Problem Attic. Insert witty tagline here.

“The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.”
— James Baldwin

“Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem.”
— W. Somerset Maugham

Games

Games are pretty commonplace in business. They’re pretty popular everywhere, but there’s something about business that just brings them to the fore. Most of the time, they’re just different ways of getting along, but I think that there’s a point they become a bad thing.

Read it all…

Some wee nuggets (in some sense of the word) from Brendon and Cathie Clancy:

“Performance leaves you empty, ministry leaves you full”

Ummm, not my experience, but okay. I guess you’d know… how empty are you feeling right now?

“The higher you go in praise, the deeper you can go in worship”

Don’t even get me started…

“While I worship, I’m seeing with my ‘eyes of faith’ the result I want”

While I try and worship, someone up the front is trying to make their daydreams reality, through sheer force of will. Don’t rupture anything!

“I’m not moved by what I feel,

I believe that Christ is real”

— words to a nice, heart-tugging song.

Sorry, I’m just not grasping how this works. I’m singing a song written to express emotion, about how I’m ignoring emotion? I live in the reality-based community I’m afraid.

Also, I’m bemused that Penti’s are as good at taking the piss of themselves as we are (of them). I think the main difference is that they mock something, but then carry right on doing what they were mocking, thus giving us observers a deliciously tasty piece of irony. The more conservative at least have the sense (generally) to mock only what they’ve actually stopped doing.

These are my thoughts on how I’m going to vote.

I’ve been leaning towards the Greens, but I have a couple of problems with voting for them:

• The “Repeal of Section 59 of the Crimes Act” currently making the rounds, which is an anti-smacking and “raising your children is the state’s responsibility” bill in disguise, is a Greens’ bill.

• They’ll coalesce (coalite?) with Labour, so a vote for the Greens is effectively a vote for another Labour government.

However, I don’t know that a National/United Future government will be heaps better; I have a couple of concerns:

• Don Brash seems to favour the better-off at the expense of the poor. This I cannot agree with; I think we have a pretty clear mandate to look after the poor. This doesn’t necessarily mean a welfare state, but it does mean a certain amount of care, by the state, for fringe people. Also, Right wing government scares me a little more than Left, although our Left is pretty totalitarian already.

• United Future are onto it in some areas (advocating healthy families) but I don’t like a lot of the common, conservative Christian attitude coming out of the Right; I think there are some pretty big dangers there. However, they’re not going to be calling the shots, so it might be a good idea to give them at least some say in parliament.

As of yet, I haven’t made up my mind. I’m not keen on any of the choices this time around. I’ll leave with the words of a song from South Park:

“We’ve got to make our votes count
We’ve got to make our voices heard
We’ve been given the right to choose
Between a douche and a turd.”

Vote well.

…is kinda nice, and by no means unusual, having grown up in the South Island.

However, ice on the inside of the window is one step too far. Mother Nature, this is my unimpressed face.

Last week Tragedy of the Commons placed second in the Canterbury University Battle of the Bands, and won a small amount of recording time.

Last night we won the regional final for the Primal Battle of the Bands, which means we’re being flown to Auckland for the National Final!

So to all my beloved Auckland people, you will have a chance to see us play live, next Friday. Unfortunately, I think we only get to play one song, so unless you want to hook us up a really late gig next Friday night, and the gear to play it, you won’t see a whole lot. Ah well.

The rest of first prize was a nice fancy microphone, and free hair styling. Unfortunately, as seen previously, I no longer have hair to style. Goshdarnit.

[Update:] Auckland peoples, we would love to play a gig up there! If you can organise a venue, a P.A., two decent guitar amps, a bass amp, and a drum kit (I can bring my cymbals), you can have yourselves a free Tragedy of the Commons gig, either real late Friday night, or Saturday morning. Contact me if you can help.

It’s a lot like church in that:

• There are a bunch of unwritten rules that you’re just expected to know.
• The atmosphere is really feminine.
• There are lots of elderly, but also a relatively high proportion of *mumbles* fine ladies.

Why are there so many old women? Is the hairdressers’ the “place to be” or something?

Either my haircut was cheaper than average, or hairdressers don’t make much money. By the time your employer has taken rent, power, etc., $22 for a three-quarter-hour haircut can’t leave much of a wage.

[Update, 12 hours later] GAH! I totally just won a haircut, which is only valid for Monday. Monday, three days after I JUST HAD A HAIRCUT!