How to be a tool

Today I didn't do much that was fun, different, original, creative, or all that amusing. One thing I did do though was watch some It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Some people told me that was a really good show. It was. I watched 4 episodes back to back, didn't get bored, and they were all equally entertaining. Anyone who hasn't watched Philly should. Making a show as funny as that must be really hard. Being funny and original on a consistent basis would be almost impossible. Even being funny inconsistently, on a one off basis, is very hard. The problem for me, what I generally consider hysterical when I think about it myself, turns out to be simply stupid and pointless when I say it, write it or do it. I am not very good at being funny. One thing I am alright at though, and through observing a few people around me, getting better at, is being a complete and utter fuckwit. So today I have decided to compile a set of steps, so beginners can learn the art of being a tool.

Step 1: Convince yourself your better than everyone else around you. Constantly remind everyone how fucking awesome you are.

Being a shit head isn't simply about what you do, its about the way in which you do it. If you want to be a complete waste of oxygen you need the attitude to complement your useless personality. To get this attitude basically you have to convince yourself, that for some reason, you are top shit. Once you have done that, go around trying to convince everyone else around you. Do everything in a cocky and annoying manner, look down on everyone around you. A really skilled pile of shit doesn't really need to do anything to be obnoxious, they only need to sit around doing nothing with a smug sense of superiority over everyone around them.

Step 2: Make things difficult for people around you.

If you can make something difficult for someone, always do so. Because your better than everyone else, everyone else's feelings are completely irrelevant to you. For example if your the head of a residential college you can decide arbitrarily to move game and TV rooms away from the main part of the college. Another thing you can do is for absolutely no reason shut of the power in those rooms at 11:00 forcing anyone watching TV to get up and use an extension cord to plug the TV into the drinks machine. By doing these things you succeed in not only making life slightly difficult for your fellow human beings, but you also succeed being a complete cunt.

Step 3: Force your opinions on others.

If someone near you decides to do something that you wouldn't personally do. For example they could wear a hat that you don't like the color of, or they might light a cigarette. Don't accept that person's right to choose what the fuck they do with their time, force your opinion on to them. When it is possible to be belligerent about something, or fail to mind your own business, do so. Your clearly a fucking sick cunt so you have the right tell everyone else around what to do.

Step 4: be loud.

If your going to be obnoxious don't do it quietly. If you sit in room going about your days being a shit head no one will notice or care. If you want to be a complete tool inflict your stupid personality on everyone around you. Say the stupid shit you would say anyway in a really loud penetrating voice so absolutely no one can ignore. Also when in doubt, say it multiple times so no one can simply drown it out. Whats the point of being a complete cunt, unless you make that fact known to everyone around you, and everyone in the middle distance as well.

Step 5: Write pointless, repetative shit into a blog.

Motivation; or why i can't be bothered to make this post half decent

I thought about aliens again. I wondered about what would happen if we were visited by friendly aliens, and then I decided that that is almost as bad hostile spacemen. Think about it, if we were visited by a friendly alien species, who would of course be far superior to us, the first thing they would want to do probably is engage us in trade. That would be fucked, that would quickly lead to economic collapse. The aliens would be able to more efficiently and quickly produce anything we needed, soon our civilization would be redundant. Still civilization collapsing isn't quite as bad as being eaten.

What I haven't thought about today was studying or impending exams. My exams feel like there ages away and I really can't be bothered studying at the moment. I have absolutely no energy to do anything at all today. Having no energy isn't fun, actually its fucking shit, even though I should be doing stuff I am not. A lack of motivation is probably why we haven't been invaded by Aliens yet, there probably sitting around in there spaceships saying fuck that I will do it tomorrow. Energy is one of those weird things that you sometimes have, and other times you don't. You can't really explain where energy and motivation to do shit really comes from, sometimes its there, and other times you aren't physically able to do anything productive. Apart from possibly saving life as we know it having no energy does have some good points which I have been thinking about now.

Having no energy means you don't get bored.

If you have no mental, physical or emotional energy you can't really get bored. If you can't be bothered to do anything, your not going to be frustrated doing fuck all. Boredom occurs when you have heaps of energy and motivation and nothing interesting to do. Being bored is not fun, and it can often lead to you doing something stupid, and / or dangerous. When I am bored I generally find something interesting to divert myself with like throwing the Styrofoam ball around my room, going for a walk, pulling apart a pen, reading a book, or watching something.

Being motivated doesn't really get you anywhere.

People would like you to believe that if your motivated and you work hard you may get somewhere in life. For most people this is a complete lie. Being motivated and working hard will most likely lead to disappointment, and having your dreams completely shattered. In 10 years time most people will have a job, doing something boring, repetitive, and probably in the end completely pointless. If your lucky you might get paid well, but then again money won't buy you happiness.

~~~

Wow, on the subject of motivation I really haven't anything else to say. I could think of more things but right now I don't have any energy and can't be fucked. A teacher from my school who was debating coach once told me its a really good idea when making an argument to always have three or more points. He taught me that if you only have two points to your argument always restate your first point to make it three Today I won't do this, because I don't want to waste your or my time. By the way, on the subject of time, Time is an amazing song by Pink Floyd. The start, the middle and end of that song are fucking amazing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYiahoYfPGk&feature=related

Pink Floyd is a fucking amazing band, there music is so amazingly experimental, but not so experimental that it makes it sound crap. Pink Floyd is the sort of music that you have to play really loud to get the full benefit of. Comfortably Numb is another great song. (I am not listening to Pink Floyd at the moment, I am listening to Dire Straits, in case anyone was interested.)

Aliens

Today I got up late, and watched a quite a bit of TV. After dinner, which tonight was OK I went and watched Underbelly. Before Underbelly came on there was 60 minutes. One segment on 60 minutes which I thought was pretty cool was about elephants. No one else wanted to watch the elephants, I did. Elephants are the coolest animal on the planet. They are massive, they have trunks, they have tusks, and they are really smart. This segment was about someone who was watching forest elephants in Central Africa, and more specifically looking at there vocalizations. Scientists were trying to work out how elephants communicated with each other, I found pretty interesting, the other people in the room didn't. Though one comment from a friend of mine got me thinking, he said that there could be aliens right now watching us and trying to work out how we communicated. That reminded me of a conversation I had with my grandfather this summer.

We were on our way to get a pizza, Grandpa was driving. I was in the car with him and we were talking among other things about Aliens. I was telling him about how I saw a UFO once, he was beginning to doubt my sanity a little. I then asked him if he believed in Aliens and he said that with the infinite size of the universe there is almost certainly intelligent life elsewhere. He then said something very interesting, he said that he thought it was a stupid idea that people were trying to communicate with intelligent life elsewhere, he mentioned Neal Diamond's book The Third Chimpanzee which I haven't read but my grandfather says its really good. SETI, or the search for extra terrestrial intelligence, beams off thousands of messages every day into the ether trying to attract the interest of Aliens. I think I agree with my grandfather on this, that is a really stupid idea.

If an alien gets our message two things could happen. He could decide that he really couldn't give a shit, or he could decide we did matter. If the alien thought we mattered he might decide to give us a visit. If an alien came to earth he would have far more advanced technology than us, we can't even send someone to the next planet yet.

If an alien species has superior technology to us, that probably means that they can utterly destroy us. That is not a good thing. If the aliens are anything like us that is even more worrying. We only very recently eliminated slavery. If they resemble us physiologically thats worse, look at the way we treat our closes relatives the chimpanzees. Chimpanzees who are very intelligent animals are used for testing medicines. What if the aliens decide it would be a good idea to eat us. On the list of things I don't want to happen to me being eaten by an alien is close to the top.

Me and my dad attended a public lecture at the ANU about the Origins of Life in the universe. Speaking was a “Christian Scientist” who me and my dad thought was a complete idiot. One of the more stupid stupid things this guy said was that he thought if there were aliens elsewhere they would probably closely resemble us. Aliens could look like anything, I was reading a science fiction novel a while ago where the alien was a massive cloud of dust. Aliens could could have multiple heads, they could be sentient piles of goo, they could be made of energy, they could be microscopic to us, they might even be invisible. Whatever they look like though I don't care, I don't want to be eaten by one of them.

Thinking about aliens makes me want to watch District 9 again, that was a fucking sick movie. I liked all the south African accents and shit. Also I will leave you with this song by one of my favorite bands the Byrds http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mDXu2_PbnQ&feature=related

Self improvement is a waste of time

Today I did nothing remotely resembling anything productive. I got up at 12:30, annoyed my sister, drank iced coffee, complained about the lunch today (which was shit, fuck you cater care,) listened to music, and watched TV. I probably should have done something useful that would make me a better person, read an improving book, studied or something. People have an innate desire for self improvement. Whole industries are based on that fact, advertising constantly targets people's insecurities about themselves to get them to buy more crap. People go to work in order to make more money so they can become better people. Everyone has a desire to improve something about themselves. People make a lot of money by claiming if you follow their particular brand of belief you can improve your soul, and go to a far better place after you die. Personally I wish I was richer, better looking, more motivated, stronger, and more intelligent. However, I can't be bothered to change anything to improve anything about myself. Here's why:

There is always someone better than you.

There is always going to be someone out there who is richer, better looking, more interesting and smarter that you. That is simply a fact of life. Envy is a central trait in the human psyche, and the fact that there are a lot of people out there who are essentially better than you probably pisses you off, if only subconsciously. If you attempt to improve yourself you will probably feel that fact more keenly. No matter how much you work, how much you sacrifice to become a better person someone will always beat you. I have simply decided to accept the fact that there are people out there who, for some reason, are just better people. I really can't be bothered to compete with them.

The desire for self improvement will only make you unhappy.

Everyone is unhappy with who they are. No one hasn't dreamed of becoming a better person somehow. Even if your like me and really couldn't give a fuck and don't care too much, other people will put pressure on you, today my little sister who is 16 told me that I “should stop fucking around, get a job, and work hard at uni.” (Solid advice which I won't take.) Actually trying to improve yourself or your situation will only probably make yourself more unhappy. Mainly because your probably going to fail. A few weeks ago I tried to improve my health by trying to quit smoking, I lasted two days.

If your perfect, people will hate you.

I have known people who are amazingly academic, good at sport, popular, and had plenty of money, and whats more weren't even arrogant. Did other people generally like them? No, most people looked at them and thought “what utter shits.” Jealousy is an ugly, but essentially natural human trait. Tall poppy syndrome is deeply ingrained in our society. People naturally detest people who think they are, or actually are, better than themselves. Whats the point of striving for perfection when if if you come close to it everyone will think your a complete dickhead?

There isn't any real point.

If your able to read this, your probably doing a lot better than most people. While there is always someone better than you, there's probably heaps of people far more shit; basically your probably fine how you are. For example while my fashion sense is far from perfect, I haven't met anyone who has a beanie quite as good as mine. Also it doesn't really matter how good you are because at the end of the day your going to end up rotting in a six foot hole anyway. As Tom Waits sings “your all going to be just dirt in the ground.” (It's an amazing song, listen to it.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hs4zG4v5N1g

Self improvement is hard work, I really can't be fucked.

Things that aren't worth worrying about

Today I slept in to around 2:00 following my advice yesterday. I didn't have lunch. Spent the afternoon watching banged up abroad, reading some James Thurber stories, and smoking my pipe. Relaxed. Had a really awesome day of doing nothing. I got my phone back, and met a rabbit. Basically I had an awesome day. I think the reason my day was so good was because I really had nothing to worry about. So tonight I decided to write about things that are not worth worrying about. I am worried that there are too many things that I could mention, so today I talked about five.

5 Uni.

A few days ago I was stressing out about uni. It wasn't particularly productive, because I was so busy stressing out about it I didn't actually get any work done. Uni is not worth stressing out about at all, for more information on that look at my first article. I think the main reason that uni isn't worth stressing out about is that it doesn't really mean anything. Whether you pass uni with flying colors, or completely fuck it up at the end of the day you will be forced to get a job. Unless your really lucky your job will be boring, repetitive, and soul destroying. If you happen to get the “best job in the world” you will be a made to appear in adds that make you look like a complete fuckwit. The amount of money you happen to make won't really depend too much on your education. If your intelligent, dedicated, and skilled at what you do you will get promoted, if your a fuckwit, no matter how educated, you won't get anywhere.

4 Being broke.

I am completely broke. I don't have a job in Melbourne, and my parents give me very little money. Money is a good example of something that is not worth worrying about. Having no money makes you healthier, I haven't drunk too much in ages, am not smoking as much as I used to, and not eating too much junk food. Today I could have gone to pub golf, and drunk an obscene amount of beer and destroyed more of my brain cells, because I was broke I didn't. Being broke also makes you smarter, today I found an ingenious way of getting money. I lay on my stomach with a pool cue and scraped coins out of the vending machine, I earned $2.90 and picked up a skill that I would have never have learned if I wasn't poor. Finally another reason why you shouldn't worry about having no money is that if your broke people donate things to you, I have received 3 really awesome shirts from college friends that I wouldn't have ever had if I was rich.

3 People not liking you.

No one is ever as popular, or well liked as they want to be, not even me. Were all approval seeking animals, so a lot of people are at least subconsciously worried about there social status. People who worry about the fact that no one likes them are completely wasting there time. The if your probably right, very few people like you. Most people are completely indifferent to you, they will talk to you, but in the long run really don't give two fucks what happens to you. In a few years time most people you hang around with now will have almost forgotten to you. Throughout your life you will probably only have 5 or 6 really close friends who will stick with you forever. What other people think of you doesn't really matter. Someone once wrote, freedom from the good opinion of others is the only true freedom (actually I think I just wrote that just then.) As long as you have a few people who like you and respect you for who you are your fine. If you don't you can always get yourself an imaginary friend, 2.2 billion people do this world wide, they call him Jesus.

2 The future.

Everyone occasionally worries about the future. “What will happen when my exam comes and I haven't done any study, what happens when my dad finds out that I flunked out of uni, how will I pay the fine for fair evading I will eventually get” etc. Worrying about the future is one thing that won't ever get you anywhere. The future and past are complete illusions, the only thing we can be really certain of is the present. While we can feel the effects of the past, we can only imagine what will happen in the future. Our imaginations are always completely inaccurate. Personally nothing has ever turned out the way I expected it to. For all we know I could be abducted by aliens before anything I was worrying about ever took place.

1 The fact that what your writing in your blog is a complete load of crap.

Why you should stay in bed

My dad is an early morning person. He used to get up at around 4:00, go for a ride to Queenbeyan (from Red Hill,) come back around the airport, have a shower, have breakfast, then ride into work at 7:00. I am not like that. I generally don't get up before 12:00 these days. When I went to school I used to get out of bed at 9:00 and turn up late. When I was working in call center worked started at 3:00, I would never be up before 1:00. Getting up early in the morning (before 11:30,) is always a bad idea, here's why:

You have something to do.

Everyone always something they have to do. Whether its work, an assignment due tomorrow, (or in my case due yesterday,) having to go somewhere, or fixing something. The thing you have to do is probably not going to be fun. It is probably going to involve either a physical or mental effort. Today I had two things I had to do, find my phone, and write a sociology essay. I didn't do either very well, and they weren't particularly fun. If you get up early in the morning your probably going to fuck them up and have to do them again. By staying in bed you can avoid having to do things for as long as possible.

Staying in bed is cheaper.

Whenever your up you will need to spend money. You can save a lot of money by sleeping longer. This doesn't apply at IH, but if you get up around lunchtime you can completely avoid having to eat Breakfast. The money that you will save by missing one meal a day will eventually add up.

It's healthier to sleep in.

A while ago I was reading in a book, called The Secret Family (I don't have it with me, if I did I would appropriately reference it using the Harvard System as outlined in the subject guide,) about how the best sleep you have is at the end of the sleep cycle. At the start of the sleep cycle stages of sleep known as N1 you are just drifting off into sleep. N2 is where you experience rapid eye movement and dreams occur. At the end of the sleep cycle, N3 you drift into slow wave sleep where most of the bodies rebuilding takes place. It is much healthier for your mind to sleep in rather than get up early. Also if you sleep more, you will end up smoking less which is always good for your lungs.

Sleeping in means you can stay up later.

Things that are fun generally happen at night. You do most of your most productive work at night. You can think best at night. You don't miss much if you sleep in. No one ever goes out or does anything at 9:00 in the morning. There is nothing good to watch on TV in the morning. Whats worst about the mornings though is that the only people who are up have a reason to be and don't really want to talk.

It's dangerous outside.

When your up you are constantly facing some forms of risk. You could get hit by a bus. You could be eaten by a crocodile. You could even be struck by lightning. When I got up this morning I almost fell down the stairs. Unless the building catches on fire, or the roof collapses, staying in bed for an extra hour or two means that you are far less likely to get hurt.

It's cold outside.

How to look intelligent

Today has been a bad day. An assignment I handed in on time apparently has been lost, and it is not on the LMS. Honestly I couldn't really give a fuck. It's just a minor inconvenience, and as I said yesterday marks at uni don't really matter anyway. Education is not about the results you get, its about what you learn along the way. I think the main thing I have learn from my “brilliant” university career so far is: that being intelligent isn't about how smart you are, but rather how intellectual you look. So today I have written about how to make yourself look intelligent even if you have no clue what your on about.

If you don't know what your talking about say something anyway.

If your ever asked a question by anyone always give a response. Don't demonstrate your ignorance by sitting awkwardly not knowing what to say. For example if your tutor asks you what you think of Lenin's ideas on the dictatorship of the proletariat, rather than doing nothing say something like “well, personally found that Lenin's ideas on the dictatorship of the proletariat really illuminated his wider political theories.”

Use big words even if you have no idea what they actually mean.

If you can explain something quickly using simple sentences, don't. A master of this trick is captain hardcore, a budding young “anarcho-capitalist” from my introduction to political ideas tute. Today rather than saying “I couldn't understand what the reading was talking about” he said “ for me the ideas in this weeks reading were completely incoherent, I mean from my sphere of reference Naess' ideas weren't altogether cogent.” A few weeks ago I annoyed captain hardcore by asking him to clarify terms he was using when he said things like “I think Bakunin presents an interesting dichotomy here.”

Turn up late to class without bringing any books.

I have only bought one textbook so far. To be honest I have better things to spend my money on. That doesn't really matter though, you can always show off what an intellectual powerhouse you are by not bringing anything to your tutes. You are so confident in your abilities that you don't even need to bring the reader, or any books to class. You know the shit off by heart. Show off this confidence by turning up late to class, even though the real reason your late is that you can't remember where you have to go.

Look intelligent.

Perception is reality. If you look intelligent people will assume you are. Take a leaf out of captain hardcores book. Where dark clothes, glasses, and have a stupid haircut. Composure is always important, if your bored, and you probably will be, look into the distance as if contemplating the mysteries of the universe.

Always try to get into an “intellectual argument.” Always win.

Any tutorial, or class your in, debate anything anyone says. If someone likes a particular idea, tell them it's shit. If someone doesn't like something, vigorously defend it. However, it's crucial that you always win any argument you get involved in to avoid looking like a fuckwit. Winning an argument is easy, just don't admit your wrong, if worse comes to worst resort to personal attacks. When captain hardcore said “personally I find Lenin's ideas completely ridiculous” my response was “well, your haircut is completely ridiculous.” If someone says “well you could say...” respond “well of course you could say that, but then you'd be wrong, and by the way your a cunt.”

When in doubt just be a pretentious wanker.

5 Reasons why doing work for uni is a complete waste of time.

Academically, I'm fucked. I have one assignment due on Thursday worth 25%, a 35% assignment due the Friday before last, and another 35% due on the 10th, also I have exams coming up. An intelligent person would be studying right now. I have been throwing a small Styrofoam ball at the wall for the last half hour. Here are 5 reasons why I think doing work, and putting effort into things is a complete waste of time and energy.

5) Doing no work makes you feel smarter.

If you work hard and succeed in life you feel good about yourself. You can look at yourself and say “well I studied hard, and got a H1 for my efforts. Hard work pays off in the end.” However, what happens if you work hard and you fail? You feel like shit, you put in heaps of effort, and you end up looking like a complete retard. If you put in no effort you feel good anyway because you think to yourself “sure I failed, but if I had tried harder I could have done really well.” If you actually pass something you feel even better.

4) Uni is a complete waste of time anyway.

At the end of it all who will really look at what marks you get at uni. Just like no one cares anymore what enter scores anyone got, after uni no one is going to care what marks anyone gets. Hey if you scrape through Latrobe Uni you might end up becoming a deputy head of college. How you succeed in the real world is through social skills, and good looks, that means I am completely fucked whatever marks I get. Don't worry though anyone who is completely useless though can easily get a job with the Australian Public Service, if they are completely incompetent they might even get promoted.

3 Doing no work makes other people think your smarter.

When people look at someone who works hard and succeed they don't necessarily respect that person, they say “well that guy isn't smart, he just worked hard. He's just a fucking looser who has no friends, and no life.” If someone puts in effort and fails, or only does OK they assume they must be really stupid. If you put in no effort and fail, people don't think your stupid, they say “there's a smart kid who is just fucking around and wasting there potential.” If you do nothing and are lucky enough to do well people will think your a fucking genius. A mates brother dropped out of school in year 10, and now lives in a granny flat at the back of his parents house. He's 35, on the dole, overweight, and has no girlfriend. He says he's writing science fiction novels. He hasn't finished a sentence yet but everyone is sure that if he puts some work in he will be the next Isaac Asimov.

2 You probably have better things to do.

Throwing a Styrofoam ball at the wall for half an hour is far more fulfilling and fun than studying. I can think of any number of things I would rather be doing than working. Even writing this crap is more fun than writing about how one or two sociological perspectives which seek to provide explanations for how mass media functions.

1 You can always do it tomorrow