Crap. School goes back properly tomorrow. We had a sorta pissy orientation day to get timetables and have a year 12 assembly today, but tomorrow we get to school and start 1st period straight off, no break in. God I hate year 12 already.

As a result of a recomended 5 hours study per night, my online activities and such may (I stress may, as they probablly won’t) suffer as a result. As you can see my holiday cheer has disappeared and the year of misery and depression is about to set in

Pete

I really meant to have had this potato cannon thingy finished this time last year, in order to wreck havoc with cub scouts, but I only actually finished it today, much like alot of stuff that is invariably put on hold for schoolwork. Andrew, Richard and I spent all night after dinner firing potatoes around. The first half hour saw a lot of upset, wasted shots and crappy firings, but after we got the hang of oxygen mix and timing, we were firing spuds 50m into the air, straight up… We hit the house once and I think I broke a tile, and a lot of potatoes were lost over various fences, including the evil neighbours twice… we are waiting for cops to show up… heh.

Pete

I went with a mate to see ‘Bowling for Columbine’ today. Tom chose it, and I just followed along, vaguely aware that it was something to do with the April 99 shooting in Columbine highschool. Lo and behold it was a Michael Moore film (of ‘The Awful Truth’ fame), or rather a doco-film on why exactly the USA has over 11,000 gun related deaths per year, whereas canada has a little over 100, Australia has 65 and Japan has 38. It also covered the evilness of the NRA, pollution in Hollywood (as a comical side issue) and for me anyway was a real eye opener. The man is a very good writer and he pulled off an amazing film especially considering the delicate subject matter. Go see it.

For the last bit of this arvo I’ve been getting shit together for the impending back-to-school for the last time thing. Yugh. I’ve also put, throughout the last couple of days, the finally final last touches on the PVC tube that has been in my room for the last 18 months, in the hope of finally becoming a spudgun. It worked, and we shot a potato over the fence into the evil neighbours backyard. In hindsight I probablly should have pointed it elsewhere, or over another neighbours fence.

Pete

So the world moves another little bit closer to war. Good ol’ Bushy boy and his mates have vowed to unveil ‘broad evidence’ on Iraq next week, another step forward in the process of Bush’s revenge on the man that escaped his father.

I really don’t agree on this future incident being called a ‘war’ as such. ‘Wars’ fazed out long ago – gone are the days of valiant cavalry charges (Turkey WWI) or even machine gun toting against thousands of enemy soldiers. Modern warfare has become such a robotic and non-human event that probablly the only ground troops killed during Gulf War mark II will be the hapless american soldiers that were killed through ‘friendly fire’ while playing cards on base. No doubht thousands of people WILL die, and 99.9% of those will be Iraqis, but I expect it to be through little more than intercontinental balistic missiles, or ‘smart’ bombs dropped rather ironically on Red Cross buildings. So much for smartness. This Gulf War mark II will be over in weeks or months, not years like the good ol’ days, and will affect much fewer people than the real ‘wars’ of old.

The starting of WWI was due to nationalism and the civil unrest in the Austro-Hungarian empire. WWII was because Hitler went nuts and tried to take over the world. The Vietnam war was started because the Americans were fuckweeds and couldn’t keep thier hands out of affairs overseas. The Gulf War was started because the americans were once again meddling fuckweeds. In Somalia, Chile, Serbia, Vietnam and Iran/Iraq the USA has proudly tried to intervene in affairs and royally fucked up almost without exception – all in the last 30 years. This has been the case ever since the Second World War, when the American nation really found it’s feet as the world dominator. Yes, the USA is the strongest, richest and most progressive nation and will prosper as such, but does this give it the right to be the international bully, manipulating and pushing for its welfare and more importantly wealth? Maybe it’s time that the powerhouse sat back, worried about internal affairs and left the rest of the world alone. I’m not saying that they allow Iraq or North Korea or Pakistan or India or any other countries with ill feelings towards the US to just build the so called ‘weapons of mass destruction’ and take pot shots at them, but rather not to act on no or little evidence and paternal revenges.

By no means am I trying to slag the USA. I love it’s people, I enjoy travelling there, I believe in most of what it stands for and I feel the world is a better place thanks to it, but I also believe that America is abusing it’s position and power. I know I’m not the only one with this sentiment.
Nor am I one of those protesting hippies against the war – I simply side more with the UN on this issue. It is unethical and no better than a hostile invasion of Iraq on no principle if the US was to go to war as it stands, and if Bush REALLY wants worldwide backing he should either wait until the UN finds what he hopes they will find, or secondly release his intelligence that so obviously lays blame on Saddam.

Alright, enough of politics for one day, what are other views on the subject?

Pete

Frankfurt, Germany - PETEblog associates in the land of Volkswagon and chocolate report that a mother giraffe from the Frankfurt Zoo is bound to give birth any day now. Kindly, without thought to thier own pocket, the local FM station FFH, set up a webcam for the masses, as not even keepers are meant to be entering the area, incase of rejection. Awwwww

You heard it here first, click on the piccie below for a direct link.

Pete

Look who owns the COOLEST duck ever….

I won the little beauty on eBay, for $2!!!!

[edit] Now I can continue my striving for world domination through the use of BOOGYDUCKS!!@!$%!#@$!

Pete

Well, there IS one sport in the world I will never, ever understand nor care much for. AFL and Rugby Union (and Gaelic/International Rules) leave my field contact sports about as full as I need them. American Football, or gridiron is a weird game, less rough than AFL but they still wear body armor. Anyway, I turned on the TV this morning and found SBS broadcasting the Superbowl, and so out of giving gridiron another chance, I’m watching it – but god damn its a weird event, especially considering the seats were fetching $US6,000 each from scalpers. Pfft, and Rhys wants us to go to it in 2004…. good luck finding the money.

Pete

Ahh I love the way half the population of the country can completely disregard or forget the fact that it was Australia Day today, the anniversary of the official founding of the country. On the 26th of January 1788 Captain Arthur Phillip became Governer of the Colony of New South Wales (at that time the whole country). It’s a sad fact that the Aborgines that had been there for 40,000 years previously were completely ignored, and have been for much of the time since. Still, today was Australia Day, the day we as Australians chuck another shrimp on the barbie, drain our beers and relax in the now reknowned Aussie way of life.

Gee that was dificult to write… As much as I love my country it is a pain to be so patriotic and must be hellishly annoying to others. This year the Victorian Australia Day committee decided enough was enough and that we should follow suit with the all knowing Americans and devise an ‘Oath of Commitment’. It was meant to be printed, distributed to all households, and sworn on throughout the state today. What a crock. As I said before, as much as I love Australia I just can’t bring myself to that sort of degrading oath. I know I love my country, I don’t believe I have to spout a few meaningless words in order to ‘officialise’ it. I dunno, maybe my outlook on life as a whole is this negative. hah.

CLICK

In other news, this computer, freshly reformated from a virus attack on Thursday is riddled with more, again. W32.funlove. Little fucker. At least the virus program picked up on it and is trying to keel it. Every now and again a little red window pops up to say it found another one, or two, of seven. Its interupted me about 20 times this paragraph alone. Once again, little fucker.

Pete

Ha the wonders of caffiene. After last nights match, I got to bed about 1:30am, sleep by 2, and up at 7:30. As a result I was groggy, in a cranky mood and in dire need of a kick start. I was too slow getting up to have breakfast, so without my morning coffee I was driven into the university for another day of study skills.

At morning tea, although it was strictly suggested against, I walked down to the Student Union and got myself the missing coffee, and I’ve felt better all day. Lol, afterwards Bonnie and I were seen running around singing teddy bear’s picnic throughout the Uni, heh. It’s really nice knowing someone at this seminar, there are so many people who are jsut hanging around by themselves, and although it would be good to push yourself into meeting more people, I’m glad Bonnie was there, even if we don’t see eye to eye for most of the time. Heh she is still mega guilty from the time she scratched me while swimming in the Gippsland lakes on year 10 camp. There was a 30cm gash and it bled alot at first, and for the next week or two there was an awesome looking deep scar on my neck, but it was really shallow and I really didn’t know it was a cut until a trickle of blood ran down my NIPPLE into the water while we were swimming. I’ve still milked it for all its worth, and Bonnie knows I kid around a lot…. hahahah.

Pete

I got home today at about four, tired and needing sleep. Before that I wanted to use the computer, and as I sat down and turned it on, noticed that the friggin thing didn’t work as it had been completely and utterly crippled by viruses. 2,500 infected files found before the thing reset itself and wouldn’t start up again. I came close to jumping on it, before I gave up and formated the fucker, erasing 3gb of uncopied music, 25gb of games (mostly backed up), The protagonist logs for the last year and a half as well as all my PM’s for that time, and over 1gb of installation files for various applications. This is without taking into account Program Files, or Windows itself. /me is VERY pissed, and relegated to the slow assed laptop for the next while…. grr

Pete