In defence of poxy weather

It’s a cloudy, windy, overcast day today. The clouds have rolled in over our first night here in Albany, Western Australia to coat the city in a grey pallor and bring the temperature down to the low 20s (Celsius). The Kevman is not impressed.

I bloody love it.

Do you know how hot it gets in this God forsaken country? Well do ya?

A few weeks back it reached 44.4°C in Perth (that’s 111.92°F for you American folk). Now what the Hell sort of temperature do you call that? And ‘Hell’ is the operative word there. In fact Satan called, he wants his weather back.

It’s just not natural.

Not only does Mother Nature suffer from PMS but she’s also menopausal (coz she’s Mother Nature and she can do both if she wants to) But just because she’s having hot flashes doesn't really mean that we need to join in the fun.

Now due to my location, Internet research is not gonna happen (I'll be having enough trouble just publishing anything today!) but I'm pretty damn sure that heat it another phenomenon that can do you an awful mischief over here if given half a chance.

I've come to the conclusion that this country is just a thug.

It wouldn't be quite so bad if I didn't have this Fibromyalgia business...and I'm a Kiwi with Fibromyalgia at that. Kiwis often struggle in the heat over here; we do a fabulous imitation of dying and are forced to develop the ability to sweat in places that we didn't even know we had. Then add to that a disease that makes you very sensitive to any temperature change or extreme and things get interesting.

This may at least start to explain my delight in an overcast day upon which you can wander outside and not walk into a wall of heat and humidity that makes you feel like you are wading through treacle. It’s just not my favourite part of Australian summer living eh.

I will give the Aussie climate credit for one thing though, at least it doesn't nuke you as fast as the New Zealand one. In Kiwiland at peak times of the summer days, you can burn in minutes...and not very many of 'em.

But overall I much prefer a cool breeze lapping at my clothing and a spot of rain hither and yon, than a sticky mass of air being draped over me like a drop sheet and any wind comparable to a hairdryer in my face on a day that is already feeling like a heat wave in Hades

.

The Kevman however is different kettle of lizard. Unless it’s over 30°C he gets his shiver on. If he has to wear anything other than shorts and a T-shirt, it is a chilly day and it can be off with itself. He spent half of his time in last year's New Zealand winter standing beside the nearest heat source and the rest of the time working out how to get to one. But the Kiwis understood. I just had to say: “He’s Australian, bless him” and we would get the knowing nod: “Ah, yes...that explains it.” i.e. why I am casually browsing the shelves as he is huddled by the fire appearing to demonstrate distinct signs of hypothermia.

Though it was 8°C at the time so I told him it was kinda understandable. It wasn't like I was busting out my bikini or anything either.

So as I write, I am listening to the delicate sprinkles of rain on a tin roof and smiling to myself; though if I'm honest, said rain is actually trying very hard to turn into a torrential downpour. Which would be lovely if I was working on a novel and didn't need to walk down to the rec room where the wifi is to publish this....

*Sigh*

Well at least on a positive note there isn't any lightning

Yet

Have a good one and I'll check in with you all next week!

From The Eagles to Kanye West...and back again.

Kanye West once said

"Man, I'm the No. 1 living and breathing rock star. I am Axl Rose; I am Jim Morrison: I am Jimi Hendrix."

Really?

See, I always thought the guy was a tool, but this quote really seals the deal.

Take a seat Kanye, you’re about to get schooled....

So last night I witnessed perfection. It came in the form of an Eagles concert; otherwise known as the timeless brilliance of seasoned artists singing and playing instruments in an entertaining fashion.

You know, what they used to do in the olden days.

There was no synchronized dancing, no rapping, no bling, no fireworks, no loop tracks and sure as hell no lip syncing.

There was simply music

And damn good music at that.

From the first strains of “Whatever happened to Saturday night” through to the iconic guitar riffs of “Hotel California”, Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Joe Walsh, Timothy B. Schmit, Bernie Leadon, and a slew of supporting musicians caressed the ears of the loyal with a trip down memory lane that was mesmerizing in a way only true artistry can be. With all members of the band able to sing and play multiple instruments, there was no denying the level of talent on the Perth Arena stage this night.

But a phenomenon such as ‘The History of The Eagles’ tour doesn't come easy, and as the diehards crooning along to hit after hit knew, this concert was 44 years in the making.

It was in the depths of 1971 that The Eagles formed, a band that would change the course of rock history, and if you’re thinking that’s a little over exuberant, here’s what our buds at Wikipedia have to say about the matter:

“The Eagles are one of the world’s best-selling bands of all time, having sold more than 150 million records^[3]—100 million in the U.S. alone—including 42 million copies of Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975) and 32 million copies of Hotel California. "Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975)" became the best selling album of the 20th century after it surpassed Michael Jackson's "Thriller".^[4] They are the fifth-highest-selling music act and highest-selling American band in U.S. history. No American band sold more records than the Eagles during the 1970s.”

Yes you read that correctly, they had the best selling album of the ENTIRE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Your argument is invalid.

Add to that their six Grammys, five American Music Awards, inductions into both the Vocal Group and Rock and Roll Halls of Fame and a rank of 37^th on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest albums of all time (for Hotel California) and you know you’re dealing with no riff raff here.

It naturally translates then, that witnessing this group performing is something akin to a religious experience for the devout. And last night’s show what no exception. While it cheered my soul to see a decent smattering of youthful faces in the audience, it was the oldies who had come out of the woodwork that truly made me smile. The packed Arena was filled for a second night running with men and women from all walks of life, but those with more wrinkles had the most wistful looks about them. Those who were similar in age to the men on stage; those who had cruised with the top down in their youth 'taking it easy'; those who had watched their kids cut their teeth to the wail of a Walsh Stratocaster; those who had seen musicians come and go but the Eagles rocking on.

At no point in history have these guys ever been a ‘boy band’. What started in the recesses of a Linda Ronstadt tour went on to become a singer/songwriter combination that easily sits with the best today. Though their career includes a fourteen year hiatus (1980 – 1994), the chemistry within the band is still obvious and last night, we, the lucky ones, got to feel it too.

Perth Arena is not small but it became the type of intimate environment that made you feel like Joe Walsh was gonna flick you a guitar pick at any moment. Even as they switched up the rocking through the night...you were always part of it, like they were truly grateful you were there, you were the reason why they do what they do.

And the music, of course, was exquisite; cruisy, but brilliant, renditions of “I Can’t Tell You Why”, “Witchy Woman”, “New Kid In Town” “ Lyin’ Eyes” and “Take It To The Limit” seamlessly gave way to the amped up vibe of “One of These Nights” “Heartache Tonight” and the quintessential Eagles track, "Hotel California". Fans sang, swayed, clapped, cheered, whistled and fist-pumped their way through a back catalogue that would make any modern artist cry. The masters of folk rock, pop rock, soft rock and classic rock had come to town...and they showed the disciples how it was done.

So was it worth $280 a ticket for 12 rows back from the stage (closer meant up to nearly $700/ticket)?

What a ridiculous question.

It would be worth sacrificing body parts....even your own if necessary.

Sell your firstborn.

Do whatever needs to be done.

Just be there.

-----

And yo Kanye, you might wanna take note that a bunch of guys in their sixties just pulled a much higher max ticket price than you probably ever will....and sold out to boot. And yet they are not arrogant enough to come out with anything close to the crap that you did.

I think it’s called maturity

You should try some. 

I Maximus!

It’s just not working.

The little furry freaks are still here.

‘Tis I, Maximus the Almighty again; the Infidels are outside...so I'm seizing my chance to, once again, express my extreme disenchantment at the household situation here. And I must say...I'm not impressed with the progress (or lack thereof); not at all. After weeks of glowering, ignoring, hissing and swatting the little vermin who have taken up occupation round here, they are, sadly, still blissfully content in MY home.

I mean, What The Furball man?!

And what‘s worse is that I've discovered the little thugs are actually the same species as me! They’re kittens God damn it!

Little miniature CATS!!

Oh the crushing reality.

And they’re running, bouncing, chasing, sliding, jumping, sneaking, wandering, sniffing and playing their way around this house like they own the joint. 

There’s no discipline. No firm hand from a higher authority to bring a halt to all this tomfoolery. I try to give them a good clip round the ear’ole, but all I get is: “Max! Be nice!”

What if I don’t wanna? Huh?

I'm too old for this shit.

I'm half tempted to fill their litter tray full of Pop Rocks just for entertainment.

I have tried everything. First I sulked outside and came in only for minimum food rations (so they started eating my biscuits), I went on a grooming strike (now my fur looks like my mother was camel), I've tried stealing their food (Now I look like a fat camel) and I've tried stealing back my sleeping locations (so they sleep elsewhere....damn it I can’t sleep in them all at once!)

They’re abominable little fiends!

They have names too apparently: “Merlot” and “Shiraz” (I had a sneaking suspicion the infidels were closet alcoholics).

But....*Facepaw*, what the hell sort of names are those! What about something badass like Jack Daniels and Johnny Walker Red? Ok, they’re girls, but whatever; try harder people!

Though, it must be said, names can be deceptive. Fluffy down the road, for example, can have your eye out in 2 second from 20 paces...though I suspect she is not your average Fluffy (nor batting for the same team as your average Fluffy...although that’s only a hunch and one mustn’t wax stereotypical about these things).

But I digress.

I think I’m at the point of giving up.

They’re 1/8 my age, unnaturally cute, and completely disregard my authority on anything.

I may just hav....

*From lounge* “Get out of there you little fur-lined feed bags!!”

Oooh, is this disharmony I sense?

“Argh!! What have you unplugged you little twits! I can’t get the TV to work and my show is going to start in 5 minutes!...OMG...yes, run, I strongly advise it!”

Well her show may not be starting, but mine sure is.

Gotta go!

*Rubs paws with glee* These mogs might not be such bad value after all!

What an absolute apostrophe!

I was perusing through the rental section of the Internet ‘tother day as my child is thinking of moving over within the next year. Whilst doing this, I was struck by several things: the average price of rental properties in various areas, how common it is to have a theatre room...and the atrocious grammatical standards of some of the letting agents.

And I don’t use the term atrocious lightly.

Now I'm no grammar legend, but at risk of turning Nazi here, let us peruse some examples.

Just humour me.

One agent wrote:

“This spacious home has all the essentials, and being so handy as it is close to shops and public transport.”

Did he re-read that at any point? Shall we try: “This spacious home has all the essentials with the added bonus of being close to shops and public transport.”, or something similar.

Another agent wrote:

“The location of this complex is absolutely perfect! The complex consists of 16 units. With a shopping centre right around the corner as well as (location removed) Road. There are wonderful schools in the area, with beautiful parks. This is such a family friendly area, while also one of the popular area.”

How about more concise and less full stops:

“With two shopping centres close by, this 16 unit complex is in the perfect location! Also with wonderful schools and parks nearby it is easy to see why this is such a popular, family friendly area.”

Then of course there’s this one:

“Colourfully decorated throughout this home features His Hers robes to the master bedroom and a generous size en-suite”

This is just one line from an all over terrible ad to be honest. This short sentence covers two largely unrelated topics, contains incorrect capitalisation and hyphenation (it’s either ensuite, or less commonly in Australia, en suite – refer http://australiandictionary.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/is-it-en-suite-or-ensuite.html for further info on this one), lacks a comma, and states the robes are ‘to’ the master bedroom rather than in.

And two people were responsible for that one.

But my favourite has got to be the following ad (repeated in its entirety because it’s just that bad) – corrections in brackets because I couldn't help myself:

“Featuring 4 HUGE Bedrooms, 2 MODERN Bathrooms and a LARGE study (comma please) this beautifully kept, near new family home is (has been) Exquisitely built with Meticulous attention to detail.

Offering (This home offers) Airconditioning (2 words!) throughout, open plan living, kitchen and dining for the West Australian Summer (and this means what?), flawless stainless steel kitchen appliances, well throughout (cannot even guess what is going on here) and a LARGE (comma for God's sake) low maintenance back yard (full stops are also handy, just sayin’)

Other features include double garage located (is the house located in the following or just the double garage?) on (in, damn it!) a VERY quiet (a VERY quiet what? Street? Prison? Bucket?) located only minutes from the local Community Centre (I repeat...full stops)

Located (third use of “located” within 14 words) only minutes from Local (if they’re only minutes away of course they’re bloody local) primary schools, shopping precincts, public transport and so much more, (just stop there, full stop I mean...poor abused comma) within the sough (I assume this should be “sought”) after suburb of (location removed) this will no (not *sigh*) last long!”

Random caps aside, this ad is just an all out mess...if ever there was a case for bullet points, this, my friends, is it.

I began to wonder after reading all this whether there was perhaps an affliction that rental agents acquired when they joined the fold. Sadly this is not the case. If you take the time to Google bad ads and poor grammatical signage, you'll be astounded (and probably highly dismayed) at the places misspellings, butchered sentences and absent/wayward apostrophes turn up. It’s not just back country classifieds and makeshift card board signs that demonstrate our dubious literary standards; churches, universities, billboards for major companies, and prominent newspapers have all fallen victim to the dumbing down disease.

And this has to be a downward spiralling phenomenon. As a parent, it concerns me that if young people see poor grammar and spelling in public places (by prominent organisations no less) how can we expect them to take their own grammar and spelling seriously? Mistakes such as ‘loose’ being used in place of ‘lose’ and ‘then’ and ‘than’ being frequently transposed are now so commonplace it makes me want to cane someone....possibly Mark Zuckerberg.

Though I'm not saying English is easy, in fact it has many ridiculous spellings and idiosyncrasies that make it the hardest language in the world to learn, but I am saying that there are some parts of it that are being so badly brutalised it’s bordering on criminal.

I have to at least try to stem the tide here.

Behold the humble apostrophe ” ’ ”

In the interests of brevity (and possibly my sanity) I shall focus on only this poor neglected and abused item of punctuation today. If apostrophes give you grief on regular occasion, you have come to the right place...grab a beverage and get comfy.

Apostrophes are simple people and live only to either denote ownership or show that something is missing. Let’s address the first one.

The girl has a book, thus it is the girl’s book. If you see “ girls’ ”anywhere, it means the book belongs to more than one girl. If the two girls share a bedroom, it is the girls’ bedroom. Get it? Great :) Now there is some confusion over what to do with words ending in ‘s’. In some writings you will see, for example, Bess’ book, in others you may see Bess’s book. Both are correct, the key is consistency; if you start with one style, stick with that style.

The only time an apostrophe doesn't appear where you would think it would is with the word “its”...even though ‘it’ owns or possesses something, no apostrophe is used. For example: “The cat licked its foot.” This happens because ‘its’ is lumped in with other such ownership words as my, our(s), your(s) and their(s).

We do, however use the apostrophe when it’s is short for ‘it is’ and every other time letters are missing and words are contracted. Continuing with condensed 'is' examples, consider "s/he's" (s/he is) "that's" (that is), "what's" (what is), "who's" (who is), "how's" (how is) and less commonly "why's" (why is) and  "when's" (when is). Further examples occur when someone does or is something, for example; "That girl's (girl is) going to do it." or " That girl's (girl is) pretty" 

Moving along, the basic ones that most people get correct are “can’t” (can not), “isn’t” (is not), “hadn’t” (had not), “haven’t” (have not) “c/w/shouldn’t” (c/w/should not) and “didn’t” (did not). Others that get a little hazy for some are “shan’t” (shall not), “aren’t” (are not) and “won’t” (will not... for the rest of the convoluted history behind this one, check out answer 26 on this thread http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/4521/what-is-wont-a-contraction-of).

Another word that gets contracted often is ‘will’ as in “that’ll”, “what’ll”, she’ll/ he’ll and I’ll. You don’t want to know what I've seen done to them.

Which reminds me, ‘have’ is another word that is frequently squished. Unfortunately it then all too often booted out all together in favour of ‘of’ c/w/should’ve becomes c/w/should of. Just stop this right now. Other ‘have’ contractions include “I’ve”, “we’ve” and “you’ve”....try not to murder them also please.

But the apostrophes that really seem to throw some people are the ones used to contract ‘are’ such as you’re (you are), they’re (they are), we’re (we are) and who’re (who are). These almost bring a tear to my eye. I sigh deep sighs when I see the wrong ‘You’re/Your” in a Facebook meme; not judging sighs....more...lamenting the loss of our education system sighs.

Just to help out, an easy way to remember these is a simple subbing out for the full term.  

You’re going to get it!

Now try subbing “You are”

You are going to get it!

Sentence still makes sense so “you’re” is correct

If the sentence was “Your dinner is ready”...

“You are dinner is ready” sounds stupid...so use “your”

This subbing technique also works for who's (who is) vs whose and, say, girl's (either belong to the girl or short for the 'girl is') vs girls (a simple plural).

Other stray apostrophes appear in such words as “that’d” (that would), what’d (what would/did) and I/she/he’d (I/she/he had/would)

Watch for these apostrophes, include them, make them feel special.

Now that we have discussed the finer points of where to place apostrophes....here’s one place you don’t stick ‘em: in plurals

Please stop this.

The ‘s’ has done nothing to you to deserve such segregation and I can assure you the apostrophe is probably highly unimpressed and all.

Just imagine....he steps out the door in the morning after kissing his wee twin commas goodbye and stroking the cheek of his gorgeous semi colon wife (she has a full stop in the oven you know) and sets off to make his family proud by assigning some clear and correct ownership, or standing tall (if a little curvy) to represent some poor deleted letters who have had their hopes dashed yet again.

And what do you do? 

Go plonk him in the middle of an average plural. Chuck him in there like he’s just one of the boys, nary a speck of concern for his mental and physical well-being. What if they’re thugs? Have you thought about that?? What do you think is going to happen to him once the other letters work out he doesn't belong there? Huh?

You should be ashamed of yourself. Poor apostrophe, he goes out just looking for a satisfying work environment and because of you he ends up getting leaned on by a blinged out ‘s’ muttering: “You’re not welcome here bruh...”

Have a heart. Let sleeping dogs lie...unless you’re talking about the dog’s bed or the dogs’ bone, keep the apostrophes away.

You could safe a life.

Till next week!

P.S. If you’re looking for a little practice in apostrophe protection, consult the following quiz.

http://www.grammarbook.com/grammar_quiz/apostrophes_1.asp