Jdwpom = Johnny D

Clean-up time

2008-04-26T09:59:00.005+12:00

So I decided to clean up that Mad World thing I did a while ago, and here's the end ersult. A little more 'oomph' in it, and only enough timing issues to give the song a little character.

I was going to try and line up everything in the first verse right onto the beat, but there's something about it being slightly rag-time that makes it have that nice, depressing, 'Mad World' vibe about it which I quite like. It tightens up nicely for the second verse, which dose change the feel of things in my opinion.

I should really stop yabbering on, just listen to it and see what you reckon.

Pop Quiz, Asshole...

2008-03-27T03:56:00.007+13:00

A young lady and young lad are about to embark on their first date, and, as is always the case, the young lady is still getting prepared when the young lad (with all the usual 'young lad' ideas of what to do with the young lady) arrives to pick her up. Introductions have been made, and he now has to endure the twenty questions from her father.

"So, you do understand that my daughter is in the top of every one of her classes?"

"Yes sir. She's quite the genius"

"What about yourself, are you doing well in school?"

Lying, the kid slickly replies "I'm not such a brightly-shining star as your daughter, sir, but I can hold my own in school"

"I understand she's not the prettiest girl in the school, what with the acne and all, but do you, you know, find her attractive? Physically?"

Once again, thinking quickly, the boy says "Those cute braces and thick glasses are kinda cute to me, actually"

In all honesty, this girl could be the stand-in for Ugly Betty, but this guy was out to get laid, and knew this girl was desperate. The father, sensing something is amiss (the loud car and backwards baseball cap were some of the more subtle clues), decides to lay down the law.

"Well you have to understand, I don't want some idiot to end up dating my daughter and distracting her from her studies, so if you could just solve for x in the equation 'Two x squared plus three x squared equals twenty', I'd be happy to let you take her out tonight."

The lad's jaw drops. The father grabs a small piece of paper and writes it down for him

2x² + 3x² = 20

The kid realises this is do or, ahem, 'not do' time, and asks for a calculator. The father obliges, and after a few minutes the boy triumphantly yells out.

"4!"

The father grabs the boy by the ear, drags him to the door, and promptly kicks him out the house, as the boy falls over on the porch, the father says one thing before slamming the door shut.

"You did real well, but you didn't think to get the root of the square."

Yip, I'm alive

2008-02-29T21:21:00.003+13:00

Really, I'm still breathing, I've just been, umm, busy.

Anyhow, I plopped this out, dredged it from the sewers and decided to slap it up here for you to laugh at. Or, if you're a masochist, you can throw it on your iPod and force-feed it to your ears over and over again.

Episode 6 - A short message

2008-02-06T14:52:00.001+13:00

Click to Play

Title says it all. (Spot the Digg user, huh?)

Dear Digg

2007-11-19T13:30:00.000+13:00

How stupid do you think we are?

Guess who's back, back again...

2007-10-16T21:08:00.000+13:00

Well, folks, I'm finally back in Wellington. After a long, arduous process involving everything from flying demons to slightly lower-flying demons, I made it here alive.

While it worries me a bit that my entire life can be packed up inside the back of a Corolla Hatch, it's certainly a liberating feeling to try and find ways to arrange such tiny amounts of stuff in a room double the size of the one it was last in. Somehow I've managed to end up with about the same amount of spare floorspace, which is the sort of spatial wizardry that'd even get Doctor Who's head in a spin.

The trip down was certainly fun, with a friend driving me down (this is where the low-flying demon comes in, folks) in record time. Considering his car was carrying about it's own weight in the back end, I'm amazed it moved at all, let alone at a comfortable 160km/h. 90 round the freaking bays. The springs were certainly getting a workout, and coped beautifully – hell, I'm alive, aren't I?

So I'm now in Miramar. I haven't had time to explore the area fully, and as soon as we get a fine day where I'm not working, I'll be out and about in it. So far I've managed to find both the bottle store, and the library. Not exactly a great combination, but I'm sure this area has more to offer, right? I mean, there's the King Kong boat (which you can only stare at from the dock), the film studio (which you can sort of peer through the fence at), and Jonah Lomu's big ol' apartment (which you can sort of see if you squint just right while standing next to the King Kong boat). Plenty of sights to see.

Moving from Palmerston North, there's obviously a few things I'm going to have to get used to. First and foremost, public transport. In Palmy, you're lucky if you see a bus once an hour. The bus stops don't actually tell you when the bus is coming, so you just sit and hope, not that it matters. Odds are you just missed the bus, and with Palmy being so damn poky and small, it'd be faster to walk than wait for another bus.

Another thing to get used to is going to be the age of the population. Palmy's mostly students and school-kids, so the average age of the population (that you see out and about, anyway) is about 17. Wellington's a little more diverse – it'll be nice to hold a conversation with a group of people my own age again, instead of listening to angsty teenagers telling me how tough they have it while their $400 iPods blare into their ears. Over the months I just developed this stock line of 'It's because your parents hate you, you should move out' then they'll hopefully shut up. Starvation'll do that to a person.

Then there's the wind. Now, recently, we've had a lot of windy days in Palmy, I was getting to work by simply standing outside, holding the corners of my jacket and getting pushed where I needed to go then waiting an hour for a bus to get home, but I'd simply forgotten what a 'windy' day in Wellington is like. It's going to take a little getting used to again, particularly as my trip to and from work now involves wandering along the waterfront for about an hour.

But all in all, folks, it's damn good to be back. I intend on getting things right this time, no 'if's, no 'but's. Unles you're hot, then I might take a little bit of 'but', but with some minor misspelling.

Episode 5 - Happy Birthday

2007-09-30T00:35:00.001+12:00

Click to Play

Grab a drink before you sit down for this one.

The gist of things - fixed-up edition

2007-09-28T06:25:00.001+12:00

I've just realised that i haven't really explainod what this is all about to the public at large, and most of you can't see a good reason for me to stay awake for 40 hours.

Trust me, it's for a good cause.

See, for the last four years or so, I've worked the same job - McDonald's Bitch Boy - and sure, I've done so in two different stores, in two different citiwa, but I'm finally done. Four years is more than enough for me.

In that time I've been to a financial zero more times than I can remember, and at one point was so far in the red, from trying to change jobs, that I was reliant on my parents to bail me out. That 'bailing out' ended up amounting to two weeks living with them, then being thrown out on my far with no ceremony whatsoever. So, obviously, the first place I could find work where there was a chance of being promoted quickly to a decent wage was good old Mickey D's, starting at the bottom of the food again all over again. Fun fun...

And i'm done with it. Palmerston North just wasn't 'doing it' for me, to say the least I can, so I've decided to move back to Wellington. And good old Ronald's bankrolling the operation.

After working until 11pm last night, then catching a 6:20am train to Wellington - sans sleep - I will be doing what is known in the business as an O.J.E. - On the Job Experience - where I basically get to work a couple of hours in the store to prove my worth, and should I do so, walk out with a job. I have the accommodation sorted, I even have an attractive young woman to atempt to win the heart of, but without an income, it's all for naught.

All this will be followed by a work-mate's 21st, keeping me up unil at least 3am Saturday morning. Having last risen from slumber at 10am Thursday morning, this will equate to around 41 hours. Odds are, I''m going to pus for 42, just because I'm geeky like that, and think that number's funny.

Wish me luck, folks, because I need this for the sake of my sanity.

testing the tool for emailing in blog posts

2007-09-27T14:14:00.001+12:00

Sorry guys - no content here, just making sure I can use email to post, and that I've set everything up ok.

Then I'm headed to work.

This will be... Interesting

2007-09-27T13:34:00.000+12:00

I'm about to have a very big day. About 40 hours long, give or take, taking in a commute across half the country, a 21st birthday party, and a fair amount of work, too.

Hilarity will almost certainly ensue, so I figured I'd try this whole 'twitter' thing out. There's a handy little widget over on the left to keep you all entertained, and I'll probably throw the odd post out into the wilderness while I'm getting more and more delirious.

Watch these spaces.

On another note, it's my birthday on the 30th, and to celebrate, I've decided I'm going to pay homage to the year passed. I figure the main things in my life have been the 'net, and beer, and so will spend my day logged into every social networkingsite/IM client/any other way I can be reached that I have, while keeping a steady flow of booze going through my system. Once again, hilarity will ensue.

There'll be all sorts of fun things happening around here that day, too - so if you want to catch up, try not to forget that I live in New Zealand, and that what I call the 30th, you might call the 29th.

So, to steal a great line from someone else - Let's watch the monkey dance...

Episode Four - Shocked and confused

2007-08-29T11:00:00.001+12:00

Click to Play

This time I yammer on about what's been getting me down, and finally break my silence on the pain I've been going through recently.

Standard whiny vlog crap, really.

But wait, there's more!

2007-08-15T11:46:00.000+12:00

Was just sort of playing around, and next thing I know, this popped out.

As the kids would say, w00t!

Sorry folks

2007-08-12T08:38:00.000+12:00

I know I've been slacking on this bad boy recently. What can I say, I've been busy. Anyhow, in an effort to continue providing you with only the best entertainment I can, I'll show you what I've been up to.

This is what I like to call the 'holy crap I'm sick of constantly listening to the same two songs and need to work on something - ANYTHING - else' version.

I'll be getting my lazy butt back in front of the camera soon, and failing that, I'll type some words in for y'all to read.

Now quit whining that I never post.

Episode 3 - By Request

2007-05-26T13:02:00.001+12:00

Click to Play

An attempt to fulfill the many requests I've received thus far.

Episode 2

2007-05-13T03:03:00.001+12:00

Click to Play

Talking about...stuff.

New flat, mostly.

Marton - Umm, Intriguing

2007-05-06T17:16:00.000+12:00

So, I'm sure some of you are wondering how life in Marton's going for me.

Well, I feel this picture gives the gist of things.

Yes, that's a brick on top of some newspapers. The writing says "Please take one and pay inside at the office" or words to that effect. I would've hung around long enough to memorise them, but quite frankly, I was a little scared by the whole thing.

At the same time, the more I look around, the more I'm finding places that are very Parkour-friendly. A perfect example is these three buildings.

They're the perfect height and distance apart that jumping between them in quick succession doesn't leave you with broken legs, but there's one problem with this particular run. The building on the far right happens to be a bank. For some reason, it's usually quite difficult to get onto the roof of these places - all sorts of security devices laying around - and if you do get there, hanging around for any length of time is not a good idea. You either make that first jump, or have a lot of explaining to do.

Other than that, there's very little in the town. We have a movie theatre, but all they play is those annyoing artsy films that nobody really cares about, and we have a skatepark, which, like all skateparks, is populated by annoying teenagers who generally just get in the way. There's a fairl large number of pubs, which seems to be the only form of entertainment around for people my age, but the whole 'zero income' thing sort of lowers the appeal a little.

So now, I'm figuring out how to get the hell out of this town, as quickly as possible.

Games for the Unemployed

2007-05-04T22:57:00.000+12:00

Johnny D's Unemployment Survival Guide:

Chapter One - Not Being Bored.

Some people think that being unemployed is easy. People working 9-5's are jealous that you have the whole day to yourself, and shift workers are jealous that you get your weekends. This, unluckily, leaves you with a LOT of time to fill in, and very little money to use to fill in the time. Today, I'll offer a selection of activities you can use to entertain yourself.

Trash Collecting: Not in the "Let's tidy up" sense, but more of a "stamp collector" style. Go for rarity and quality - finding a soft drink cup from an out-of-town fast food joint is a great treasure. Items in pristine condition should go on the mantelpiece.

Cigarette Stashing: For the unemployed smoker. Take one of the empty cigarette packets you've collected in the previous activity, and hit the streets. Go up to people you don't know, and ask if they have a spare cigarette. When one is offered, thank them politely, light it, wait until they've moved out of sight, then stub it out and put it in the pack. Rules are that you can't ask the same person twice, and nobody who's seen you ask for one cigarette may see you ask for another. Extra points based on your success percentage

Booze Bonanza: Go to a bar that you don't regularly attend, somewhere where you're unknown. See if you can get enough free drinks from people you've never met to get you drunk. Don't stop when you're tipsy, try and get as wasted as you can. While this particular game gives female unemployees a bit of an advantage, men may find themselves more competitive by visiting a gay bar.

Parkour: A sport that involves no equipment other than a good pair of shoes. It is the art of moving through a space as efficiently as possible, using the environment to aid your motion, rather than being hindered by it. Practice by competing with the security guard at your local supermarket.

Staring contests: Fun for people of all ages. if you find that the people you know are not enough of a challenge for you (or are at work when you're bored), start having staring contests against animals. If you can stare down a cat, then move onto inanimate objects. Looking for a really tough opponent? Try and see who blinks first - you or the Sun.

Clean The House: If your house is clean, then consider breaking into someone else's house and cleaning it for them. Just make sure that you don't accidentally slip in the word 'out' when describing your activities to the police when they arrive.

Cloud watching: Similar to the 'Trash Collecting' activity, in that we're going for quality items here - clouds that REALLY LOOK like things. Of course, you'll never be able to share these with anyone, as you sold your camera to pay the rent about three weeks back, but at least you will have seen them.

March On Central Government: Surprisingly, if you pick something that people care about, and let people know that you intend to do it, they may be willing to donate money to your cause, which you can slip into your back pocket when nobody's looking. Doesn't work so well if you live in the capital, as distance is required to make any real money. Make sure you use placards to indicate your hatred for whatever policy you've chosen to hate.

Sex: Not something I personally would do just for entertainment purposes, I figure an emotional attachment is an important thing in this matter, but hell, I figure it's what all the kids are doing nowadays. Obviously, if you're unemployed, hookers are out of the question, so you'll probably have to work on getting a girl/boyfriend. If you already have one, then this task just got a lot easier.

I hope these tips go some way to easing the pangs of boredom next time you find yourself unemployed. Stay tuned for Chapter Two: How To Live On A Dollar A Day.

I have a dilemma.

2007-05-03T23:33:00.000+12:00

Again. It's becoming a bad habit of mine.

I recently stumbled upon an address. Well, I didn't so much stumble upon it as realise that I had access to it and did a quick look to see if I could find it - either way, I found an address. This address belongs to somebody I've spent a long time (coming up on the third year, now) wanting to apologise to. The basic story is that I tried to be witty around her (I had a little bit of a crush on her) and messed up badly. I was scared, and didn't think straight, and spent a long time basically being quite offensive, and definitely creepy.

So now I have her address. I'd like to mail her a letter telling her how I didn't want to upset her (quite the opposite actually) and that I'm very sorry for all the trouble I caused back when, but I fear that I may have been forgotten as time rolls on. If she's forgotten about my transgressions, I certainly don't want to remind her of them, but I feel she deserves the apology.

To this day, whenever I look at a girl and think about whether or not I'd like to date her, I still compare them to Brenda (name obviously changed, for privacy reasons) and have yet to this day to find somebody who could capture my attention the way this woman did. She was beautiful beyond all belief, but was as kind and gentle as could be. Removing her heart and distilling it couldn't make it any more pure. This woman was simply perfection, yet somehow that word doesn't quite describe her.

And now I have her address right in front of me.

I'm scared. I've wanted little more for 2 years than to apologise to her, and now that I have the means to do so, I'm worried that I'll just be ignored, or worse, hated more as she remembers all the trash I talked. I know what I should do, but that doesn't make this any easier.

I guess I'll just procrastinate some more over it, let it slip for another six months, then think about it some more. Maybe by then I'll at least have the letter typed up.

I miss my 46 & 2

2007-04-28T11:20:00.000+12:00

46.2 Kilobits per second, that is - my internet connection speed at my old house. Now, what with me living in the middle of nowhere and all, my dial-up's getting 32ish, tops.

That's a 25% reduction in speed, and that's from an already low dial-up speed. It's enough to reduce a nerd to tears, almost.

Anyhow, I'm not dead, contrary to popular belief. I'm at my folks place in Marton (hit Google maps - make sure you tell google it's in New Zealand, or things'll get messy) and my options for getting a hold of the outside world are pretty thin on the ground. My folks are anti-tech and the nearest phone port to where I've managed to convince them to set my computer up is about 15 metres away.

A quick purchase at the local hardware store, and I'm back online, but only when nobody's around - the wire running from the garage, through the lounge, into the hallway is a bit of a give-away that I'm doing something they don't want me to.

Nonetheless, I'm capable of getting here and saying things, so I intend to as often as possible. My main priority is finding work, as I'm going to need a vehicle if I'm not going to lose my mind. This town isn't so much a one-horse town, but there's something like 5 pubs all of which run bottle stores, and the population doesn't seem to stretch into double-digit thousands. That's a pretty good ratio.

So yeah, my posting will be sporadic at best, but I'll at least have plenty of time to work on quality over quantity.

But for those who're curious, this is what most of the scenery consisted of on the drive from Lower Hutt to here. There were a few towns in between all of this (though if you took longer than 60 seconds to go through each one, it was due to heavy traffic), and my phone's camera doesn't do justice for how boring the view was, but imagine two hours of this...

Episode One: At Last.

2007-04-20T15:10:00.001+12:00

Click to Play

Note to self. Smashing a champagne bottle over your computer is not a good idea.

Quit being down, dammit.

2007-04-20T12:17:00.000+12:00

Well, I've been thinking quite hard about sadness recently, for some reason. A friend of mine is going through quite a bit of depression at the moment, and I figured I'd share with you some of the tricks I've been using to help them through. I won't claim to be an expert, but these, combined with general support and comfort, seem to be getting somewhere.

One that I learned a long time ago is forcing people to smile, and I don't mean by constantly being funny, or doing heaps of nice stuff. I mean threatening them with a really hard punch on the arm if you catch them not smiling. Make a joke out of it, but at the same time, make them realise that even if they're faking it, a smile is important.

While this sounds like poppycock, studies have shown that faking a smile for 20 minutes a day is enough to actually cure chronic depression. I'll find a citation sometime soon, but the stats were amazing. They took a bunch of clinically depressed people, and pointed them at a mirror, and told them to hold a smile for 20 minutes (? Help me out here, Fuzz) every day. They would force these people to smile, yelling at them if they stopped. After three weeks of this, 80% of those on the test didn't require their meds any more, and all but one person had reduced their medication.

Even faking a smile can make you happy. Just make sure that when you're forcing this on them, that you're smiling too, or they may get the wrong message.

Also, physical activity is shown to help relieve depression - mucks with your endorphins. Find a sport you can both play - it doesn't have to be much - table tennis is usually a good option, just make sure it's something you can have a fair competition at, that gets them moving. If you're vastly better than your friend at whatever you end up doing, dumb yourself down so your friend can see a chance of winning. Don't make it obvious, and don't complain about every 'error' you make. Just make sure it looks like you're giving it your all to barely keep up, but not so much that your friend feels your friend is inconveniencing you. Think of the perfect sportsman - getting his ass whooped and saying 'Wow, that was a great shot', that sort of thing.

Another good option for physical activity is dancing. Get your friend out to a pub somewhere with a dance floor. If their meds don't allow for alcohol (they rarely do) then maybe take classes with them. My recommendation would be to pick something ballroom-flavoured, and then once you have a working knowledge of something, make it interesting. A great idea is to ballroom dance to completely inappropriate music. It sounds silly, but there's nothing quite as fun as trying to waltz to System of a Down's "Toxicity", or Linkin Park's "From the Inside", or pulling a foxtrot to something by Korn. You'll find examples from your own musical tastes, I'm certain.

What matters is making it fun. If being happy seems like a chore, or hard work, then it isn't going to stick. Experiment, let me know what you come up with.

Boring 'Just-like-everyone-else' blog post

2007-03-20T02:06:00.000+12:00

It's 2:09am on a Tuesday and I can't sleep. I have an interview in the morning which is right now the most important thing in my life, but I just can't get to sleep to be ready for it. My head is running through every possible scenario.

What if they hit me with a trick question?
Is it a practical interview?
Will I be alone, or with a group?

I'm so busy mentally preparing myself, that my brain isn't going to be prepared for tomorrow! I need this job so badly to keep my sanity. My flatmates have already started working out contingency plans to cover my share of the rent while I'm unemployed, and while I can't thank them enough for thinking about it, my own sense of pride is driving me completely. I don't want to get to the point where I'm totally reliant on my friends just for survival.

I'm scared witless.

Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention, that job I mentioned a few lines back? Yeah, got fired. Not sure if I'm allowed to say what happened, and I'm getting so many mixed-up stories about how it all went down that I just don't give a cat's ass any more.

But in my short time there I made some good friends. People I trust wholeheartedly (Oh, yeah, that would be part of the problem...) and have real faith in. They've treated me well, and have acted admirably when asked not to discuss the whole issue, for the most part. These people supported me through this like I couldn't believe, and at the exact moment everything hit me, they were right there for me, putting up with my crap. I don't need to name names, you all know who you are.

Then there's the people I've never met. These are the people I've spoken to only through the medium which you are reading this. My 'nerd' friends as I call them. These people are a wide community, who took me under their wing(s) and helped ease me into their little space on the web. Now I find myself helping ease others in, and though the original reason for going to this place is now over and done, the community still stands. It was a joy to speak to you all, despite the fact that you were all drunk out of your minds. To know that people who've never even shaken my hand are willing to give me a simple phone call when things are going wrong for me means so much more than you could imagine.

Then there's that one friend, we all have one of these, at least when we're single, and it's the friend who means a little more than the others. In my case, this person also belongs to one of the aforementioned groups (hint: It's not one of my flatmates - they're all guys...) and doesn't actually know what I think of her. No matter how hard I try to find fault with this woman, she continues to be everything a man could dream about. Beautiful, charming, fun to be around and stimulating intellectually, I find myself completely at a loss as to what to do. I'm currently in the least impressive state possible ("Yeah, just got fired...) and until I'm back on top of my game, I won't dare take any risks. I fear by then I'll never have a chance.

I should probably just give up on the idea while I still have an awesome friend.

In summation: I'm learning a lot about friendships at the moment. How deep they can go, how fickle they can be, and how emotionally volatile they can become. The people I call my friends have broken me, caught me as I fell, nurtured me as I recover and are helping me take my first steps all over again. The people we trust are the best people for bringing you out of any situation.

But that trust isn't always justified, and that's when the worst possible pain can be dealt to a human being.

It's also 2:48, and I have a job interview in 7 hours. 2 1/2 hours of that time will be required to prep and get myself there. I'm so screwed.

Open Letter to Hosea 'Ze' Frank

2007-03-13T22:42:00.000+13:00

Dear Ze,

While it pains me to say I am not a long-time fan, only seeing the show for the first time in Sepember, and at that point exploring your body of work, you've helped me make great change in my life.

While it sounds stupid to say, the connection you've provided me with over this time has been invaluable. From watching you speak into a camera, talking to everybody who'll listen, down to a very short email conversation, (Project Anarchy gonna kick off any time soon?) and a quick forum argument, (I'm still sorry for offending) you've proven time and again how much you really care for the communities you've created.

You and the people that I've gotten to know through you showed me respect when I had none for myself, and have helped me turn my life around almost completely. I've gone from working at a fast food joint to working for the biggest company in my country. I've gone from being almost completely demoralised, doing only what needed to be done to survive, to understanding that I'm capable of greatness. You took me from the edge of death and helped me understand that everyone is capable of making it.

Your history inspired me totally. A man willing to give up what would have been an incredibly promising career to do something that he loved, and make enough money off it to live. You went through pain, ridicule, losing 1/5th of your income just to be where you are today, in the hearts and minds of thousands.

I will never be able to thank you enough for what you've done for me, and what others have done in your name. I hope that one day I will be worthy of working with you, rather than simply looking up to you and saying "One day".

While I know that the end of 'the show' is not the end of Ze Frank, I fear that it will be the end of your accessibility. Where things are now, any individual can drop you an email, and know that they will receive a reply from the person they wish to speak to. I'm writing this now, understanding that when you're a big star, and all your fans know you will be, you won't be so easy to reach. We'll have to deal with your P.A. sorting out your email for you, and many notes for you will be lost amongst the clutter of fanmail.

Thankyou for everything so far, and I eagerly await your next idea. I hope it's as great as everything thus far. Jump the shark, and I promise to be there to let you know.

Yours

Johnny D (aka:jdwpom@pretty much everywhere)

Battle of the Sexes? Why? Oh please, why?

2007-03-05T12:09:00.000+13:00

I recently entered into a discussion about the superiority of the various genders.

This was an interesting argument to watch from the sidelines. People were fighting tooth and nail, and not just for their own gender. Men were defending women, and insulting themselves, women were, well actually, the women were just talking about how great they are, come to think of it... I suspect the guys were just trying to earn brownie points...

I'm a firm believer that there is no 'better' or 'worse' gender, simply different areas of specialisation. Some people feel that because males are better than women at, say, sports, they are therefore more physically fit than men, and thusly better equipped to survive. Some feel that due to a woman's ability to focus on multiple things at once, they are better equipped to survive.

Has it occurred to anybody that we're both required for the natural progression of the human race? It all reminds me of racism, to a certain extent. People unwilling to accept the differences between each other and understand that we're all human.

It's stupid and childish, get over it.

I have a simple test to prove this. Take two pins, prick them into the palm of two hands - one male, one female, (attatched to living human benigs, please), with equal force. See who cracks first. You'll probably be surprised. For the second part of the test, take the owners of those two hands, and put them into a boxing match. The answer to this one's a little more obvious.

Repeat this series of tesst as much as you like, and on average, the scores will come out 1-all. I think i've proven my point about different areas of specialty. Now, can we all shut up and work on proliferating our species?

Assumption. It's a Mother.

2007-03-04T08:43:00.000+13:00

So, I ran out of credit on my prepaid cellphone. Now, I know I just finished spouting off about how much money I'm making in my new job, but, well, I'm a bad spender.

Many people are incredibly angry with me for not contacting them in the last few weeks, including one in particular who matters more than most.

Now these people assumed the worst about me, that I'd just chosen not to reply to them. They just figured I was too busy to deal with them, and hadn't considered all the options. This is normal. As another example, I assumed they would just know I was out of credit. It happens a lot.

So here's the rub, when you're out of communication with somebody, what do you do to make sure you're not getting the wrong idea about their intentions? This applies to the internet too, people have been talking about being taken out of context, due to the inability to express tone via text. The first thing people do is assume the worst when they can't decide, though I find this problem is more prevalent in men than women. Wish I knew why.

So, here's today's homework. I want you to assume the best, in every situation. Everything that may or may not be happening, I want you all to sit there and figure that the best possible thing is happening. I'm not asking you to be stupid and unreasonable. Assuming that the one-ton weight heading in your direction isn't going to hit you wouldn't be smart, but when something looks like it's going wrong, I want you to realise that fretting about it and getting all worked up isn't going to solve anything. Ever.

Being angry at somebody who may have wronged you isn't good enough. Wait until you are dead certain that they're trying to rip you off/insult you/defame you before taking any sort of negative action. Listen to all the other sides of these stories, and hold judgement of any person or situation until you have some factual evidence of what's going on.

Loving the job market

2007-02-22T09:09:00.000+13:00

After 3 long years working at the bottom of the "food" chain at a McDonald's "Restaurant", I finally gave up. After learning the job from the ground up, taking in every piece of information I could about what was expected of me and generally working to be the best in the business, things all went horribly wrong.

Within the management team there were a group of people who understood that I knew what I was doing. It was believed by most of the team that because I was so utterly quick, I must be taking some sort of dodgy shortcut, or many of them. The people who understood me were high enough up in the rankings that they could keep me covered from taking any flak. They kept me informed of changes to the rules, so that I wasn't accidentaly breaking any of them, and generally talked people out of trying to cause me trouble.

Trouble is, they all quit within a two-week period.

A week after the last one left, my shifts were cut. In half. No warning, no discussion about what I was doing wrong that made them choose to punish me, just a sudden lack of income. Luckily, I was already earning far more money than I needed, and, assuming this was a one-off event, I rode it through. The next week, when those hours were cut in half, I knew things were about to get messy.

Time for this rat to jump ship.

So, on a Monday, I sent out an application to a local telco, looking to get myself a door-to-door sales role. The money was excellent and it looked to be a very interesting role. Before midday on Tuesday, I'd been offered the job, on one proviso, I had to buy a car. By the next Monday. With no capital.

By the time it got to Thursday I realised I had no hope of meeting the deadline, so I went and hunted down another job. The advertisement read: Entry level call centre. I figured, 'why not?' and sent off an email. By the end of Friday, I had the job, start Monday. Unbeknownst to me, this "entry level' job was in the largest telco in the nation, which, also happens to be the largest, most profitable company in the nation as well.

Oooooohhh, yeah...

I've taken a 30% increase in my wage, for more reasonable hours than the relatively random shifts I used to be on, I have my own desk, get more breaks in less time than I used to, am allowed to pretty much do whatever I like between calls as far as the internet is concerned, (of course there's the standard 'inappropriate material' clause, and I have to be a lot more security-concious than on my home PC, but hey, they're letting me write in my blog...) and work with a friendly group of people who don't mind listening to my ideas..

In just under two week's time here, I've received full training and been throw right into the fray. The job isn't simple, but it's more about quick-thinking than the ability to concentrate. There's a good level of variety, and for the firs time in a long time, I feel as though everything I do actually contributes to a larger whole, and that contribution is actually appreciated, and not just to a few people!

So, the summary. In less than 7 days I managed to get two jobs, both excellent, considering my lack of work experience in any field, and ended up working the one that provides me with a massive amount of perks.

So, is this karma? Intelligent design at work? God's grand plan? I just don't know, at the time that I needed salvation, I received it. After doing some pretty solid physical labour for 3 years, I now get to sit on my butt and do pretty much whatever I want, so long as I do my job, which allows me plenty of free time. For example, I browsed Wikipedia for entertainment yesterday. Today, I'm writing this. I love it.

Thankyou God/Allah/Ishnu/Steve/Whoever else wants to claim having a helping hand in this.

Love you guys. Gals. Beings of indeterminate gender...

Aaaight. Respect to the duckie massive...

2007-01-24T01:16:00.000+13:00

So now that we've learned that love requires respect, let's try and mess with respect.

Ok, first things first. I'm angry at the moment, so the quality here's going to drop. Big time. The reason I'm currently upset is that somebody who's helped me make some very big changes in my life, and has been my inspiration for some time now, misunderstood something I said, and is angry at me for it. I've tried explaining what I meant, and seem to be getting nowhere.

This person asked me what I intend to do to win people's respect, hence the interest in the topic.

How do you earn somebody's respect? I guess respect indicates at least a minimal level of trust. You have to trust in what a person says/does/thinks for you to respect them, right? So how can you earn that trust from somebody? We humans look up to people for many different reasons, whether it be beauty, perceived status, or a person's ability to perform a certain task.

Like how you look up to the guy who's worked at your job for the last x years and knows all the ins and outs of the job, including all the sneaky tricks to making your job easier that your boss doesn't want you to know. This man's obviously thought long and hard about his job to come up witht these little tricks, and his performance reflects that fact.

But what about if you want to earn the respect of somebody who already looks down on you? What if you want that man who's been at the job to give you, the newbie, a chance? It can be a tough balance. You've got to take all the crap this guy will almost cetainly give you about doing things wrong, and he almost certainly won't share his secrets of how to do things if he already has disdain for you, but you've also got to assert yourself enough that he won't just push you around forever.

Doing either of these things too much will result in the guy not giving two craps about you, or at worst, outright despising you. Respect can be tough to earn from people if they're not willing to give it you you.

Then there's a different kind of people. The kind who feel that respect isn't earned, but is something everybody has a right to. These are the people who will come up to you and say "If you want to take extra time on your break, just 'forget' to clock back in, the company doesn't keep tabs on that type of break, and you'll still be paid for it!" on your first day.

I try my best to be one of these people, who give everyone every opportunity, but I'll admit that I make mistakes. I give chances to people who don't deserve it. I defend people who clearly don't deserve it, just in case my looking after them will result in a change in their personality. It never does.

It's hard not to get cynical when you get let down by these people. You offer them everything you have, and they just end up making you look bad with them. Sooner or later you just want to give up on everyone - leave them be to find out how to do things better by themselves, and that's when you start losing the respect of the people who did look up to you in the first place.

So now I must try and patch up things with my acquaintance. I've explained and apologised, but heard no word from him since. I hope he gets what i mean in the end.

Until then, I'm sorry, HJF. I really didn't mean it in a bad way, man.

What is love?

2007-01-23T03:54:00.001+13:00

So, I got to thinking just recently about exactly what love is. How do we find it? Where does it come from? Nobody's ever been able to answer this before, and I'm now going to see if I can come to any sort of conclusion here.

Oh yeah, early warning here, I'm in a serious mood - this is probably going to be quite boring.

So, love, at it's most base level, is a form of respect. You love somebody because some quality or another that this person has interests you and you look up to them because of it. These can range from things like being a friendly, caring person to having nice teeth. I'm not saying that you can love a person for having nice teeth, but it can be part of what you find appealing about them.

Love is when you have many of these little things, all rolled into one, so the person you fall in love with may be a friendly, caring person with nice teeth. Which brings us back to the respect thing.

Why is respect important? Because without it, people in love would just be friends. The repect we're talking about for love is a deep, meaningful, multi-layered respect, involving caring about the individual's feelings, often more than your own.

This is called 'compromise' and while many relationships consist of only one person compromising, and doing it often, there are lots out there who work together to come to an agreement on these sorts of things. So who's happier?

In a relationship where one person consistently denies themselves their opinion for the sake of their partners, you'll find that they don't mind too much, as seeing their partner happy makes them feel good, and everybody wins in the end. In relationships where both partners compromise, nobody ever actually gets what they want, both people just get a watered-down version of their wishes.

Me, I'm a compromiser. I don't care enough about anything to make a big thing about it. Which is probably something that's not making me look too good right now...

It's the Johnny D show, with your host, Johnny D!!!

2006-12-05T12:40:00.000+13:00

Well folks, this celebrates the first profile created AFTER I created a viewable backup of the old ones. I've mucked with the system a lttle, and using a blog website for it has proven to be quite a simple way of handling things. Plus I can throw bonus stuff on there much easier.

So, seeing as this particular 'post' will be quite early on in the piece, I figure I may as well tell you all a bit about myself. Simply because this is probably the LAST time I will do so unless you send me a message.

See, I'm not the 'talk about me' type. I just don't like blowing my own trumpet. Sure, I'm handsome, I know it, but you've got a photo up there to make your own judgements with. I'm witty, but the fact that you're still reading this profile proves that. I'm smart, but I'm sure you've already noticed the perfect spelling, astounding punctuation and stupendous diction. (Teehee, he said 'dic')

Then it hit me! Nobody ever actually reads these things anyway! We almost completely ignore the words on our screens to try and search for some hidden meaning. 'Reading between the lines,' so to speak.

I do it to every one of you, and I would expect nothing less from you either. Sample profile -

Im a real laxed out guy whos just looking for someone to chat too.

- Now, if he's everything he's saying he is, he'll probably be quite a nice person to get to know, but let's face it, this man is obviously an idiot. He has trouble with apostrophe usage, and I'm sure there should be a comma in there somewhere.

Example 2 -

I don't really know what I'm meant to put here, but I'm just a fairly average guy who's simply here to look for someone to chat to.

- So, this guy's proven he's reasonably intelligent, as the spelling and grammar are great. So if he's so smart, how did he not know what to type when the instructions are right above where he's typing?

Example 3 -

I'm looking to get laid. Asap.

- Now, you've got to love that guy's honesty, but let's face it, he's just after the same thing all the other guys were.

Yip, you smelled it as bad as I did. The stench of a guy who wants to bone you, liberally sprayed over all three profiles. What was the give-away? Well, how many of you know a guy who likes to chat? At all? To anybody?

Hidden meaning? I rest my case.

So, how can you tell I'm not the same?

Simple, send me a message. The only way to be absolutely certain that any of these people are even the slightest bit friendly is to send them a message, and that's what I've been doing with you ladies as well. I'm giving everybody I see here the benefit of the doubt, and expect nothing less from everybody else out there.

"Why would you do that?" I hear you ask?

Well, quite frankly, I'm a really nice guy, who's just looking for someone to chat with. Sure, mostly women, but that's simply because talking to men at a dating site just, well, doesn't feel right. It'd be like buying some guy you don't know a drink at the bar.

Awkward.

So, anyway, find out what I'm really like. Send me an email. By now you know more about me than most people's profiles provide.

There's a lot of lines there to read between...

- Johnny D

Duz Ths Mk Me Luk Intllgnt?

2006-11-17T15:35:00.000+13:00

Aftr wht appers 2b vry lil delbrashun, th ppl n chrge of r cuntry hv dcidd 2 allw NCEA studnts to use txt-spk n there exams ths yr. So, as a tst, Im gun c if I cn stll lk lk thrs a brn btwen my ears whle talkng like ths.

Nw, th resun prvded 4 lttng kids do ths s tht txt-spk hs bcum th 2nd lngage o mny teens ova th nation. Lgclly spking, this wud mean th kids hu spk, say, Samoan n Maori as 2nd lngages shud b able 2 use thse lngages in thr exams. But wht if the markr don't spk ther lngage? Theyd b prtty scrood.

Nxt thng, txt-spk is quite n ntrstng lngage. A tru phonetic lngage, wth a mnmlistc qualty not prsnt n in mst lngages. Dne properly (whch I'll admt, I'm not.) it's quite ez to undrstand, as nly carflly chsn lttrs r rmvd frm th wrds, 2 mke it easir 2 read.

Th trble is, thr r many ppl tryn 2 use txt-spk hu dnt no th basics of splling, nd rmve th rng lttrs, rsltng in a mss o randm incnprhnsble crp. Hw do thy xcpct rspct frm the ppl markng thr exms whn all thre doin is shwin tht thy cnt spk basc Nglsh?

Th wrst thng is tht txt-spk, whle a gr8 way to sve tm whn u hv 9 kys 2 spll wth, is qute slw 2 wrte wth. 100's of yrs hve gone behnd dvlpng th Nglsh lngage, nd it wrks quite wll thnku.

Nw, I wrk wth a lt of kids tkng xms ths yr, nd hvnt fnd 1 yt hu thnks ths is a gud idea. Thy hv bsclly sed tht if thy fnd out tht 1 of their m8s hd usd txt-spk n thr xms, thy'd lose all rspct frm thm. So, if evry1's agnst th idea, hu th hell came up wth it?

So kids, if u wanna lk intllgnt in ur xams ths yr, 4 Chrst's ske, BEING INTELLIGENT IS PROBABLY YOUR BEST OPTION!!! LEARN THE BASICS OF YOUR FREAKIN' LANGUAGE!!!

Death, Taxes and Me. The only things you can rely on...

2006-11-14T17:47:00.000+13:00

After much deliberation, I've decided I want to get into politics.

This wasn't an easy decision. I'm not the sort of person who wants to do the local politics thing, and I'm quite sick of workplace politics, but I look at the way our central government is run, (Well, let's be serious, it's really only walked.) and think I could make my mark in the history of our nation.

See, when I was but a wee young lad, There was a political party in existence that I looked up to more than any other. A party with visions for this country that were so grand in their scale, ideas so creative and carefully thought-out that I knew I had to vote for them once I was of age.

I speak, of course, of the McGillicuddy Serious Party. No other party has had such wonderful election policies as:-

- Abolishing money, making chocolate fish and sand into legal tender, thus raising the wealth of our entire nation.

- Replacing the Royal New Zealand Armoured Corps with Mounted Knights, in an attempt to modernise out armed forces a little.

- Post-natal abortion, which would make abortion illegal, but any mother would be allowed to kill her child up to the age of 18, provided she did it with her own hands.

- Good weather (but only if voters behaved).

- To break their promises.

These groundbreaking ideas made me realise that there was only one party worth voting for. Sure, Labour and National wanted to cut taxes, like usual, lower unemployment, again, and to spend more money on health and teaching, just like last time.

The political wing of Clan McGillicuddy were far more original, providing solutions to our great country's problems that were from well outside the box.

Okay, in all seriousness, they were a great bit of fun, satirising government just enough that you could look at the serious issues from a different angle. Their party slogan says it all:-

"If you want to waste your vote, vote for us."

Many a time I've sat here looking at the state of things, and come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter which of the big two you vote for, as the results will be about the same. At least, if we live in a democracy, they should be, as the parties should be listening to the people and working in our best interests, right? Surely there can't be two 'best' ways, which happen to be diametrically opposite, to run this nation.

This leaves a quandary, who do you vote for if you can't decide? Well, I guess if you're looking to truly waste your vote, you'd go with New Zealand First, or one of the religious parties. The odds of these people running the nation are right up there with the McGillicuddy's, and the McGillicuddy Serious Party doesn't even exist any more.

But it just isn't the same! If I wanted to vote for a party who have outrageous schemes and stupid ideas, I'd like to vote for one that exists for the sole purpose of having them. I don't want to vote for a 'real' (or 'attempting to be real') party when I can't choose, I want to have a backup, which is why I think it's time to start a new party, with a view to making elections interesting again.

Policy ideas include:-

- Having a potato shoved up your muffler will be part of the warrant of fitness standard, in an effort to keep the noise from boyracer exhausts down. Police will be able to spot an unwarrantable vehicle quite easily, by the fact that it is moving.

- Creating jobs by removing all rubbish receptacles from the nation's sidewalks, meaning people will have to be employed to remove rubbish 24-7, especially in larger cities.

- The abolition of the Maori seats. If Maori want things equal, they can have equal, not extras...

- In an effort to lower teen pregnancy rates, Playstations will be provided to everybody aged 13-19. It takes two to tango, and the playstation will keep the boys too busy...

There are many more visionary ideas in my head, just email me to find out more about the soon-to-be great leader of our nation.

New Species Discovered!

2006-11-14T17:37:00.000+13:00

This individual is classed as an Admissibly Sentient Soul. A classic ASS can be defined better as one who is only just concious enough of the world around him to survive.

The inability of an ASS to notice the feelings of those around him often leads him to say things that can offend and disgust these people who he would usually refer to as 'friends' but these 'friends' have learned to take this sort of thing from him, and have learned that the ASS doesn't mind a taste of his own medicine.

This particular ASS is known colloquially as a 'lazy' ASS, due to his rather sloth-like nature and general inability to do anything in a hurry. His habitat has been perfectly designed for this, with both TV remote and computer keyboard within easy reach of his bed. But for sustenence, this creature of the night must hunt...

The hunting ground (known to the local tribesmen as 'The Fridge' is filled with the rotting corpses of his dead victims, and the ASS can take considerable amounts of time to find a meal that is fresh enough for his liking. This is a long and arduous process for this lazy ASS, but is rewarding in the end,and soon he settles down to feast on a lesser creature known as 'Pizza'

Some researchers have chosen to add another classification for this particular ASS, being the lazy 'good-for-nothing' ASS. These researchers have failed to see the lazy Ass' place in the evolutionary tree and feel that the species maybe extinct within a very short time, should he find a suitable mate, as an interesting quirk of the species is that once a female human has bonded emotionally with the ASS, he metamorphoses into a FELLA or 'Fully Evolved Life-Loving Animal'

This new creature is charming, friendly, generally loveable, and reciprocates any positive emotions that come its way, tenfold if they come from the human female who chose to take a chance on him when he was nothing more than a lazy good for nothing ass...

(Actually, I'm not that bad, but it sounded funny and I just rolled with the whole David Attenborough vibe... Worked out pretty well actually...)