This is a story about a man. A real man. A man like no other….

I flick my cigarette…

The cabbie is not pleased, he does not stop screaming. The butt collided with his left ear. He has ear lobes like Ghandi’s thong. He doesn’t appreciate when I point this out between his painful wails.

For some reason the man makes me get out, refusing to go any further. I’d flogged the donkey dry, his services rendered useless. Miles from my ‘dwelling’, I continue to stumble.

After completing my studies at the “Derek Zoolander Center For Kids Who Can’t Read Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too”; with an open mind and knowing that there’s more to life than just being really, really, really ridiculously good looking; I went travelling.

I saw all kinds of fashion traits, freaks and style gurus from all round. The world was my oyster and I was keen to establish my own sense of style and direction as I wondered through the streets of other worlds.

I look at my watch. Half-past Five in the afternoon?

Is that right… Have I lost a day? I’m so confused now, but I truck on. I would murder every last Panda Bear into extinction for an Aussie meat pie at this stage. God am I hungry.

I pause to take in my surroundings. I don’t even know if I’m going the right way. Where am I? Half-past Five? Is that right? What the fuck have I been doing? I look from left to right. I’m a coiled spring ready to explode at any second, nothing makes sense.

Suddenly something catches my eye; there’s a big glass window up ahead. There’s a skull in it. Completely lost, gathering my nerve I move forward to explore.

Its a Tattoo Parlour. I giggle like a schoolgirl. Pure evil thoughts course through my veins.

Before I’ve even realised it, I’ve walked in. Inside there is your usual kinda tattooists covered from head to toe in the form of human art. The place is new and it has a certain class: polished wooden floors, a large black leather sofa couch and statues of all sorts. “Is that a real baby in that jar?” I wonder aloud as I hover towards the ‘desk’. Buzzing with excitement I ask if they have any appointment. “When?” they ask dryly. My response was prompt with a short “NOW”. Their instant reaction was a simple and conceded ‘no… but you’re more than welcome to make a booking. Sir‘. Sir my arse, I’m going elsewhere.

This always works, turns out all of a sudden some guy called ‘Diamond Jack’ has cancelled. What a convenience.

They politely ask for my piece and what I’d like done. Crap, I haven’t thought this far ahead. Then it hits me!

A nest! Two swallows flying in perfect unison just above my ‘Hoo-Hoo Grub’, protecting my eggs. The equation is right and it all fits. Something that can now identify me in a naked line up.

‘Yeah that’s him officer. That’s the guy that flashed me. The one with the birds. Oh god I cant take this! What a monster…’ (sobs) ‘He was 5 foot 7, dark short hair and had Two swallows above his penis. I saw it clear as day’

Two birds?

A nest?

Is it a symbolic piece about protecting the balance of the family? Two parents watching over their children? Or is it just a sick joke from some weird guy… this weird guy trying to start a weird craze? You decide my friend…. I propose we start a new trend! The early bird catches the worm after all.

Next time someone asks whether you spit or swallow, you think about my birds in all there glory, flying high and proud. As Dave Chapelle once put it, “should I save up to get Botox on my balls so they can be smooth as eggs?” Now that would complete the nest nicely.

So we see clean coal tech being announced, and carbon offset schemes, and mammoth overblown concerts filled with ageing rockers who flew there on a private jets urging us to “do our part” for the environment. We seem to be on the right track in terms of curbing our polluting behaviour.

Of course, it doesn’t help if the Earth is doing everything it can to negate our efforts by spewing huge amounts of methane into the atmosphere.

See, as the Earth’s temperature rises, the polar ice caps begin to melt. The trouble is that in the arctic there are enormous pockets of methane trapped in those ice sheets. Once they start to melt, the methane is released into the atmosphere.

This is a problem because methane is approximately 20 times more dangerous as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, which is the main focus of most global warming initiatives. And so it should be, as it’s produced by most of the world’s nations as a waste product. The trouble is, much smaller amounts of methane have the same or worse effect. It has such an effect that some scientists are seriously worried that the methane from cows farting is contributing to global warming.

Cows produce fairly small amounts of methane. The arctic has just bubbled up hundreds of tonnes in fresh supplies.

Basically, it works like this. Did you ever have a roomate who farted a lot? Like, a lot? and they were always stinkers? It would get so bad sometimes that you had to go outside for some fresh air? Well, now imagine you’re living IN your roomate. And outside is SPACE.

That analogy may have broken down, so let’s use another. The Earth is farting, and we’re all caught in the dutch oven.

That’s why I’ve called it the “Dutch-Oven Scenario”. The scientific community has largely snubbed me and chosen to call the phenomenon the “Clathrate-Gun Hypothesis“, which just goes to show that being smart doesn’t mean you can name things worth a damn.

Whatever you call it, it’s something which should concern you, because scientists say events like this have been responsible for several extinction events over the history of life on the planet, including the “Permian Event“, not only a cool band name but an extinction which saw 96 percent of all marine species and 70 percent of all verterbrate land animals disappear from the face of the earth. Because the temperature rose a few degrees.

I should point out at this stage that my fallout bunker is fully equipped with air-conditioned life support systems. So I don’t need to worry about any of this. But you should be informed.

There’s a second breed of person out there who prefers the personal touch, building websites themselves and operating a cottage industry in specialised clothes, carved dolls, stuffed cane toads wearing dresses; the possibilities are endless. The internet puts these people on a level playing field with multinational corporations and gets their product out there to the entire world.

Then there’s a third type of person who sells purses shaped like vaginas.

Have you ever looked at the leathery, rippling folds of your purse and thought “the only thing that could improve this is if it looked like female genitalia”? Then Art Goddess is the site to visit.

Parents take note- this is the must-have item this Christmas. Kids will be laughed at in the playground unless they have a plush velvet vulva with pearl clitoris on their arm.

Memes (named for Venezuelan adventurer Jose Me-Me) in an internet context are usually pictures of sometimes video which can be easily edited by many users, all adding to the “joke”. Of course, like all good in-jokes, they are practically inconprehensible to an outsider, and those involved have long ago forgotten why they were funny in the first place.

But still they continue. Oh God, how they continue. Memes tend to come and go so quickly on the internet it’s like a flickering flip book of stupid, but occasiaonlly something sticks and we’re stuck with it. Witness the Ubermeme, the lolcat. Followed very closely by the orly owl. There’s no getting away from these things. Did you know there’s an ongoing project to make a lolcat version of the Bible? You do now, and your day is a little worse.

And any veteran of the tubes knows about the great Pirate-Ninja wars. Endless rolling flame warsspanning countless boards, all arguing who would win in a fight- pirates, or ninjas. It doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t have to.

But this new meme I have found may actually be some sort of mutated strain, some super-meme. Because when I saw it, I realised it was so awesome that it may be the first of its kind to finally break free of the internet and tear the arse out of popular culture itself. The new meme is the Fuck Yeah Shark.

It combines the easily replicable nature of lolcats with the extreeeeme awesomeness of pirates and ninjas. It could actually be the most perfect example of its form ever to exist.

Almost like the noble engine of death which is the shark itself

There’s even a site which collects the things now, which is what happened just before lolcats got everywhere. You are going to be seeing these things all over the place in the near future. You heard it here first. Just don’t come and shoot the messenger when you’re so sick and tired of fucking sharks that if you see one more you’ll kick a baby, you swear to god. Maybe you should go outside for a while. Trust me, I’m a Doctor of Internets.

This the the Australian $5 bill.

That’s ol’ Lizzy by the way, in case you’re not up with the monarchs of the world.

Now lets turn this note to the side.

Now start to fold it along it’s length.

Keep folding till it starts to look like…

Voila! Can’t see anything yet? Take a closer look, you might need to squint:

And there it is. One sexually charged sea mammal.
On a side note: That’s why Australian’s are so keen to save the whales!

To all you recovering coma victims and space aliens out there, Barack Obama was elected President of the United States this week. Oh dear, Mr Johnson’s just fallen back into a coma. Mr Johnson was hit by a car in 1962, and woke up two days ago. Someone should probably have been on that.

Anyway, people have generally lost their shit over this Obama guy. There’s a massive sense in the air that this is the turning point, the dawn after the long night. People danced in the streets of most major American cities after the announcement on Tuesday, and indeed they danced in many cities across the globe. There was the definite sense that this was an important election not just for America, but for the world.

And it was the most important for the people of Obama, Japan, who understandably have a personal stake in the new president, like Trumanville and JFK Airport before them. The people of Obama have embraced the Senator from Illinois with a fervour that is slightly unsettling, yet fairly typical for the Japanese.

Their reverance for the new President is such that they have declared November 4th (election day) a local holiday, and erected a damn statue of Barack in the main square of the city. That’s not quite as cool as the Serbian town with a statue of Rocky Balboa, but it comes close.

But by far the highlight of the capaign is the theme song they came up with to celebrate Obama’s win.

OBAMA IS BEAUTIFUL WORLD!

“La la la la la OBAMA” indeed. In one simple, broken Engrish phrase, these people have summed up the zeitgeist of the time. Well done, people of Obama. And a Beautiful World to you.

But there’s another big issue that I think often gets lost in all the hyperbole. Namely, that Billy Slater is a deformed little dwarf-creature with a stupid fucking face.

Gah. Just look at the fucking munter.

Aaargh. Damn. Fuck.

Jesus tapdancing Christ I hate you, Slater.

AAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

THAT THING LIVES IN CAIRNS!!! THERE’S ONLY 1000 KILOMETRES BETWEEN ME AND IT! I’M LOCKING DOWN THE ANTI-RAPTOR BUNKER UNTIL THOSE THINGS DIE OUT! I’LL SEE YOU IN A FEW THOUSAND YEARS!

The Pointless Waste of Time forums have a long tradition of meetups, called “cheesefests” because of an incident at the first one which people are legally required not to ever mention. There’s been fests is several countries. Last year there was a major fest in Perth which I couldn’t get to because I’d been feeling quite good about myself at that point, and didn’t want to bring my mood down by flying to the other side of the country to meet internet people.

However I’ve been in a funk of self-pity and melancholy for several weeks now, and so decided this year’s fest in Adelaide was the one for me.

* * * *

Explaining to people where I was going, and the reason, was tough. If I just came out and said “I’m meeting people I met online” they looked at me askance and asked if perhaps I really need to sink that low for casual sexual encounters. Even worse is when I added they’re mostly guys, at which point people’s eyebrows shot up and they got this little smirk, and said “well, we’ve suspected for some time.”

So I stopped telling people the absolute, unvarnished truth, and said things like “I’m meeting up with some people who write for the same website I do”. Which is true, up to a point. Several of those people have written articles for Cracked, and the ones who haven’t have still “written” messages on the forums. So I hadn’t been completely honest. They were little white lies, which hurt no one except Baby Jesus, and quite frankly he can take a few hits for the sake of my ego.

I was staying in Adelaide with friend of olilolo David “Mauso” Ryan. Mauso had used his credit card to book the motel we would be staying in, and indeed, I had left all the accomodation details up to him. My only proviso was that it be somewhere between “cheap” and “midnight organ harvesting” on the price range.

He didn’t disappoint. When we arrived at the place the reception lady spent five minutes talking up how wonderful Adelaide was, all the things to do and sights to see. We were quite taken with her description of the city. Then she informed us, in a solemn tone, that we should be careful if we came back after midnight, because “things happen around here”. She did the little left-right look and then leaned in close. “I’m not racist, but there’s a lot of asians around, and most of them carry guns”.

Mauso and I thanked her and slowly backed out of the reception office.

* * * *

Adelaide is a nice town. Well, it says it’s a city, but it’s not fooling anybody. I don’t think there’s a single building in the CBD which is more than fifteen stories, and I think at one point I saw a man on horseback. I was drunk at the time so take that as you will.

But it is a nice town. There’s a feeling of homeliness about it. This is of course a big ruse, perpetuated by the denziens of the city, all of whom are mass murderers in one form or another. Don’t be fooled kids, and always be on your guard. I was. Several people attempted to appraoch me as I walked through the Rundle Mall, claiming to be “buskers” or even “Tourism SA Volunteers” but a swift blow to the throat quickly dispatched all comers. My kidneys were returning home with me.

* * * *

Invigorated by the afternoon neckpunching and stroll through the city, we went to the house of one of the posters who actually lived in Adelaide and had foolishly agreed to host the event. A few other people had also flown in that same day, and we’d agreed to kick things off with some beers and polite conversation

Meeting people in real life who you talk to on the internet is a weird experience. On the net, you have the seperation of cyberspace between you and the other people, you can create a different aura for yourself, hell, even reinvent yourself completely.

Thus there was some unconfortableness when it was discovered I wasn’t actually a 15 year old girl named Daisy. Especially from a couple of the guys. However that was all sorted out with a surprisingly small amount of fuss. My blackmail dossiers on each of them helped matters.

And so the fest began! Of course, being a group of socially awkward geeks made the conversational flow falter for the first few hours. However after around 3 hours of silence punctuated by polite coughing, everyone began to get drunk enough to loosen up, and the party flowed from there. So much so that five or six people managed to finish several cartons of beer. This was a particularly gritty social wheel, and it needed a fair amount of lubricant.

* * * *

The next day saw me still with all my organs, yet unfortunately also sporting a large hangover. I added a greasy breakfast and more beer to that collection, and the day was on.

There were more people at the house that night, pretty much the full attendance. Beer bottles began piling up in small mounds which would occasionally suffer little tinkling avalanches. Jokes were told, stories shared, and all that other faggy stuff. It was a good time.

* * * *

Saturday was a very fun day, if only because I added further to my life experience. I fired a gun. Several guns, in fact.

In a remarkable display of stupidity, we had decided to go shooting after drinking for two days straight and nursing hangovers the size of a small cow. Several of us (certainly not me) nodded off during the safety briefing video and had to be shaken awake before the instructors saw and played the damn thing again.

Then we were lead into the firing range. Two revolver styles guns and some bullets were laid out before me. I picked up the first weapon and caressed it, feeling it’s weight, noticing its length. I ran my hands along it, gently, reverently, with respect and admiration. I kissed it, softly. The other guys were looking at me wierdly by this point. I have no idea why.

I gave the bullets names as I slid them into the chambers. Ex-lovers, corporate enemies, abusive nannies, all were assigned a cartrige. As I fired off round after round tears streamed down my face, the staccato of gunfire only barely drowning out my anguished sobbing. Afterwards, I felt clean, whole for the first time in years. Also I had some sweet shot-up targets for my wall.

I was surprised by the actual experience of firing a gun. When you do it in computer games you do it instinctively, without thinking., Also you can eat cheetos while you do it. There was a disappointing lack of cheetos at the range. But more importantly, you start to realise that, holy shit, this thing that I am holding could fucking kill someone. If I were, for example, to take the two clips provided to me for the 9mm and mow down everyone present one by one before tearfully turning the weapon on myself, there would really be nothing they could do to stop me.

Then I realised that they all had guns as well, and I put the idea aside. This must be how America works.

* * * *

We again went back to the house and commenced to go on the most prolific bender yet, lasting literally around 12 hours of very solid drinking. Some intrepid and strong-stomached soul captured the magic of this evening and the others on video. Part 1, Part 2. (A warning, that is twenty minutes of people you don’t know being drunk at a party. Pretty much only stalkers and the chronically bored should watch them.)

As we stumbled to the waiting taxi at 3 o’clock that following morning, I attempted to thank Sephira, whose house we had filled with lucrative bottles (you can redeem them for 10 cents in Adelaide, meaning Seph now had about a year’s income in glass). Unfortunately, I was a little under the weather, and I think it sounded more like “gurgleburblehouseglurgle”. But I think she got the message.

* * * *

And there you have it. My tale of how I beat the Adelaide murder-gauntlet practically singlehandedly and also went to a party with a bunch of cool people from the internet. Seriously you guys, I can’t wait till the next one. Which is a pretty sad indictment on my social life, but I stand by the statement.