Having a rant.

So, this is my little rant for the day. Feel free to read and forget.

I bought Australian/New Zealand Snowboarder last week. Well done, you're thinking; you finally found your Aus-centric snow publication of choice, you exclaim. My eye was caught by the massive air that a rally car (yes, a rally car) was getting off a snow jump. And that was just the front cover! Inside were many sick shots of chutes and big all-mountain terrain, with some pretty sweet gear plastered over the margins in the hopes of encouraging associative purchasing, and there were accounts of style and adventure; again, you might cry aloud in joy at my sensible purchasing.

As I flick through my newly acquired eye candy, I start to see signs that said eye candy might not be aimed at my eyes, or at the eyes of such as I. After the third poorly written and profane article, I was forced to come to the conclusion that the publication in question was at least written for (and probably by) intellectual bogans, if one considers minimal education and excessive use of profanity to be the hallmarks of such.

So, I've bought a bogan publication. Ok, I can live with this; after all, are there not many sweet shots of all-mountain madness to fuel my dreams? Recalling that this is the style edition, I turn to the titular component, believing I can't go wrong with instructions on how to define yourself on-mountain. I open to a page with a bloke in mountian gear and a chick in a bikini, move on to the first page of the gear section, and there's a fellow in mountain gear and a lady with a lampshade on her head and her hands preserving what was left of her modesty. A quick flick through the magazine establishes this as the standard. Hmm, I think, their target audience is evidently not straight women. Outside of the articles profiling various boarders, there appears to be a definite bias towards the less-clothing end of the scale amongst the women.

So, between the poor editing and obvious pandering to drooling adolescents, I came to the conclusion that i was most definitely not the target audience for the magazine. That's a fair call, as most boarders who would actually buy a magazine are guys, and most of them are young. I don't object to not being the core target audience, but I do object to the fact of my gender being paraded around like meat. I also object to poor spelling and grammar. What I object to most of all, though, is the assumption that seems to come from this magazine that if I'm not a bogan male they're not really going to bother trying to provide something of interest. They're cutting out a section of their potential market, which is dumb, and next month I'll be buying a different publication.

I'm not usually one to rant about these things, but I was particularly annoyed as, for one of the first times in my life, I felt marginalised because of my gender. I feel marginalised on the basis of my education all the time. Three cheers for Australia, land of the stupid sexist bogan!

Edited for stupid phone spelling and capitalisation. Damn phones.

Cussing 101: How not to do it.

I work with someone who says “blank” as a cuss. I kid you not. It’s “blanking this” and “blanky that”.

 

It’s like that fellow from “Thud”, who eats laundry powder.

Diggin' a hole...

So, I was chatting at work today with the clinic receptionist, who is
probably about my parents' age or a bit older. The conversation ended up
going somewhat like this...

Receptionist: So, do you play this online virtual world game thingy?
Me: What, Second Life? Nah. (Discussion of second life ensues). I do
play an online game, though; World of Warcraft. My little character runs
around in the game world, and lots of other people's characters are
running around too.
R: One of the academics has a son who plays a shooting game online; is
it like that?
M: Not really.
*more discussion ensues*
R: so what sort of character do you play?
M: I play an elf. My husband is playing an orc; big, green, breaks
things.
R: So like the hulk?
M: Kind of.
R: So what's this elf character like?
M: You know, pointy ears, skinny.
R: What, with a pointy hat too?
M: No, my elf isn't a magic user, it's a hunter. I have a pet that
mangles things while I stand back and shoot arrows...
R: Oh... really?
M: Yeah. I'm just digging myself a hole here, aren't I...
R: No, no, I find this quite interesting!
M: *filled with a sinking feeling*

I can't believe I admitted to playing an elf.

Cue mockery... NOW

A certain friend of mine who shall remain nameless is going out to dinner tonight… and he’s sad that he’ll be missing the budget coverage.

If you know him, mock him. Mercilessly. If you don’t, I guess you can mock me for having a friend so nerdy.

Morning trains

I love morning trains - the only place where you'll see some guy leaning backwards into the aisle with his head tipped back, administering eye drops.

Nearly stuck himself with the bottle when the train stopped. Poor fella.

Weird sign for the day.

Just walked past a sign advertising and auctioneers' championship. Seriously, is this a competition to see who can talk the fastest and with the least deviation in pitch?

Even in my daydreams

...the dog has a cold wet nose.