Binnsy's Hovel

Well, this evening is done, and what a …* relatively boring and uneventful night it was. There’s no real excitement to working in a video store. It’s just the same old thing, night in, night out, with no real opportunity for soul-searching, skill-learning or experience-building of any kind. You rock up, you serve customers, you fill fridges, you close up.

That’s it.

The regulars make it worth it, though. To have a familiar face recognise you and look genuinely pleased that you’re behind the counter makes me go in night in, night out, just to have that experience. It is nice to know that sometimes, at least, in so dull and dreary a place, you can be appreciated.

The night was crazy between 7:30pm (when I started, after a false start at 7pm) and 10pm, and then was ridiculously dead. We had one or two folk come in after that, including a good mate who lives nearby, who saved me from delirium. And after shepherding a pair of customer-clusters out of the store just before midnight, I was done.

Twitting made it more fun, though, so thenks for thet!

Anyway, off to pack for trip away tomorrow, then to bed.

Probably won’t be able to blog, but will twit when I can.

Until next time…

* – the poetic part of my brain wants to finish this sentence with ‘… wonderful, enchanted, glorious evening that was’, but all the other parts have staged an enormous rally, followed by a violent coup, and will not permit it.

In a Hovel first (not hard, given it’s my blog and I control EVERYTHING within), I will be livetwitting tonight’s shift at Video Ezy. Thrilling reading it will make, no doubt. You can keep up by reading the updates in the sidebar to the right, or head to my Twitter profile (http://twitter.com/binnsy) for uber-live excitement.

It’ll be just like staying up to watch the soccer live on SBS, except with only one person. And an awful lot of stupid customers.

Until next time…

I wish I could play chess for money.

I’ve been doing a bit of reading on Kubrick of late (given he’s my Honours thesis topic, and all), and was interested to read that in between failing at making decent films in his early years, he used to sit around in the Bronx playing chess for quarters.

I also wish I had a doctor father and a drugstore-owner uncle willing to fund my first film.

This is how Kubrick got the money to make Fear and Desire, his first feature, which is now all but out of circulation, apart from a few dodgy VHS copies and a very bad VHS-to-avi-to-flv copy doing the rounds on Google Video.

In other news, I’m over the heat. I’ve found it amusing to watch the Melburnians complain about the heat – though I do sympathise; a stretch of mid-30-degree days cannot be pleasant. And the heat wave is the hottest on record, I believe. We’ve had a string of 40-45 degree days here in Sydney town, too, and I’m well and truly over summer. At least it cools down when uni kicks back in, for the most part. Gotta love academia.

And I’m back at work – another ending-at-midnight shift tonight. It never ceases to amaze me how stupid some people can be. For the most part, I’m happy to serve customers – it’s what this job is all about. I’m nice, friendly, courteous and all that, but sometimes logic cannot provide any answers for humankind’s capability for ineptitude. For example, a customer refused to pay late fees for Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, because the customer before him had flipped over the DVD slip such that it read as ‘Three Day Hire’. This is ridiculous, considering this second customer picked it up in a clearly marked ‘New Release’ section, with 50 copies of the DVD with the correct slip displayed alongside. I let him go with his delusion, mainly because he looked like he had Mafia (or at least Bogan Mafia) compadres stashed in a warehouse somewhere. So yeah. Not looking forward to that again.

Rant over.

Until next time…

And this last, because it’s Australia Day…

‘From the beaches here in Queensland to the sweeping shores of Broome,
On the Harbour banks of Sydney where the waratah’s in bloom.
From Uluru at sunset to the Mighty Tasman Sea,
In the Adelaide cathedrals, at the roaring MCG.
From the Great Australian Blight up to the Gulf of Carpentaria,
The medical profession call it “green and gold malaria”.
But forget about the text books, son, the truth I shouldn’t hide.
The rash that you’ve contracted here is “good old Aussie pride”.
I’m afraid that you were born with it and one thing is for sure -
You’ll die with it, young man, because there isn’t and cure.’

From ‘Green and Gold Malaria’, by Rupert McCall.

Until next time…

I was waiting for the Christians to arc up.

For those of you who may be unaware of the current state of play in terms of Technology vs. the Government, the Rudd Government is investigating ways of filtering internet content nationwide in an attempt to curb child pornography and what it deems to be other questionable content.

In today’s Herald, director of the Australian Christian Lobby, Jim Wallace, takes a stab at those criticising the policy, which would see compulsory filters installed over all Australian internet providers. After a lengthy rebuttal of claims that filtering would slow internet speeds by up to 87 per cent, Wallace ends with the following sagely, sermonly sentiment:

The internet is a fabulous resource for everyone, including our young people, but it has the potential to cause great harm if reasonable safeguards are not put in place. The real story here is not the dreadful repercussions of having internet filtering, but the dreadful repercussions of not having it.

I’ll be the first to agree with the first 21 words of that statement. The internet is tops; w00t be to it. And yes, it does have the potential to cause harm. But I don’t think a nationwide filter is the way to fix it, unless we want to go the way of North Korea or China.

Nick Minchin commented last week on how such a government initiative would stifle parents’ right to inform and educate their children about the internet, its pitfalls and its great opportunities. In response, Jim Wallace makes a sweeping comment that -

Concerned parents do not view filtering as interfering with their parental responsibilities; they welcome the help.

Now, in fear of taking this quote out of context, Wallace goes on to say that parents expect their government to help create a protective environment. And this is true, but I think governments should create an environment in which access to information – all information, of any nature – is free and equal to people of all ages and backgrounds. The internet can be dangerous, but it provides many opportunities for children to come to their parents with questions about the nature of society, and gives parents a similar opportunity to educate their children about things such as pornography, extremism, art and religion, among many others.

Further to this, I think Wallace and Minchin are fighting the wrong fight. The technology is there, and it works, for better or worse. Kevin Rudd only has to buy the patent from China or North Korea and install it himself. But I’m brought back to what the government has called ‘other questionable content’. Does this mean anti-government websites of all kinds? Dissenting poetry? A nasty blog post? A YouTube video mock-up of Kevin Rudd dancing in a bikini? Any website showing a Bill Henson photograph?

As most bloggers are now saying, this fight is about free speech and freedom of expression. The line between art and pornography is so blurred as to be almost negligible. Indeed some near-pornography has a rightful place in the artistic canon (the explicit ancient wall paintings in Pompeii and Jack Vettriano’s paintings spring immediately to mind). Should we forgo children’s (and indeed adults, professionals, academics, the working-class man or woman) access to such things, and deny them the opportunity to be inspired, enraged or simply to enjoy them?

The answer to that question is no. And the overarching theme is: Leave the net alone.

Until next time…

I was defined, a long time ago. And defined thus I still remain, I hope.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=binnsy

Until next time…

The truce holds, but for how long?

Israel ceased firing at Hamas in the last 48 hours, and a tenuous peace has broken out after Hamas ceased firing themselves. How long will this last? The ceasefire was not the result of any negotiation. Any attack by either side will result in similar violence to that seen over the last three or four weeks.

One wonders whether a mutual downing of arms is enough to stop the bloodshed, destruction and mayhem that has reigned in Gaza of late.

Some say ‘it is a lie that Israel is defending itself’ (quoted here), Hamas says ‘it would rearm and [be] demanding the Jewish state withdraw forces from the Palestinian enclave by Sunday or face more rocket attacks’. Both sides are saying that the recent aggression has not diminished their hatred or their rocket supplies, and that any action from the enemy would result in swift retaliation. ‘Let them do what they want,’ said Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida.

To say that ‘peace reigns’ in Gaza or almost anywhere else in that particular region of the Middle East, or to say that a ‘truce is holding’ or that ‘firing has ceased’ can only ever be a temporary sentiment.

Until next time…

There’s progressive and then there’s the downright ‘naw‘ facets of this new President and his Presidency:

Obama, who succeeds the unpopular George W. Bush on Tuesday, said the phone [Obama's BlackBerry] was a valuable part of a wider strategy to escape the White House fishbowl.

“It’s just one tool among a number of tools that I’m trying to use, to break out of the bubble, to make sure that people can still reach me,” he said.

“If I’m doing something stupid, somebody in Chicago can send me an email and say, ‘What are you doing?’

Until next time…

So it’s not quite four in the morning… yet. But I still find myself roused from slumber, though there was never any slumber to rouse myself from.

The Australian Youth Olympics Festival found its merry way to the uni accom in which I reside, so there’s been no shortage of red-clad British athletes running around. My new neighbours still haven’t seen fit to move back where they came from, so there’s plenty of door-slamming, drunken antics and loud conversations, not to mention smoking and drinking aplenty, to keep me sufficiently annoyed for at least the next two weeks or so.

Rant over though. If you want to have your intellect piqued, go no further than this podcast*.

I may not get a chance to blog again before Tuesday, so I think it’s worthwhile reflecting on Obama’s inauguration. I’ve followed his rise to power closely – not intimately, but closely. And what a stellar journey it has been.

People keep saying it but I don’t think it can be stressed enough – this is America’s first African-American president. A forward-thinking, progressive black man is about to become the leader of the free world. Is this what we need? Is this what the world needs to stop the sensationalism, the bias, the naysayers, the doomsayers, the O’Reillys, the Coulters, the Bolts, the Devines of this world?

I don’t know, and I’m fooling myself to think I can say so one way or the other. I do know, however, that Tuesday heralds the beginning of one of history’s most exciting periods. What will change? What will remain? How will this intelligent, visionary individual affect our world?

Watch on Tuesday as the journey begins.

Until next time…

* if the link didn’t work, search for ‘TED Talks’ on Google. You can watch the videos on the TED website. One day, I will find $6000 US and sit in on these amazing seminars. I may even score a cap.

None can truly comprehend the horrors that are going on every second right now in the Middle East. I’ve no doubt that as I write this bombs are falling and being launched, rockets are hurtling into buildings, troops are locked in combat in various strategic positions in and around the Gaza Strip.

To see the carnage one need look no further than the nightly news, but one wonders how censored these public images are, so far from the reality, and slotted into a prime-time news bulletin.

It is at this point that I tend towards cynicism; towards a renouncement not of faith, but of religion. It is a renouncement that I make at least once every twelve months, whether through sheer confusion and realisation of futility, or through a witnessing of the injustices done in religion’s name.

It is noteworthy that I am also in the middle of reading Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, and Mr Dawkins makes some excellent points with which I agree (It is also worth saying that even as of Chapter 3, where my book is currently marked, he has made some arguments which I think are brash and far too unapologetic, not to mention slightly hypocritical.). One point on which I concur with Mr Dawkins is to imagine that there was no religion, a point made by yet another insightful commentator, one John Lennon. No September 11, no Crusades, no sack of Rome, no Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The futility of religion and its realistic, reasonable, logical pointlessness seems relevant. Religion is a personal matter, that should and can be discussed reasonably and amicably, and should always, always, be a matter on which people should agree to disagree, if need be.

Believe what you want. Just don’t try to make me believe it.

I mean really, why can’t we all just get along?

And in the meantime, pray (or if you are not religious, at least make a heartfelt hope) for a peaceful resolution to the conflict now affecting the men, women and children of the Middle East. It is unlikely, but worth hoping for.

Until next time…