forlorn and emabrassed he just wanted to die and let it all end… But here we are 2300 years later, still rubbing it in his face in it. Death can’t hide you from the taunts Plato.

We live are in a society so fervently against bullying, but we ourselves are still attacking a poor, gentle man; long gone from the world to which he’d left so many gifts.

So next time I hear someone use the term ‘platonic relationship’ I’m going to punch them right in the face and say “That’s for a great man!”

This interview took place during November, and will appear in the February issue of “Stallions: The Magazine for the Australian Corporate Go-Getter, and Horse Enthusiast.”

———————————————————————

Simple Genius: A Casual Conversation with Doyle.

When five of the worlds wittiest and most amusing writers banded together to create the Greatest Blog on Earth, that blog wasn’t olilolo.

olilolo is known to the masses as a blogging website aimed to distract the public from their otherwise sad and meaningless lives. We’re regaled with tales of drunken strippers sleeping with pythons in their bed chamber, conspiracy theories concerning Big Brother harbouring Schapelle Corby and even the taboo of intra-family marriage.

The site, established in 2005 to much fanfare, is owned and run by five unique writers; The men known only as Doyle, Disco Stu, Ben, Bruce and Yongas. While Doyle and Disco Stu are the most frequent bloggers, the three other members of olilolo have been known to post a cheeky blog from time to time. Ben usually opts to post rants about his most recent brush with the authorities, Bruce reminisces about his love for cream and Yongas has beautiful thighs.

As Stu was in the middle of his November Challenge, I caught up with Mr Doyle at the olilolo Tower to uncover the success secrets of the olilolo family.

I arrived at the tower early; after passing a burnt out and still smouldering BMW convertible in the parking lot on the way to the tower. I was feeling a little disturbed, but still eager to finally see where the olilolo comedic magic took place. I was greeted half-heartedly at reception by a dishevelled looking assistant. Her clothes were slightly crumpled and singed. On her chest there was a lopsided badge that read ‘Alendra’. She wore the worn, slightly crazed expression of someone who has had too much coffee and not enough sleep.

“I’m here for an 11am appointment with Mr Doyle” I said. She sighed wearily, and gestured for me to sit down before she grabbed a towel hanging from her office chair and entered a nearby open office. The unhinged door rested against the door frame. From within the room I heard muffled voices and splashing water. When she reappeared she gave me an apologetic smile, shrugged and said “He’s ready to see you now.”

When I entered the office I was confronted with a scene for which I was not ready. The room smelt strongly of alcohol and feet. Mr Doyle was wearing nothing but a towel, as he lounged lazily in a blow-up pool in the middle of his office. In one hand he was holding an olilolo coffee mug that had been duct taped together; it was then taped securely to his hand. The other hand gestured me forward.

I moved toward a vacant seat in a corner but Mr Doyle shook his head and hiccoughed “No, no, please.” He patted his lap disturbingly. “There’s room in the pool!” I ignored his kind offer and took the spare seat anyway; I looked into Mr Doyle’s blood shot eyes, swallowed the lunch which was threatening to make a reappearance, and began the interview:

Thank you for your time today Mr Doyle. You’re a notoriously hard man to get an interview with, and we appreciate the chance to give our readers an insight into your genius. My pleasure. So, what’s your secret to writing a really great blog? Well that’s a tough question. I guess the best way is to know what your reader wants. Who is your audience? What do they like? Don’t like? Give them a little piece of themselves every day – a little snippet of happiness in an otherwise bad day.

That’s a lovely way to think about your work.

What? My work? No, I just fart out whatever shit pops into my head; usually after my deadlines, and with little recollection of it later. I don’t really care about my readers. The blog solely serves as my outlet for my various rants and disjointed thoughts. The doctors said without it they’d probably have to increase the medication.

Oh, well where do you get your inspiration?

Probably the medication, but also just things I see in everyday life. People that annoy me. TV ads that annoy me. Children that annoy me. Products that annoy me. Weather patterns that annoy me.

Okay, well let’s shift focus a little. How did olilolo begin?

Well it’s not a well known fact but the five of us; Stu, Yongas, Ben, Bruce and I; all went to high school together. We’d spend our lunch times talking crap about the impending zombie apocalypse, Ben’s crazy conspiracy theories and Yongas’ gorgeous thighs. They were good times. So as adults we decided to try to recapture those moments, and sure make a little cash out of it. Which advertisers wouldn’t want to pay to be associated with all this?

He gestured to his surroundings, and then towards his crotch. The look on his face showed he wasn’t being funny.

Tell me a little bit about your fellow olilolo’lians and their roles. Well first there’s Stu, current Managing-Director, who most people know quite well from the press. Less well known though is Yongas, Online Artistic Director.

What does olilolo use an artist for?

Not entirely sure, but he always seems flat-out like a lizard drinking, so we’re getting our money’s worth. Bruce, well he’s IT-Support Manager. While Ben is semi-retired and is performing motorbike tricks in a travelling circus.

So, in your opinion, who is the best blogger from olilolo?

He took a long drink from his hand-cup.

I hate to say it, but probably Stu. He actually seems to want people to like his articles. He spends time on them. He researches. He spell-checks and proof reads his work before submitting it. The guy’s a fool. I just don’t understand him.

What is this underlying competitiveness between you and Stu about? Is there any bad blood between the two of you?

Ha! No, there’s no bad blood between Stu and I. We’re just two naturally competitive people; like two brothers competing for mother’s attention. He’s a little jealous that I’m a better person than him in every way, and he tried to compensate for that by driving BMWs and harassing everything with a set of tits.

A BMW? Is it a convertible? There’s a burnt out BMW in your car park and…

Ha-ha!

He slapped his leg in genuine glee.

Yeah, that’s the third one this week. It’s a joke we have. He understands really; it’s been going on for a few weeks. It all started as just putting a potato in his exhaust pipe…

His voice trailed off, and he looked into the middle distance.

Wow, it really escalated to arson quite quickly. Oh well, it doesn’t matter. Our work insurance covers it and he’ll have another one here by the end of the day.

Um, but… Okay, well if you and Disco Stu were to have a ‘blog war’ who would win?

Stu. I don’t have time for blog-wars. I have scotch to sample, and pubs to attend.

Let’s change tack completely for awhile. Have you ever seen Yongas’s thighs? Are they as beautiful as he described? Drool seems to trickle down Doyle’s chin at this question. Seen them? Ha! I’ve tasted them. Finest flesh known to man they are. I’m not gay but I’d turn in a second for one of those pale bags of love-meat. They’re 100% heterosexual of course. There was an unfortunate incident with one of Yongas’ ex-lovers once. Can’t blame the girl. They ooze masculine’ness, like beer and porn and indecent assault.

You’ve mentioned you’re not gay but we at Stallions have heard the rumours circulating in the press that you believe Health Ledger is sexy and often fantasize about rubbing honey all over him. Do you have anything to say to this allegation? Did you ever date Health Ledger?

Look the man has passed on and I don’t think it’s considerate to his family to be spreading, or fuelling such rumours.

Of course. On the topic of relationships, did Stu really end up marrying his sister in a desperate bid for publicity and readers?

No, of course not. That’s illegal… in this country anyway. There may have been an unfortunate incident involving too much alcohol, and a case of mistaken identity… or was that the movie Eurotrip? I dunno but at the end of the day the courts didn’t prove a thing.

This question comes from one of our readers, Mr R. Murdoch. It’s a hypothetical: It’s your birthday, and olilolo has made you a nice cake…

Wouldn’t happen.

It’s hypothetical, Mr Doyle. Now you’re delighted that your colleagues have been so kind as to give you a cake.

I wouldn’t be.

You blow out your candles and cut a big slice, but in the excitement you touch the bottom. You’re shocked, but you know you’re going to have to kiss one of them.

What? Piss off!

Who do you choose?

Kiss them? These people are lucky I don’t kiss them repeatedly… with my foot.

Just choose one!

Never!

I sighed with the sort of weariness one rarely gets working for an exclusive, blue-blooded magazine such as Stallions.

Fine. Well if you could kick one member of the olilolo team in the face who would it be?

Myself. With that sort of flexibility there’d be all sorts of kinky stuff you could do.

Again he gestured towards his crotch.

I think that’s all I have time for. Thanks again for providing the time for the interview, and allowing us an insight into your… unique abilities. Is there anything else you would like to say to our readers?

Just this.

I left the room as Mr Doyle started to dance; gesticulating in an erotic way. While I was glad to leave, I would never forget my visit.

J. Drenikow. 2010
———————————————————————

olilolo is a world renowned, online web-corporation with its head office based in Brisbane, Australia. They have established themselves as the largest purveyors of satire and humour of the finest quality. You can find them online at http://www.olilolo.com.

Late last week the internet had a bomb dropped on it courtesy of Apple Inc in the form of a shiny piece of plastic and circuits that had fanboys experiencing Jesus, haters finally popping an embolism, and people who were ambivalent deciding that they really need to get off the damn computer and go for a walk.

And amongst the shit-flinging monkey fight that was the internet’s reaction to the iPad was, of course, the jokes. They started almost immediately- people latched onto the name of the device and made the  obvious connection to feminine hygene products, provoking the brain-scraping mental image of a sanitary pad with some kind of user interface to check RSS feeds. Girl Clumsy, The Wah and I were hanging out when the announcement hit the net, and on hearing the name all three of us made the same joke, at the same time. Apple must have known that was going to happen. The scary thing is, it looks like they just didn’t care. And hey, people thought the Wii was a dumb name, until it turned around and owned the console market like a Chihuahua humping a table leg.

People also made jokes about how it’s basically an oversized iPod touch, how it’s sort of like a computer for special people, how Apple may have their heads so far up their own asses they form some sort of douchebag tesseract. The jokes were flying think and fast.

And then, some one went and did it.

Read more…

Vladamir Putin, Judo champion and Russian Prime Minister, has again shown himself to be the biggest bad arse politian in the world today by declaring war, on a meteor heading towards Earth. Russia’s Federal Space Agency’s science council will hold a closed session to discuss ways of diverting the rock, which will make several passes by the Earth from 2029, the closest in 2036.

“People’s lives are at stake,” said Mr Perminov, head of the agency.

Above: Mr Perminov at the Russian launch pad.

“We should pay several hundred million dollars and build a system that would allow us to prevent a collision, rather than sit and wait for it to happen and kill hundreds of thousands of people.”

While most of the world rejoices at this guesture of altruism from the former communist state, Hollywood is furious.

“The Russians talk about saving lives, well what about our livelihoods?” asked Rod Rogerson from the American Film Makers Guild. “If they pull this off, it’s going to ruin the whole meteor-disaster-film genre. People will lose their jobs! Who wants to see Russian’s saving the world?”

In a rare sign of solidarity, the top executives of all the major film studios have signed a petition against the Russian undertaking.

“Look, at this point they can choose to ignore us, but if they do we’re going to have to hit them with a cease-and-desist injunction. If they still proceed we’ll sue them for loss of income.”

When asked what they’d do if they were still unsuccessful, Mr Rogerson said “Well then we’ll have to go into crisis mode. We’re already talking to Chuck Norris to play the part of Putin.”

What would be  more upsetting to you, your mother dying, or your friend’s mother dying? What about if you’ve never met your friend’s mother? All right, which would be more upsetting to you, your mother dying, or a bus full of children plummeting off a cliff on the other side of the world? The two events happen simultaneously, although they are not connected in any way (that we know of; the dark Lord Dennis has been looking shifty)

I mean, it’s your mother, right? Unless you really hate your mother, and have an unnatural fondness for schoolbuses full of children, in which case the authorities are probably already keeping an eye on you. You’re more upset by events which happen closer to you, that involve you in some way. It’s selfish, but it’s human nature. A really smart guy I know wrote an insightful and funny article about it once. Everyone should read it, because it underlines so perfectly how humans work, and why we react to things the way we do. Plus there’s dick jokes included for free. (Not to mention I paraphrased the above example from it. That’s a nice way of saying I stole it, and me linking it is like leaving a note saying “sorry” after I’ve burgled a house)

“Stu, why are you even mentioning this?” I hear you hypothetical readers ask in your thin, whiny voices. I’m getting to that. But keep that idea in mind, the idea of proximity to tragedy making it effect us more.

Read more…

I was recently talking about how we were all doomed because basic stuff that we need to make things is rapidly running out. From rare elements used to make electrical devices right down to relatively common stuff like Zinc and Copper are dwindling at an alarmingly rapid rate.

I found this awesome chart which shows in simple graphic form all that I was trying to bludgeon you over the head with using clumsy words. Read and be afraid.

(Thanks to MightyGodKing for the link)

Well I’m home on New Year’s Eve with an unhappy and unwell child. The rest of the staff are out, partying themselves blind while my house smells like kid-vomit, so spare me your moaning about the lack of sexy new olilolo content.

I know it’s what you want.

I know it’s what you need.

We all YEARN for it… but until next year you’re going to have to wait.

Merry Christmas, from all of us at olilolo.