Pub Night

Give me a lite

2006-06-01T22:07:00.000+10:00

I just wanted to memorialise the night that David Eldridge came to pub night. Towards the end of the night it was Dave's shout. Mana and I both asked for a lite. I am assuming that what happened next was David's way of showing us his disgust at our beer choice.

He arrived with this

mouth the size of a whale

2006-05-26T13:26:00.000+10:00

mouth the size of a whale
Originally uploaded by bigyahu.

This is an example of blogging a photo

Twins!!!!

2006-05-24T23:01:00.000+10:00

Well there has been some news since we last met. Darcy is having identical twins later in the year, Miles bought a house and Mana finally got broadband internet access (the last item was by far the most astounding).

Discussions ranged far and wide. We wondered why Al was at home babysitting when we could be drinking his beer at his house. We discussed the blog - what is it going to end up being? a gimmick that kept us amused for 3 months, a time capsule of our lives? one concern raised was that the blog had to be so sanitised in order to protect everyone's privacy (particularly Mana, if anyone found out what he really does at that hospital.....) that it is destined to be a bit lame. another concern was that you can't really enjoy pub night if you are aware of the fact that discussions will be blogged (for instance you might focus on making up catchy phrases hoping they will be blog worthy). Anyway, we will see. who knows, this could be the last ever entry. There was also renewed concern that the standard was too high, which is why I am making this entry particularly crap to try and lower the entry level.

I tried to talk the boys into accompanying me to Cambodia at some point to build a house with tabitha foundation

WIth the kiddy theme, Supernanny was discussed. I wonder how many blokes at the pub last night were talking about whether or not they use the naughty spot with their toddlers...anyway, we were. We admitted that it was worth watching just to feel better about your own family when given insight into the nightmare families on display on the show.

we also discussed the etiquette of inviting new people to pub night, and the related issue of what would happen in the rare case where someone wanted to come back (so far hasn't been an issue).

Miles was codraled up and drinking lemon squash. Mana also had issues with the flu, but wasn't going to let it interfere with his beer drinking.

A photo of new house:

did it work?

and that is all I recall of pub night

Our blog traffic is down! [sirens, klaxons and general submarine-related sound effects]

2006-05-24T11:08:00.000+10:00

Looks like the people like us less than they used to fellas. We need some more penetrating insights from the pub night crew... or maybe some cute baby photos...

God says hello!

2006-05-20T13:09:00.000+10:00

God says hello!
Originally uploaded by bigyahu.

Favourite shot from Tassie trip earlier this month.

at last I am whole

2006-05-17T14:08:00.000+10:00

Well I have finally logged in through the "dashboard" and can see how it all comes together. the lads were all sick/busy/interstate so it was just me sipping on a cool ale whilst reading through some old blog entries to hold up the business end of pub night.
Thought I'd chuck in a link and see if it works.
Ahh the joy of publishing.

I think I am the only one in the pub working on a laptop. Time to go home. And thats all I recall...........

the Easter Bunny

2006-04-27T19:04:00.000+10:00

Well the words/names I want to remember from this pub night are lime wire and
bit torrent. My vocabulary just grows and grows hanging around these
guys. As predicted from these new (to me) words the topics discussed
were:

the sharing of files the rise and fall of movies
how the movie industry expected DVD to follow the same course as the
video in terms of sales, and how it set its own new standard in sales
in addition to the the volume of sales produced by first release/ box
office and then subsequent video release.

How much do we spend on communication and do we really give it the
value it deserves when you think about how much it gives us back in
terms of utility in our relationships
the role of the vixen in the development of an industry
how to identify the vixen in the company
the keeping of the mistress.
The minds of 20 year olds. Boys and girls. There was some discussion
of sex here.
Our wives and children.
Angst

all of the above as separate topics mind you

In addition to all of the above, Big A informs me that he has finally
cracked the role of Easter Bunny at the local preschool. The kids all
squealed in terror as this giant bunny handed them Easter eggs. Wish i
was there. To top it all of, Alec never knew. Someday Alec, we hope
you will be reading this and you will know the truth. The Easter bunny
lives in your own house. Look me up. If I am lucky, Luca will have
put me in St Mary of Gods bleeding heart for the people Nursing home
and will visit me once a year. At Easter. A_n_u_s (just had to chuck
that in).

And that's all I recall from last nights pub night (OK OK it was a week ago).
this post by banana. ignore what it says below. and don't forget to
read this blog before you read that stuff on movie mobs and happy
hour.

Budawangs bushwalk report

2006-04-27T13:56:00.000+10:00

Fellas, won't be there at pubnite tonight, sorry. Food poisoning - those dodgy Melbournians fed me some suss smoked trout! (Mana, that was my own diagnosis, let me know if i'm missing something more exotic and more likely to get me sympathy from the wife.)

So now the heaving and thrashing has subsided and I haven't eaten anything for four days, I think even I am not hard enough a man to sustain a few beers as the first dietary input.

Anyway, before I lost me guts in Melbum I went bushwalking with a mate and we got some noice photos of a sunset out country NSW way that I thought I'd share in my absence.

Have a lemon squash for me!

Sunset - a photoset on Flickr

MobMov: the mobile movie slash guerilla drive-in in Berkeley, CA

2006-04-26T16:47:00.000+10:00

Now here's something us Pubnighters could bring to Australia for the first time: MobMov - basically, a drive-in movie system built into a car. Built and maintained by enthusiasts, and funded by moviegoers, it plays movies in different locations - anywhere there's parking space and a big neutrally-painted wall to project against!

I've got a lot of DVDs... Miles has a projector...

The Happiest Hour - bringing cheap beer to the masses

2006-04-11T13:59:00.000+10:00

Fellas, happy hour is a little early for us Pub Nighters, but I thought you'd want to see this website for yourselves - www.thehappiesthour.com. Makes my little shrunken, hardened, cold Aussie heart* patter a little harder just to think of it: a website that helps you find the nearest pub's happy hour!

*Shrunken, hard and cold because it's been exposed to too much mean-spirited, bigoted, racist, greedy, expedient, ugly crap lately, from everyone from the Cronulla Rioters to Lord Downer of Bagdad

Brain network

2006-03-24T12:30:00.000+11:00

As Mana was busy at a 3yr old's birthday, and Darcy had an exam the next day (no we aren't a group of school children) it was just Al and Miles last night.

It is all a bit of a blur right now, as I was so cocky as not to utilise the beer coaster for notes.

We had a blue pulse conversation that spun off onto questions such as:

Will there ever be a day when technology is so good that there is no longer anything new to look forward to?

Will the day come when we will need to be entertained by the content itself and not by the novelty of the device that is publishing it? If so, based on the current crop of crap television, we are in trouble.

We discussed how far phones could go, and the fact that they will always be limited by screen size. Is it possible then that we will interact with our phones using senses other than sight - we queried. Then we struck gold and realised that the end result will have to be an end to all hardware. We will actually have the ability to bluetooth enable our brains. This will mean that if I want to do a powerpoint presentation to a group in a room (or a group spread throughout the world), then and they will see the slides in our imagination!!! Brain to Brain networking. We will learn how to connect our brains to the internet, hopefully set up some pretty good firewalls because I definitely don't want to know what Mana is thinking (especially now that we know how many bums his finger has been in), and the days of 20 inch flat screens will be a thing of the past. School will have to change a bit, or else exams are going to become bloody easy. Google will eventually anounce a free download called "google brain" where you can decide to search through all your memories by keyword, and then if your memories aren't that good, you can just download someone elses.

And how easy will blogging become. All you need to do is think to yourself, "I would like to blog post all my memories of Pub night" and it is done for anyone who has permission to access.

We will all use the latest Napster equivelant to download all sorts of pirated materials to our brains, and will then encrypt them so that the authorities can't access them.

So basically, we will all be wandering around in a daze of our own imagination, running into things ocassionally. I for one feel pretty well prepared for this lifestyle.

We also discussed the stock market and how pissed off we were that the all ords had crashed through 5000 without really helping us out enough.

Then it was onto travel where we discussed Al's potential trips in 2007.

You can probably tell by all the padding here, that there was a lot more discussed that didn't make it through the pub blog censor. You just had to be there to get the top quality stuff.

So we hope that Darcy passed his exam, and that Mana won pass the parcel.

and that is all I recall of pub night.

Pub Night

2006-03-24T12:10:00.000+11:00

test

Install a Rheem, cop a ream, and spear your Queen

2006-03-17T13:18:00.000+11:00

In this week's Religion segment we explored Madonna the SuperJew, particularly the most critical issue of whether she was hot or not at 51, or whether she'd lost it with the onset of her conversion to Kabbalaism and general old age. The nays had it. Sex and religion: inseperable at Pub Night.

It was agreed that Wikipedia, if not actually a superior source of all esoteric knowledge than Kabbala, was at least a belief system shared by a broader range of internet geeks than any religious work, with the added flexibility of being in a constant state of revision without the need for holy war, or even a schism.

I regaled the group with lengthy but immensely witty tales of my adventures in Hollywood, of the wild parties, limo rides, beer consumption and general excess until even I became aware that perhaps I had gone on about myself for a microtad too long.

We discussed how difficult it was to correctly spell something like a chronic, progressive inflammatory arthritis primarily affecting spine and sacroiliac joints, causing eventual fusion of the spine due to Microsoft's apparent inability to provide a functional Australian English spellchecker in the Mac OS X version of Office.

It was agreed that since Australia had completed diverting enough funding from healthcare, education, roads, policing, environmental management, sustainable energy, gambling, smokes and booze to train up an Olympics team able to win as many gold medals as countries fifty times more populous, the fun had rather gone out of thrashing (deep breath) Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Botswana, British Virgin Islands, Brunei Darussalam, Cameroon, Canada, Cayman Islands, Cook Islands, Cyprus, Dominica, England, Falkland Islands, Fiji, Ghana, Gibraltar, Grenada, Guernsey, Guyana, India, Isle of Man, Jamaica, Jersey, Kenya, Kiribati, Lesotho, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Malta, Mauritius, Montserrat, Mozambique, Namibia, Nauru, New Zealand, Nigeria, Niue, Norfolk Island, Northern Ireland, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Saint Helena, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, Scotland, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Tanzania, The Gambia, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands, Tuvalu, Uganda, Vanuatu, Wales, and Zambia.

(The Zambians really need to think laterally and rename their nation AAAZambia, or they'll spend the next century same as the last one - by the time they get to leave the stadium and get back to the party marquee, there's only Jatz and some fuzzy cocktail franks left, plus maybe some flat Diet Pepsi).

It has since occurred to me that in 2010 we should propose (a) adding a new demonstration event (because you could only do it once) in which athletes attempt to bring down a member of the British Royal Family with a javelin, discus, hockey stick or other piece of recognised sporting equipment; and (b) we should propose to the games organisers that we make the event "Australia vs All The Other Hopeless Sporting Nations Together In One Team", if only to drive the ratings up. Think: "Friday Night Games" with a once-off final appearance from the British Royal Family.

In fact, looking at that list of tin-pot tiny little countries, each without enough middle-class tax-payers to rip off in order to pull together a half-decent sporting team, I find myself with a new-found respect for history's great invaders and colonisers - was it really all about oppression, or was it some foresighted leadership thinking, "how am I going to build a world-class swimming squad out here in the Mongolian steppes without a standing body of water bigger than a yak's arse for a thousand leagues?"

From then on things generally devolved into our weekly an4l reaming segment, this week featuring a priceless disclosure from Banana: that if you're unfortunate enough to be admitted to the emergency department of our nation's finest public hospitals, you're losing blood and they can't easily establish why, the doctor charged with saving your life is almost certainly going to give your bottom a good going over with his gloved and greased digit. It's more of an age-old tradition than medical technique, it seems; apparently following the shooting of President Abraham Lincoln the doctor called upon to save his life did his best to keep the President's blood pressure up by repeatedly jamming his finger up his great leader's sphincter. There's no question that being assaulted this way would elevate the blood pressure of a fully conscious man, but modern medicine has apparently debunked it as a restorative measure when applied to the imminently deceased.

Nevertheless, Banana reports that physicians are loath to lose their an4l reaming privileges, and now justify it as a means of ensuring there's no mystery haemorrhage somewhere up the billabong (either I've spelled "haemorrhage" correctly the first time or Microsoft's spellchecker still sucks, by the way.) Even now, one of our nation's foremost accident and emergency departments is planning a clinical trial to establish once and for all whether a thorough an4l reaming from your friendly MD is more or less likely to lead to your untimely death. Banana had us all in stitches... of the other kind.

Darcy, it appears, has no fear of getting up close and personal with toilet bowls after his years in the Navy, and reports the results of an informal clinical trial of his own, conducted in two separate observations of a female acquaintance's digestive records many years apart and her consistent veering to the left when making a drop. Either, he suggests, the result of a trip to the hospital emergency department, or perhaps an inherited malfunction that might in fact benefit from a little adjustment from a trained medical specialist searching for internal haemorrhages. We may never know for sure.

Bozza took us further still up the dark, winding river of memory by retelling a tale from his childhood; a brief stay in the surreal desert-enclosed suburbia of Bakersfield, USA that was only really long enough for Bozza to leave an indelible impression on the restroom facilities of his unexpecting neighbours, who must be even now flipping through 500 channels of nothing on, happening across the 2006 Commonwealth Games coverage and wondering how the hell a nation of people who can't even hit a disconcertingly splashy American toilet bowl (so different to the 'deep dish' design we're used to in the Commonwealth nations) with their own outgoings can ever hope to achieve a gold medal in the netball. And yet, we do.

Finally, this one wasn't discussed at Pub Night last night because it's just too damned depressing, but nevertheless we should pause to give it some thought. Perhaps there is such a thing as paying too high a price for success in international competition...

And that is all I can recall from last night's Pub Night.

Red and pink bits:

2006-03-10T00:48:00.000+11:00

The banana blog. Topics tonight included Rules and Chaos theory, red
and pink bits, Factionalism, Schools. Pressure and stress

With the onset of the rules the rebels have come out of the woodwork.
Some consideration was given to the need for rules and the existence
of pre rule pub night. Have we institutionalised the night? Can an
organised structure exist without rules? Do we need rules to live by?
Is the pub night big enough to accommodate the rebel forces and grow
from the diversity? The forces of Chaos embodied in Darcy Vader appear
to have been defeated as the rebel forces come into their own.

Alan Skywalker the wordsmith and Miles Solo having a go have clearly
set the pace. Jabba the banana is happy to side with the rules as long
as he gets the princess dressed in a school girl uniform shackled to
the base of his throne. Darcy Vader is man enough to stand on his own.
He bides his time.

Super sized Jesus briefly returned but with no mention of reaming
quickly ascended to the abode of God and the angels after some
discussion about resolving the conflict that exists in John 16 (the
bit about getting whatever you ask for). We were introduced to the
concept of red bits in the bible which are juicer than pink bits.

For the rest of us, there are some bibles that colour the J-mans words
in red to make them stand out. This happens a lot around John 16. Pink
bits are still pink bits.

Now it has come to our attention that the google ads targeting this
blog have been for tacky preachers that cant be bothered writing their
own sermons. Cool. Welcome tacky preacher.

Factionalism. Why were we never taught Australian political history at
school? Who gives a flying F**k about WW1 and 2. we can learn enough
about that watching "the world at war" reruns. How will we ever learn
about all the stuff that went on before we learnt to tune in to 702?

Schools. Are parents caught up in the hype? What the hell are we doing
discussing schools. I just finished studying last year. I don't want
to talk about schools.

Parting comments included a brief discussion about pressure versus
stress. Pressure , when there is too much stuff to get done and stress
when there is a software conflict in the form of cognitive dissonance.
But this needs to be discussed more

And congratulations to Roderick on the birth of his son Otis. A fine
looking Lad. The second born son of a second born son. Will he make of
the world what the world will make of him, or will it be the other way
around?

And that all I recall of last nights pub night.

Upsizing the gospel.

2006-02-24T10:44:00.000+11:00

On the way to the pub, Miles rang James O on 702 "I don't get it" segment to correct James wrong notion that glass was a liquid. He knew this because he lost a bet with Jane (Darcy's Jane) about this very issue. He was sure that Darcy would be listening to hear him being famous, but Jane had not only humiliated Miles with glass issue, she had changed stations in the car and Darcy wasn't tuned it.

The fact that it was just Darcy and Miles at the pub last night, combined with the fact that Miles had been back to his old church last sunday (due to a family commitment), it was inevitable that religion would dominate. A lengthy tirade from Miles (I can see you struggling with that notion) about the prosperity doctrine central to most pentecostal churches - ie give a lot to the church and you will get heeeeaps back from God - analogous to the idea - be really kind to your rich dieing grandma cuz when she finally dies you will be getting your grubby little hands on all her wealth. And then of courses there is the salvation call, which used to be give everything to god and you will be saved, forgiven and have eternal life. This has now become give everything to the church and you will have a beautiful wife, a huge house, a ferrari and an awesome job. No wonder the church grows. And that the other thing. Everything is judged on numbers. If a church is growing, then whatever they are teaching must be right because the holy spirit is obviously blessing it (what about radical islam? is the holy spirit blessing it's growth?). So after waiting patiently through the tirade Darcy comes out with the quote of the night. "Mate. They are just Upsizing the gospel".

We came up with some new pub night rules last night.

1. notes for the pub night summary should be written on 1 beer coaster. Headings only allowed to be written down.
2. the following morning the nominated blogger should write up based on said coaster.

Darcy's did something that was so bad it had to be removed from this blog.

Miles news - Lanie in and out of hospital with pre eclampsia - Dudley in and out of hospital with stab wounds - house sale should exchange early next week.

Al's news (in his absence) is that his latest venture is goin NUTS. He is off os next week to do big deals.

Mana's news - his neighbour died after over a year of cancer. Husband left with 2 young kids. About our age. sends a shudder through us all....thinking shit..how would you handle that.

Darcy and Miles agreed that any publication which includes the line "if you can dream it, you can achieve it" is bullshit.

Briefly discussed the $500 000 000 won by 8 US meat workers. Questions raised were 1. what would we do with that much money?..quickly turned to the fear of what would 8 US meat workers do with that much money???

Latest South Park was discussed - Scientology is outed as a global scam and Tom Cruise spends the episode refusing to come out of the closet.

And that is all I recall of last night's pub night

Nerd's and Bimbos

2006-02-23T09:58:00.000+11:00

I thought this issue might be worthy of some pub night consideration. I would like to hear some thoughts on the psychology, biology, physiology, neurology, sociology etc of the fact/myth that the more glamourous your looks, the more vacuous your mind. Is this just a grasping last ditch effort from the ugly to try to declare some fairness in the world? Is it all about statistics (ie you are unlikely to roll a 6 for looks and a 6 for brains). Is it that brainy people don't try to look glamorous? Is it evolutionary survival? (the only non beautiful genes that survive are the clever ones) Is it that the brainy don't get enough sun or exercise to look good? or what? Can I get some input please?

There are only 1,620,400,654 people richer than me

2006-02-21T15:27:00.000+11:00

Oh my, what I wouldn't give for this tee-shirt! Especially if it came from a web ordering system where you could get a personalised ranking on each metric...

Not this thursday

2006-02-21T14:47:00.000+11:00

I can't this thurs or next. But while I'm at it, a blog makes a lousy scheduling tool, and a blog that's full of "who's up for this thursday?" and "I can't this week, sorry" makes for dull reading indeed for the future generations of men who will need this blog as their primary source of manhood instruction.

I suggest we keep the scheduling on email, and the proceedings on the blog.

Pub Night This Thursday?

2006-02-21T13:32:00.000+11:00

Hey Guys,

are we on for this Thursday?

Miles_Campbell

2006-02-20T17:44:00.000+11:00

Hehe, Miles already has TWO blogs and he's only been blogging for a day! He's going to be run off his feet!

Pub Night

2006-02-20T16:14:00.000+11:00

Testing 1,2,3

I'm dreaming of a reaming

2006-02-17T16:01:00.000+11:00

Somehow, no matter what the topic last night, we kept coming back to "an4l reaming" (i've used that spelling so the net nazis don't crack down on us.) I think it was Mana's influence, but whether it was Miles' phobia of hard prison time, Mana's 'Tales From The Emergency Room' or my own "How To Start A New World Order", the answer (or the problem) always seemed to boil down to too much an4l reaming, not enough an4l reaming, or just the right amount of an4l reaming (whatever it is.)

We've all agreed to start preparing for an Asian Bird Flu epidemic by stocking up on a particular kind of face mask, and Mana's going to get us the brand name so we can buy shares in the biggest mask manufacturers. We're liquidating all our non-cash assets, and stashing the cash and gold (the other epidemic-proof currency)... umm... where are we stashing it again? Oh yes, of course, it's just a matter of sufficient an4l reaming. Mana's going to tough it out saving lives at the ER until the moment the troops arrive to prevent him and other essential staff from leaving, at which point he's going to try and sneak away to protect his family without causing a general panic amongst the staff remaining (anybody else spot the flaw in his logic?)

Miles' dad has read a lot of good books about the coming epidemic, and as usual, his dad's main takeaway is that there's loads of money to be made. As long as it doesn't land him in jail ("can you squeal like a pig, pretty boy?") Miles is all for it.

Mana still carries the world's most ancient mobile phone, connected to a phone plan so old that human operators connect each call with one of those big boards with plugs and leads. Not that Mana ever calls anybody from it - that would cost money. We may club together to raise money to buy Mana a more advanced phone - probably one of those Bakelite ones with the rotary dial on front. It may take Mana a while to stop trying to wind the handle and yelling at the operator to connect him to Ashfield-101.

Alan is off to mobile phone nirvana with a tiny company going places. Hopefully Alan won't be left behind by the company. Alan's mobile phone is so advanced that Spock would swap his Tricorder for it in a heartbeat. He demonstrated a free mobile phone application for the determination of blood alcohol levels. An an4l reaming application for mobile phones is only weeks away.

And that is all I recall of last night's pub night (say, I think we should end all our posts that way - a signature of sorts!)

Here it is again:

And that is all I recall of last night's pub night.

first post

2006-02-17T15:25:00.000+11:00

may there never be a last post