Introducing my family

While rummaging through my stationary cupboard today and doing an inventory to find out what needed replenishing (which turns out to be just a fresh pad of parchment for letter writing), I realised that I owned quite a few nice pens. In no particular order I currently own:

-a silver Parker IM (ballpoint): despite being the baby of the Parker family in terms of price (they retail at a very affordable $10 AUD), they are still very reliable and feel quite nicely weighted in the hand.

-a silver Parker Jotter (ballpoint): the next step up from the IM is the every reliable Jotter which has been around for as long as I can remember being interested in shiny inky goodness. The one I have I received from my mother, who tells me the pen is about as old as I am. Despite it's age and the fact that I've probably dropped it over a dozen times (usually flying from my shirt pocket while chasing down public transport), it still functions perfectly.

-a blue Parker Reflex (ballpoint): this was the model that was superseded by the IM as Parker's entry level pen. The one that I own is in a fairly poor state, with the rubber grip all but worn through, and the spring mechanism also fairly defunct. While it was working though, it was fun to write with and the longer than usual barrel helped balance out the pen.

-a blue Waterman Harmonie (fountain): one of the newest pens in my collection and an absolute beauty. Typically of Waterman, this pen possesses an understated sense of elegance yet stands out from the crowd. The ink flow from the nib is gloriously smooth and the pen feels very poised in the hand when writing, with or without the cap.

-a black Parker Sonnet (ballpoint): I rarely leave the house without this pen. Of the pens that I own, this is probably the most elegant of the ballpoints. While I thoroughly enjoy writing with fountain pens and calligraphy pens, there are some things that can only be done with a ballpoint. Namely the crossword puzzles in newspapers.

-a silver Sheaffer Agio (fountain): my other day to day pen, I use this for everything that I can. It's a tad light for my liking, but the nib is fairly durable and seems to become smoother with use. Not quite as elegant as some of my other pens, but still nice and understated.

-a brushed metal Lamy Logo (calligraphy): probably the most fun to write with of the pens I own (owing primarily to the turqoise ink it's charged with). The calligraphy nib lets me write beautiful script (or at least it will once I learn how to write beautifully) as well as barely legible scrawl (in which I am very well practiced). The ribbed grip section and the spring loaded clip are also very practical touches.

-a black Parker Vector (calligraphy): surprisingly cheap for a calligraphy pen ($50 AUD for the pen, 4 nibs of varying broadness, 6 cartridges, and an annoying draw converter). Handy for learning the ins and outs of calligraphy although the lightness of the pen does tend to allow your hand to dance around the page somewhat. But hey, I guess at that price you can't really complain too much.

So there you have it. My happy little family, which I hope to add to as time passes (and my bank balance permits). And for those of you who have no idea what any of these pens look like, you can find photos of them here.

I grow old, I grow old...

... I wore the bottoms of my trousers rolled... and had a totally awesome party!

Despite the rather large amount of time and effort it takes to plan and host a party (not to mention the shitload of cleaning that needs to be done afterwards), I still enjoy hosting parties because it's nice to fill the house with noise and friends. So thanks to everybody for turning up and helping me make my 21st a blast. ^^.

As I sit here typing this, I'm looking at the pile of gifts from my friends and realise that they know me all too well =). Let's go through the things I like most:
1. Pens - oh, I do love a good pen and this growing obsession was satisfied quite nicely today. I received a a Lamy semi-calligraphy pen (and a bottle of pretty green ink) from Samantha and Charley, and a Waterman Harmonie (I think it's a Harmonie) from Tracy and co. Thank youuuuuuuuuu!
2. Coffee - I drink way too much coffee (so much so that my liver suffers because of it). Of course, there's no such thing as too much of a good thing, so a whole gang of people chipped in and got me a brand spanking shiny coffee machine. And while it's possible to argue that they're trying to kill me, it will be a very happy and hyper death.
3. House - Yay! Kirsten and co. got me Season 4 of House. Need I say more?
4. Puzzles - it's a daily ritual. Pick up the newspaper at the campus newsagent and try to get the sudoku (and as much of the other puzzles as possible) done before classes start. The sudoku usually gets done, but now that Cyd, Amry and Desi saw it fit to purchase me an electronic sudoku, you can bet that my attention during lectures will drop dramatically. So thanks for that guys =). Also thanks to the Guildford gang(I think...) for getting me a totally funky lateral thinking board game thingy that I'll probably just go through by myself.
5. Japanese movies - yay! Samurai box set from Terry and Robert. Woot!
6. Books - Lauren got me a gift voucher for Angus and Robertson. Sure, the staff there are totally imcompetent but that's just half the fun of shopping there. I also received a copy of Freakonomics from Desi, Cyd and Amry, which promises to make for some fun light reading.
7. Vienna Teng - as if the shiny Lamy pen and ink wasn't enough, Samantha (vocals) and Charley (guitar) also saw it fit to serenade me with 'Lullabye for a stormy night' by Vienna Teng. It was just totally yay and I can now tick 'be serenaded' off my list of things to achieve.

The other gifts are also very much appreciated and will be put to good use. Who knows, maybe they'll kickstart yet another unhealthy obsession!

Special thanks also to the people who helped out with everything today so I could play the role of host. Thanks to Jeffrey and Liang for manning the BBQ all night. Thanks to my lovely mother who slaved away over the deep fryer to make deep fried chicken and her legendary spring rolls. Thanks to Samantha and Samantha (no, that's not a typo) for coming over crazy early to help roll the aforementioned spring rolls and to skewer large amounts of meat. Thanks to all the photographers who were snapping away all night. I'm looking forward to seeing all the photos (especially the one of me kissing Robert).Thanks to all the drivers who stayed sober and got everyone to and from the party safely. Sorry you guys couldn't drink, but I hope the food was good enough to make up for it. Thanks to Grace, Desi and Haidang for bringing their PS2s and Wii to keep us all entertained for the night. Thanks to Ace for just generally helping a bit with everything. A huge thanks to Keagan who helped heaps with the clearing up and saved me several hours of cleaning. And thanks to everybody for being responsible with the alcohol.

It was great having you guys over, and I hope you all had as much fun as I had (if not, more!). Let's do it again some time, ne?

And the words...

they're everything and nothing. I want to search for her in the offhand remarks.
- Vienna Teng, 'Recessional'

And so begins my latest project. I recently bought a pretty little journal and I intend on filling it with beautiful quotations. I suspect that there will be an inordinate number of quotations from Vienna Teng and T.S. Eliot (probably all of Prufrock), but hopefully there will be some other gems as well, like this one from Henry Ward Beecher:

'Laughter is day and sobriety is night; a smile is the twilight that hovers between both, more bewitching than either'.

Hell Yes!

To the citizens of the United States of America, in the light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories.

Except Utah, which she does not fancy.

Your new Prime Minister (The Right Honourable Gordon Brown MP, for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a Minister for America without the need for further elections.

The House of Representatives and the Senate will be disbanded.

A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up "aluminium." Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.

The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour'; skipping the letter 'U' is nothing more than laziness on your part. Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters.

You will end your love affair with the letter 'Z' (pronounced 'zed' not 'zee') and the suffix "ize" will be replaced by the suffix "ise."

You will learn that the suffix 'burgh' is pronounced 'burra' e.g. Edinburgh. You are welcome to re-spell Pittsburgh as 'Pittsberg' if you can't cope with correct pronunciation.

Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up “vocabulary." Using the same thirty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "uhh", "like", and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication.

Look up "interspersed."

There will be no more 'bleeps' in the Jerry Springer show. If you're not old enough to cope with bad language then you shouldn't have chat shows. When you learn to develop your vocabulary, then you won't have to use bad language as often.

2. There is no such thing as "US English." We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of "-ize."

3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn't that hard. English accents are not limited to cockney, upper-class twit or Mancunian (Daphne in Frasier).

You will also have to learn how to understand regional accents --- Scottish dramas such as "Taggart" will no longer be broadcast with subtitles.

While we're talking about regions, you must learn that there is no such place as Devonshire in England. The name of the county is "Devon." If you persist in calling it Devonshire, all American States will become "shires" e.g. Texasshire, Floridashire, Louisianashire.

4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys. Hollywood will be required to cast English actors to play English characters.

British sit-coms such as "Men Behaving Badly" or "Red Dwarf" will not be re-cast and watered down for a wishy-washy American audience who can't cope with the humour of occasional political incorrectness. Popular British films such as the Italian Job and the Wicker Man should never be remade.

5. You should relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen", but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.

6. You should stop playing American "football." There are other types of football such as Rugby, Aussie Rules & Gaelic football. However proper football - which will no longer be known as soccer, is the best known, most loved and most popular. What you refer to as American "football" is not a very good game.

The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays "American" football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football.

Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies).

We are hoping to get together at least a US Rugby sevens side by 2010.

You should stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the 'World Series' for a game which is not played outside of North America. Since only 2.15% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. Instead of baseball, you will be allowed to play a girls' game called "rounders," which is baseball without fancy team strip, oversized gloves, collector cards or hotdogs.

7. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry guns. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous in public than a vegetable peeler. Because we don't believe you are sensible enough to handle potentially dangerous items, you will require a permit if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

8. The 4th of July is no longer a public holiday. The 2nd of November will be a new national holiday, but only in Britain. It will be called "Indecisive Day."

9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap, and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.

All road intersections will be replaced with roundabouts. You will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

10. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call 'French fries' are not real chips. Fries aren't even French, they are Belgian though 97.85% of you (including the guy who discovered fries while in Europe) are not aware of a country called Belgium. Those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called "crisps." Real chips are thick cut and fried in animal fat. The traditional accompaniment to chips is beer which should be served warm and flat.

Waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.

11. As a sign of penance 5 grams of sea salt per cup will be added to all tea made within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, this quantity to be doubled for tea made within the city of Boston itself.

12. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling "beer" is not actually beer at all, it is lager . From November 1st only proper British Bitter will be referred to as "beer," and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as "Lager." The substances formerly known as "American Beer" will henceforth be referred to as "Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine," with the exception of the product of the American Budweiser company whose product will be referred to as "Weak Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine." This will allow true Budweiser (as manufactured for the last 1000 years in the Czech Republic) to be sold without risk of confusion.

13. From the 10th of November the UK will harmonise petrol (or "gasoline," as you will be permitted to keep calling it until the 1st of April) prices with the former USA. The UK will harmonise its prices to those of the former USA and the Former USA will, in return, adopt UK petrol prices (roughly $10/US gallon -- get used to it).

14. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist, then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.

15. Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy.

16. Tax collectors from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all revenues due (backdated to 1776).

Thank you for your co-operation.

(stolen from the facebook group 'Petition to revoke the independence of the United States of America').

After the Taking of a Toast and Tea

Cockroaches scuttle across the rotting stump,
tracing out a tale from memory
of promises she buried an age ago.
Have they been released from Winter's thralldom?
Will they bloom tomorrow?

If they are destined to rest beneath white sheets;
the nightingale shall drown
in the pibroch of dispirited cats,
crawling across keys: yellowed, jarred, uneven.

These floors remember the dancing of two lovers.
A million steps I have taken since;
a million cries for each that's been missed.

There is little left for these chilled fingers -
only a phone whose silence lingers
and a girl who mourns behind spidering glass,
dangling by a thread, thin as my greying hair.

Even if flowers bloom tomorrow, I will never
see the unfurled petals nor breathe the vialed scents.
It remains a reverie;
one that can not be touched,
should not be remembered
by the quill that scratches against stained parchment.

Arguments in favour of abortion

Taken directly from a philosophy essay I recently submitted.

Argument 4: God is morally bad?!?
Consider again, the problem mentioned previously with defining when it is that a zygote becomes a foetus and when in the developmental stage of a foetus it becomes morally wrong to kill it. We came to the conclusion that any boundary we may draw is entirely arbitrary. But then, one could argue that it is also somewhat arbitrary that we should morally abhor the killing of a potential person (i.e. the foetus) and not the killing of potential potential persons (i.e. the sperm). If we are to take it back that far, then we can say that contraception is morally bad (something which the church firmly believes in anyway). But then, we must also say that the people responsible for making contraceptive devices are morally bad, since they are facilitating the killing of potential potential persons. But then, under the potentiality argument, the parents of the people who designed contraceptives are also morally bad since (rather ironically) in giving birth to their children, there was always the potential that they would cause ‘harm’ to the very fabric of society. But why stop there? Why not also say that the grandparents of the people who designed contraceptives, and the great grandparents, and the great great grandparents are also all morally bad people? And if we are to continue this chain, we eventually come to the incredibly ironic conclusion that the creator of human kind (i.e. God, the Big Bang, or which ever religious figurehead one happens to believe in) is morally bad. Firstly, this is just intuitively wrong. Secondly, we are left with an interesting paradox. How can it be that in upholding the moral values of a spiritual being (i.e. not encroaching on the right to life of another being) we are in fact saying that the spiritual being lacks the very moral values we are defending? If the being then lacks these values, there will be no values to defend, in which case abortion then becomes okay again, in which case the being is no longer immoral. If the being is no longer immoral, then we must uphold the values. In neither case are we then obliged to morally support nor morally abhor the act of abortion.