My Manifesto: The Incoherent Ramblings of a Madman

My casserole dish i use for everything cracked in half today. It's a sad, sad, day.

The stump is gone - apparently - and has been filled in with dirt and other various materials. With in minutes Jazz, the pet dog, had dug it all up and buried his bone there. After weeks of burning a stump every weekend - the day it finally gets burnt out my father has to share the remains with the pet dog and his bone. My father must be feeling shattered right now.

94% of all drug related deaths in America are due to Alcohol and tobacco, 4 % due to prescription drugs (some mistakes, some suicide, some people abusing) and only 1 % caused by narcotic's.

The bottom line is if you are going to take any drug in America it better be an illegal narcotic!

Stump update:

My father went to such lengths to find timber to burn for his stump that he took cupboard doors off the wall and burnt them. My mother turns up at home and the conversation went like this:

"PETER! Where are the cupboard doors?"

"I burnt them! I've got to keep the fire going so the stump catches alight!"

"But why would you burn the cupboard doors? They were cupboard DOORS! CUPBOARD DOORS!! and you and your stupid stump - the thing still hasn't even set alight!!! You've burnt all the timber you have and the damn stump is still sitting there!"

-- The stump is obviously mocking him by it's very existence.

My new job, hopefully, is going to turn out just fine. I was offered a new job the other week but there was a few difficult hurdles to get over to actually get my new job. My boss had me sign a contract that means i have to give three (3) months notice prior to leaving which makes it almost impossible for me to get a job anywhere without telling them I can start work in three (3) months - and who in their right mind is going to want to wait three (3) months to have me work for them? Well the answer is no-one.

I talked my boss down to two (2) months with one (1) month taken as leave, of which I almost had owed to me anyway - by talked down I mean I had to give my three (3) months notice with no negotiations gone into. I at the time always naively thought that because there were so many illegal clauses in my contract (six out of sixteen) that the contract would almost be null and void - furthermore my boss has also changed the contract without giving notice, however, he has changed the contract without giving notice in my favour, which apparently negates the breach of contract that he has committed thereby making the contract still legal. If I had been working there three (3) years or over it would be a different matter altogether - my five (5) year contract would be entirely void on the spot - if only i had been working there longer.....So anyway - I gave my three (3) months notice, two (2) of working, one (1) of leave. This left me with a two (2) month gap to try and convince prospective employer to wait for me - luckily they did.

My boss took the whole thing with a blank look on his face at first, then became defensive, childish, and somewhat mean, then grew up and saw how he could make money out of this deal. The first thing he attempted to do was to invoice my new employer 15% of one (1) years wage to "buy" me. He then tried to hire my services back to new employer at a reasonably high rate full time for three (3) months, again, which didn't seem to work. My boss offered me a $5000 pay rise, which he said he was planning anyway, and a car, which he said he was planning anyway - the only problem is that my boss giving me car with a substantially larger engine than my current car that I have to pay the petrol for is more of a liability than an asset.

It sort of seems almost insulting to myself to think that someone can buy me, but in the end, I guess they can. Not that I went to my new job merely for the money, and I know everyone always says that, but in this instance it is true. The pay rise is great, however, the main reason I've changed jobs is to further my career and experience.

I've been in my third year rut for a while. Sort of moping around - going through the motions of living with no hopes of ever progressing further in my career without my boss actually dying, and the chances of that happening aren't very high thanks to him just starting on his health kick. I had a three (3) year plan to change jobs by the end of the third year - this year - however, the opportunity came up and I managed to take it.

Now all I have to do is try and leave on the best terms I can with my boss so he will give me a good reference - or otherwise three (3) years of my life will not exist inevitably making people ask the question: "what have you been doing professionally the last three years of your life?". I could always do the george dubya style thing and say I was an alcoholic and I have about as much idea as to what I was doing the last three years as what they do (sure he got away with 30 years - but I think 30 is stretching the truth a little far considering I'm only 24) or say I'm missing time because I was abducted by aliens - but somehow I think that most people will cotton onto the fact that there's something fishy going on.

Dad's stump-burning saga continues. My father has: burnt almost all of the wood he has and the stump has still not set alight; gone through 2 barrels of fuel and the stump has still not set alight; but he will continue refusing to let the stump get the better of him.

I've got a new job. Twenty-thousand increase in the total package, ten of which is a car. I just hope that when I start in two months time I can work out exactly what it is that I'm meant to be doing in it.

Uganda's Decline in HIV/AIDS Prevalence Attributed to Increased Condom Use, Early Death From AIDS, Study Says (http://www.thebody.com/kaiser/2005/feb24_05/uganda_hiv.html)

Increased condom use and premature deaths from AIDS-related diseases might be playing more of a role in declining HIV prevalence in Uganda than abstinence and fidelity, according to a study presented Wednesday at the 12th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Supporters of Uganda's ABC method -- which stands for Abstinence, Be faithful, use Condoms -- have "widely credited" the approach with lowering the country's HIV prevalence rate from 30% of adults in the early 1990s to under 10% currently (Russell, San Francisco Chronicle, 2/24). However, the results of the unpublished study -- which was conducted by researchers at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University and several Ugandan organizations -- "contradict" previous findings that attribute Uganda's declining HIV prevalence to initiatives promoting abstinence and faithfulness to one sexual partner, according to the Washington Post. According to study co-author Maria Wawer of Mailman School of Public Health, the researchers interviewed over a period of 10 years 10,000 people ages 15 to 49 living in 44 villages in the Rakai district of Uganda. They also collected blood and urine samples and asked about participants' health and behavior. Approximately 85% of Rakai's residents cooperated with the study, which also included treatment and prevention services (Brown, Washington Post, 2/24).

Methods, Findings
The researchers found that although fewer people are sexually abstinent or monogamous, the "expected" increase in the number of new HIV infections resulting from such behavior has not occurred, according to the Chronicle (San Francisco Chronicle, 2/24). From 1994 to 2003, the number of men reporting two or more sexual partners increased from 28% to 35%, and the percentage of teenagers who were not sexually active declined from approximately 60% to around 50%. For young women in the same age group, the percentage who were not sexually active remained at around 30% over the 10-year period. However, the HIV prevalence rate among women in the district fell from 20% in 1994 to 13% in 2003, and the prevalence rate for men decreased from 15% to 9% over the same time period, the Post reports. At the same time, HIV incidence has increased slightly among men and women. For men ages 15 to 24, HIV incidence rose from 0.7 infections per 100 men annually to one infection per 100 men annually, and for women in the same age group, incidence rose from just below to just above 1.5 infections per 100 women annually. Therefore, the district's declining prevalence is not attributable to a decrease in the number of new infections, the Post reports (Washington Post, 2/24). The researchers found that the "single greatest factor" in Uganda's declining HIV prevalence rate is premature death among HIV-positive people who died of AIDS-related causes during the study, according to the Chronicle (San Francisco Chronicle, 2/24). The number of HIV-positive people who died each year of the study was about 70% more than the number of people newly infected with HIV annually, the New York Times reports (Altman, New York Times, 2/24).

Condom Use
According to Wawer, increased condom use also might be "offsetting other high-risk behaviors" in the district (San Francisco Chronicle, 2/24). In 1994, about 10% of men reported that they consistently used condoms with nonmarital partners, compared with 50% in 2003. Reported condom use among women in the same age group increased from 2% to 28% in 2003 (Washington Post, 2/24). However, Uganda "[o]minously" is "in the midst of an acute condom shortage" after the government determined that condoms provided by an unnamed foreign supplier were "substandard," according to the Chronicle. The government currently is reviewing the condom quality control standards of all its suppliers, including the United States. According to Wawer, the shortage has reduced the availability of condoms in the country by 50% and driven up the cost to consumers (San Francisco Chronicle, 2/24).

Reaction
The study's findings suggest that Uganda's "much-lauded success" in reducing its HIV prevalence has "little to do with" the abstinence and monogamy programs emphasized by the Bush administration under the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, Reuters reports (Fox, Reuters, 2/24). PEPFAR is a five-year, $15 billion program that directs funding for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria to 15 focus countries (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 2/16). The law (HR 1298) authorizing PEPFAR endorses the ABC model. The measure also specifies that one-third of the bill's HIV/AIDS prevention funding be used for abstinence and monogamy programs (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 4/22/04). President Bush and administration officials "frequently" have cited Uganda as "evidence" that abstinence and fidelity are effective in curbing the spread of HIV, according to the Post (Washington Post, 2/24). Wawer and Ronald Gray of JHU were "reluctant to address directly" how their findings "mes[h]" with the administration's policies, according to the Times (New York Times, 2/24). However, Wawer said that the findings do not mean that the promotion of abstinence and fidelity should stop, according to Reuters. "None of us would in any way denigrate or knock down the abstinence and monogamy message," she said (Reuters, 2/24). A spokesperson for U.S. Ambassador Randall Tobias, head of the State Department's Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator, said that OGAC could not comment on the report because they had not seen it (San Francisco Chronicle, 2/24). Dr. Chris Beyrer, director of the Fogarty International AIDS Training & Research Program at JHU's Bloomberg School of Public Health, said that the study's findings emphasize that "condoms are the main preventive tool against HIV," adding that they should be "everywhere alcohol and sex are sold" (New York Times, 2/24).

You can show almost anything with statistics.

And the headline reads: "Jackson Cousins Says Saw Accuser Masturbating".

It seems to me that whether or not these children were molested by Michael Jackson there's something a bit strange going on here. Michael Jackson's cousin stands there and watches kids get plastered on "jesus juice" and masturbating, afterwhich, Michael sleeps with them all in the same bed and claims there's nothing suss about it all. Either it's a very large bed or there's a hell of a lot of suss things about it no matter which way you look at it. The thing that alarms me most isn't the fact that Michael Jackson may or may not have molested these children - but the fact the parents let him. What in the fuck were the children's parent's thinking? Any parent who let's their child sleep in the same bed as a grown man repeatingly should be in as much shit as what Michael Jackson is.

Even scarier is that half of these parents are coming out and saying they find it perfectly normal! Normal! Ok, admittingly normal statistically may well mean that you've been molested, your last name is chang, you're illiterate, and you have to walk 5km's to get to almost fresh water, but that's not the point. I could name the people on one hand who I can think of that would say it normal to sleep with children - and all of their names end in "ackson".

Breast cancer study halted as patients die

A TEST to treat breast cancer had to be stopped after two women in the study died, French researchers said.

The test involved a combination of breast cancer drugs, thought to be the best way to treat the disease, but the cocktail proved fatal.

The doxorubicin-docetaxel com-bination led to "an increased risk of severe . . . and life-threatening complications".

The research was done by the Huguenin Cancer Centre and involved 627 women aged from 18 to 70. (news.scotsman.com)

Oops :|

My father is so funny sometimes...he's like a big kid. There's this tree stump that has been in our backyard since he decided to chop down our childhood treehouse, for no reason other than he decided it was getting old. The stump has sort of been there almost mocking him ever since.

He's tried to saw it up to no avail - now his latest idea is to burn it out. So he piled up all of these bits of wood and other combustible things, added a touch of petrol, and then lit it all up. The other things burnt out and the stump still looks as good as it did the day it became a stump.

He just told me that he can't do anything this weekend (the third one in a row) because he's hard at it burning his stump out - in between rain showers and it not ever having actually caught alight no matter what he does - I can't help but wonder how far he will get this weekend!

I've been wanting to copy/burn CD's for ages - so I bought all of these new blank CD's and now I cannot for the life of me remember what the hell it was that i was wanting to copy/burn.

Every damn thing in writing, if not factual, is a Star Wars pun at the moment! WHHhhhhhhhyyyyy? Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy? Please make it end! Make it end!

votefortheworst.com:

American Idol is the most [sic] watched television series in the world, but a pattern has emerged that makes the show pretty boring. The producers and judges pick one contestant to "pimp" and this contestant ends up winning, making American Idol less a show where the viewers pick the winner and more a show where the judges and producers get the viewers to vote for who they like. Borrrrrrring.

So, here at votefortheworst.com, we have a solution. Help us by voting for the worst that American Idol has to offer. That's right,vote for the bad contestants. Everyone knows that the best and most interesting part of the show are the bad auditions. Record numbers of people tune in to see who will become the next William Hung, but why let it stop there? Bad contestants sneak through the cracks all the time. Corey Clark, John Stevens, Jim Verraros, Leah Labelle... they were never meant to win and royally screwed up the competition by even making it to the finals in the first place. It's entertaining and hilarious when these contestants make it past more deserving contestants. Besides, if you liked Nadia, Anwar, Jessica, or any of the people who have been kicked out, this is a way to send a message. The producers have been pimping Carrie and Bo to win this show since the beginning. If you're a Vonzell fan, I hate to break it to you, but she won't win. Why? Because the producers don't want her to. Why not just Vote for the Worst?

This show is not about finding the next big superstar. Your favorite contestant probably won't win, and will probably get a record contract anyway if they're good enough. Besides, TV is supposed to be about the entertainment value, and what's more entertaining than a fish out of water outlasting the big fish and sharks? We lost Scott, but we will never give up! The producers wanted Anthony in the top group so he could be the next Clay Aiken, but he has certainly let them down. This pledge is to keep Anthony in the competition by voting for him for the entire time alotted every week. Even if you live outside of America, tell people about the pledge and spread the word. If you choose, vote along with us and help keep Anthony in the competition.

Why bother voting for someone talented when this show can be so much more fun to watch? Anthony Federov outlasting Carrie Underwood or Bo Bice? Now that's good TV! Browse this website for material to help us spread the pledge to all of your friends.

They make a damn good point. As long as the hot chick, who RIH claims looks like a porn star, something she insisted was actually a "bad thing" for some reason, stays in it'll all be fine and dandy - I need something to look at during the exerts in the ads.

Plan 9 from Outer Space
by Nate Yapp (classic-horror.com)


Plan 9 from Outer Space flies in the face of all conventional wisdom. How can a film this incompetently produced feel so good? Edward D. Wood, Jr. gives the world another truly great bad cinematic experience and it must be celebrated.

Flying saucers over Hollywood! People in panic! Yes, dear friends, aliens have rather indiscreetly shown themselves to the public, and they're fighting mad. Humanity is filled with morons and that makes Earth dangerous. In order to stop us from developing sun-exploding superweapons, the aliens reanimate three corpses as part of their ninth plan.

The genius of the film lays mainly in the script. The plot itself is convoluted and ridiculous, but it's the dialogue that tickles the ear. People mangle adverbs, dodge specifics, and raise the bar for obvious statements. There's dozens of gems to choose from, but my favorite is still "You see? You see? You're stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!"

Low production values also enhance Plan 9's enjoyability. An airplane cockpit is nothing more than a couple of chairs and a curtained doorway. Gravestones get knocked about like the cardboard they really are. Stock footage is liberally applied everywhere. Plan 9 is a bit too ambitious in its scope for its meager budget, and it really shows.

The Ed Wood Irregulars compose the majority of the cast. Tor Johnson essays the role of a lumbering brute with all the panache of his other lumbering brutes. Tom Keene and Duke Moore capture the manly bluster of Woodian heroes. Vampira (as Ghoul Woman) and Criswell (who introduces and narrates the film) make fine additions to the troupe.

Sadly, this is the last film appearance of horror legend Bela Lugosi. The footage wasn't even shot for Plan 9. It was for another project that fell through with Bela's death. Wood cobbled the scraps of film together and tried to construct a plotline out of the silent footage (most of which was simply Bela stalking around in his Dracula duds). The rest of his part was portrayed by Tom Mason, a chiropractor of greater height. Mason's resemblance to Lugosi apparently ends just below the eyes, as he spends the movie with the bottom half of his face covered by a cape.

Shockingly, Wood's actual direction is fairly competent. It's no worse than a dozen other contemporary science fiction films, anyway. Wood pushes in with the camera for dramatic moments and usually keeps his subjects well-framed. There are a few weird, unnecessary moments, but otherwise the pacing is solid.

Fans of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" know what to with a film such as this: heckle. I myself have developed a regular routine of catchphrases and snarky commentary that I shout out when watching. Gather a bunch of friends together, pop Plan 9 in, and have a lot of fun. You won't regret it.

I've been here all night wondering what the hell smells so bad in my unit - it turns out it was the sweaty shirt on my back.

I was sitting here wasting time waiting for my dinner to cook. For my next trick I'll actually take my dinner off the benchtop and put it in the oven. Hopefully it will cook much quicker there than it has been. :|

I'm an idiot.

Perhaps it is because I am a Caucasian and struggle to tell a lot of the subtle differences between people of a different race than mine, as most other races do with mine of course, but how can this guy claim these jokers are supposedly aliens who kidnapped him?

Now Australia has another person hostage in Iraq. Andrew Downer seems to be going around almost gloating that we have a captive it is as if Australia has grown up and has finally been noticed by the terrorists. Why are we always "Look at me! Look at me!" ? Is having terrorists pick on your country men really something to be proud of?

It's currently raining in "the OC" and apparently the joke isn't lost on the producers and screen writers either. "i don't believe it's raining in the OC!" - now if they could keep that level of sarcasm flowing through into other aspects of it then we'd be onto a comedy winner.

Ah it's been a good day. I had to drop off the car at the "depot" for a service. It turned out that when they told me to drop it off at the "depot" that what they really meant was at "the car dealer" to do the service. So finally I make it to the car dealer. The car dealer says that he can drop me off the "driver" just got back. So he quickly runs out the back and has four (4) people running around like chooks with their heads chopped off trying to find me one (1) person to drive me back. Four (4) people to find one (1) free person? The irony.

Another customer there had pre-arranged for a van for the day while they did his car service because he had to do his chicken delivery run. So there he is with a van full of cooked chickens and another two (2) people trying to work out what loaner car they can give him. After ten (10) minutes of running around they come back with a brand-new black mercedes 4wd. My ride still not there I helped him load up his mercedes with half-cold cooked chickens and he gave me a lift. Those chickens will be travelling in all leather interior luxury today.

This afternoon, at 3pm, half an hour after the car was meant to be dropped off I checked to see where the car was. They would drop it off within the hour. On the hour I checked again. They said it will be dropped off within half an hour. I checked again. They said it had been dropped off at 1:30 pm to the depot. The depot closed at 3:30pm. So there I am 100 km's from home with no way of getting back.

Taree Motorama sucks cock!

At least 33 Australians have been wrongfully detained by their own immigration department in the past two years and others mistakenly deported, sparking fresh criticism of Australia's tough immigration detention policy.(www.swissinfo.org)

Go Australia! Before long we'll be sending those pesky Anglo's back to England where they belong!

I got this stupid V8 juice - the vegetable version. It tastes like watered down tomato sauce. Apparently one (1) glass of it per day is equivalent to three (3) serves of vegetables. I for one would rather the vegetables - so now I've watered it down with pineapple juice. I figured it's something that will be sweet, relatively healthy in low-doses, and make my urine smell like pineapple - so it's win-win-win.

The last overseas trip I had I got a call from my mother - this was unusual because I had been calling her regularly just to keep her mind at ease because I knew that she would be finding it hard to sleep at night worrying about me. This call was about my pet dog, Spike, and that he had to be put to sleep because he was in so much pain. I was really sad. He had been alive as long as my cousin had, however, unlike my cousin Spike was a friend who you could rely on. He had been there with me for 3/4 of my life. Now he was gone - and I didn't even get to say good bye to him. What made it worse was that he didn't get the chance to die of natural causes - or even the option to choose whether to live or die. His life was taken from him.

After coming back to Australia and home for a few months. I was driving in my car and noticed that there was Spike's hair all through it. I made a joke about how he must be haunting me - then my father blurts out: "That's probably from when I took Spike out to Wal's in your car to shoot him!". Sensitivity is something my father has never had. His straight forward honest approach is both refreshing and brutal. Afterwhich my mother quickly responded with: "Peter! Don't make jokes about that!". My mother's attempts like that at kerbing my father's tongue only ever seem to egg him on in an almost rebellious fashion.

After first being in shock - I was again crying. Not only had they taken my pet dog's life before his time without him getting the chance to even choose whether or not to die - but the last thing Spike would have seen was MY FUCKING CAR. MY CAR - the car that he had always associated with me taking him for a walk or a jog or a car ride or a trip to our Grandmother's (I say our - because he was my brother) or a visit from me. Now my car was nothing to him more than a hearse.

I wish I had gotten the chance to say goodbye to him before he went. I wish they had used any other car to take him to his death bed other than mine. I know it was for the best. I only wish that my family members get the same opportunity when their time comes.

Now tell me - what exactly is this story meant to be saying:

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Nineteen elementary schoolchildren who were pricked with a needle by another student are taking strong drugs to fight HIV after one of the children tested positive for the virus, officials said.

Although authorities said the odds of the other children getting HIV from the needle were extremely low, the drugs would reduce the amount of the virus in the blood or slow the progress of the disease. The drugs do not cure HIV or prevent its transmission.

"It may be in there, but it never gets a chance to set up cells in your body," said Roger Pomerantz, head of the infectious-disease division at Jefferson Medical College.

The 8-year-old girl who stuck her Taylor Elementary schoolmates Wednesday was suspended and will probably be moved to another school, officials said. They were unsure why she pricked the other students with her mother's diabetes testing needle.

Authorities have ruled out the possibility that the child who tested positive for the virus, which causes AIDS, could have been infected by the needle prick.

So 19 children were pricked with a needle, which authorities confirmed did not have HIV, and one of the children that was pricked, coincidently has been confirmed with having HIV. There are medical drugs that help slow the virus. Is this just an advertisement thinly veiled as a news story? or a scare-mongering campaign thinly veiled as a news story?