all growed up

Happy Birthday (you grumpy old b*stard)

Today is my blog's birthday. October 10th, so that makes it a "Libra." Let's see now: librans are charming, diplomatic and agreeable! Well, whaddaya know? How 'bout that? Sounds just like my blog :-)

S'pose it's time to do my teary-eyed, overwhelmed, gasping-for-air Academy Award winning acceptance-type speech, where I effusively thank my producer, director, screenwriter et al.

Nga mihi: Special acknowledgments

First, I'd like to thank Adolph Fiinkensein, whom I revere as my blog-daddy; the one who initially inspired me to start moaning blogging. I'm Adolph's evil cyber-spawn. To all of you out there who hate me and find me crude and offensive: blame him! Salutations also to all the fine folk at Sir Humphrey's.

I'd also like to thank:

* a certain libertarian cheeky bugger ;-) whose musings on art, politics, architecture, philosophy, and what-have-you are always endlessly entertaining.

* my good Ozzy pal who has always been helpful, supportive and a top bloke. Cheers, mate!

* my American friend (whom I've met previously as "esgaroth" and who knows me as "piripi") whose heart is as big as Texas!

* my fellow Welly-ite, Mr J. Jangles, a guru under whom I sought enlightenment and clarity (and just ended up more confused). A humorous oasis in the desert of earnest seriousness that is the kiwi blogosphere.

* Oswald and Murray who, imo, embody the authentic kiwi straight talker. A grateful memento that not everyone in NZ is a censorial, bleeding-heart wimp. Some folks just tell it like it is. Long live free-speech and free speakers!

* my buddy Ruth, who is possibly diametrically opposed to me on almost every single political issue. She's my daily reminder that just because you disagree with someone, that doesn't preclude friendship. I like Ruth and nothing she says (about prez Bush, Christianity, neo-cons, etc) will change that.

All about me: It's my party and I'll be as self-centred as I want to.

Before I started blogging I used to read the NZHerald online daily, get worked up over their sheer left-wing bias, deceptions and lies, and then fire off hostile emails to the editor. There's a few rules to abusing journalists.

1. Never swear
2. Never threaten them (with violence or anything else)
3. Never personally insult them

But there's still ample room to be nasty: you can criticise their work. Consult a thesaurus for synonyms with "dishonesty", "amateurism", "propaganda" etc, and then pile on the adjectives in pointed, waspish paragraphs. It is possible to be both brutal and polite. The annoying thing is that they never replied other than the automated email response. So, eventually I started ranting on a blog instead.

I decided to call the blog "Oh, Crikey!" because I thought the title "Oh, For F*ck's Sake!" [which is my typical reaction to reading msm crap] was a little bit harsh, even for a scumbag Maori such as yours truly. Has all my bleating 'made a difference'? Of course not! But it makes me feel better afterwards. Blogging is wonderfully therapeutic.

I chose the caption "beauty's where you find it..." because at the time, I was studying Madonna's Vogue video (a masterpiece of the MTV genre) and for some reason, that line got stuck in my head. That's all - there's no special significance or profound meaning behind it. I just haven't got around to changing it. Since then, like most bloggers, I just rant and rave on whatever nonsense I feel like at any particular time.

Do I seek the truth? Heck no! Why should I? We live in an age where Michael Moore can win film awards for a so-called 'documentary' and where our schools, media, and academe shamelessly churn out garbage in guise of facts. If journalists can print exaggerated rubbish daily, so can I. Besides, does anyone believe anything they read on the net? If there's a 'hierarchy of truth' in cyberspace, then blogs are situated just above spam, and just below the mendacious trash of online newspapers. People who trust blogs have a major gullibility problem, imo. I never take blogs seriously.

Do I wish to engage in debate? Hell no! I don't wish to 'converse' my with ideological opponents. Like war, I just wanna kill them. Failing that - annoy, upset or bait them. If I've managed to offend anyone (Labour voters in particular) I'll consider that a success and contentedly sigh, "Ahhh, my work here is done."

Concluding questions:
Why are you reading this? The whole blog's complete crap; you're wasting your time! There's millions of websites out there to educate, elucidate, and improve your life - this aint one of them. Y'know, perhaps NZ's slowing economy isn't really caused by over-regulation, red tape, high taxes, and other obstacles to growth. Maybe, just maybe, it's due to the non-productivity of workers spending too much time reading crap blogs and not enough actually doing something useful. Our shocking crime statistics and social anomie? Maybe our societal breakdowns are exacerbated by folk expending excessive energy in cyberspace, while neglecting their families, friends and loved ones? Time to log off, perhaps? Yes, I think so, indeed.