[Occasionally, Huw's alternative personality, Robert The Frenchman will take over. He has worked out how to post on The huwr Factor. This is the result. -Ed]
[Hey, do you think the editor has an editor? -Ed]
[Yeah, they do, but don't tell them. -Ed Ed]
Bonjour, Monsieur. I am Robert The Frenchman. I have a ridculous French accent, but you just can not hear it from there... my spelling and English is too good for you silly mouldy old post-it-note stain, you.
Anyway, I answer some of your questions now, you stupid small-in-the-private-parts person.
Q. Okay, so I have got me a nice dog, right.
A. Okay.
Q. And the problem is the dog isn't very funny.
A. I see... You want it to be funny?
Q. Yes, I do.
A. Ah. Well, I see your problem.
Q. Oh, good.
A. Yes, I thought so...
Q. ...
A. Hey, can I ask you something, Monsieur?
Q. Sure.
A. How do you floss stuff from your teeth if they're right at the back of your mouth?
Q. I'm hanging up now.
-----
Q. Yeah, g'day, mate! I have a question about good old-fashioned Australian footy. Who do you think will win this season?
A. Bonjour, Monsieur.
Q. Yeah, g'day, mate... I want to know who you think will win the Australian footy. Mate, I love that sport...
A. Yes, hello. Did you have a question, Monsieur?
Q. Yeah, mate, it was about footy.
A. Hrm? *laughs frenchly* Sorry, I thought for a second there you were asking about that horrible sport that silly Australian pig-dogs sometimes play in their senseless running around with naught but a woolen cloth between you and a terrible painful death behaviour.
Q. Footy?
A. Yes! That is it, Monsieur. They call it 'Footy'... Those silly Australians with their intelligence of those badly thought-out contraceptive devices.
Q. Yes, mate. I wanted to know who you think would win.
A. Oh...
Q. So... who will it be?
A. Oh! Monsieur did I tell you how much I love the Australian Footy? I love it. Sport of kings it is, Monsieur. I love it so much I play it to my grandmother and she is in the grave now, but I still play it to her. Not with her. No no no, but I play it to her...
Q. ...
A. I hope I have answered your question fully, Monsieur! *Hangs up*... God, I hate those bloody Australians...
Q. I'm still here.
A. That is, I hate those bloody Australians when they don't play footy, Monsieur!
-----
That is enough from Robert The Frenchman for now, ladies and gentlemen. Tune in next week when Robert will expose the Queen as actually being an alien impostor and Prince Phillip as a fraud who is really just a gang on loosely organised underground Gnomes run by the silly English Government and their funny speaking language.
HUW'S BEDROOM, Huw Federation - Two were arrested and three badly injured during a riot today on the south coast of Huw's Bedroom caused by a man who ate his own face in public. The man was 21 year old Jeffery Guildberg, a student of the Federation University.
One witness to the scene claims that she saw Mr Guildberg prepare to eat his own face, catching nothing but confused looks from people eating at a nearby café.
"They just thought he was one of the local drunken students," said the witness. "Students are always getting drunk around here."
Witness reports say that as Mr Guildberg began consuming his face the surrounding calm turned violent. A riot ensued that took police 4 hours to contain.
"At 4:25 PM this afternoon a man was seen eating his own face outside a café on the south coast," said Superintendent Gary Marlow of the South Coast Police. "He was detained whereupon it was established that he did, in fact, consume his own face without using any kind of utility or even his hands - just his mouth."
Mr Guildberg was arrested for public disturbance and taken to a nearby hospital where his stomach was pumped and bits of his face were reassembled.
South Coast Police have warned that if any further incidents of this nature occur stricter security measures will be enforced both at the University, and along the south coast.
Now, I promise this will not turn into a spiel about an individual or individual's behaviour. However, recently I've noticed an increase in pessimistic or cynical outlooks on life. It's really not healthy or good for avoiding the outcomes that they are worried about. That is, if you think we are going to destroy the earth, you aren't exactly helping out, are you?
Okay, so I have two major points I want to get into here: cynical, pessimistic outlook on the broad scheme of humanity, and the cynical, pessimistic outlook on the everyday life scheme. The people who demonstrate these features will be now collectively known as "wankers" (though they aren't always male).
Now, before I get stuck into the former, first, let me get stuck into this beautiful dinner that my mother has carefully prepared for me.
...
Thanks, Mum!
All right, so I'm talking about the cynical, pessimistic outlook on the broad scheme of humanity. Take the following conversation I had with my pal WankerNumberOne [not real name - Ed] for example:
Huw Rowlands: ...so that is why I think animals are funny when wet.
WankerNumberOne: Did you see on the news the thing about the kids who were caught beating up a kitten at a bus interchange? They'll probably get off it, though.
Huw Rowlands: Pretty nasty stuff. Kids are weird... Actually, no... they were prosecuted when one of them went forward.
WankerNumberOne: Yeah, but people still do this all the time. Why would you? They're just all idiots.
Huw Rowlands: It hasn't been on the news. If they'd done something like that then...
WankerNumberOne: You're not listening! Of course it hasn't been on the news! They're at the RSPCA all the time though.
Huw Rowlands: There was a spike in reports, that means it must have been unusual for something so bad to...
WankerNumberOne: You're not listening!! Jeez! Just listen! People suck!
Here, WankerNumberOne demonstrates immaturity through the inability to listen. This is a trait that all wankers share. Usually, they will not listen to your points all the way through and act as if they are the ones not being listened to. They talk too much, in other words, not listening to what others need to say.
We all have two ears and one mouth. The way I see it is that we should be doing twice as much listening as we do speaking.
Now, the second example of broad-scheme wankers is a pretty common one. It's the example where a certain wanker will think that the world is coming to an end. It's a scenario that I like to call the "My-God-You-Are-An-Idiot scenario".
The situation will go like such. Quite often my discussion will turn towards that of the future. At this point the wanker will butt in and make a claim along the lines of "humanity is slowly destroying itself, anyway". They usually look at environmental disaster or super-weapons destroying the earth as the major point to back it up. It usually demonstrates their ignorance on the matter. They more often than not confuse the three major climate-change issues of global warming, global cooling and the depleting ozone layer.
Again, of course, they won't listen to reason. "Humanity will destroy itself. We are all stupid and ignorant."
My biggest point against that claim is to look at where we were 200 or 300 years ago, and then imagine that improvement again. Even half of that improvement would be tremendous. Of course, I would be leaning towards thinking improvement happens at an exponential rate.
Humanity has a constant fear in the back of its head that there is death right around the corner. This is why we are so aware of the impending doom of climate change. This is why there is so much money going into research on the subject. This is why governments are holding conferences dedicated to it. This is why it was such a huge step forward to get the United State of America to admit that climate change was happening (phew!).
Wankers tend to see this fear in the back of humanity's head as a certainty. Wankers have always seen things this way. They probably always will. However, due to Rowlands' Law of Perpetual Social Change, something must be different with each generation. Usually it is the nature of the impending doom. For my grandparent's generation, it would have been the current world war. For my parent's generation it would have been super weapons and potential war. For my generation, it will have been climate change.
Can you see the pattern? The impending doom keeps getting less and less... doomy.
Now it is time to analyse the cynical, pessimistic outlook on the everyday life scheme. This behaviour is otherwise known as plain nasty. Let's look at another example:
WankerNumberTwo: So what do you want to do with yourself, Huw?
Huw Rowlands: I want to be a software engineer.
WankerNumberTwo: Oh... what do they do?
Huw Rowlands: Software engineering is the profession that creates and maintains software applications by applying technologies and practices from computer science, project management, engineering, application domains, and other fields. [This is completely ripped from a Wikipedia article. I figure that I will one day have a connection to Wikipedia in my brain, so this is realistic. -Ed]
WankerNumberTwo: So you build Windows and MSN and stuff?
Huw Rowlands: Sometimes, yes.
WankerNumberTwo: No wonder it doesn't bloody work.
Huw Rowlands: No, that is because your computer has had enough of the torture you put it through from running things like MSN and saying things like "omg, he iz soooo hawt 4 u! lmao! u go grl!11 tata 4 now by c u l8r dont do 2 much many lol!11 u r gay anal!11 kthxbye". Get a life, lady!
Actually, I don't do that last bit... I'm too... nice... This has got to stop. I don't need to explain why, obviously. It's just nastiness. It's obvious it needs to end. I have already written about Dirt Diggers, so I don't need to litter my blog with more gross serious stuff about everyday-scheme wankers.
Anyway, I must stress that if you think you are one of these people, you probably aren't. Wankers are usually not self-aware. What about now? Are you scared that you are wanker? What can you do about it? Well, plenty.
Get over yourself. You can make yourself change. Too many arse-holes just submit to being grumpy because "you can't change who you are". You can, you fool. People do it all the time. You can't change your basic features, like your skin colour, what your thought process is, no, I'll admit. Your arse-hole-itude is a separate factor that changes as you grow. Each person is born a not-arse-hole and slowly becomes one if they don't keep it themselves in check. Do yourself and your friends a favour and open your lid and remove the arse-hole-ness.
So...
...anyone up for some...
...pizza?
HUW'S BEDROOM - Huw Federation: Federation Police commissioner Frederick Johnson admitted in a press conference last night that there has been no progress in finding the missing scientist Prof. Alfred Hamilton.
"We just don't know..." said Mr Johnson. "We've been looking everywhere, I swear... behind the sofa... under the bed... no where can he be found."
When interviewed by the Huw Broadcasting Corporation's current affairs programme AM this morning, Mr Johnson admitted that he has wrapped up in the latest Harry Potter book, "The Half-blood Prince".
"Whoa... I can't get enough of it!" he said. "You won't believe what happened, man!"
Prof. Alfred Hamilton went missing three weeks ago in his lab at Huw's Bedroom University. When looked for by his assistants, Mr Hamilton was gone and replaced by a large lump of green putty of equal size and weight.
"Urrruuuuuuaaaaggggggghhhhhhh" said the putty.
This was written mainly because I didn't want to write an essay for my English unit of Fantasy. Before you read this, keep in mind that it wasn't what I wanted. I had to butcher it quite a bit to keep in lines with horrible book we were reading. I don't know what the hell gloam is, and I didn't name the damn country "Escator" (rates about 5 Sebastians on the crap-name-o-meter), and I didn't name the damn sea "The Widowmaker Sea" (puts the crap-name-o-meter on overdrive).
The sailing jargon is quite... heavy... but kind of inaccurate. I wrote this before I went on the Young Endeavour. It may be completely wrong, or just fine before I butchered it to make it Stupid-English-Assesmant-Compliant™.
Apparently I lost marks for it being 'sexist'... go figure.
The Warrior
‘Mr Andrews,’ snapped Lieutenant Willows, and immediately regretted it. He was going to tell Midshipman Andrews to quit his sulking. He thought better of it when the boy at least made some effort to compose himself in response.
‘These two hourglasses need to be run against each other. Tell me if they’re more than two minutes in error of themselves.’
Mr Andrews had just turned twelve when he had joined The Warrior as on it’s maneuverers in the Widowmaker Sea. The boy came from a rich family, which would explain his immediate placement. His upbringing was, however, no indication of his ability as a seaman. Captain Meadows had dealt him two beatings in the passed thirteen weeks since leaving Narbon.
The Captain and Mr Willows were both of the mind that boyhood beatings have always been the best method of making a man, always will, and lord help the world if boys should ever cease to be beaten. Mr Willows would have agreed with Captain Meadows that Mr Andrews should have been punished, but nothing like a dozen blows from the bosun’s cane.
Captain chose this moment to come thundering onto the quarter-deck. The great round man shook as he bellowed some barely understandable instructions forward in the ship. The response was hardly audible. He let out a jolly laugh, shaking again. He was respected for this casual manner in the running of the ship.
However, that was not reserved for the junior officers. He was now eyeing Mr Andrews suspiciously as he sulkily turned the hourglasses.
‘Mr Willows!’ he boomed slapping the Lieutenant on the back and nearly making him loose his balance. ‘Make your report, my friend!’
‘Aye aye, sir. She’s on a nor’east by east course. Although she’s not as fast as she was when we turned around two days ago before the reef but she’s coming along comfortably.’
Captain Meadows’ smile turned to a piercing stare at Willows.
‘...sir,’ added Willows. Willows forgot the respective term frequently during the past weeks, and he regretted it was due to the Meadows’ manner. The Captain smiled when Willows remembered the respective term, and looked out to the other ships in the fleet. The Admiral’s flagship, The Indefatigable, was signalling.
‘You are too slow, Mr Foreman!’ bellowed the Captain from behind Willows’ left.
‘Sorry, sir.’
Mr Foreman, a Midshipman and officer of the watch, was tasked to reading all the signals coming from the flagship and relaying them to the Captain. He peered at the flagship for some moments through his spyglass before fumbling with with the signal book.
‘Mr Foreman. . . ’ repeated the Captain impatiently.
‘The Indy reports friendly sail in sight bearing nor’west by nor, sir!’
‘Send an acknowledgement!’
All eyes on the quarter-deck were now scanning the horizon for a ship with their spyglasses.
‘There she is!’ barked the Captain. ‘A sloop, directly off port!’
‘I see her, sir.’ said Willows. ‘She’s The Cogitation, a sloop-of-war: Captain Ford, sir.’
It was odd that Escatorian ships should meet at sea. This must have been a messenger deliberately sent for them. This was no personal matter of one of the Captains or the Admiral. Great matters of state must have occurred on land for the Navy to send a messenger after a fleet. Willows could not help but let his imagination wonder what the news could be. Perhaps His Majesty the King was ill again, or more likely that war had been declared with a rivalling nation. Willows thought all this as The Cogitation tucked up amongst the fleet and came along side The Indefatigable.
‘The Indy is signalling again, sir’ said Foreman again as the ship became hove
to. He checked himself and began “‘All ships Heave To”, sirs.’
‘Main tops’l braces!’ yelled Willows.
“‘Cogitation to Flag”, sirs,’ went on Foreman. “‘Have Dispatches”’
The Captain thanked Foreman, genuinely pleased with one of the Junior officers for a change and quietly and ordered for the gig to be prepared. Clearly he was also concerned for what news The Cogitation had brought.
‘Mr Willows,’ he said before he left, ‘keep the ship in good shape while I’m gone.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
Willows thought that if war had been declared, his service as a naval officer would be genuinely needed for the first time. He would see action for the first time. Real action, not mere skirmishes with privateers attempting to pirate gloam [see what I mean? What the hell is gloam? Coal? Poo? Lemon-sented refreshment towels? -Ed] transports. War meant that he would no longer be on half-pay. War was what he had been training for for years.
The ship rolled steadily in the sea, banking and pitching rhythmically. Willows checked his pocket watch, the Captain had spent a full half hour on The Indefatigable. He was returning returning now, although slowly. Foreman, as officer of the watch, organised the hauling of the quarter-boat back onto the deck. As the Captain stepped back onto the deck the bosun’s mates whistles pierced the air and the captain barked for them to be quiet. He was in a grave mood, a Willows could tell from the red expression on his face as he approached the quarter-deck. This was the moment that Willows had been waiting for. He braced himself to looked shocked at the announcement of war.
‘The King is dead,’ the Captain said quietly. That wasn’t what Willows was expecting. ‘There is no heir. Inform the crew of this and set the colours to half-mast. I’m going below.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
It was unlike Captain Meadows to delegate tasks such as these to the Lieutenants, but this was not a time for questioning his authority. Willows did exactly as he was supposed to do.
The seamen were quiet and polite as he gave the news. Some of them wept openly for their King. Obviously the men were worried about what would become of Escator now that the royal family had dissolved. Would an heir be found from one of the King’s family? Would there be a shift in power away from royalty and away from the family that had been bread for generations for the sole purpose of government? Perhaps worst of all, there might be a revolution and civil war, perhaps followed by the `election’ of a parliament and cabinet by the upper classes.
Would power be shifted to the public, who in their incompetence would form a government doomed for failure, the country falling into mismanagement and economic breakdown?
Would the Navy be dissolved? Would these men loose their lively hood and only source of income? Without the Navy would there be any protection for the shipments of gloam. Privateers would pirate the transports unabated. No. Surely, they couldn’t dissolve the Navy.
‘Sir,’ came Mr Foreman eventually. ‘Indy’s signalling again. “All ships form a line on port tack”, sir.’
‘Thank you, Mr Foreman.’ croaked Willows. He cleared his throat. ‘Acknowledge that, and send someone to give the Captain my compliments and inform him of the new heading. I’ll tack the ship, if you don’t mind, Mr Foreman.’
‘Hands to the braces, there!’ bellowed Willows at surprising volume. ‘Fill that main tops’l. Handsomely now, you men! Full and by, quartermaster.’
“‘All Ships”,’ read Foreman again. “‘Tack in succession”.’
‘Stand by to go about!’ yelled Willows again. ‘You slow-footed slobs! It will be worse for some of you, navy or no navy!’
He waited a small while, which felt like an eternity. It could have been his anxiety for what awaited him at port. ‘Ready about! Headsail sheets! Helms-a-lee!’
Willows was impressed. The Warrior came about nicely without a hitch. She filled nicely on a starboard tack.
‘Quartermaster, keep her in line with The Indy. Mr Foreman, you have the watch, I’m going below.’
Please pay respects as we observe one minute's silence. This jumble once a small brown dog belonging to little Basil Jones of South Wales, now it is known as Über the Ulf, the great honey-eater of Eastern Europe. His story is a long and hard one, one that can not be told simply over a glass of Ale at the Blue Pigeon in one night. The story is one that would give even the most hardy of story listeners what was once described by the Royal Society as "the heebee-geebees". No man has ever tried to out last Über the Ulf, and now more than three centuries after his infamous absence from the great Ulf Act passed in British Parliament in his honour, two men entered a bar. An Irishman, a Scotsman and a Fisherman. There is much controversy over whether or not this is a miscount. The Irishman ordered a beer, the Scotsman ordered another beer, and the Fisherman ordered the construction of a large fleet of battleships to be armed and ready for battle in the English Channel by next Tuesday. It is widely agreed upon by historians that he succeeded in this task. No man asked why, and no man has ever been sure enough of himself to see the wreckage left by the fleet when it unwisely tried to cross the Great Dividing Range. A small man, only the age of 12, believed that this was false, and after studying this for about three years at university and, to great cost, passed with honours and won the Nobel Prize in 1982 for Physics. This was because no one can remember what it was he was trying to prove. His prize was respected by Zoologists from around the world, especially those who approved of be Pythagorus' Theorem, as quoted by one Sir Winston Churchill: "the sum of the squares of the legs of a right triangle is equal to the square of the hippopotamus [sic]". This was widely accepted until a frontier psychiatrist by the name of Dexter Wobblybits was shot in the head by a right triangle in the summer of 2003. An senate inquiry was immediately launched into his mysterious death, but no results were found until three years later. A man by the name of Roger Hargreaves, no relation to the author, offered a solution in his famous essay by the title of "Mr Clumsy" in the series of scientific publications known as "the Mr Men series". Police dismissed this solution as irrational, unbalanced, and altogether stupid. The Australian Federal Police has ever been the cornerstone of scientific development, particularly in the area of science known as Led Zeppelin. In the police article "Led Zeppelin II", Robert Plant discusses a solution to the mystery of Penguin Spinning (made famous by the book "Oxford Concise English Dictionary", made into a movie in 2004 by Stephen Speilberg). He proved that Penguins, when sped up to almost the speed of light, almost behave exactly like one would expect, and panic quite profusely. This was a huge leap forward in the relatively unexplored science of Penguinomics. Eat at Joe's.
Please be aware of this address by Steelix, President of the Steelixian Empire made in SteelBlog™: http://blog.evula.net/Steelix/archives/002286.html
Additionally, work on a new name for the capital of Huw Federation (currently "Huw's Bedroom") is in place. Feel free to suggest them.
HUW'S BEDROOM - Huw Federation: Following terrorist bombings on London this week, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Dr Soft Rabbit announced in Parliament this morning that he was raising the terrorist threat level from 'a shade slightly more green than mauve' to 'mauve with a slight tinge of orange'.
"We regret that we have to make this move," said a spokesperson for the department, "but it is a necessity. We want to avoid anything like the London bombings in Huw's Room, and raising people's levels of awareness is one way to tackle the problem."
The announcement has re-ignited the debate over the colour alert system.
When asked by the News Commission if she thought the colour alert system was silly, the spokesperson said that the colour system has been designed specifically to co-ordinate with the blinds, go well with the carpet and not clash with the bed clothes.
Federal opposition leader Mr Blue Dog stated in a press release "clearly, the Federal Government has no idea what colours go with what. Honestly, if we were in power, we'd have removed the old system long ago and replaced it with a system of matching pastel colours with floral emblems embossed on it."
Elections next week have been cancelled owing to the fact that the Huw Federation has only a population of 1, and no one is old enough to vote yet.
Look, I know I was supposed to upload my journal. I didn't okay. Shut up.
Anyway, this is more important.
This is about computer case mods. I'm sick of low-level case mods. Aren't you? When you go to your friend's house and he has one of those multicoloured fan things, do you bite your lower lip? When he finishes showing how much of a hacker he is because he booted Knoppix, does it make you cry? Then when he ejects his E-Drive (although you're pretty sure they're called 'CD-ROM drives') a harsh beige tray comes out though an otherwise jet-black case, you gulp back a sob? Does he have one of those transparent sides to his case? Oh, god, yes... No doubt about it, then.
You run from the house screaming. What a wanker. I hesitate to use the term 'script-kiddie' because I know I will get flamed for saying it. Oh, what the hell: what a script-kiddie.
They seem to like it, though, and that is what gets to you the most, isn't it? (You know, there is a reason why UV lights aren't common in computer cases anymore, boys and girls). Well, that, my friend, is what I like to call a Grade 0 case mod. That's the lowest class. The class that requires minimal effort, but those who put it in are ignorant as to how crap Grade 0 really is.
The next is the kind of case with some kind of theme to it. Anybody remember that case on the internet a while ago which was just a normal case with the Dell sticker taken off, a Linux penguin added, then it was spray painted to have a rock texture? That was Grade 1. Not too much effort, but some, and it is usually tasteful. Not worth the effort though, and that is the reason why it sucks.
Anyway, now onto Grade 2. Grade 2 is the ones that require quite considerable effort, but still suck. The guys who do these mods are talented. My god, they do some neat things. I saw one with a pretend smoke stack on a Doom 3 case. Nice touch. But you fail on one important manner: imagination. To the guy who did that Half-Life 2 mod: I'm sorry, but you have the creativity of beef jerky. Sorry, Lego cases land here, too.
Grade 3: probably one in a thousand grade 2 mods make it to this level. This is about the level where cases stop sucking and start becoming real art. Pretty much the same skill level, but they have some extra added p'nash that sets them apart. A Marathon case mod would have this p'nash. So would a case that was completely made out of eucalyptus wood, and went with a keyboard and mouse and sat almost completely obscured in one of those old Victorian offices with bookshelves surrounding and all. Man, what a case that would be.
Finally, there may be no cases that have reached this level of coolness. Grade 4 cases. I want to see a case that challenges imagination. I want to see a case that defies all previous cases. A case to end all cases. I want to see a case that makes me want to jump up and fight. A case that makes me scream "yeah, man, oh, waahha, yeah, oooahhhh!" for no real reason. I want to see a case that makes me want to grow up and be it. A case that really sets you firing in all pistons the morning. I want to see a case that inspires me to make music as beautiful as itself. I want to see a case that will launch a thousand ships. A case that will ring out in all of the newspaper stands from London to Greenwich (the long way). A case that will gain fame for years after its death. I want to see a case that will make grown men weep and young girls faint. I want to see a case that is made entirely out of Jelly.
Man... if you can do that for me, then I will give you a dollar. Seriously. Sounds crazy, but I'll do it.
I'm back...
This really isn't interesting...
I guess I will post the journal soon (sometime this afternoon).