merch bitch blog (deceased)

subeditors in hack

On the occasion of Join The Dots's release, Douglas Wolk writes about The Cure for The Nation. Good article: appalling title.

and maybe even some coaxing

Hilarious* piece written in patented University Newspaper Editorialese** lays claim to ownership of fellatio:

"Did you know that our school has its own trademarked hookup? Well, it does. Dubbed TMH by a very astute friend of mine, who also happens to have a good reputation, I’m sure that many of you will vouch for me and willingly admit that when a hookup situation takes place, it usually consists of a trip down south on a guy."

That's what one-hundred-thirteen years of editorial freedom earns you!

*Unintentional.
**I have a premise around here somewhere! Just let me look for it while I tell you about this idea. Oh, and you totally have to hear what my friend said about gender politics in the student lounge...

"Kerry, Kerry, Kerry, Kerry....Kerry, Kerry, Kerry, Kerrrrrrry."

On last night's 7:30 report, John Howard insisted that

I WILL FIND YOU A GOOD HALF DOZEN PHOTOGRAPHS OF ME ON THE FLOOR WITH CHILDREN.

Apparently Latham has him more unsettled than anyone had previously realised.

"...said to be moody and short-tempered"

"The first we knew of it was a bloke lobbed up here at the lifeguard tower with a shark attached to his leg," Mr Jones, the Aussie-est person ever to make an offical statement to a newspaper, said.

from HR's new Alcohol & Drug Policy

This is not a “zero tolerance” policy with respect to the consumption of alcohol, but Workplace Participants must be responsible in their consumption. This is also not a “zero tolerance” policy with respect to the use of prescribed and non prescribed drugs; but when attending for work or at any ### workplace, during work hours or at ### work related functions Workplace Participants must not be adversely affected by their consumption of these drugs.

(This is, however, a “zero tolerance” policy with respect to the use, possession, manufacture or sale of illegal drugs including the transfer of illegal drugs and/or the distribution of prescription drugs at any ### workplace, during work hours or at ### work related functions.)

Got that? Just take 'em before work, or step outside for a minute, people!

best Grammy summary

Poor George, he knows this audience have no funk to give up.

(Perhaps the fleeting appearance of Sir Nose onscreen was more deliberately pointed than I thought. Though Seven's shattered and trimmed two-hour version made pretty much everything a fleeting appearance - Andre's two-word acceptance speech cut by two words, but still showing him leave the mic? When you cut the Stripes performance altogether? Looks like a bad year for awards shows on Australian TV, with the Gratuitous Globes exiled altogether to pay...)

odd man out at the pimp convention

yes yes, "Newstart Allowance"

An army of slackers conspire on mono.net about how to float below the radar while on the dole in Australia. This would have come in handy a few years ago. Most important point I learnt for myself was

4/ Start your "dole diary" the day you get it. They NEVER check them (unless you put "NASA, Astronaut" or similar) but it will be a pain in teh arse at week 9 to find out that you have to hand it in and are 54 jobs short of a diary. Get it done early so you can get back to the job at hand- watching Springer.

eMarlys

Lynda Barry's selling one rough draft of a page from her story in Chris Ware's McSweeney's #13. Well, it's written in the third person, but you check the steez:

Signed ORIGINAL ART by Lynda Barry! This is an ink painting, handground Chinese ink on medium weight drawing paper about 8.5x11. This is an outtake from a piece she did for Chris Ware who was editing a collection of comics for McSweeney's. Lynda says the way she works is to not plan things out with a pencil, but to just draw them with her brush and then draw them over and even draw that over until finally the thing comes around all finished. But on the way to being finished there are pages that don't work for telling the story even though she digs the picture. This is one of those pages it features the Fortune Telling Cephalopod and the Author in her pajamas with her hair in a bandana which I swear to god is what she wears every single day around the clock. Pajamas and bandanas. I seriously have written to Extreme MakeOver for her. I think she would be so perfect because she has so many saggy places that could be implanted and she could for sure use another layer of teeth glued on. I was trying to tell her about the Extreme MakeOver But all she wants to talk about is the vice presidents daughter Mary Cheney who Lynda says has hidden her proud lesbian light under a Bush. How Mary Cheney was a very out and proud lesbian until recently when she got a job on the re-election campaign. She is trying to get Bush re-elected while Bush is pushing for a constitutional amendment that would limit marriage to those with unmatched genitals. I didn't believe it about Mary Cheney, that number one she was an out and proud lesbian who became a sort of in and sketchy lesbian because I've never heard of people who actually pick to go back IN! And number two AS IF an out and proud lesbian would ever work to keep on an administration that didn't think out and proud lesbians should have equal rights. But Lynda showed me in this weeks Newsweek page 34, Mary Cheney picture is right there under a picture of the first ladies to get married in SanFrancisco on Valentines Day two seniors who have been together for 51 years. That is a LONG engagement! Lynda wants to know if Mary Cheney will please ask her dad and if she can please come out again soon. There are a couple of thousand wedding celebrations she is missing and everyone would really REALLY love to see her there. THE FINE FINE SUPER FINE PRINT: You get the original art but Lynda keeps the copyright which means Lynda can reproduce it all she wants but you can't reproduce it ever. Buyer pays postage for priority mail. Probably $3.85 She will gladly inscribe the art to whomever you wish. No art will be sent out without an inscription. Lynda is sometimes really fast and sometimes delayed in sending things out. She wants to pack everything herself and she won't let anyone else do it so it means if she is on deadline it just sits there for a few days. SORRY MAN but you know she is a fragile artist.

"...he got exactly one query, and it was from a teenage girl, writing on Spice Girls stationery."

Tasha Robinson is trying to interview Dave Sim for the Onion AV Club. It'll probably never make it as far as print, but Dave being gloriously paranoid as usual is certainly giving her plenty of entertaining material to write about.

I reassured him that we do long-form interviews. I offered to fax him copies of the interviews I've done with Alan Moore and Scott McCloud, so he could see what kind of stuff we do. I mentioned that we look for people who have non-mainstream opinions. He said that Scott McCloud and Alan Moore ARE mainstream. I said that they've been embraced by the mainstream, but that they don't necessarily express themselves in mainstream-friendly ways; for instance, Alan Moore claims that he worships a sock puppet. Dave said something about that depending on whether it's a feminist issue. I asked how worshipping a sock puppet was a feminist issue. He said "Same pus, different zit." I said "I'm not getting you." He said "Yeah. I know."

I've been reading Cerebus for almost 12 years, and there's only one month to go. For a lot of that time, it's been the most entertaining comic I've bought for one reason or another, and I'm going to miss it.

why not bunny ears?

Do you live in Inch Burnfoot or Portavogie? Bill Drummond will come to your house the first week in May and make you soup as part of the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival.

"In May 1998, Bill made soup for people in a house in Belfast," said Sarah Hughes, a festival spokesperson. "In January 2003 he made soup for a people in a house in Nottingham. He's now taken a map of the British Isles and drawn a line across it - right through Belfast and Nottingham - and called it The Soup Line. "Anybody living on the line is welcome to invite him to their home and have him make soup for their family and close friends."