Dull thoughts on a shiny, shiny world.
cactoblasta's Articles In Blogging
March 14, 2005 by cactoblasta
I like to think that in normal everyday life I’m a nice guy. I do my best to get on with other people. But I have a lot less tolerance for people I run into on the internet. Whereas in real life I might smile politely and wait until a moron’s stupidity causes their eventual death, I find that I lack that patience online. Kind of strange, really. Is the world so different simply because there’s several hundred k’s of cable separating me from the cause of my ire? Apparently so. When I ...
May 30, 2007 by cactoblasta
As I think I may have mentioned before, for the last six months or so I've been working for the Man. It's been pretty much a full time job, but with a few classes of uni thrown in just to spice up the mix, and frankly I'm totally over it. Rather than enjoying working in the field for which I'm trained (ASEAN and general international politics analysis) I've instead found it boring, intellectually stifling and a black hole that sucks at my soul. So recently I've started looking for other job...
December 27, 2007 by cactoblasta
Howzit.This is just a quick reply to everyone who sent me a christmas message. Hope you all had a great holiday and enjoyed your time off, I know I did.Hopefully you also managed to bury the remains of unlikable relatives without getting caught and/or were able to deal with them without resorting to execution-style murder. Getting back together with family can be an iffy time for everyone but I'm sure we all made it through intact.See you around.
November 29, 2007 by cactoblasta
Have there been recent changes to the forums? When I open them up every single article is printed on the same line, so it's just a thick black line with some confused dates at the other end. Makes it a little hard to read...Is this because I'm using Firefox 2 for mac or is has the system been possessed by Beelzebub?
October 13, 2007 by cactoblasta
One of my best friends died yesterday and I couldn't even go to her funeral. She'd been sick for weeks with a combination of TB, pneumonia and a chest infection, all of which she refused to get treated in time because she was afraid of what the doctors would say. I met her in Jogjakarta, and we got along really well right from the start. She was one of those people who you feel instantly comfortable around. Within days of meeting her I was telling her things I'd never told anyone before. ...
August 16, 2007 by cactoblasta
Have you seen the latest from the LIBERAL-leaning LEFTY media, with their LIES and blatant HYPOCRISY? Apparently a study in BELGIUM has proved that LIBERALS are AWESOME. Why?It's all quite SIMPLE. The Calpurnia-Octavia INDEX rates the usage of capitalisation in MODERN society. It uses a google-STYLE sweep over TEH intarwebs to discover which words attract THE most capitalisation. According to their LATEST results, the word LIBERAL has been typed as capitals on more than four billio...
June 22, 2008 by cactoblasta

As those few regular readers of my rarely updated blog would know, I am something of a snob. I like nothing better of a lazy Sunday afternoon than a few productive hours of sneering at my inferiors.

Like any good snob, however, I have my particular areas of expertise. In my case it's the written word.

I can't abide people who can't, or even worse won't spell words correctly. leet-speak is fingernails down the melodramatic chalkboard of my soul. People who use unnecessary contractions in text messages are equally likely to earn my ire - it's been well more than five years since phones have had predictive text. Don't be so unbelievably lazy and learn to use it!

But that's just pedantry. Where it reaches snobbery, where the metaphorical upturned nose is presented to the shameless hussies and manwhores of linguistic impurity, is in the extent of a pose.

April 15, 2008 by cactoblasta

I have a habit.

 In the greater scheme of things it's not a bad habit. Certainly it's one I can live with. A fat pay-out from your charity of choice would of course be a wonderful help, and several weeks in the luxury of a prestigious detox clinic wouldn't go astray if you're willing to finance it.

But it's a hard habit to break.

 You see, I'm a habitual devil's advocate, a serial trivialiser, an adherent of argument and pettiness for their own sake. I would argue the sky green to spite someone who annoys me. In person I'm quite good at it. Baffling people with bullshit and outlandish statements is merely the first level; the true art lies in creating a towering edifice of fast-spun philosophy, pseudo-religious koans and the very real suggestion of fact which combines to persuade others that there's something to the whole. No one is ever quite sure you're serious about anything, which adds a layer of potential authenticity to even the most abysmal garbage. Your consistency in argument becomes more convincing than your argument itself, which is always a happy situation. It's the foundation of economics and the wellspring of our modern age.