This weekend, there's a "Midwinter Festival" in a small town, in a rural area, probably 20 minutes from where I live. It's in an old apple museum, which was, I kid you not, bought by hipster wankers and turned into a cidery, and more recently a brandy distillery...

Their cider is objectively terrible, but it's expensive, and hyper "local", so everyone pretends to love it, even while they get food poisoning from it, lol.

So yeah, these people have been running a "festival" there, for nearly a decade, in collaboration with the local version of fucking Bilbao, or the Getty, which... Is owned and run by a literal professional gambler, who made his money by cheating the state's Keno system (yes, literally. That actually happened), and refusing to pay tax. He runs the museum for "good PR", and to get government grants to promote his own degeneracy.

So, onto this festival. I would link their website, if it wasn't (literally) too close to home, but let me explain:

In the past, while it was still exceedingly pretentious, it was initially actually free, and you could drive to the festival and park (there's no public transport, and it's on a highway in the middle of nowhere). You could arrive when you wanted, and leave when you wanted...

Guess what it is now, post-Covid? $10AUD PER HOUR, just to get in. Food is extra. Drink is extra. And you have to buy separate tickets for those, too. Entirely cashless. So that means you're paying $70 for tonight, and $90 for tomorrow, just to get in. No discounts. No "half time" passes. None of that. Absolutely fucking outrageous.

Once you're in, you're in. You can leave, but that's it. You're out. You've just wasted your money. No big name acts, either, and it doesn't include anything. Oh, except a bus.

On that, they no longer let you DRIVE to the festival. You're not even allowed to be dropped off. If you want to get in, you have to get on their bus, which is, apparently, included in the ticket. But seats aren't reserved. And there's no timetable.

Worse still, they are deliberately not running enough buses from the nearest city (where the accommodation actually is), because it is "too far away". So to get the bus, and be sure there is space, you have to get to the nearest town to the venue, yourself, in the first place, and just hope the buses there turn up. No joke. Which, because there is hardly any transport there, means that you will have to drive to that town, anyway.

So let's just be clear about this: to get to the festival, you have to drive down the highway, to the nearest town, which will mean you will have to drive past the venue. But you can't stop. You can't park. You can't be dropped off. You're expected to keep going, drive past, find a park in the nearest town, *and then get their stupid bus back, IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION...

And they are so smug that, in case anyone complains, their website now has a poem, a poem, which insults you, in rhyme, for even thinking about complaining about this situation. I am not kidding. I would screenshot it, but again, too many place names there...

This festival is being funded by government grants, to attract (hipster) tourists from interstate, because it's winter, and that is what kind of person the state government here wants to market to, apparently.

All it includes is shitty local bands, "wassailing", fires (heaps of that shit, including "fire twirling, and probably actual fireworks), shitty overpriced food and "craft" drink, live butchering of animals (yes, really), degenerate costume parades, Morris dancers, woke "welcome to countries" and white guilt parades, and finally, the burning of actual fucking wicker man effigies, because that is what it is all about, really... An entire festival of degeneracy.

You know what's funny? No one in the local town (where the buses go from) will be able to afford to go to this. None. Not that they would probably even want to, at this point, anyway. This is a poor town, which has been utterly decimated by policies put in place to appease these kinds of people (i.e. shutting down both the forestry and apple industries), and which is like... The antithesis of what the festival is. So it's almost like this is a deliberate slap in the face to them (and to me). A... "Fuck you. If you don't like it, you wouldn't be able to afford to go, anyway". And now, with the ticketing bullshit, that is literally, unironically, the case.

That has to be deliberate. It has to be. It's disgusting.

One final note: this festival is largely run by (aside from the cider wankers) that museum I mentioned, which also runs "edgy" hipster arts and music festivals in the city, twice a year.

You know what that festival has had, as previous events? A man who sewed his lips together, and stuck needles in his whole body. For "art". Another year, he suspended himself (or his head) inside a box, for three days, and didn't move. For "art". Then he buried himself under the main road of the city, in a shipping container, for five days. The council PAID for that, and for digging up and closing the road, twice, in that one week. Deliberately. To disrupt traffic (because these people hate cars, and humanity). For "art".

But worse than that, a few years ago, the festival sacrificed a live bull and bathed in its blood. Yes, you heard me - people paid good money to bathe in the blood of a bull that was killed in front of them. As a "ritual". For "art".

Two years ago? The festival asked for Aboriginal volunteers to donate THEIR BLOOD, so that they could soak an antique Australian flag in that blood. No fucking joke. This finally jumped the shark, and the public told them to go fucking jump (well, those of us with common sense did. Not the media so much). So they rescinded, and instead now run "parades of guilt" through the city, twice a year, where they "mourn for Aboriginal Australia", and shut down the city while they tell us all how guilty we are.

Oh, and they also have inverted red crosses up around the city. Every year. To be "edgy". For "art".

This is all true. Look it up, if you wish. All of it. I'm not just schizoposting, this time.

While it might sound like I live in the Twilight Zone, or in literal Hell, I promise you... Try actually living here.

You thought Williamsburg or the Bay Area were bad? Try transferring that same "aesthetic", mixing it with additional white guilt and even more leftism, and plonking it in a rural environment where it does not fucking belong, and this what you get.

And yes, people here think that this shit is all "muh wholesome Keanu chungus". You should see the backlash you get on social media when you try to call it out. :-/

Not one of my usual rants, this time. I just…

It still amazes me how toxic Reddit is. Sure, it’s anonymous, but so is this place, and yet we manage to largely keep it civil, most of the time…

Even in small subs (geographical in particular, but also sports), though, Reddit is just… Fucking vile. Utter hostility on all sides.

And yet, it is still one of the most popular sites on the internet, especially amongst the demographic I “belong to” (white, male, under 30)…

How very fucking sad that is.

Yeah, that’s all I wanted to say.

Glad we got “off” that shithole, even if I stupidly still keep going back to that awful, awful site/place.

Maybe I won’t, after the last couple of weeks.

It’s honestly just extra-shit, anonymous Facebook, now, with the demographics and woke virtue signalling of Twitter and all the simping of Tumblr (and Twitter, of course)…

Just that. I know that’s rather… Odd, perhaps, and overly “wholesome” of me, but I just wanted to say that I genuinely appreciated it. All of it.

I’m not used to that level of kindness, from random internet strangers (Reddit mostly isn’t, except, I’ve found, from a few more niche subs, and some of the sporting ones, oddly), or on the internet more broadly (see: Facebook).

I’m also just… Not used to people being kind (I hate that word. But it seems to be the best for the situation). People in my life… Haven’t been that. Not family. Rarely friends, for any lasting length of time. So kindness, when it comes, is… Frankly kind of disarming. Like it feels like I don’t deserve it, almost..?

Terrible, I know. I have to work on being kind to myself. Then at least I don’t have to rely on anyone else for that, I guess, lol.

Anyway, just wanted you all to know that I really appreciated it, and it meant more to me than you might… Perhaps feel it should have.

All the best, and I’ll shut up, now. I’m going to try to put my pain and… Adrenaline, I guess (rather than “hurt”, or “anger”) into heavy exercise, so that at least it goes somewhere… “Positive”, i guess, if nothing else.

Thanks again. Keep it real, and stay honest. Oh, and fuck the Great Reset/all of this Covid bullshit. Do your best to fight back, as I have, and continue to.

This is, obviously, exceedingly personal. You don’t have to read it if you don’t want to. And I apologize for it not being… “Newsworthy”.

I’m mainly just angry. And I think this shows, very clearly and close to home, just how shitty all of this has been.

Initially, I couldn’t visit because I was, and am, “inadequately vaxxed”. Then they made it boosters. Then the rules seemingly changed, but my family, my goddamn family, man, prevented me from going in there to see him, except for his birthday last year. Without outwardly saying it, they did it to punish me for my… “Non-compliance”. 😔

Then we all got Covid. But I couldn’t get an “exemption”, because life is shit.

And then, guess what? The whole ward of the nursing home got it anyway, despite none of us (me, or my father, who is “quadruple vaxxed”, or other non-blood relatives) visiting, and despite them being thrice or more “jabbed”…

So, being frail and sickly, the inevitable happened. Though it is important to note that he did not die of Covid, and was allegedly testing negative (having already had it), up to the last few days…

The nursing home wouldn’t let me see him because of the outbreak. My family (mother is his main “guardian”) also didn’t want me visiting (again), and because we don’t even share the same last name (obviously, maternal grandfather), and I can’t afford a lawyer, I hadn’t been able to secure a workaround…

It’s fucking awful. I didn’t get to say goodbye. I haven’t seen him in like, nine months or more. And my family blame me for that. Me.

The worst thing, though, was my Dad’s response: I asked him whether he had been in since I had, seeing as he is “quadruple vaxxed”, and super paranoid about Coof…

To which he said “No, and why would I? I saw him before that.”

As in, no, he didn’t want to, and even though he could, he couldn’t be bothered. This is the same man who attacked me for not visiting enough, for being unvaxxed, for not “supporting your mother enough, at this time”, and for not visiting his mother, who still lives at home, enough…

I just… Fuck these people, man. Fuck my entire family, at this point…

Tl;dr, my grandfather died, and the (supposedly coof-related) evils of the system, and of my family, prevented me from saying goodbye. For months… 😞

So I decided to make a post in the subreddit for my nearest city. It was about development corruption by the University, and the fact that they have used money, power and influence to skip due process and corrupt both local and state government.

The first hour or so? Pleasant enough. Highly upvoted. Tolerant discussion. And then the fucking shills and trolls came. And they attacked. They attacked hard. Full on slanging match.

Guess what? Turns out they all, all work for the Uni, or at least claim to. We "outed" one of them as a fucking Zoom lecturer (surprise surprise that she referred to the fucking vice chancellor on a first name basis), after she had attempted to personally attack me, and even went for the full doxx.

It's crazy, there, now. Wild. Everything pointing out the obvious corruption, or widespread community disagreement (literally no one in the community, and off Reddit, wants this. Not a single person in any other forum, except for the manufactured consent on Facebook, has been positive. Not one) has been heavily downvoted, and every comment "supporting" the University, and saying how anyone in disagreeement is "dumb, ignorant hicks", have been highly upvoted.

It's frankly... Bizarre. Totally inorganic. Almost like they must have... People whose job it is is to to literally search out posts like mine, and run damage control. Like a very local version of hasbara, or Russian trolls...

Absolutely wild. I reckon they'll ban me, soon, for "being aggressive", or some bullshit.

Oh, and guess who one of the main "defenders" of the Uni, and the council, has been, all over social media? My old philosophy prof, at school, who was literally sacked for being an alcoholic ebebophile (you know, paedo for teen girls) and drug dealer, and has fled the country, but who feels the need to still comment on all local socials, because he is "a distinguished academic", and also happens to be "a philosopher", just like the completely corrupt VC of the Uni.

Former VC, who started all this shit, happens to have also been outed as a paedo, and sexual predator. Funny that. Almost like there's a pattern, innit?

Why are these places, and people, always like this? Lol...

From here (with substantive additions by me, lol):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_Died_with_a_Felafel_in_His_Hand

While the book is not written in a linear fashion the order of houses (and housemates) John lives in is as follows:

1st Place – The Boulevade (Sydney??)

Tom lives in the garage Mel lives upstairs. Her boyfriend Warren moved in some time later. When they moved out, replaced by:

Andy the med student (nicknamed "Dr Death") moves in

Tom moves out and is replaced by:

Derek the bank clerk

2nd Place

Tom and John got a new place

Derek the bank clerk (lived in a tent). Replaced by:

Martin the paranoid wargames enthusiast. Lasted three weeks and was replaced by:

Taylor the taxi driver

3rd Place – King Street (Newtown - Sydney)

PJ

Milo

PJ moved out, replaced by:

The 7 ft nurse, replaced by:

Ray, replaced by:

Malcolm and his Charlie Brown-themed bowls, replaced by:

Victor the Rastafarian, replaced by: McGann the American in his mid 40s with a fondness for prostitutes, replaced by:

Taylor the taxi driver.

Taylor at the time was having personal issues. He ambushed his fellow housemates with a toy gun after hiding for an hour. He told them if it was a real gun they would all be dead. John saw this as good reason to move out.

4th Place – Duke Street (Brisbane)

"Thunderbird Ron"

Macgyver the mushroom farmer

Neal the albino moontanner

Howie (Neal's friend)

Satomi Tiger (via Tim the invisible flatmate)

"Brainthrust" Leonard

Jabba the Hutt

Mick the English backpacker

Colin and Stepan

John moves out for reasons not made clear.

5th Place – Melbourne

Stacey the Who Weekly fan

John moves out when her loud sex sessions became too much to bear.

6th Place – Fitzroy (Melbourne)

Brain the electrician

Greg the gay school teacher

AJ

Satvia who starts going out with John

Nigel moves into the house and moves in with Satvia

As a result of the fallout from this new relationship Greg moves out and John follows suit.

7th Place – Carlton (Melbourne)

Ernie

Martin the Canadian PhD student

Dave the smoker moves in with his washerwoman girlfriend

Four other Daves move in

After trying to freeze out the Daves from the house by cutting off the gas and electricity John gives in and moves to a loft in Fitzroy.

8th Place – Fitzroy (Melbourne)

Wendell the Londoner

After Wendell's threats to kill him, John moves out and sleeps around at friends' places.

9th Place – Auchenflower in Brisbane

Wayne the Satanic vet

Danny (the decoy)

Margot

10th Place – Brisbane goth house (not clear how this move came about)

Kevin the carpenter

Slovenian art printer

Bald goth who lived in the back

Luke the musician

All the goths run away after the bailiff came round to collect unpaid rent. John keeps the house on and in moves:

Dirk Em the banker (however at the start of the book it is stated that Emma moves in when Nina moves out)

"Crazy Nina"

Nina move out to live with her friend Tanya

Tanya then moves in after Nina sleeps with her boyfriend. The whole house moves:

11th Place

Dirk

Em the banker

Tanya (possibly)

New woman moves in to replace Nina but leaves because she is "diagnosed as schizo"

Taylor the taxi driver moves in

The book then segues to

12th Place – band house in Darlinghurst, Sydney

Hooper

Tammy

Jeremy moves in to escape his former psychotic housemate

Keith the drummer moves in downstairs

13th Place – Kippax street (Surry Hills, Sydney)

Gina

Harry the doctor, replaced by:

Kim the vet, replaced by:

"Melissa the junkie" (aka Rowan Corcoran), replaced by:

Duffy the computer programmer, replaced by:

The Dutch guy who lasted 2 weeks, replaced by:

Giovanna who lasted less than a week, replaced by:

Mosman who no one ever saw, replaced by:

Jimbo who moved in with one of the girls leaving his room free for Veronica the proto hippy who was replaced by:

Jonathan, replaced by:

"Downstairs Ivan"

"Uptight Martin" moved in at the same time

Downstairs Ivan and Uptight Martin move out within 3 days of each other and are replaced by

Paul the quiet journalist and Homer the air traffic controller

Yoko San moved in and last three weeks, replaced by:

Jeffrey the "junkie" (drug addict) - of the title, I assume

Birmingham's narrative is interspersed with humorous testimonials from other veterans of the Australian share house lifestyle, and descriptions of common share house paraphernalia, such as the bucket bong (yep), the ubiquitous "brown couch" (mine was blue), and milk crates serving as makeshift furniture (can confirm).

Figured I would ask the "brains trust", here, lol...

This is not my area of strength. Like, at all... Controversial perhaps, but, most of the time, I find computers (or rather, IT and "tech") to be... Immensely frustrating. I'm not stupid. I know the basics. I can do most things that most... "Normie" millennials can do. I just... I'm not a "build a computer from scratch" type person. Put it that way.

So when something goes wrong, like my current computer randomly losing a whole bunch of files, I... Attempt to solve it, but get increasingly frustrated when I can't. So here we are...

I'm not really a gamer, per se. I don't really watch movies on the computer, either (I know, weirdo, right?), aside from Youtube and the like (Vid Dailymotion, etc.).

I do, however, do an absolute fuck tonne of photography. Like, literally terabytes worth. Both mobile and D-SLR. In terms of "hobbies", or "interests", this, and music, are what I mainly use the computer for. Because my current computer is such an utter piece of shit (it's old, but has 1TB storage, which is a fair amount, for something a decade old), I spend... Literally days, just clearing data (photos, mainly) off it.

I also listen to a very large amount of music. Music is my passion. If I was better at it, I probably would have attempted to make a career out of it, by now. I do a little bit of mixing, but I would like to do more. If I had a better computer, I guess that's a thing I would do. Somehow the speakers on this old thing are really fucking good, though, so I would rather not lose that/have to make it external, lol... Though it's funny, because this computer is so fucked, that sometimes it crashes, when you try to load big playlists in Apple Music, lol...

Now for the more complicated stuff, which is sort of... Beyond, me. I'm not a graphics designer, but my degree, somewhat unfortunately, requires me to do a not significant amount of it. Which is shit, but so be it. Also, more broadly, a whole bunch of "digital drawing", and, hardest of all, for me personally, heaps of statistics-related programming. Heaps. Weeks worth. Which this computer simply cannot cope with (we mainly use R, if people have heard of that).

I also have to do a fuck-tonne of web-related shit, of course. Teams, fucking Blackboard, online interactive lectures, you name it. And then there's the video calling, and the more... "Academic" shit, like Endnote, and academic writing more broadly, which this computer simply cannot cope with, anymore...

Honestly, this computer is... So old, and deprecated, that I don't even think I can upgrade Office, on here, which leads to all sorts of fuckery.

Oh, and I nearly forgot: some degree of "ruggedness", would be good, because I do a surprisingly large amount of "field stuff", and I would rather the damn thing not be as fragile as this one, when I have to take it out there (obviously sparingly), lol...

So yeah. I'm a Mac "person". This is a Macbook. I mostly use an IPhone. I am not, however, "Windows illiterate". My last laptop was a Toshiba Satellite (when they were still making them), newer than this MacBook. But it was completely fucked, even from when I first got it, and ended up bricking itself, taking all my data with it, literally twice. And that, my friends, is why I spend so much time "backing up" (sadly). Having lost literally years of work, I just... Don't trust any device not to do the same, lol. So yeah. Would rather stick to the Mac "ecosystem", I think, but I can probably be swayed... Should I go for like "a custom build" (not by me, of course!!), do you think, for these sorts of needs, or do you think I can get by/away with "off the shelf"/ordered in..??

Just thought I would chuck this up, because, having lost... A not insignificant portion of data, this morning, for no apparent reason, I figure that, in desperate times, I... May as well ask some of "the brains trust" here, lol...

Thoughts, anyone??

Cheers in advance!

*apologism.

I’ve never seen this “community behave like this… The same turboposters, the same “power commenters” dominate every thread. You’re posting literal Russian state propaganda, and claiming it is “unbiased” and “accurate”.

You’re literally defending war crimes.

What the fuck, u/DomitiusofMassilia?? I understand that you want to allow a “free speech” forum, but you’re losing control of this site…

I appreciate this will be absolutely flooded with downvotes, but I no longer care. Anyone who defends war crimes, invasions of sovereign states, and the killing of innocent civilians, as many of you have, in the last couple of days, is absolutely on the wrong side of history.

So much for Gamergate.

You absolute fucking psychos. You know who you are. You post so much more than 5 times a day, now, and you’ve ruined what value this place had.

Fuck you, Russian trolls.

I don’t know how I became so… “Blackpilled”. Where exactly my “skepticism” came from…

I’ve had a fucking tough life, and I’ve seen the dark side of “compliance culture”, and the medico-industrial industry. Or maybe I just have a natural “aversion to authority”, and bullshit rules, after being abused and bullied all my life. Who fucking knows? But regardless I am very much the only one in my entire extended family who questions this shit…

Tonight, I was forced into an extended family dinner, mostly to see my cousin, who has been living in the US (LA, now NYC), for years, and who I haven’t seen since 2016 or so… And also an uncle who I haven’t seen in some years.

Anyway, so the restaurant insists that you wear a mask, walking in, until you sit down… Utterly absurd, and even my v compliant father called it out.

Then comes dinner. Uncle (not the one who I haven’t seen in years) has brought his new “partner” along…

She is… Horrible. Going on about how “horrible” (poor) tenants are, and how they “abuse” her daughter, who works in property management, and refuses to fix their leaking apartments, in the shit part of town…

This is alarming enough. But then she somehow asks about my “vaccination status”. I say the truth, that I have had one dose. She goes absolutely off her tits… Calls me “dangerous”, and “immature”. “Irresponsible”, “cruel” and “stupid”. Tells me I am literally killing people in nursing homes…

I finally fucking exploded. This woman doesn’t know me. She has absolutely no right to give me an earful. Yet she escalates and escalates, and at one point I honestly thought she would fucking physically assault me, at the table…

I’m utterly disgusted by this. And so I fucking stand my ground. But then the rest of my family turns on me. She makes it about her. “Oh woe is me!” Literally said, “I’m not judging you, though you ARE irresponsible, but you’d better not be judging me for being TRIPLE VACCINATED!”

I literally didn’t bring it up once. Yet SHE was the “victim”. Fucking unbelievable… 🙄

Funny thing is, Jap girl will almost certainly be beaten by a cheating 15-year old Russian, who really should be banned by now, but isn’t, because the IOC is weak as piss, and doesn’t want to “anger” Putin…

Even more amusingly, if said Russian (Salieva) medals, there is no medal ceremony, because of the bullshit legalese the IOC invented to justify the whole thing…

Absolute clown world.

This whole Olympics has been the biggest joke since Rio, or maybe even Sochi… 🤦🏻‍♂️

Must admit, Canada and the US failing in both the curling and the men’s hockey has brought me some degree of shadenfreude though, lol…