photo credit: Armando Maynez

It’s natural that

while I’m hunting around for a job, I begin to think about what it is I’m going to do once I have found one. This will be the first time that I am involved in what will be my career, rather than my education. Not only that, but this will (hopefully) be the first time that I command a wage that can be considered in any way plentiful.

Realising this, I’ve been mulling over the ways in which we, as consumers, spend money. I had a delightful (and enlightening and challenging, as always) chat with Laurie yesterday and we talked a lot about what we do with money, and why we do it. Specifically with regards to the pressures of marketing and aspirational branding/living.

Aspirational branding and its social implications is a topic that has interested me for quite a while. His Holiness Charlie Brooker has produced a very insightful piece of documentary regarding aspiration within television marketing and programming, which covers most of the bases more quickly and with cleaner lines than anything I could, so I suggest you check that out if you’re interested.

What the conversation with Laurie and I centred around was the idea of living independently, sans aspirational consumerism, while engaging and building a community. Translated, that means: not buying stupid shit, not owning stupid shit, and using your finances to support creative endeavours by friends and colleagues. The definition of ‘stupid shit’ is, obviously, a subjective one, but for me it includes such things as label brand clothing, expensive cars, expensive televisions, etc. And I’m keenly aware that list makes me sound like an old man, but I just fail to see the point of these childish things. Why aspire to follow the cycle of fashion which exists purely to make you buy more clothes? Why buy a $50,000 car which is speed-limited to the same pace as a $2,000 one? The mind boggles at the transparent surface-level thinking that must go along with the use of money in this way. I am earning money; I am big and strong; choose me as your friend/mate.

There are exceptions. I don’t begrudge those who have an active mechanical interest in automotives their passion, for example. But I would much prefer to commission a student of film, or ask an artist to paint my family and friends, than own a big shiny chunk of materialism. But what is it that makes other people, particularly those with a large disposable income, follow through with such purchases? This is the kind of stuff that will tie in with the project that I have planned for 2012, which may or may not be an attempt at a novel. Okay, well, actually, it is an attempt at a novel. But no promises as to a completion date.

Anyway, thanks again to Laurie for the great coffee conversation. I’ve just spent the day garnering answers to the question of Kindle Direct Publishing, so expect a small post about that soon.

No related posts.

photo credit: kevin dooley

I’ve been back

from my holiday and mired in the depths of unemployment for almost three weeks now. It’s often thought of as a paradise, but in reality it’s a little bit depressing, this not having anything to get you moving once you wake up. Or perhaps I’m just not the right person to appreciate large amounts of hours with nothing particularly pressing to fill them up with. For the first week or so, I had the task of getting my thesis resubmission process completed. Which I did, after spending a painstaking day re-jigging some images and chasing down signatures from various faculty members. So that kept me occupied. After I’d done that though, it’s been pretty much been a week or two of very little at all.

Wait, sorry. ‘After I’d done that’ is probably a little too glib for what it actually represents. I am now officially done with my thesis. It’s complete. Finished. Kaput. I never have to look upon its smug, papery face ever again if I don’t want to. Well, that’s a lie, I’m currently flicking through it for table scraps that I can try and mash together into some semblance of a meal that a journal editor might like to chow down on. But the main thing is that I have passed and I will never have to do something so incredibly hard ever again. So yay for that. Alright, back to the main point of the post.

In order to keep myself from going completely insane at home, I’ve been trying to make sure that I have goals to achieve each day. These range from the mundane (make sure I get the dishes out of the dishwasher and put on a load of washing) to the necessary (go for a run so that I at least leave the house once a day) to the creative. And strangely enough, the creative ones haven’t yet included writing. I have yet to write any new fiction since before I left for Sydney, back in September. This is probably the longest I’ve ever gone without writing something, anything, for a few years. And the urge still hasn’t taken me. I have no doubt it will come back eventually (and hopefully in time for my resolution to write a novel in 2012) but for the moment, I’ve got nothing going on in the writing department with the exception of a COSMOS article or two. Oh, yeah, I’m an occasional paid science journalist now (:.

Anyway, so instead of writing, I’ve been turning to other forms of creative output. One which has turned out to be surprisingly rewarding is that of programming. Now, I’ve tried to program before, and you’d think my background in disciplines that use logic as their main way o’ doin’ stuff would result in me being an apt pupil. But the language I chose to pop my “Hello world!” cherry was Fortran, and Fortran can be a little difficult for the newbie. So this time around I’ve been easing myself into it by adopting Python as my tutor. And so far, the results have closely resembled this xkcd comic. I’m following the excellent Python for Absolute Beginners book by Michael Dawson, which walks you through a number of game-based programs and teaches everything from basic programming workflow to more advanced techniques. It’s already got me dreaming of all kinds of text-based adventures that I could create.Of course, I’ll need to figure out a whole heck of a lot more stuff before I get that far, but the possibility is firmly embedded in my head now.

The other thing I’ve turned (or should that be tuned?) back to is playing around with sequencing. As previously mentioned, there’s a (FREE!) tracker known as Buzzmachines that offers a complete digital solution for making a song from beginning to end, with one of the most elegant graphical interfaces ever devised. And it’s been really fun to mess around with sounds and such. So far I’ve been playing around a lot and not making a whole heap of songs, but here are some little tunes that I’ve been happy enough with to upload to my Soundcloud:

Peachy keen — Trying to emulate the arpeggiated style and substance of chiptunes, though I did use a lot of sounds that are ‘illegal’ for the genre (i.e. delays, etc.). Still, I think it came out okay.

Shred test — I was linked by wauterboi to this excellent VST called Shred, which emulates guitars rather bloody well. So I ended up playing with that and a rhythm gate to make something a bit more driven.

Little mountain & Easte-reverb — These are part of an ongoing attempt to make some music that I can share with my fellow writers as songs that aren’t going to distract them. Kind of like the Ghostly ‘Music for creatives‘ album (which you should definitely get if you haven’t already).

So that’s a few of them. I’ll be trying to get maybe one per month done, as the mood takes me. But really its all about enjoying the process, rather than any kind of output.

And that brings me to another point I wanted to make in that, for me at least, I think it’s important to have multiple outlets for creativity. I don’t think I could exclusively stick to one way of bringing ideas into reality; I’d get either bored or stale in my methods. Even from just the two examples I’ve put here show how bringing learning into your life can result in new ways of expression: I now have the ideas of a text adventure and a themed album floating around my head. And who knows how those ideas will interact with the rest of the stuff that gets thrown in there? And before anyone gets any misconceptions, no, I’m not looking to make money out of these things. Of course I’m never going to get signed to a label or picked up by EA (not that I’d want to in the latter case), but it’s fun to try new things! And that’s what I’ve been feeling like doing lately, trying out new stuff.

Alright, well that’s enough rambling from me for the moment. I hope you’re all enjoying the lead up to the holiday season. Let me know your plans in the comments, or tell me some of your alternate creative hobbies, I’d love to hear whether your outlets have interacted with each other in unexpected ways.

No related posts.

photo credit: s myer

[Pre(r)amble: This post is pretty much all over the place. I've tried to distil the main points/questions as I go along, but it's not exactly a complete, ordered thought process. Consider yourself warned. ;)]

I have been

writing now for very nearly seven years. The real figure is obviously a lot longer than that–my Mum’s carefully maintained boxes would testify to support this fact–but I’ve been using writing as my main form of creative expression for seven years. In that time I’ve had some hits with publications and more than enough misses to counterbalance them. I’ve met people whose writing I don’t think I’ll ever stop loving, and people whom I consider to be great friends even though I have never met them.

Bloody hell, so far this is reading like a eulogy. Let me start again.

Lately I’ve been thinking about my writing. More specifically I’ve been thinking about my writing in the context of my main pursuit, that of science. As has been pointed out by me elsewhere, I’ve just finished my PhD in chemistry, and so the time has come (the Walrus said) to talk of many things. Or at least think about them obsessively until I feel obliged to externalise them in a blog post.
The things I’ve been thinking about are things like where my writing will fit in my future career, how I’m going to balance work and life and writing, whether I want to continue to take writing ‘seriously’ or relax my expectations of myself; y’know, all that fun stuff. So I guess that’s what this blog post is going to be about: thinking about and planning how I might continue my hobby without killing myself doing it.

The fun factor

Hobbies are meant to be fun. Challenging, but fun. I think it is safe to say that following the path to becoming a respected, known writer in Australia doesn’t always tick those boxes. And the main offender is the submission cycle. I joked to a friend the other day that we had to start a support group for people who were submitting just to stop us all from getting too depressed (The Subcommittee, a Facebook group that I reckon is the best thing to come out of my writing this year). There’s the fretting over drafts, the imagining of intended audiences, the guessing at when a rejection email will come back. Of course there are good aspects as well, the most noteable of which is the coveted acceptance.

But for a person whose career isn’t determined from his publication record (well, at least not his literary one–scientific publication is another matter entirely), why should I go through that stress? Why should I be placing that pressure on myself? I’ve found that over the last couple of years, writing has stopped being about fun and play and more like work. I want to change that. Which I think is a nice place to wrap this part up and pop out my first conclusion:

1) I want writing to be fun again. Or if not fun, exactly, then at least for it not to feel like work.

Audience

Okay, so I want writing to be fun. But I also want my writing to be read. Because as much as I love playing with myself (ahem–purely in a metaphorical sense), I get a lot out of interacting with readers and other writers. But then I have to ask myself: who is my audience, and how does that audience change the way I write? Well, I want to get my stories out there and read by people whose opinions I respect. In other words, those people whom I have read and whose work I admire, or whom I have met and think are ace, or both! And I’m not sure that submitting to literary journals really does that. Sure, I might nab a few new readers; not a bad outcome. But do I really care if Jane or John Critic think my story is cool? Not really. It’s flattering, for sure, but on the other hand if someone I knew and was into came up to me and told me they liked my work, I’d be over the fucking moon! So. Second conclusion:

2) Having my contemporaries (and more specifically, people who I know and respect) reading and enjoying my work is more important to me than praise from an unknown.

Distribution

Speaking of journals has reminded me of another line of thinking, concerning their readership and their reach. The main question being how many of my contemporaries read literary journals? For at least the last year or two, I am the only person I know who subscribes to Meanjin. I have also heard through the grapevine of the absolutely dismal figures for subscribers to both the Westerly and, to a certain extent given its age, the Southerly. I dare say those figures don’t even compare on the same scale to the numbers of people that read the online components of literary journals (in the sense that the online compenents probably get hundreds of visitors per day). In the absence of hard statistical data, I’m unable to make any concrete assertions, but if we are evaluating distribution purely on the number of people that read your work, then online means must be considered suprior. Similarly they are more advantageous in the terms of my second conclusion, in that I can guarantee that more of my contemporaries are reading thins online than they are in journals that they subscribe to. Of course, there is always the factor of quality assurance in Australian literary journals. Australian journals produce absolutely top notch stuff in both design and content. Every single journal I subscribe to (of which there are many) is a joy to read. But couched in the context of a non-professional writer who just wants to share his stories, there isn’t much to persuade me against posting stories on Facebook rather than submitting them to a journal.

I’ve been dabbling in online distribution in various forms for quite a while now. And by ‘online distribution’, I mean posting my writing on an art website (deviantART) and maintaining this here blog. Not the most professional of options, but then that kind of fits with the theme of this post. Nevertheless, there’s some surprising statistics to be had from looking at it. On the deviantART side of things, I’ve accumulated a bunch of friends and followers who read and comment on my work, and have influenced me in a profoundly positive way. The pieces that have been featured as a ‘daily deviation’ (a daily showcase of artwork and writing that community volunteers think is worth featuring) have accrued almost 26,000 views between them. While this doesn’t mean that 26,000 people have read things that I have written–only around 800 of those actually responded with a comment–it is still a heck of a lot of people to be looking, however briefly, at my writing.

(I should hastily note at this stage that I am not looking to burn bridges. It’s highly likely that I will continue to submit stories and articles to journals for publication, but I won’t be putting pressure on myself to do so. Editors please don’t hate me.)

What does all that mean? In a sentence:

3) I’m equally keen on seeing my work in print or digital, but seeming as though digital has already resulted in my stories being read by a bunch of people, I’m leaning that way as a first destination.

Conclusions

Alright, so after all that, maybe I can come to some kind of conclusion as to what might be the shape of future writerly self. Now what the heck were my points again? Oh right:

1) I want writing to be fun again. Or if not fun, exactly, then at least for it not to feel like work.

2) Having my contemporaries (and more specifically, people who I know and respect) reading and enjoying my work is more important to me than praise from an unknown.

3) I’m equally keen on seeing my work in print or digital, but seeming as though digital has already resulted in my stories being read by a bunch of people, I’m leaning that way as a first destination.

So what does the combination of these point towards in terms of what I’ll be doing with my writing in the future? Here I think I’ll switch to bullets, since they’re easier to think in:

• Maintain a formal distribution space for stories that I think are publication quality. This could be a well-designed website, or choosing a platform such as Smashwords or Amazon Singles to put together some 99c wonderpackages.
• Share these stories with friends and followers via deviantART and places like Twitter. Given my glacial writing pace, I don’t think there’s any risk of spamming people.
• Continue to send some stories off to more traditional markets such as journals and competitions when I feel that they fit, but don’t put any pressure on myself to accumulate publication credits.

Keep in mind that this should all be considered with the fact that I hope to start a career in science research in the new year. This will effectively (discounting the four mind-numbing months at my temp job) be the first time I work a full-time 9-5 job. So time will become even more of a premium, and I want to be ready for that. I don’t want to burn myself out and end up hating writing. I also don’t want to neglect the other important things in my life (i.e. Louise, friends, exercise, etc.). But as you can see, devoting this amount of time to roundabout thinking to how I’m going to make sure I don’t kill my writing hobby shows how much it means to me. I think that for folks such as myself who are looking to keep up a creative output while working, it’s important to have some kind of idea about how to go about it.

Anyway, if you’ve made it this far thanks for sticking it through. If you had any comments with regards to anything I’ve said here I’d love to hear it. I’m still a little up in the air, so any advice would be really appreciated.

No related posts.

photo credit: jenny downing

As the end

of the year nears, I’m mindful of what has happened in the twelve months. I’m feeling a very wordy post coming on, so if you’re not in the mood to read a lot of retrospective self-analysis I’d advise you to run for the hills. Say hi to my Mum while you’re there. Again, just in case you skip the first two sentences of every one of my posts:

THIS IS GOING TO BE MOSTLY ME TALKING ABOUT MYSELF AND NAVEL GAZING ABOUT THE YEAR THAT WAS.

There. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

It’s no secret to many that I began getting down to the business of writing my thesis at the start of this year. In the beginning, there was absolutely no room in my mind for the thought that I wouldn’t be finished by the end of my scholarship. No way! I would be finished with time spare to write up a couple of papers from my thesis chapters, get them submitted and hopefully published before, say, August, and have a job lined up for January 1st, 2011.

What a freakin’ noob.

The fact of the matter is that writing a thesis is fucking hard. I would say it’s been harder for me than most, but that would not only be boldly presumptuous, but also implies that everyone else has had some kind of magical fantasy thesis-writing journey where LaTeX farted auto-formatted rainbow tables of perfect results and supervisors sang their praises from the backs of unicorn Pegasuses (Pegasi! Pegasi!). The truth is that it’s just a bloody hard slog, and maintaining concentration has been tough. My methods have been a combination of externally forced disconnection from the rest of the world (i.e. Leechblocker and yanking out the CAT5) and the tiny spark of hope that one day, maybe, I’d be able to escape this relentless homogenisation of my mind. It seems to have worked at times, which is why I can say in confidence that as of this moment, I have a clear idea of what remains to be done, and the end is, if not near, at least within sight from the crow’s nest. Land ho, indeed.

This stagnation has applied to more than just the sweaty soup of desperation and coffee that permeates my office, however. I’m now going on four months without having been paid. I’m incredibly lucky that I’m a thrifty kind of guy, but even still, the diminishing state of my savings is a sorry sight. And the last couple of months, in particular, have been ones in which I feel like going out and enjoying myself is an undesirable thing, because it means money spent. Add that to the guilt that almost every Ph.D. student feels about not sitting at their desk typing 24 hours a day, and you’ve got a nice little cocktail for feeling awful every time you go out with your mates. I’m very thankful that I have friends that seem to understand this and go out of their way to make sure I feel included, despite me turning down their offers to go down South or out for dinner. While I don’t want to go into it too much, it’s also had an effect on home life, leading to a few crisis talks and more than a few evenings of stony silence. Not happy times. But like I said earlier, land ho. I really can’t wait until I can thump a big ol’ bound tree on my supervisor’s desk and call it quits.

‘Quits’ might sound a bit over-the-top, but if I’m honest with myself I don’t think I’m quite cut out for a life of academia. It’s something that I’ve been thinking a lot about. The Future. Vast, unknowable, probably lacking in the quality cheese department. Whether it’s because of the unfortunate lack of a result in my project, or something else, the feeling is that I need a bit of a break from research. Putting it in perspective, I’ve been at one form of educational facility or another non-stop since  was 5. I think it’s about time I got out and did something other. Anything other. A few of my colleagues have suggested that I hang on for the post-doctorate position that would eventually come once I managed to publish a few papers. I’m still uncertain though. I’ve had a look into science communication–even expressing my interest in a group over in Melbourne–and I think it would be something I would be good at, and probably enjoy a lot. Eh, it’s all a bit hard to figure out in my head at the moment. Again, it’s probably best to arrive at land before deciding whether it’s worth building a settlement (plus I still need some sheep, wood, brick, and wheat).

Moving away from depressing talk, my creative writing has been steady and somewhat successful. I’ve managed to tuck a few publications under my belt; the advent of joining a writer’s group really acted as the catalyst in that regard. There’s something about having someone ready, willing, and able to read your work with a critical but fair eye that works wonders for motivation. I’ve seen my words in print a couple of times, and it’s just as rewarding as it was the first time all those years ago with Voiceworks. I’ve also used social media a lot more this year, using it to connect with writers and like-minded creative types over East. It’s amazing the sense of support that one can get from people that I might never meet, but yet offer their advice and time freely and enthusiastically. The Internet sure is a, uh, special kind of place. I guess it was discovering that social media can indeed be social rather than superficial; realising (or perhaps reaffirming) that there are real, live people on the other end of the chat window. It’s something I tend to forget sometimes, even with people I’ve known for years.

My family life has also had a bit of a bumpy ride this year. I’ve spent every second Monday rebuilding a relationship with a father whom I’ve really barely known. It’s still a work in progress, but it’s there. Well, okay, that’s really the only bumpy bit: my bro and sis continue to be awesome people and my Mum, oh! My Mum has lost an incredible 14kg over the last 20 weeks or so, which is just so damn inspiring. I had to laugh when she told me that she was annoyed that she didn’t lose weight over Christmas. Very determined lady.

And of course, leaving the best till last. Louise and I are still going strong, this year marking our fifth anniversary. Our relationship has gone through a bit of adjustment since the start of 2010. The advent of her getting a real, honest-to-goodness, full-time, 9-5 job has resulted in a bit of figuring out exactly how to work around that new kind of routine lifestyle. But with a few hard-fought realisations regarding how to structure the weeks, we got there okay. She still surprises and delights me (case in point: she came home today with brown/copper hair) despite the obvious drag of having to machine her way through drafting new houses for the ever-expanding extremities of Perth’s suburbs. I can’t imagine heading into a new year without her. And that’s the final word on that.

In any case, 2011 promises to be a really interesting year. I’ll be finishing up the big T, engaging with the workforce, writing more (and perhaps focusing on a few big projects), and perhaps even moving to a new city. All exciting thoughts. And with that, it’s time for me to get some sleep. Hope everyone had a very merry Christmas (and got as spoiled as we did) and enjoys a safe new year’s eve.

No related posts.

photo credit: x-ray delta one

First, let me

start by apologising for the lateness of this post. I’ve been interrogated by various folk over the past few days as to when my intepretation of last episode’s events was going to appear, and various placatory assurances have been given. Rest assured, dear reader, that I was merely giving myself the time to grieve before delivering my eulogy. Without further ado, here we go.

Alright, start off with a re-show of all the makeovers just to make absolutely certain that we’re all aware that all the geeks are totally hot right now.  In the challenge room T.V. show host that isn’t Tim informs them all that the beauties that aren’t Tim are going to be archeologists for the day at a dig site. My mind is immediately filled with images of the beauties that aren’t Tim slaving over tiny chunks of pottery in ridiculous heat, using brushes to carefully extract the history of our civilization.

Nope, turns out it’s mud wrestling. With inanimate objects. And the geeks are going to be dancing/singing in/with a boy band. Tim’s beauty that isn’t Tim kind of loses it. Bruce Lee starts humming Kun-Fu fighting, which proves how witty he really is, making a joke BEFORE HE WAS EVEN AWARE of his own second nickname. James Bond does some kind of weird thing with his head (I can’t really remember what it was that he did, but my notes say it reminded me of something like this). He also pretends to be a gorilla in preparation for the challenge.

Before that though, Tim has what seems to be a very oddly and carefully worded exchange with Tim’s beauty that isn’t Tim. Tim’s beauty that isn’t Tim says that Tim is like family, reinforcing every single stereotype of geeks being permanently in the friend zone on national television. THANKS TIM’S BEAUTY THAT ISN’T TIM.

Anyway, back to the mud-wrasslin’. All the beauties that aren’t Tim are basically rocking the Lara Croft look, but with a much higher poly count. Turns out they have to go into a mud pit and grab out random items and place them in chronological order. I can just imagine the producers pitching this one:

Producer #1: Mud wrestling. We have to get mud wrestling in there somehow.

Producer #2: What? But it’s got nothing to do with anyth–wait a minute. WE GET HISTORY FROM DIRT. MUD WRESTLING IS HISTORY K LOLZ.

Producer #1: HERP DERP HISTORY DIRT WRASSLIN’ BOOBS AMERICAN FRAT HOUSE CLICHES HAHAHA LOLOL

If someone could possibly clear up how chicks wrestling in mud is at all sexy, leave a comment. Please, it bothers me.

Anyway Bruce Lee’s beauty has perhaps her very first flattering camera shot and it’s one where she is covered in mud. Too bad, El-Lee. Speaking of which, the general consensus in my group is that Ellie-May has done precisely fuck all the entire series, leading me to suggest that her first name be changed by deed poll to Ellie-May-Not. Again, the geeks are not allowed to tell the beauties anything, which leads me to wonder how strictly this might be followed given they have had time to formulate ways of telling their beauties how to do things in the meantime. If I were one of the geeks that aren’t Tim (as Tim would never stoop to such base immoral behaviour), I’d totally have worked out a series of subtle signals. Anyway, beauty with incredible…personality that isn’t Tim winds up smashing this challenge, and she and James Bond have the unenviable position of having to nominate someone later in the show. Then the girls spray each other off in slow motion. Honestly, have any shame Mr. Producers? What’s that, none whatsoever? Right. Gotcha.

Geek challenge next and some random guys rock up to the mansion and all the beauties that aren’t Tim go a little bit spastic. This is Thominem’s chance to shine choreographically, since he can’t sing for balls. Probably something to do with the fact that he sounds a bit like Microsoft Sam. Tim trying to sound like a rapper is admittedly pretty hilarious, but hey, if Jerry can slay a crowd, anyone can. The geek band is named Geek Unit which, I dunno, they could’ve at least but in something starting with ‘p’ in the middle there to get a little meta. Geek Profit Unit? Geek Pimp Unit? Fuck yeah, that last one. So the geeks turn up and there’s a fairly respectable crowd to watch all the geeks that aren’t Tim do random moves and look slightly less awkward than I thought they would. Tim goes for an elbow stand and deliberately stacks it to make his peers look better.  Apparently he ended up with a mild concussion and a slightly fused vertebrae after that, and was warned he should stay conscious to ensure that no internal haemorrhage was present in his brain. If that’s not metal, I dunno what is. Anyway, Bruce Lee wins this round, obviously due to his ability to FLOW LIKE WATER.

Back at the mansion and Tim is having a bit of a shitfight with Tim’s beauty that isn’t Tim. This makes for some of the most surreal conversation I’ve ever been witness to as Tim apologises for not doing the triangle leg hop and going for the elbow stand to whatever. Honestly, there is no scene that could ever be conceived that would so remove the concept of reality in reality television in my mind.  Tim’s beauty that isn’t Tim is obviously nonplussed by Tim’s emotion. I’m not sure if that makes her an un-empathic child or an insightful observer of the gap between reality on display.

To the nomination stairs now, and Bruce and El-Lee nail The Fonz and Fonzette for obvious reasons, while James Bond and beauty with enormous…personality vote Tim and Tim’s beauty that isn’t Tim. Reason cited is that Tim’s beauty that isn’t Tim is not as devoted as Tim. Tim’s beauty that isn’t Tim says that Tim is perfect. Well, duh? The topic of the quiz will be pop music, which is just REALLY FRAKING GREAT as Tim is so metal his balls clang when he walks.

The beauties get asked about Australian history which, let’s face it, is a bit unfair since you can count the number of students that actually know anything about Australian history on one hand. Tim’s beauty that isn’t Tim has a question that’s not about Aussie history, but muffs it up when she doesn’t realise that a stool groom was someone who wiped the King’s arse. Fonzette really should have known the Ned Kelly question, given it’s tattooed across Ben Cousin’s drug-distended belly.

0-0 at half-time and it’s up the geeks to fight it out. Tim makes a gloriously deadpan joke while answering a question about Katy Perry, but then, like the rest of us, has no fucking idea who New Kids On The Block are/were and misses out on answering the question adding up member numbers. But Fonz also manages to miss a question about some lesbian with a bad haircut, so it’s down to a tie-breaker.

Now, I’m not going to retread this scene, because it’s too painful, but let me say this:

• I’m standing by my comment that the second person has a very obvious advantage in any ‘closest-to-pin’ guessing game. I mean, sure, Tim made it really fucking easy for Fonz when he accidentally made a joke about Madonna’s age rather than attempting to answer the question, but still. Even if he had said an age close to her real age, it’s a lot easier for the second person to think ‘Hm, is she older or younger than that?’ rather than ‘How old is she, actually?’
• Also, let’s face it, she could really be 68.

So Fonz and Fonzette win, and Tim and Tim’s beauty that isn’t Tim are off the show. And so ends my brief foray into the realm of reality television (that isn’t Masterchef). Look forward to my post next week where I completely fail to give a fuck about anything that happens.

No related posts.