“13 things that presidential candidates shouldn’t say or do. You won’t believe number 8, or number 3. Fuck it, you actually won’t believe any of them because, seriously, how the fuck did you fools let Trump become a presidential candidate?”

Now, forewarning, if you are looking for scathing political commentary, or forensic analysis of just how completely batshit crazy ‘The Donald’ is, then you are in the wrong spot. There are countless other places you can get that, at the very least you could start with Politifact.

However if you are looking for 2,000 or so words — several of which are far too long for Donald to understand — comprised mostly of insults, profanity, and small hand jokes… then you are definitely in the right spot.

Donald Trump is dangerous.

It is not because of his general bigotry. Not because he has a roughly 50/50 shot at the Oval Office. Nor is it the unrelenting lies that feed his irrational, hate-filled, fear-mongering approach to collecting votes. It is not his great, huge, beautifully diminutive vocabulary. Nor his equally minuscule flamboyantly waving tiny man hands.

Specifically, he is not dangerous because of any one of those — or the many, many other — issues alone.

He is dangerous because of all of those issues, and more.

Ok, except the hands, the only thing they pose any danger to is a 2-for-1 sale on children’s gloves at H&M.

Trump campaigns with the grandiloquent pomp of an oompa-loompa with gigantism who is seemingly unaware that the dictator/war-criminal-in-waiting pantomime he is performing is — in every way imaginable — the wrong way to “make American great again”.

He is appealing to the largely unjustified fears of ’average America’. A fear that exists, sure, but it is undoubtedly a fear being inflated by a hate spewing baboon who believes the ‘feelings’ he can arouse in the public masses are more important than the fact that the majority of his endlessly repetitive ‘beliefs’ are unequivocally proven lies.

So fearful are Republicans that Hillary Clinton, a woman, might succeed Barack Obama, a black man, as US President that they are seemingly ok with allowing the least qualified, most socially irresponsible, candidate in living memory to be their nominee for November’s election — even though many of his fellow Republicans do not like him either.

Remember when Sarah Palin was the most ludicrously stupid Republican oxygen thief that the world had to worry about? Not only is Trump worse, he is worse by a significant margin. For the sake of the argument lets just say it is a margin of more than the distance between Alaska and Russia.

Most, if not all, former US Presidents have had some sort of relevant background and/or experience prior to becoming president — be it Vice President, Governor, Senator, Secretary of something, or a high ranking military post.

Donald Trump has not been any of these things, he has held no form of publicly elected office, he has not served his country in any way. He is basically just a Kardashian in a bad wig.

What he is however, is a pseudo-celebrity businessman willing to plaster his gold plated name on anything from bottled water, to overpriced steaks, to illegitimate universities, to beauty pageants.

I can already see the 20 foot tall Trump sign being installed at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue next January. You laugh, but this is just the sort of wacky fucked up shit that Trump would be likely to try if he gets elected.

I cringe at the thought of how much gaudy, gilded furniture he is going to try to cram into the Oval Office.

The problem here is not just that Trump is a maniacal intolerant lunatic, but equally that the US presidential process itself is a clusterfuck of misery. Yet somehow, that does not seem like a harsh enough appraisal of a system that allows almost anyone with the necessary funds — or ability to con people into donating them — to run for President irrespective of their individual suitability or qualifications.

Trump is quite literally the gold plated embodiment of why the notion of “everyone can run for president” is a terrible thing.

Some will say ‘that is democracy’, and sure maybe be it is by some definition but it is also genuinely ridiculous. How on earth can it be ‘right’ for someone with the political experience of a water logged Irish setter to run for ’leader of the free world’?

I mean, come on.

Do not even get me started on the process by which they have elections to decide who goes to the convention to have another vote to decide who it is that people then get to elect. That shit is wack.

Look, I am not American, nor do I harbour any actual desire to go there for fear of — among other things — being shot in a public place by some crazy fucker with an assault rifle and/or finding myself in need of a functional public health care system.

That being said, I am human and I live on Earth, and I would really like the 7 and a bit billion of us that do not live in the USA to avoid the impending ‘Trumpocalypse 2017’ if at all possible.

There is not doubting it, Donald Trump is not fit to lead. I would not trust him to lead a round of applause in support for sufferers of ‘small-handed-fuckwit syndrome’, let alone lead the ‘most powerful’ country in the world.

Tell me this, are you legitimately ok with the idea that Trump — a guy that used to ‘fire’ imaginary employees off his TV show with pistol-fingers — could, in the very near future, have control of the launch codes for the world’s second largest nuclear arsenal?

Really, can you not see how giving this semi-literate asshole that sort of power is a stupendously fucking terrible idea?

In the wake of the Orlando Pulse nightclub massacre — which He eloquently described as “really bad” — Donald decided to do the most fucked up asshatted thing of all by claiming that he ‘warned’ people it was going to happen and tried to turn it into an immigrant/Muslim/ISIS thing rather than focusing on what it was — an horrific criminal act of hatred perpetrated against the LGBTQI community by a lone madman who for some fucking reason had an automatic assault rifle, and a fuck-ton of ammunition, despite being on watch lists that should have prevented it, never mind the fact that no ordinary person in the entire fucking country needs an automatic assault rifle and there is no justifiable reason for them to even be available for purchase irrespective of whoever the fuck you are.

If you genuinely think that the largely unfettered access to automatic assault rifles fits within the 18th century definition of “the right to keep and bear arms” then you need to get with the fucking times. It is not 1791 anymore.

Anyway, I digress, the gun violence thing — and that they are making zero fucking effort to fix it — makes me furious. I will write about it another time.

Back to the Drumpfinator.

Despite all his claims, he will not fix gun control issues, he will not fix immigration issues, he will not fix racism issues, he will not fix security issues.

He will not fix anything, he will make things worse.

The biggest monumnet of The Donald’s campaign has been his stance on immigration, or as the rest of the world sees it, the bit where — like clockwork — Donald spews racially inflammatory bile all over his supporters.

He wants to build a wall on the US-Mexican border, a wall that he claims would cost $4 billion, or $8 billion, or $10 billion, or $12 billion. Really, it just depends on which day of the week you ask him (actual estimates have it closer to $25 billion), and what he believes his own net worth is on that particular day.

Trump proposed temporarily banning Muslim immigration to the US. He then ever-so-slightly backtracked on his original phrasing — not that it made things any better — but really, does anyone believe him when 90% of what comes out of his mouth is a lie?

He then modified his stance again to be less about religion — specifically Muslims — to be a geographic thing, suggesting immigration restrictions could apply to anyone from regions with “a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe, or (their) allies”.

In general, Trump talking about geography is terrifying. He thinks Belgium is a city for fucks sake.

Following recent terror attacks in France and Germany, he suggested it was their own fault because they had let immigrants in throughout their history.

Yet, despite Trump’s best efforts to convince us otherwise “terrorists” and “immigrants” are — believe it or not — different circles on a Venn diagram. And yes, sure, those two circles may have some overlap, but the “terrorist” circle also overlaps the “white male billionaire fuckwits” circle.

Terrorism is not just madmen with guns and explosive vests.

I do not fear terrorism any more than I fear shark attacks or being struck by lightning. I do however fear Trump and his increasingly dangerous racist world view.

At this point I am yet to even get to Trump’s sexism, his plans for mass deportation of illegal immigrants, his opposition to birthright citizenship, his inaccurate assessment of unemployment rates, his plan to repeal Obamacare, his unwillingness to share his tax returns (maybe those Russian hackers can find them along with his morals and credibility), his very fluid views on abortion, his opposition to same-sex marriage, his criticism of Black Lives Matter, his belief that childhood vaccinations are related to autism, his view that climate change is a ‘hoax’, or any of the other dozens of backward-thinking fucked up political positions he has.

You really do not need me to go into detail on all of those, I’ve already rambled enough, and there are plenty of far smarter folk than I who have already eviscerated Trump over those issues, and more.

12 months ago this was all a bit of a laugh, that crazy haired shouty guy off that reality TV show thought he could become President of the United States of America.

Oh, Donald, you so crazy, that will never happen…

Well it has now evolved from moderately entertaining to genuinely terrifying. Trump now sits as the Republican nominee for President and barring any last minute change of heart (read: common sense course correction to prevent the end of mankind as we know it) he will be Hillary Clinton’s challenger when November rolls around.

And do not assume that just because it looks like an obviously awful idea that it can not or will not happen.

Take Britain for example. They screwed up a simple yes/no vote.

Those muppets did not think Brexit would actually get through and now they are stuck in a clusterfuck of sadness while all the old, uneducated dipshits sit Googling “what is the EU?” after they have already potentially ruined the lives of their children and grandchildren who have to live with a decision they did not make.

If you are American, and you are eligible to vote, and you do not vote (or, heaven forbid you vote for Trump) then you are fucking insane.

And of course, I get that Hillary is not to everyone’s liking, and that is fine. I can understand that many Bernie Sanders supporters are anti-Hillary, and that is fine. What I can not understand is how that then makes some of them pro-Trump.

If (preferably when) Hillary gets elected and you do not like that, then that is fine, you can again try to make a change in four years time. If, heaven forbid, Donald gets elected, and you do not like it, that is fine too — well, apart from the bit where you probably are not going to have a country left to ‘change’ in four years time — assuming Trump would even be able to complete a full four year term.

Trump is a personality — an egotistical sociopathic personality with a delusional god complex.

He is not a President.

He can not be.

Please America.

Do not fuck this up.

Donald Trump was originally published in Deanism on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Right. If your answer had anything to do with fear, ‘wrong’, beliefs, religion etc. then I’m afraid we might have an issue. Your answer doesn’t make you a bad person, but it’s a decent enough indication that you need to get with the times. Yes, you are all entitled to your own views, and you may express them however you like (such as in blog form…). But just because someone else has a different view on life when compared to yourself doesn’t mean they are wrong — or that you are — just that people have different views. Simple as that. Don’t mistreat people because their views are different to yours.

So, you came up with your reason that you believe is good, but how exactly would the legalisation of same sex marriages have a negative impact on your life? It wouldn’t, it would make absolutely no difference. Claiming same sex marriage is ‘wrong’ is just like saying that black people shouldn’t be allowed to get married, or that disabled people can’t get married, or that you can only get married if you’ve attended church every Sunday morning for your entire life. Yes, I believe it is that stupid. If this argument were over any of those three quick examples then there would be no argument at all (ok, there probably would be, but would it be as big?).

I think the part that bugs me the most is that this issue is being fought over by politicians. Come on. Of all the people who should get to decide this sort of thing, the politicians are the last ones that should get any say — they aren’t exactly ‘in touch’ with the common world. Don’t believe me? Tony Abbott has said that homosexuals ‘scare’ him. And for a chick living in a “domestic relationship” with a hairdresser, Gillard isn’t a very ‘understanding’ person. If anything Gillard should be supporting the issue just to spite Abbott (isn’t that the point of being opposing sides of Government?).

I guess Gillard is scared that if she supports it her popularity will drop. Umm, Julia, not sure you could be any less popular, maybe what you really need is the ‘gay vote’, perhaps supporting them rather than alienating them would be an intelligent move. Tony Abbott’s only problem is, well, Tony Abbott.

There is a clip of Gillard standing up in parliament saying something along the lines of “marriage is defined as the union between a man and a woman” — in fact that’s most likely exactly what she is saying since that appears to the be exact wording used in the US constitution… but not (as far as I can find) in the Commonwealth Of Australia Constitution Act which in Chapter I, Part V, Point 51 xxi mentions it simply as “marriage” 1.

From what I can find (and I’m no expert, and only spent about 15 minutes researching this, so I could’ve missed something) it appears that until 2004 “marriage” wasn’t even fully defined in the actual Marriage Act 19612. It wasn’t until The Marriage Amendment Act 20043 that a full “definition” for what would be considered as “marriage” was added:

Marriage means the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life.

Certain unions are not marriages. A union solemnised in a foreign country between: (a) a man and another man; or (b) a woman and another woman; must not be recognised as a marriage in Australia.

What I find weird about that is, a) it wasn’t added until 2004, and b) it was added in 2004 with that definition. Maybe if it had been added 20 or 30 years ago it might have been barely reasonable, but in this day and age have we not progressed enough to have a more open mind about (and definition of) such things? I most certainly think it is all to do with those who get to make the decisions on everyone else’s behalf.

Keep in mind the generation of the people that were voting on the amendments, people like Philip Ruddock and others of similar ‘vintage’ — not exactly the kind of people you would say are ‘in touch’ with the current times. This particular amendment passed in the Senate by a vote of 38 to 6. I’d love to see the age and gender breakdown of that vote — if anyone can suggest where I can pilfer that info from (instead of looking for it myself) I’d love to know.

So, yes, same sex marriage may go against the beliefs of a lot of people. But just because you don’t believe in “gay marriage”, doesn’t mean it should be illegal. A large percentage of the population doesn’t “believe” in praying 6 times a day, or attending church every Sunday, but that doesn’t make those activities illegal — that would be ridiculous, right?

I know gay people, I’ve lived with gay people and they are… just people *shock*, they deserve the same rights as everyone else. And, yes, they are allowed to do many things, like learn to drive, which is more dangerous than marriage. They are allowed to vote, which is more important (to some) than marriage. They can even run as a candidate in an election for government — and for some that’s both more dangerous and more important than marriage. So why is marriage being treated as so damn ‘precious’?

The marriage of same sex couples isn’t going to “de-value marriage”, something I’ve heard numerous people say. No, what “de-values” marriage are the 40%+ of ‘normal’ marriages that end in divorce — particularly those that barely last past the honeymoon (no idea on the accuracy of that factoid, but its one you hear a lot). Basically the “straight population” fuck up marriage far too frequently, and I’m not saying same sex couples won’t, but at least give them the option.

If the government should be preventing anyone from marrying it should be the 17-year-olds who drop out of school and get hitched because someone got knocked-up at some weekend party just to get back at her strict parents who have kicked her out because of her drug habit, a habit she took up because her parents are currently getting divorced… Ok, so maybe that’s a super extreme example, but it makes the prospect of “gay marriage” seem pretty “normal” to me, and at least it would be for the right reasons.

And *when* commonsense prevails and it does get legalised, can we stop referring to it as “gay marriage” and just call it “marriage”.

Stop making it a political issue.

Stop making it a religious/beliefs issue.

Stop making it an issue at all.

Just give them a go.

1. Commonwealth Of Australia Constitution Act, Chapter I — The Parliament, Part V — Powers of the Parliament
2. Marriage Act 1961
3. Marriage Amendment Act 2004

Just give them a go was originally published in Deanism on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

And some of it is several of these things packaged up in a lovely clusterfuck-coloured box of human stupidity.

The following image is currently doing the rounds (again) on the book of faces, I’ve seen many, many of my FB friends share this image, and from a varying number of sources. Where, and from whom, this particular variant actually originated I don’t know. I also don’t care.

What is the goal here? To highlight that aged pensioners supposedly don’t get enough? That “illegal immigrants/refugees” supposedly get too much? That they’re ageist? That they’re racist? Thick?

Maybe they’re just showing off their Grade 7 ability of multiplying small numbers by 52 to get bigger numbers? Who knows.

This lovely diagram is usually accompanied by a grammatically brilliant one-liner such as “how disgusting”, “this is horrible”, “we should be ashamed”, “wot a joke”, “this isn’t right” etc.

Well, at least the last one is on the money. Pun intended. It isn’t right, it is actually viral bullshit (Which is different to viral diarrhea, in case you were wondering. Ok, you weren’t).

As you’d expect the aged pension, like pretty much any government-provided benefit, will vary depending on personal circumstances. Not everyone will receive — nor is entitled to — the same level of assistance. Yes, it’s entirely possible that the numbers in the above image are correct for one specific scenario, but that’s just one scenario, and one that doesn’t appear to be fit for use in their comparison.

35 seconds on Google and you can find your way to the actual government information relating to the aged pension payment rates. For reference, the figures they give for various scenarios are the fortnightly maximums.

The figures given on the FB image for “illegal immigrants/refugees” also appears to be the maximums (or close to it, based on numbers in this document). It doesn’t seem to be quite as simple to calculate a definitive fortnightly figure as there are many variables that come into consideration when determining what types of assistance an individual may or may not be entitled to. The government has a “payment finder” to assist with such a task if you’re actually curious.

The government-run Human Services site also has a specific section relating to “refugee and humanitarian entrants”, and the first thing you see on the page is this:

Australian Government assistance for refugees: fact v fiction — Information about the hoax emails which have been circulated throughout Australia claiming to describe the social security entitlements of refugees compared with those of other Australian residents.

Yup. The Australian Parliament House website has an entire “research publication” relating directly to manufactured bullshit like the offending image at the beginning of this post. It also covers the origin of such nonsense tracing it way back to 2004 in Canada of all places.

2004.

10 fucking years and people are still posting/sharing/emailing this crap. Sigh.

Anyway, the numbers. Using the maximum values set out here, the “total yearly benefit” for an aged-pension couple would be $64,792.

This includes the maximum basic pension rate for couples of $1,133.20, plus a maximum pension supplement of $93, and a clean energy supplement of $20.60 — for a total of $1,246.80 per fortnight.

Or.

$48,724 more than the figure of $16,068 in the shared image. Interestingly my figure, is very close to exactly 4x their figure. Perhaps the ‘minimum’ pension is 25% of the maximum?

It’s also $8,112 more than the “illegal immigrants/refugees” figure in the shared image.

But comparing $64,792 to $56,680 doesn’t look as good when you’re sensationalising things in search of the odd like or 50,000. Why? Because the peeps they fancy the internet fame and likes and idea validation and wheeeeeeeeee. Grow up.

Whatever.

So, if you happen to disagree with anything above, that’s fine, I don’t really care.

No-one is perfect, I’m certainly not, and I’ll happily admit that I haven’t spent hours researching the information above. But, to be fair, the people sharing images like this on Facebook have spent exactly 0 hours researching anything, so I guess I’m still ahead.

That said.

If you care enough that you’re going to get cranky with me, or you want to dispute any of the numbers I’ve given above, that’s totally fine. Opinions being like arseholes and all that…

Simply provide me with some evidence that I’ve gotten something wrong and I’ll very gladly correct and/or remove the incorrect info.

Have no proof, but just looking to start an argument? Sod off. I’m not interested.

“Please share I don’t think people realise how bad ‘factually misleading’ this is.”

Share this was originally published in Deanism on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Some would even suggest more fitting language, but my Mum reads this. I don’t like him, I don’t listen to his radio shows and I don’t watch Australia’s Got Talent (although that’s not because he’s on it, its just because it is a fucking terrible show). Actually, I don’t really know anyone who likes him, to most he’s probably just “the chubby guy with the faux-hawk that Jackie O has to put up with”. Fair assessment.

He’s no stranger to controversy, this is after-all the same guy who hooked a 14-year-old girl up to a lie detector on national radio and then questioned her about her sexual history. The stunt was likened to child-abuse by psychologists, and he (rightly) lost his spot on Australian Idol because of it.

But that was two years ago, he probably figured it was time for his “face for radio” to be back in the news.

So what’s he done this time? Well, Kyle and Jackie O are fronting a new show for Channel Seven, “A Night with the Stars”, after the first episode aired on Monday night an unfavourable review was published on news.com.au.

To say Kyle didn’t take well to the criticism would be understatement of the year. This was how he reacted on his 2DAYFM show on Tuesday:

Kyle: Some fat slag on the Telegraph website, sorry, the news.com.au, has already branded it a disaster. You can tell by reading the article she just hates us, and has always hated us. She trawled through the twitter comments and pulled out all the bad comments and ran them. What a fat bitter thing you are, you deputy editor of an online thing. You’ve got a nothing job anyway. You’re a piece of shit.

Jackie O: You take criticism so well. I don’t think I heard Hamish and Andy do this when this happened.KyleI don’t care. Hamish and Andy handle their things the way that they do. But this low thing, … I can tell you, you are supposed to be impartial, you little troll.Jackie OIs it in the TV section?

Kyle: No, it’s on news.com.au. (Reads out the review.) “video killed the radio star. Shock jock Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O are maybe the latest airwave talent to fall victim of the small screen. Within minutes of the radio duo’s highly anticipated program a night with the stars premiered, fans had already taken to twitter to pronounce the 90-minute special ‘awkward and a ‘disaster’. You’re a bullshit artist, girl. That’s what you are. You should be fired from your job. And your hair. Your hair is very 90s.

Jackie O: They’ve put a picture of her?

Kyle: Yeah, and your blouse. You haven’t got that much titty to be wearing that low cut a blouse. Watch your mouth, girl, or I will hunt you down.

Jackie O: You have got to learn to take it on the chin a little bit.

Kyle: No. Even people I hate, I give them the benefit of the doubt.

Transcript extracted from News.com.au

What. A. Twat. Or perhaps the seed of an idea for a brand new arcade game, “whack-a-twat”, where little Kyle’s pop their heads up and you get to beat the living fuck out of them with a shoe. Sounds like fun. It also sounds like the review of the new show could probably be applied to everything Kyle does, his life included. “Awkward and a disaster” — check.

I’d really like to listen to an actual audio recording of the outburst (if anyone knows where I might find one let me know), in particular to listen to Jackie O’s part in the discussion. Looking solely at the transcript it appears that there is some level of trying to reason with Kyle, but at the same time what she says seems to just bait him into expanding his ranting further. She should surely know better, right?

There a couple of really good posts that I’ve read in the past couple of days that rather than talking specifically about what a fuckhead Kyle is, address Jackie O directly, both in an “open letter” fashion, and both worth reading. This first one popped up in my Twitter feed yesterday “Breakfast Bar : A Letter To Jackie O”, and the second one was shared on Facebook while I was writing this post “An open letter to Jackie O”.

Each takes a slightly different approach but the general messages are, “why do you still work with him?”, and “why don’t you stand up against him when he goes off like this?”. It’s an exceptionally good point, they are partners, a duo, Jackie O should’ve jumped in and cut him off when he started instead of just playing the ‘second speaking part’ role that the transcript suggests.

So why didn’t she? By playing along with his nonsense, and potentially baiting him to go further than he may have otherwise is pretty poor. To then defend him by saying he’s “not a woman hater” after he’s just threatened a female journalist live on air, is well… yeah, what? She didn’t really comment (on the review) while Kyle was raging out and in doing so essentially condoned his comments with her relative silence. Poor, poor form.

Jackie O needs to take this as a sign, she needs to move out of the large-hairy-pillow shaped shadow of Kyle and go it alone — or at the very least find a co-host that isn’t a complete tool — and the Austereo network should help her do so.

Anyway, following the outburst numerous sponsors have bailed out. Cancelling advertising and other sponsorships associated with Kyle, his radio shows or the radio network that is yet to kick his arse to the curb. And to be clear its not just one or two small sponsors, oh no, its a big list, of big companies, and the list is growing constantly. Holden, Good Guys, Vodafone, Blackmores, Harvey Norman, Fantastic Furniture, Medibank, Telstra, Crazy Johns and Mazda have all jumped off the crazy train and no doubt more are likely to follow.

It has taken them a couple of days but Austereo have finally popped up and said something:

“Kyle speaks his mind. However, in this case we recognise that his opinions have caused offence and sincerely apologise, Southern Cross Austereo does not condone his sentiments, is addressing issues with Kyle personally, and assessing internal systems and processes. We value our listeners and clients dearly and hold the utmost respect for their opinions and actions.”

See, that’s something, there isn’t much fucking substance to it, but it is something. However, if they truly valued the opinion and actions of their listeners and clients then they wouldn’t hesitate in cutting Kyle loose. He’s had more than enough chances. How many more sponsors have to pull out before they finally realise its doing them more harm than good to keep him around? Channel Seven, who for some stupid reason also pay Sandilands to appear on their network, are yet to officially do/say anything (that I can find). And while I haven’t seen anything mentioning whether anyone is pulling advertising from Seven, it must only be a matter of time, right?

The chances that Channel Seven do the ‘right’ thing and pull “Kyle and Jackie O’s A Night with the Stars” are slim to none. Why? Because they’ve probably convinced themselves that despite the premiere bombing that it might get massive ratings by everyone tuning in next week (I’m assuming it wasn’t a ‘one off’ thing, can’t be bothered checking — if it was a one-off then I think that makes Kyle’s reaction even worse) to see if it really is the massive train-wreck that the original news.com.au review suggested, and/or to see if Kyle says something stupid (or continues his tirade towards the journalist). That, and they’ve probably invested way more money in the project than they should of, and pulling it early would be an admission that they’ve screwed up. Perhaps it just need a quick rejig/recut, “Jackie O’s Night with the Stars” perhaps?

Kyle Sandilands. Vile human-being. Assuming he is indeed human.

Rhymes with Vile Dandy-hands was originally published in Deanism on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I have neighbours who in recent months have developed a love for turning the bass up on their music. Now, to be clear, I can’t tell exactly what type of music they are listening to. Thankfully the walls are ‘sound proof’ if not ‘bass proof’. What I do know is that on this side of the wall all I hear is just “doof doof”, or “doof dooooooof, doof dooooooof”, or “doof doof *pause* doof doof *pause*”. All sounds the same really. Whatever it is, it’s rubbish.

I’m also not 100% sure which neighbour it is, I’m about 90% sure but I have numerous neighbours (I’m in an apartment building). And if it’s the folk that I think it is, then it’s even more puzzling because they aren’t, as far as I know, (warning: unfounded stereotypical generalisation follows) 18-year-old smack heads. Unless, of course, the people I think live there have moved out and I didn’t know (entirely possible).

Sadly, my neighbours aren’t the only dipshit doof enthusiasts that I have to put up with. I live next to a roundabout — or “traffic circle” to the North American folk — on a busy road. A road that is frequented by “youths” with cars — cars with stereos more powerful than the engines that power them. And why do they need such stereo systems? To play rubbish bass tracks through to annoy the fuck out of everyone within a 4 block radius.

Oh, boo-hoo, I hear you say. Well, fuck you. I should not have to sit in my apartment with my doors and shit rattling as some degenerate turd “cruises” past in their piece of crap car with big wheels, big exhaust and big stereo with pounding bass blaring. They cruise past and my ears ring and my eyes water, now whether that is a ‘normal’ reaction to extreme bass I don’t know, but that’s how it affects me, and I dislike it greatly. The only reason I can think of that these people, and I use that term very loosely, do such things to their cars, and listen to such noise in them, is because they have extremely small penises. So small that it would be, in fact, pointless to tell them to go fuck themselves, because they can’t.

I’m not saying people shouldn’t be allowed to listen to this horseshit, but they should do so in a manner, and if possible location, that does affect others. If we could ship them all the Alice Springs that would be fantastic, but since that’s never going to happen I’ll settle for people using these two brilliant inventions that you might have heard of. Volume control and/or headphones.

Still, I can see no logical reason why anyone would need to be listening to this noise at 10am on a Saturday morning. In today’s case it started at about 2:30pm and it hasn’t stopped since. It is now after 8pm. And it’s not just weekends, they do it during the week as well, it usually pounding when I get home from work, and often still thumping away when I go to bed. It’s beyond just being irritating, it’s progressed to plain incessant rudeness.

So why don’t I go knock on their door and tell them to cut it out? Apart from the previously mentioned doubt over exactly which neighbour it is, if you know me then you would know why I’m not going to confront them (yet). For those that don’t know me, I’m built like a stick insect, were they to ‘disagree’ with my complaint they could, if they wished, just flick me off their balcony like a discarded cigarette. So, no, I’m not going to bash on their door and tell them off — they probably wouldn’t hear me anyway.

Other ‘options’ that I’ve considered — but would most likely never do — include buying a baseball bat and then knocking on their door, playing some ridiculously offensive music through my own entertainment system, moving the sub next to their wall and then going to work, or leaving abusive notes in their mailbox. All of which would first require me to know for sure which neighbour I’m targeting. I guess I could even call the cops,but I’m not really sure how that works, or that they’d care, and it seems like a lot of effort. Somehow, taking a baseball bat to their scrotum seems like it would be more satisfying. But again, that is just too much effort — they aren’t worthy of such effort.

So, I guess until such time that my neightbours die, move out, grow up or learn some fucking manners I’ll just have to put up with it. This displeases me greatly, but then again so do a lot of things. Doof doof is not music, it is just painful. It’s like a vice-grip on my brain.

Like a vice-grip on my brain was originally published in Deanism on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

If you ever wanted to know just how bleak our future is, just look at what the latest ‘craze’ is among the brain dead fuckwits who are “our future”. Planking. What the fuck is “planking”, I hear you ask. Well, for starters if you don’t know you’re lucky and probably better because of it. For those that still want to know its where a dimwitted individual lies flat on top of something stiff like a plank. The objects on which they lie are usually things that are not meant to be lied upon, and in places where one with a brain should not lie.

I first heard the term “planking” only a couple of weeks, and the first thing I thought was that I’d go out into the road an lie on the traffic island just for kicks. No, that’s not what I actually thought. Why? I’m not a moron. A few examples 1 quickly highlight just how stupid planking is.

If you know any of these people I urge to either disown them, or if possible throw them off the roof of the nearest high-rise office block, they are clearly no use to the world anymore.

There were a couple of articles 2 3 (same article, different photos, pure quality Australian journalism) during the week where the police were pleading with people to not take part in the ‘craze’ for fear that someone was going to get seriously hurt or worse killed. The article was accompanied by a couple of photos, one of a dude lying on top of the signal lights at a train crossing (still can’t work out how the fuck he got up there) and another of a particularly special individual who thought that lying face down on a train track could only be a good idea.

I’m a strong supporter of natural selection, and in my mind should train-track-planking-man happen to get his head caved in by the 10:10 from Central then I’ve got absolutely zero problem with that. One less fucking moron to worry about. You want to cheat death with your hi-jinks, fine, but don’t complain when death bites back. Zero sympathy for idiots. Zero.

This excerpt from the “quality” article mentioned above says it all:

Planker David Tyrrell, from Gladstone in Queensland — where a man has been charged with allegedly planking a police car — said there was no need for dangerous stunts.

“Those guys would be a minority — the people that do something stupid, like a traffic light,” he said.

“Obviously we don’t want any injuries or deaths from it, but you do get stupid people that will test the theory of gravity.”

Mr Tyrrell, who has planked naked, said enthusiasts varied from 10-year-olds to grandparents, but most did it for a bit of a joke.

Clearly a man “who has planked naked” is the right sort of guy to be giving advice about the ‘right’ way to go about planking. And its a detail that’s obviously included because its an extremely important, they want us to know exactly how bat-shit stupid this guy really is. Oh, and the solution for any grandparents who think planking might be a good idea? Euthanasia.

Yesterday there was another article 4 reporting that a “man aged in his early 20s” (that’s code for moron) had died after falling from his balcony. How did he fall? It’s believe that he was planking. And it was 4:30am so there is a pretty good chance he was planking tanked.

Remember kiddies, “don’t plank tanked”.

It doesn’t say how far he fell, but it was obviously far enough to kill him. The final comment from Queensland Police Deputy Commissioner Ross Barnett in the article sums it up — “This is a tragedy and our condolences go to the family.” — Yes, sorry that your son killed himself doing something that anyone with an IQ greater than their age would know was a stupid idea.

The article also mentions another 20-year-old male (anyone see the pattern?) who was charged for trespass after being caught planking ON A POLICE CAR.

What isn’t helping the cause is that media outlets — the exact same ones publishing the stories about the deaths as a result of doing it — are publishing stories 5 about planking giving the dicks that are doing it, the publicity and attention they are seeking. I also can’t work out why its in the ‘technology’ section, I guess they don’t have ‘fucking retard’ section. But the most concerning part of the article? That would be the “newcomer’s guide to planking” that they publish at the bottom of it:

Be creative. “It’s not creative to plank on a sign,” Mr Litonjua said. “It’s more creative to lay it out in inconspicuous places like a Where’s Wally plank. We’d photobomb a wedding with a plank.”

Do it overseas. “People are doing it on monuments and landmarks. I’ve got a friend who’s in China and he went to the Great Wall and I thought, you missed a perfectly good opportunity!”

Don’t plank on private property or somewhere unsafe.

Give it a name — office plank, group plank, international plank.

Be a proper plank. “You’ve got to be a good straight plank, head straight, arms straight, legs down.”

I presume they think that they’re doing the “right” thing because they’ve included the “Don’t plank on private property or somewhere unsafe.” option. The problem is almost every story I’ve seen about planking fit one or both of those criteria.

Dear brain dead youth of Australia, grow (and stand) the fuck up.

1. Planking around in Brisbane
2. Don’t be a crazy planker say police
3. Don’t be a crazy planker say police
4. Death fall after planking
5. Layabouts plank their way across town in latest net craze

Thick as a plank was originally published in Deanism on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“I can ask them to, but I can’t guarantee that they will…”

After a really long wait — perhaps we should have pre-ordered — the pizza turned up and it looked pretty good and didn’t smell too bad either…

“Sorry, they couldn’t do it without the mushrooms…”

Really? REALLY? This is a freshly made pizza that I’ve waited an hour for you to make and cook, and you couldn’t leave out an ingredient? It’s not like it was a complex request. Pretty simple really, when you get to the step in the process where you cover the pizza in mushrooms you just don’t. Easy.

What if I had made the original request because I was allergic to mushrooms? Would I then have had to sit and wait for another hour while they made me something else? And it seemed like there were hundreds (I’m prone to exaggeration) of mushrooms too — the mushroom to chicken ratio was WAY out of balance — it was almost like they’d seen the request for NO mushrooms and thought…

“Fuck him, he can have double mushrooms.”

Whatever, I ate my pizza, picking the mushrooms off as I went collecting them in a big pile. And to be fair it was a decent pizza and if not for the unwanted fungus and their inability to tweak it contents I’d probably order it again. Perhaps that’s why I usually just order fish and chips where-ever I go…

In the end my rule is simple. Fungus is for growing on feet, and not on my food.

Fungi food was originally published in Deanism on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I too have a bicycle. It’s hanging from the roof in the shed at my parents house — and has been for about 6 years. The last time I rode it was my first year of Uni when I thought it might come in handy. Turns out my Uni campus was way to hilly to ride around using my skinny little legs and in the end I think I only ever rode it once that year. Whatever. That doesn’t matter though, what matters is that I always wore my helmet, because that’s what I was taught to do.

Well, yes, the ‘older’ woman in question was ‘wearing’ a helmet and yes she had the chin strap done up — which is an improvement over what some people do — but the strap was so loose that had there been even a slight crosswind I doubt the helmet would have remained in place for very long. The other thing I found odd was that when she dismounted her bike to cross the road, she also felt the need to remove her helmet. Nothing particularly stupid about that I guess, just seemed pointless — much like the manner in which she was wearing the helmet to begin with.

Unsurprisingly it’s not just ‘older’, ‘simpler’ people who can’t quite get their heads around the whole helmet wearing thing. I see youths (dammit I sound like a grumpy old man “get off my lawn you damn kids”) doing the same, or at least similar things all the time. More often than not though the youths prefer to either leave the chin strap completely undone, or to just hang the helmet from their handlebars.

What good are either of those options going to do if you come off your bike? At least the ones balancing it on their heads have made some attempt (albeit a really fucking shit one) to protect themselves. But if all you’re going to do is hang it from the handlebars the question, once again, is why bother at all?

To be brutally honest, perhaps a good knock on the head is what some of the “youth offenders” need. Maybe the whack might knock some sense back into them, maybe it would reset their “teen douchebag” settings, or maybe it would just scare them enough so that they wear the helmet properly in the future. It doesn’t have to be a hard hit, it’s not like I want people to die (what? Sure, I’m an arse, but I’m not that fucking evil) or anything bad like that.

Wearing a helmet is the law for a reason, right? Sure it isn’t a bulletproof solution, ie. if you get hit by a truck you’re going to get fucked up whether you’re wearing one or not, but in the vast majority of cases you’re going to be better off because of that “effort” you made to take two seconds out of your incredible important, busy day to put on your helmet correctly.

Head Case was originally published in Deanism on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Disasters. The way the globe was behaving this year makes me wonder if the Mayans might have it right, and things really will “turn bad” in 2012. We had volcanoes that brought air traffic to a standstill, massive earthquakes across the planet, huge floods, and giant snowstorms. There were other things too, but for now I’ve run out of ‘big’ adjectives. The earthquakes hit Haiti where the 7.0 quake killed 230,000 and as many as one million homeless, and New Zealand which was hit with a 7.1 quake (and then a 6.4 a couple of weeks later, plus a redonkulous number of aftershocks) and one person was killed and a few buildings ended up a bit wonky. Speaks wonders for the value of “good” construction.

Miners. When bad news stories turn good. In case you missed it, apparently a bunch of dudes were stuck down a hole in Chile for a while, then they dug another hole and brought them all back to the surface. I’m not one to believe in miracles, but it was pretty nifty to see the relative good health they were in as they returned to the surface after more than a couple of months underground. Then not too long after there was another disaster at with an explosion at the Pike River Mine in New Zealand. A second explosion a few days after the initial accident destroyed any hope of finding survivors. Sadly there was no happy ending this time, with all 29 men dying. I’m not sure what New Zealand did in 2009, but in 2010 they seemed to take hits from all directions… The mighty All-Blacks even got beaten by the Wallabies for the first time in about a million years.

Minors. Yes they were junior, and they could cook better than I will probably ever be able to, but they also knew it. Now it’s not the (all) the kiddies fault, it was likely the scripted pieces they were reading — and possibly that their parents were living out their own fantasies through their children. Initial impression was that some were just pompous little shits, but maybe I was to quick to judge, as I think only some of them were actually pompous (and in those cases it was probably the parents fault), the rest were just appearing pompous because of the shit writing of their ‘to camera’ pieces. Pro tip — they are children, just let them talk for themselves, if its crap edit it, is that not the point of pre-recording television? If nothing of use can be salvaged, then just show them cooking. That’s all the majority want to see anyway.

Election. It was a sham. The Labor party couldn’t decide who should be leader, or how the party should be lead, so a bunch of backroom puppet masters stuck a knife in Kevin Rudd’s back and installed their red-headed puppet as the first female Prime Minister. Then they called the election and Australia couldn’t decide which of the evils were lesser, so we had a ‘hung’ government. Then after a few weeks more waiting for the independents to finally make up their minds we had a government again. Funny thing was that for the couple of weeks that we had no government, everything seemed to run pretty smooth, didn’t it? There was no chaos in the street, no anarchy, New Zealand didn’t invade, the boat people didn’t take over, every thing just carried on. As far as I can see it, the only upside of Julia Gillard “winning” the election was that she now doesn’t show up on TV as much — clearly she’s too busy “mervin’ ferward”. She even gave Kevin a job, one that lets him spend all his time jet-setting around the globe. So, basically the same as the one he had before, just without the PM title — but now that he’s “Foreign Minister”, his job actually requires him to never be in the country.

World Sport. There was a World Cup in South Africa, and nothing went wrong — I still have this weird buzzing in my ears, not sure what that’s all about. And then there were the Commonwealth Games in Dehli, no one thought they would be ready in time (and you could still argue they weren’t) and everyone expected some sort of terrorist activity would spoil the party — happily nothing ‘bad’ happened and it (mostly) went off without a hitch. We just didn’t win as many medals as we were supposed to, but then a few of our top athletes chickened out because of the previously mentioned in-completion/terrorism ‘issues’. The only issue with the Commonwealth Games was that while they ‘appeared’ to be ready to the outside world, I suspect there may have been a little bit of covering up taking place, in much the same way that Beijing hid all the stuff they didn’t want anyone to see behind a bunch of newly constructed walls and fences — and when that cute kid appeared in the opening ceremony in Dehli I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who wondered if there was an ugly, but talented kid hidden somewhere out of sight providing the voice. Guess we’ll never know unless it’s exposed like it was with the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

Football. Plenty of dull intellects, but never a dull moment. The year started with a couple of league players getting done for drug possession (they apparently lived upstairs in my apartment building — mind you, I’m pretty sure they weren’t/aren’t the only “suspicious” people up there). In an odd, non-scandal newsworthy story the AFL grand final couldn’t pick a winner either, and they had to have a second go a week later. The AFL’s new Western Sydney franchise stole Israel Folau away from the Brisbane Broncos, following a similar move made by the new Gold Coast team who had already snatched Karmichael Hunt. The two new teams then disappointed every one with even a small amount of design sense with the announcement of their new team names, logos and colours — Gold Coast Suns and Greater Western Sydney Giants — seriously, they are both shit. Could they not have tried a little harder? Both are terrible. But as bad as the names, designs and colours might be, they are hardly the worst thing to come out of football in 2010. Oh no, that mighty honor goes to Joel Monaghan who managed to hit a new low for rugby league players (yes, lower than last year’s hotel corridor drunken dump taking episode) when he got up close and personal with a Labrador… or maybe it was a Labradoodle? Either way, he really screwed the pooch with that ‘choice’. Not even the pre-Christmas “dikileaks” courtesy of some dim-witted 16-year-old attention seeking girl could top Monaghan’s effort.

And (not that I care, but) lastly Banks. They are evil. Or so we’re led to believe. Thankfully I don’t have a home loan, but for those that do they’ve had the joy of a bunch of interest rate hikes throughout the year, including a recent hike that was actually more than the reserve bank recommendation (or whatever it is they actually do). Gee, guys that was just a little bit douchey… But, since this will (in theory) make the banks stronger and have bigger profits, I’m all for it since I want my money to be safe and grow up big and strong so that I can then get a home loan of my own sometime in the future, which will then mean I’m impacted by superfluous interest rate rises, which in-turn will then give me the right to hate the banks for being douchey. The single best thing about banks is that they don’t use Jerry Seinfeld for their advertising like some “lesser” institutions.

So, that was (some of) 2010 — or as Ford Australia’s marketing department ‘intelligently’ refer to it in their advertising as “oh-ten”, meaning it must actually be the year 20010, right? idiots — it was a bit shit, and a bit good, just like every other year. It ended, just like all the other with everyone getting all excited and celebrating the “New Year”. Or as I call it, “Saturday”.

Happy Saturday, peoples.

Happy Saturday was originally published in Deanism on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This what I do know, pieced together from the ether. There are two main dudes, Edward and Jacob, one is a vampire and one is a werewolf — couldn’t tell you for certain which is which, not that its entirely important. There are apparently two “teams” — Team Edward and Team Jacob — not exactly sure why there are these “teams” or what they mean, although it seems like an opportune time to make an inappropriate topical reference to rugby league players and group sex… Then there is a chick called Bella, who I think is a ‘regular’ human. And they all just want to sleep with each other. Or something like that. Like I said, I know virtually nothing about this crap.

Oh and another thing. One of them, I think its the vampire one (Edward?), sparkles. Yes. SPARKLES. LIKE A FAIRY. What is this? ‘My Little Pony’ the movie? Having not seen the movies or read the books I don’t know but do the twilight vampires even drink blood? I half expect that the most “wicked” thing they do is jay-walking. “Real” vampires are meant to get their ‘fang on’ and bite into anything with a pulse. They’re supposed to be repelled by garlic. And they’re meant to burn if exposed to sunlight — not fucking sparkle.

One of them sparkles. SPARKLES. LIKE A FAIRY. What is this? ‘My Little Pony’ the movie?

But sure thing little kiddies its perfectly ok to aspire to get it on with a ‘sparkly’ vampire when you grow up. Sure, you could even fall in love with a werewolf if you really wanted. I mean, its not like he really wants to tear you limb-from-limb and devour your mutilated corpse. The tweens do realise that this is just a movie, right? And that the ‘sparkly’ dudes they’re getting all friendly with at school are more likely to be guys with an early-developed glitter fetish rather than a vampire.

The only other thing this ‘franchise’ is doing is creating big stars out of relative nobodies. How long do we have to wait until one of them does something stupid — and I’m not talking about them signing up for a stupid series of movies, they’ve already achieved that — no, how long is it before everyone’s favourite vampire (or werewolf — wouldn’t want to be seen as taking sides) goes all ‘Britney’ on the world and starts flashing his man bits as he exits his chauffeur driven car on his way into some ‘trendy’ LA nightspot because he’s as high as a kite?

The best thing that could happen for their careers would be if the Twilight author stopped writing more books and they were able to go off and make a few real movies. Not that they’ll ever really need to make another movie given the excessive amount of money they will have earned by the time the last movie is finished. Then again, teenage stardom in Hollywood seems to come with a complimentary alcohol and/or drug problem, they may need the ‘work’ just to support that.

Twilight Sucks was originally published in Deanism on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.