Sorry everybody.  I’m tired, bored, and probably got a bit of the old heat-stroke.  So – sorry for the rambling mess which follows.  It’s a fraction of what I’d like to discuss with Evan, but far too much for anybody else to have to put up with.  I’m too scared to re-read what’s written below – because I just know it’s disjointed delirious drivel.  But some bullet points beforehand, so you can skip the rest of it if you wish.  I would recommend: yes.

• Summer seems to have arrived in Ingerlund.  Hooray.
• Give money to my sister.  I will match every dollar you donate, if you let me know.  And – you’re not really giving money to my sister – but you’re giving money to the Kids.  And you know that these kids will be more likely to want to work in medicine when they grow up, to cure cancer and stuff – so you’re really donating to the kids, AND to cure all sorts of stuff.  It’s like donating to every charity at once.  It’s a bargain.

In case you missed “evan smith”’s rebuttal to my informative & educational expose on snakes - here you go:

• ok heres the deal snakes all of this that you just spent on writting was a watse of your time as well as my time for reading it. Second thing snakes are not things that go around killing things all the time. Their just doing what they suppose to do in order to survive.Trust me on this one. i own two of them and they dont try to eat me or my mother or my father.I bet you know almost any thing about them.the thing is that they only eat onc a month not every day they only eat what they need for that one time.Oh all of that stuff about making them extinct yea no here loke at it this way what if there was a being that didnt like us hu. that wanted us extinct that sounds nice hu?Oh and how long where they on earth be fore we even lerned how to even walke on two legs and then because of your little fear of these animals it give you the god given wright to kill all of them off no it doesnt so there you go Oh one more thing I LOVE SNAKES so there you go get over it panzy

As you may notice – I decided not to edit the piece – as I honestly would have no idea where to begin.

At first – I thought “evan smith” was a certain person I know trying to wind me up.  Although I figured I was being quite generous in granting this person the possession of the imagination it would require to create the above.

So – before we get to dissecting his counter-view on snakes – let’s examine what we know about “evan smith” the person.

1. “evan smith” calls himself “evan smith”
2. yet “evan smith” has an email address named not “evan smith”, but rather after an anime/manga character
3. “evan smith” utilises an Internet Provider based in Alabama – which is one of the so-called ‘United States of America’
4. “evan smith” uses “myspace.com” as his URL
5. “evan smith” likes snakes

So – what conclusions can we come to?  Now – I’m torn between being honest here, or being kind.  I mean – it is kinda like kicking a puppy, isn’t it?  But – I think we can all be fairly safe that “evan” isn’t going to read this.  So – my next fear is the amount of other people I’m going to offend.  I’ll tell you what everybody – before you get offended – here’s my official response to “evan” – which you can take to be directed at yourself also:

“Very sorry evan – that I disparaged snakes, which obviously mean a lot to you.  Please accept my apology – and believe me when I say that anything I write here under the tag of ‘Rants’ should not, I repeat NOT, be taken seriously.  I will use unfair stereotypes, generalisations, exaggeration – and sometimes outright lies – in order to support whatever nonsense I am spouting.  Except when it comes to snakes.  Snakes are nasty.”

Right – back to figuring out what makes “evan smith” tick…

Okay – he’s from Alabama.  I did a quick search for famous people from Alabama – to see what kind of people this area produces.  The list was dominated by two definitions: “NASCAR driver”, and “white supermacist and co-conspirator in the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing”.  Next, I try to narrow it to musicians – as I like to propogate a very simple (and very simplistic) theory that one can judge states by their main musical export  eg: New Zealand = Crowded House.  Australia = Akka Dakka.  Anyway – Alabama… Wikipedia lists two subcategories under “Musican groups from Alabama” – these are “Alabama Heavy Metal musical groups” and “Alabama rock music groups”.  I’ve found all I need to know about Alabama, I think.  I mean when Neil Young sang about her, I hear old Neil put her down.

Oh – sorry – one more thing I felt necessary to research about Alabama.  After re-reading evan’s written piece – I felt a sudden urge to do a quick check on education in Alabama.  An interesting fact: I found that Mississippi has the lowest high school graduation rate in the ‘United States of America’.  But back to Alabama.  Well… Alabama can be proud to have a higher rate of high school graduation than Mississippi.

So – at this point, we know there is a 25% chance that evan has not, and never will, graduate high school (based solely on state-wide statistics, ignoring other evidence such as his style of prose).  But in case he’s still hoping (fingers crossed buddy) – here’s a few pointers:

• That first scramble of words until the first full-top… I don’t know what that is, and I’m not sure how to help with that bit sorry.
• “writting” & “watse” are not words – I think you meant “writing” & “waste” – perhaps simple typographical errors?  Fair enough.
• This one is for everybody – please don’t use “Their” when you mean “They’re”, or vice versa.  It may seem like punctuation/spelling prudery – and sure, it may be.  But – it IS wrong.  Which means that if somebody knows the correct meaning of punctuation/spelling – an initial reading just makes no sense.  Take note:  “Their” is a possessive adjective.  Or – in Alabama english, it is used when “They” own something.  So – one might say “The Irish hired a crazy Scotsman named Patrick to get rid of all the snakes, because the vicious little serpentine bastards were eating all their babies”.  Or – to make it easier – just remember the correct meaning of “They’re”.  This is the easiest one to remember – because it’s actually two words, both of which I’m sure you know.  “They” & “are”.  The apostrophe has been used to replace the “a” so that us lazy folks can amalgamate the two words into one syllable.  Okay?  “they’re” = “they are”.  Easy.  “I hate snakes because they are cold-blooded killers” = “I think we should eradicate all snakes becauase they’re obsolete in the modern ecosystem”  I will leave it to you to figure out what “there” means.  But here’s a hint – it’s spelt like “here” – but with another letter.
• Time out:  sorry about that little outburst.  But the whole their/they’re/there thing really does get to me.  I honestly have to re-read any sentence with errors in it a couple of times – because I’m just assuming it will be written in English.  My own punctuation/spelling is not perfect – I accept that, and I’m sure some of you will be able to put together a dozen or so mistakes from this post.  Go on then, jerk.  But at least I try.  I do the English.
  
• The word “i” should always be capitalised.  That means it will be big and tall, like so: “I”.  You’re big and tall, aren’t you evan?  Then make your “I” big and tall and strong.  Also – it just rubs salt into the wound when it’s also the first word of the sentence.  You know that the first word of a sentence should be capitalised, don’t you evan?  Did you think that if there are two rules both saying that a word should be capitalised – then they cancel each other out?  They don’t, evan – they don’t.
• Speaking of which, evan, why don’t you capitalise your name?  You should, you know – it makes one seem like a real person.  Are you a fan of ee cummings, perhaps?  Something makes me think not so.  Anyway – those stories about him legally changing his name to remove the capitalisation are all lies.  He just signed some poems withough capitalisation – perhaps because he was lazy, perhaps out of humility when he’d realise it was shit.  Anyway – he was a yankee.  You don’t want to imitate a dirty yankee, do you Evan?  You’re a good solid southern dust-kickin’ boy, ain’t ya Evan?
• “I bet you know almost any thing about them.” – I’m going to interpret this as poetry Evan.  I think your intention is clear, and it is portrayed in a most lyrical manner.  I bet you know almost any thing about them.  Beautiful.
• Okay – your closing statement, or series of statements.  “Oh all of that stuff about making them extinct yea no here loke at it this way what if there was a being that didnt like us hu. that wanted us extinct that sounds nice hu?Oh and how long where they on earth be fore we even lerned how to even walke on two legs and then because of your little fear of these animals it give you the god given wright to kill all of them off no it doesnt so there you go Oh one more thing I LOVE SNAKES so there you go get over it panzy“.  Once again – poetry.  But I would like a little more structure here Evan.  I’m not sure when to pause for breath.  Or is that the point?  Regardless – get rid of the “w” from “wright”.  Remove the space from “be fore”.  Strip the “e” from “walke”.  Maybe add an “h” to “yea” – but maybe that’s a dialect thing.  No biggie.  I assume “loke” is supposed to be “look”.  I don’t know what “hu.” is – or if the full-stop is in the right place.  That bit really does confuse me quite a bit.  I think I’ve decided it’s supposed to be “huh?” – considering the context of both this and the subsequent appearance.  Finally, try spelling “lerned” as “learnt”.  I know – all very pedantic – but seriously, it helps Evan.  It helps.
• I didn’t want to split up the last piece – so included it all above, but I think I can safely say that the following can be logically seperated for the purpose of discussion: “Oh one more thing I LOVE SNAKES so there you go get over it panzy“  Yes, well.  Firstly Evan – please be careful.  Snakes are not capable of emotion.  They do NOT love you back.  They may pretend to.  Oh – they will pretend to love you.  But then one night – you, your mother, your father – everybody – will be found lying dead in your caravan/trailer – one little snake mouthful taken from you – to keep your little snake fed for a month while it makes it’s getaway.  I’m telling this to you as a friend Evan.  Despite, or perhaps because, of you calling me a panzy.  Is this a very clever joke Evan?  Have you surplaced the central hinge of the word “pansy” with the initials of my homeland – creating the word “paNZy”?  Very good Evan, very clever.

So – pedantry over.  It’s for Evan’s own good.  He needs to know these things, to become not just another Alabama statistic.

And Evan – what up with anime/manga?  That stuff will rot your brain.  The Japanese are crazy Evan – absolutely batshit insane.  Don’t trust them.  Remember Pearl Harbour Evan?  The Japanese were responsible for that.  Oh yes – without the Japanese, Ben Affleck might have faded into obscurity, and we’d never have to have seen his smug fat face ever again.  But no – that’s not the case, is it Admiral Yamamoto?  Sorry Evan – Affleck works me up as bad as poor punctuation.  Anyway – manga.  It’s sick.  It will undermine your good fine true christian american beliefs.  How can you believe that God the father of Jeebers personally spoke to George W. and told him to invade Iraq – when your mind is full of teenage girl ninja warriors being seduced by metallic tentacled monsters?  Oh no – Evan, the Fox News syndicate would not approve at all.  Violence Jack is not a good role model.  Whoever is on Pop Idol/X-Factor – there’s a role model.  And you’ve got the same taste in anime/manga characters as Richard Gere.  That’s not cool, Evan.  Namine, Haruno Sakura – gay.  And – please, would anybody call themselves Roy Mustang unless they were over-compensating for something?  (Sorry Evan – I’m making all that up.  I don’t know anything about those characters – they may be fully bad-ass MFs.  Except Roy Mustang – that’s definitely covering for distinct lack of testosterone.)

• If anybody’s got any words of encouragement for Evan – I can pass them on.  Urge him to give high school another go?  Wish him condolences on the upcoming murder of his family by his beloved pets?  Or just put in an order for some moonshine?  You just know he’s got the good stuff.  Whatever y’all feel.
• Snakes still suck.  An unnecessary evil.  The bad guys in ‘Arry Potter – what’s their emblem & favourite animal and what-not?  Snake.  The criminal in The Simpsons – what’s his name?  Snake.  What’s the one thing Junior Jones is afraid of?  Snakes.  Bad guy in Karate Kid III?  Snake.  Villain in Powerpuff Girls?  Snake.  Villain in pretty much every single B-grade movie?  Snake.
• Further rebuttal eagerly anticipated.

Hi all,

Well – my next bit of writing was going to be in response to the well-educated chap who took offence at my little discussion of snakes.  But – that will have to wait.

I’m not sure why it took me so long to figure this out – but I finally did about 2 minutes ago…

My little sister is trying to raise some cash.  And the cash isn’t for a car, or a holiday, or any of that – but for an even better cause.  But before the money – she herself is donating a helluva lot of hair.  Sounds odd, yeah?  But when you read about it – it is pretty damned awesome.  See, my sister has got this ridiculous amount of hair – down to her knees.  So – she’s gonna chop it all off – and donate the hair to some group who use it to make wigs for people who need them.  But not rich old men who wear hairpieces – rather people who have serious conditions resulting in hairloss.  I get the impression that the emphasis is on children too – which is pretty sweet.

So – my sister is making a pretty big sacrifice – you gotta think that chopping off 9 years worth of hair growth is a pretty big thing.  So – the least we can do is donate  a little money, yeah?  That’s what she figured too – so she’s got a website set up where you can do just that.  So – this place Freedom Wigs get’s her hair, and we can all sponsor her to do this – and that money goes to Cure Kids.  I’m always a little sceptical of charities – especially ones based on religion – but both of these sound cool.  So do it.  Give money to my little sister.

Here’s a nice little website to do it at.  And, once again, I can’t believe I didn’t think of doing this sooner.  Apologies to all the children for my getting dumber as I get older.

And as an additional incentive – I will match any donations made due to reading this.  So – try to bankrupt me… I dare ya.

ophid·io·pho·bia (n) : \ö-¸fid-ë-(¸)ö-’fô-bë-?\ : abnormal fear of snakes

Okay – I think it’s fairly well known that I hate snakes.  And yes – I think you could say I am scared of them.  And the fear quite likely goes some way towards creating that hate.  But – and this is important – it is NOT an irrational fear, and certainly should not be abnormal amongst other rational humans – nay – beings.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say snakes are evil, per se.  Well… maybe I would.  Because if there is such a thing as ‘evil’ – then the whole spirituality thing comes into play, innit?  So – if I was to subscribe to the ideals of ‘good’ & ‘evil’ – then I would point out that the main ‘baddie’ in the first ever (and still overall) bestselling novel – The Bibleâ„¢ – was a snake.  In fact – the core and genesis of all evil – representing itself on earth as a snake.  So – did the devil choose to portray himself as a snake, because that’s what tickled his fancy (you know his type – listens to heavy metal down in his cave, probably got a tattoo of a skull with a  snake coming out an eye socket on his bicep hidden by that even more stylish red cape) – OR, did he have no choice in the matter – a snake merely being the natural form attributed to him when he appeared in the Garden?  Either way – not good evidence for presenting snakes as benevolent beings we should have any trust for.

But – laying all aside the mythology – down to pseudo-science.  Researching the scientific term for the phobia of snakes – I came across the following:

“Care must also be taken to differentiate people who do not like snakes or fear them for their venom or the inherent danger involved. A ophidiophobic would not only fear them when in live contact but also dreads to think about them or even see them on TV or in pictures.”

This quote had no citations to back this up.  Because it is nonsense.  It is not irrational to dread thinking about them, or seeing them in TV or pictures.  Try thinking of one now!  Slithering, sneaking, sneaking up on you with malice in it’s gleaming nasty eyes so it can bite you with it’s vicious little teeth – maybe poisonous, maybe not – I don’t care, it’s not cool.  And seeing them on TV or in pictures just reminds one that these monsters are actually real.  For really real real.

Immediately following the above – was the following:

“Recent studies conducted have theorised that humans may have an innate reaction to snakes, which was vital for the survival of humankind as it allowed such dangerous threats to be identified immediately”

This  DID have a citation (from the hallowed National Geographic no less) – and makes a helluva lot more sense.  “innate reaction to snakes”, “vital for the survival of humankind”, “dangerous threats” – the National Geographic don’t just take pretty photographs – they know their shit.

Scientific studies people – pointing out that even the not-so-smart cavemen knew enough to be scared of snakes.  Are you dumber than a caveman?  Christ – they didn’t even know how to hang bead curtains at the mouths of their caves.  But – they DID know enough to know that snakes are ‘dangerous threats’.  And – they weren’t selfish.   Sure – Peking Man could have pretended he wasn’t afraid of snakes – and gone to show off in front of that hot Woman X teasing a viper or something – hoping to get back to her place (got one of them new ‘Fire’ you know), but he didn’t.  No – instead, he settled for someone a little dowdier, not so high maintenance.  And he stayed alive – “for the survival of humankind”.  Thinking of the children.  Thanks, Peking Man (sorry – xie xie, Beijing Man).

Snakes are not cool.  They’ve got no legs!  Look at Heather Mills.  She’s got one leg, and she is at a ridiculous level of psychosis, nastiness, and just not-cool.  So, via extrapolation – you’ve got to imagine ‘no-legs’ takes things to yet another level.  A level where the venom isn’t just crazy paranoid rambling – but actual poisonous kill-you-dead venom.  A level where the nastiness isn’t just spewing out bile in crazy television interviews – but sneaking around in the grass, up drainpipes, under beds, in rubbish, kitchen cupboards – and then striking out with nasty sharp fangs.  I would say – A level where the greed isn’t just “I’ve got more money than anybody could spend – but let’s go for more, and some reputation maybe” – but more “there’s a big piece of meat a thousand times my size – let’s kill it and take one bite out of it”.  Except, it can’t be greed.  A snake knows perfectly well it can’t eat me  (Well – an anoconda could at a stretch) – it’s trying to kill me for fun.  Nasty, nasty piece of work.

Snakes are cold-blooded.  You know where else the term ‘cold-blooded’ pops up?  “Cold-blooded killer”.  That’s not a coinicidence.  Snakes are killers, by their very nature.  We already know they’ll kill you even knowing they can’t eat you.  It’s just what they do.  And I don’t think it’s too bigoted to say – I don’t like that.  I don’t like things that just want to kill me – for no reason other than wanting to kill me.  I’m alright.  In fact, some people would rate me above average [citations needed].  But snakes want to kill me!  It just isn’t right.

Now – the whole cold-blooded thing – you might take the logical extension of this, and state “well, by that logic – all reptiles & fishies and what-not are killers”.  Well – yes, you’re right.  Sort of.  They all WANT to be killers.  Only some have the capability.  Take the Tuatara.  I love them – and would become an illegal international endangered species trader in a second if I could find one to purchase.  BUT – I would have no illusions.  If one of those suckers developed venom, or opposable thumbs and tool-making capabilities – I would be murdered within the day.  Just look at all the things in the world that can kill you.  Mammals – plenty of big strong things that can kill you if you endanger their young, or if they’re just hungry.  Reptiles, fish, insects, archnids – heaps and heaps of little things, big things, medium-sized things – that can kill you in various strange, painful, masochistic fashion. Piranha.  Candiru.  Spiders.  Insects.  Electric eels.  Stingrays.  SNAKES.  Not one of these could you stand up against in a fair bout of fisticuffs.  A tiger, lion, bear or elephant – I would give myself a chance of survival with a bit of the old rough-and-tumble, and a fair fight.  But – if that blood is cold, you got no chance – because you’re fighting a dirty little cheat, who probably killed you before you saw it.

So – what are we to do about it?  We can’t just get rid of all the snakes, can we?  YES – we can.  There are estimates that between 35-150 much cooler species become extinct every day.  So – a few species of snake in such a wildly varying estimate range would be alright, wouldn’t it?  Oh yes, oh yes – we can’t just go making things extinct willy-nilly – we don’t know the impact on the ecosystem, right?  Yep – agree wholeheartedly.  However – we know what snakes brought to the ecosystem.  They kill things.  The little ones kill mice, and the bigger ones kill anything they see.  Well – will that be sorely missed?  We’ve invented mousetraps, right?  We’ve invented right-wing pickup-truck driving hunters.  I think we’ve got the whole killing thing covered.  Snakes are obsolete.

And that is what I think about snakes.

By Micheal Kruse Age: 33

So – nearly halfway through April.  Still very little sign of ‘Spring’ – and temperatures are still lower here than in Wellington, every day.  And – the whole eating of lamb thing – going well.  Well as something so inherently ridiculous can really go, anyway.  I am starting to resent the entire Thai people for never getting into lamb.  It’s been less than two weeks, and I really miss Thai food.  And very few places near work have lamb as an option.  None of the ‘gastro-pubs’ anyway, which is probably saving me a fair bit of money.

The only other news is that we have a Katie staying with us.  So – conversations have become much more tangential, and our normal dynamic of “the last person to enter the room gets solid abuse by the other two” has changed, ever so slightly.

And now it’s time for my customary “and that’s about all I’ve been doing – working, nothing, working, nothing” line.

And with that in mind, I’ve been thinking of changing the format of this whole thing for quite some time.  I believe in my very first post – I alluded to the inevitability that this would devolve into a blow-by-blow account of my mundane life – despite best efforts to the contrary.  Well – I finally have a functioning portable personal laptop (fully nerded out with Linux) – and therefore should be able to and inclined to spend some time working online (trying to adapt to non-Windows).  Therefore, I will make an effort to write more stuff which is either “twitter-style”, ie: short sharp and potentially witty – and longer ‘essay’ pieces, most likely complaining about something.  One which has been simmering for a long long time is Snakes.  I have several things I’d like to say about Snakes.  So – I assume you are now waiting with baited breath.  Sucker.

Well, I thought I was rather clever.  I’ve got a fair bit of work coming up, so this previous weekend was probably going to be the last one I can be social for about 6 weeks.  And – I managed to swap my on-call with somebody else, and organise a fairly small gathering of people.  By coincidence, yes – it was my birthday – but I figured I wouldn’t mention it, and I could get away without people thinking it was some kind of birthday thing.  But – no, not to be.  I had forgotten several things.  Firstly – not everybody is as bad as I am about the whole birthday thing.  Several people seemed to remember off their own back… even before the second thing I’d forgotten – the hated technology.  Facebook especially – apparently may have some feature reminding people of upcoming birthdays.  And even if it doesn’t, family members will of course send publicly visible birthday wishes via Facebook and/or this here ‘web-log’.

So – after sitting at a table covered in delicious yum-cha for nearly an hour – I started feeling pretty smug.  A couple of people had said the whole happybirthday thing – but I managed to keep it quiet from everybody else.  Or so I had thought.  And then cards are pulled out.  And, it seems, the only people that weren’t actually aware were my own flatmates.  I really had thought I’d gotten away with it.  Not happy.  But – oh well…  It was a good day anyway.

(And thanks to everybody who attended, everybody who tried to attend but couldn’t, everybody from overseas who sent me messages, phone-calls, etc.  I think I have finally learnt my lesson – I can’t escape.)

Yum-cha in Chinatown – followed by a couple of quiet beers in a nearby pub.  The pub, however, was a dutch-themed pub – and therefore no beers that I was really too keen to drink.  So, champagne it was.  And, next thing we all know – it’s some ridiculous hour of the morning, and a few of us are in a taxi back to Balham – for a few more hours of drinking wine, beer, whiskey – and listening to music.  And discovering we have new neighbours upstairs.  Who probably have a very bad impression of us – after their first night being rather loud.  Not sure how many weekends of not-so-rowdy behaviour it will take for them to forgive us, and perhaps start to realise that this isn’t a particularly regular occurence – just very very bad luck on their part to move in on that particular weekend.

Anyway – that’s about all that’s happened since I’ve returned from NZ.  Have upped the squash-playing up to twice a week – but still a long long way off from giving Chook a serious challenge.  Have noticed my bank account shrinking – mostly due to the trip to NZ, and a sudden influx of bills.  That should turn around soon – as I’ve cut down my wine-drinking bill significantly.  (Well – the amount of wine has been cut severely – but the quality has probably gone up).  Anyway – looking at the costs of this trip I want to do at the end of the year, I should probably start caring about money a bit more, and trying to be ’sensible’.  (ie: not drink champagne because I don’t feel like Amstel).

Oh – and it’s April very soon.  April’s New Month resolution – in honour of Spring (which I’ve heard should arrive soon) -  I will be eating lamb.  I’m a little worried about breakfasts – but have some ideas.