What do international students have to do with q-tips blocking the drain?

We finally had someone come in to look at our broken washing machine yesterday and he goes, "Yeah... the machine is fine, it's actually the pipes. You have to call a plumber." THEN HE CHARGED US $104.

Me: For WHAT?

Washing Machine Man: Service charge $75, manual labour $20, plus GST $9.

The manual labour he is referring to is sliding the machine out then pushing it back again. I wish I had a job where I could charge whatever I wanted for doing fuck all! Imagine if I charged a customer $104 for a meal they didn't get plus manual labour for seating them and fetching them water? Oh this is a general service charge, but my official recommendation is that you need an actual CHEF to cook a meal for you.

But the burning hole in my wallet may have been worth it, because before he left Washing Machine Man had a few pearls of widsom to share with my sister.

Washing Machine Man: Y'know, the previous tenants probably fucked up the pipes somehow. I'm not racist, but... you know these Asian students that come over here? They don't stay too long so they've got no incentive to keep the place clean or take care of it. The way they live is just disgusting. They're rich too so they're used to people cleaning up after them.

My Sister: *staring with mouth hanging open*

So I called a plumber in, the plumber found the blockage and what do you suppose it was?

Hundreds of those little white plastic sticks from q-tip cotton buds!

Plumber: Say, do you wash cotton buds or lollipops or something down the drain?

Me: ... No.

So ended my day of WTF, with many questions left to ponder. Did Washing Machine Man take a manual labour job especially to spread his unsolicited racism around? What do international students have to do with q-tips in the drain? Is he aware a lot of Asian students are not rich brats with their own servants but normal smart kids sent over by hard-working parents? And I don't suppose he realised our mother happens to be Asian when he snarked about the way 'they' live?

This is especially funny 'cos the previous tenants of my apartment are folks with the suspiciously Anglo-sounding names of Sarah Maloney and Ryan Goodwin. You can't fool Washing Machine Man, you q-tip abusing commie bastards!

Feminist bashing for dummies

It's thinking time, gals! Today's hot topic: Feminist Bashing for Beginners! Have you ever found yourself wondering...

• Why it is that feminism sometimes rubs people the wrong way?
• Why some young women would rather drink a turd milkshake then tell a guy that they are a 'feminist'?
  
• Why there is so much stigma attached to the cause?
  
• Wherefore all the silencing and derailing and ridiculing when one so much as mentions the word 'sexist'?
  

Is it because of...

• Dominant forces being reluctant to relinquish power?
• Systematic oppression being so deeply ingrained in our culture that change often seems hopeless, fighting seems futile, and to survive one must learn to adapt to the ways of the patriarchy?
  
• Problematic aspects within the movement itself?

Or are you at a complete loss as to how to address these questions?

Never fear, friends. This girl California knows what the problem is with feminism - extreme university feminists hating on men! Because men make up, like HALF the population, duh! California isn't afraid to tell those extreme feminists to quit neglecting their personal hygiene and bashing innocent sexist men, 'cos they're giving us and the cause a BAD NAME!

California, you said it, girlfriend! Damn, you're so edgy and politically incorrect, and God knows that has never been done before! Like, it's totally ironic and satirical and stuff how you regurgitated outdated stereotypes about feminists and women in general and vomited them all over the screen like this!

It is SO GREAT how you challenge the status quo and promote feminism and recruit male allies by calling out certain university feminists for the crazy hairy bitches they are - they should stop being so damn prejudiced when it comes to men and stop paying out women who choose to be “traditional”! These “hairy legged fem-bots” should be more like you, ‘cos you don’t think in stereotypes at all! It’s narrow-minded people like those man-haters who make the rest of us ladies look bad!

Oh, and when you told them to “get back in the kitchen”? Tee-hee-hee, I see what you did there! You are so witty and subversive!

“I have had it up to hair-free armpits with these extreme, man-bashing, placard carrying, hairy legged fem-bots making cases that reduce all men to violent rapists and girl-bashers and all females to helpless victims who [are] endlessly threatened by a hostile patriarchal structure of society.”

Me too, California! But dehumanizing people is an excellent tactic for turning the rest of the world against them, and as an added bonus, you win brownie points from the vast majority of society by aligning yourself with their interests! Why didn’t anyone else think of that? Oh and bashing feminists by implying they’re unattractive? Solid GOLD! Your astounding creativity will definitely put those politically correct harpies in their place. And your obsession with their body hair quantities (as opposed to your self-proclaimed hair-freeness) most certainly does not reinforce shallow beauty standards of a “hostile patriarchal structure of society” wherein women’s value and merit is measured primarily by their attractiveness to heterosexual men!

Golly, you may be onto something here: feminism “could be a plausible cause”. Wow! It was totally prudent of you to make such an outrageous understatement, especially since the only reason you’re even able to convey this wisdom is thanks your own education and privileged existence that those razor-deficient loudmouths fought for. But careful, don’t want to be “Ms. Radical” or anything!

And your snipe that most women have “good reason” to fear what’s inside your university Womyn’s Room rather than “what lies beyond” totally doesn’t trivialize sexual harassment and assault on or off campus and it’s not at all thinly-veiled homophobia! You nailed it: why do those freaks need a “safe space” to meet like-minded women and discuss topics without being ridiculed or silenced, it’s not like men are raping them every time they walk to the cafeteria! God, it’s sad how these paranoid “womyn” jump to ridiculous baseless conclusions! And they can’t even spell ‘women’, I’m surprised with your sophisticated level of insight you didn’t pick up on that.

California, not only are you refreshingly unique and open-minded, you are self-aware and non-hypocritical, wow! Talk about having it all! Unlike those deranged university feminist contemporaries of yours, you don’t use “gross generalizations or heavy-handed intolerance” to put your views across! You just tell those butchy man-haters to shut up and bake brownies… in a totally cute tongue-in-cheek way! ^_^ I was wondering what I could do to get the support of men and non-freakazoid ladies when it comes to feminism, and you’ve totally shown me the light: we must beg for the patriarchy’s approval and join in their contemptuous scorn when dealing with, y’know, other feminists.

You are sooo the one having the “independent thought” – unlike the hive vagina mind of “El Feministo”. Alas, it seems you and you alone are the logical one! Damn, I mean look at these crazies with their stupid “placards” protesting against their bodies being governed by law, rape, sex trafficking, domestic violence, violence against women of colour, reducing women to sexual objects, impossible beauty standards, equal pay for equal work, honour killings, sexual harassment in the workplace, sexual harassment on the street, and murder…

Can’t they just listen to your doubtlessly superior feminist activism experience and realize that they should be less man-hating and more polite? Like California says laydeez, "nobody likes a sourpuss"!

California, let’s have a girl’s night out sometime – we can make fun of less attractive girls and trade baking secrets while measuring our self-worth by what men might think of us! ♥

PS: Mind if I wear this with my mini-skirt?

Real Men! *grunt*

This article is really old but it still gives me a giggle.

Frustrated by the lack of beefy manly-men in the city circa September '07, Kate Adamson of the Melbourne Herald Sun gave us this article:

Are men losing their manly touch?

It addresses prevalent threats to society, such as men being less inclined to fix tyres and change fuses (leaving poor little women to the tasks) and the ever-looming threat of the 'metrosexual'.

There was also one of those helpful Cosmo-style quizzes at the end in order to determine whether your man is 'manly' or 'poncy'.

Will there be a follow-up article one day, I wonder? Something like, “Where have all the real women gone? Why are more and more men not getting their dinner on the table by 7pm because their little ladies are out in the public sphere, dammit? And where are all these baby-makers getting crazy ideas like being treated as people and not as a collective gender? That's why we should never have taught them how to read." *grunt*

But seeing as they can read, I’m going to write a belated response article and mail it to the Herald. It’ll be crush-a-beer-can-on-your-head worthy.

Honestly, Ms. Adamson. I don’t know anything about you, and I’m sure you’re a nice person dedicated to your career and whatnot, but that article was the most pathetic thing I’ve ever read in the history of the universe. Think outside the boys-are-blue and girls-are-pink square one day, ok?

Ramsay VS. Grimshaw

Oh media frenzy, we're all a bit over it, give it a rest. One is a crass, misogynistic and obnoxious human being, the other makes a living exploiting and manipulating people with sensationalist soft 'journalism'. Neither is worth the three or four consecutive nights of coverage you're giving them.

I can't believe I can even be bothered weighing in on this.

Brutal truth about denial

Paul Sheehan, stop hysterically pointing the finger at "Asian, Middle Eastern, Aboriginal, Pacific Islander" folks re: recent attacks on Indian students in Melbourne.

"Yes, this is terrible but it's those Middle Eastern people!" he insists over and over again, referring to Indian-Lebanese clashes in Harris Park last night. "Not to mention those dodgy Aborigines over at Redfern, know what I'm saying? Criminals hail from lots of different racial backgrounds, just look at the prison demographics, hardly ANY white people! Therefore crime is commited mostly by other races White Australia isn't racist it's not it's not I'm not I'm not I don't have to examine the implications here LALALALA I can't hear you!"

Yes, Indian students have been attacked by non-Caucasian offenders as well as Caucasians. Does it then follow that white violence against Indian students is a 'misconception'? That some perpetuators of obvious racially-motivated violence just happen to be Caucasian but the 'perception' of white racism against Indians is 'wrong' and the real problem is... I don't know, being Indian?

You seem much more disturbed and defensive over the Indian media calling Australians racist and violent, than by the fact that it might be true.

“I do not pretend to set people right, but I do see that they are often wrong.”

Good one, Mary Crawford.

I quite like Mary Crawford. Any young lady so wildly over-confident as to make dirty jokes at the dinner table in a Jane Austen novel is all right with me. And look, here she is to the right, as portrayed by Hayley Atwell in the 2007 adaptation of Mansfield Park.

Now I'm not a Fanny-hater either (Fanny Price, Jane Austen character, to any pervert who misunderstood that statement). On contraire, I can relate to a girl who's so timid and painfully unsure of herself that her favourite activity is being a silent observer of those around her, and given that I have struggled with an anxiety disorder, I can definitely relate to Fanny's fears, particularly the terror she feels when at the centre of attention, being 'brought forward' or 'forced to speak'. The controversial protagonist of Austen’s ‘least likeable novel’ has triggered a lot of, shall we say, Mansfield Park flame wars*. One of the foremost supposed problems of the character is her silence and all the negative connotations that go with it – weakness, subordination, insecurity, timidity, restraint and invisibility. Not too surprising that some readers – especially those with high expectations in the lieu of Elizabeth Bennet and the like – find themselves drawn to the more lively and witty Crawfords. However, rather than silence being a marker of Fanny’s insipid or weak nature, I think of Fanny as a character with a naturally reserved temperament and a complex psychological background, with Mansfield Park charting Fanny’s personal and emotional growth.

Mary Crawford FTW, though.

One of my favourite scenes in Mansfield Park is when Mrs. Norris insults and humiliates Fanny in front of the Bertram family and the Crawfords. In the shocked silence that follows Mary suddenly decides to sit with Fanny and cheer her up. Despite being determined to hate her pretty rival, Fanny is grateful for Mary's kindness during this moment of mortification. Clearly, despite being shallow and snobby (and c'mon, Fanny can be just as bitchy, her jealous thoughts about Miss Crawford are rarely that of a charitable Christian), Mary has the capacity for kindness and empathy.

Despite her 'flaws' (that Austen paints with a rather damning puritanical brush), Mary Crawford is awesome. Sure, she’s selfish, materialistic, ambitious, morally ambiguous at times, and her strong opinions are usually just regurgitated generalisations she’s heard everyone else say. But she’s also sharp, clever, sensitive to the feelings of others (even though her lively tongue can’t seem to stop rudely deriding Edmund’s choice of occupation), confident, talented and good-natured. And while Mary Crawford seems to have mastered the social world, she is still learning about herself – whether or not she is valuing the wrong things, whether her old worldview correlates with her experiences, etc. She's only around 18-19, after all!

Edmund could never have made you happy, Miss Crawford. Someone with your looks, popularity and talents – not to mention that handy little fortune – could have done much better. I’m sure any heartbreak suffered at the hands of Edmund would have only served to rein in any of your ‘indelicacies’ and curb that derisive snobbishness. Sobering up after a broken heart, I like to imagine Mary Crawford used the experience to improve as a person and reassess some of her shallower values and stereotypical thinking. I especially like to imagine that Mary Crawford eventually landed a wealthy, morally-upstanding, and equally vivacious and witty man as a husband and found happiness. No less than she deserved.

* I was very much trying to avoid saying 'Fanny Wars', as they have been sometimes referred to...

Justice for LaVena Johnson

From the ColorOfChange.org Take Action petition:

Overwhelming evidence shows that LaVena Johnson was raped and murdered while serving in Iraq. Yet the US Army refuses to investigate and insists LaVena's death was a suicide.

LaVena Johnson was 19 years old, serving in Iraq as a private in the Army, when she was raped, murdered, and her body was burned--by someone from her own military base. Despite overwhelming physical evidence, the Army called it a suicide and closed the case.[1]

For three years, LaVena's parents have been fighting for answers. At almost every turn, they've been met with closed doors or lies. But together we can help achieve justice for LaVena and other families who have suffered similar tragedies.[2]

1. "The cover-up of a soldier's death?" LavenaJohnson.com, March 6, 2007

2. "Is There an Army Cover Up of Rape and Murder of Women Soldiers?" CommonDreams.org, April 28, 2008

This story simultaneously horrifies me, terrifies me, and makes me so angry that I do that thing where I hold my breath because there’s a lump in my throat that feels like a furious rage-filled hour-long scream is going to come exploding out any second.

A nineteen-year-old girl was found dead inside a burning tent with a gunshot wound to the head, acid burns on her genitals (probably inflicted to prevent DNA identification of a rapist), debris on her clothing suggesting she had been forcibly dragged from one location to another, blunt force trauma to the face (two front teeth knocked out and a busted lip), with a blood trail outside her tent.

And the Army rules it a SUICIDE?

Even after this fucking mother-load of evidence of a struggle? Even after residue tests confirm LaVena may not have handled the weapon that killed her, nor would she have been able to shoot herself with her dominant hand judging by the trajectory of the gunshot wound? Even after her healthy psychological history?

This is just the tip of the iceberg of the misogyny and corruption that runs rampant through sexual assaults against women in the military. The US Department of Defence stats claim that one in three women who join the US military will be sexually assaulted by men in the military.

Makes you wonder what the hell they’re doing to civilian women in the countries they occupy, doesn’t it?

And what about male-on-male sexual assault in the military? Next to zero chance of that being reported or of perpetrators being brought to justice.

I’m so angry. I can’t even breathe. If this was my daughter somebody would be getting cut up right now.

A good time for flippancy this ain't.

Man, that is one insensitive beeyatch.

Silly, I could've just MADE one for her

I’m doing an old file cull on my computer and I stumbled across a Christmas gift list from 2006. I don’t even remember writing it but I’ve recorded gift ideas for family, my ex, work people…

Underneath my former housemate's name all I’ve written is:

• A noose?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I am so droll.

"I am not guilty. I am innocent."

Security footage from Melbourne's Southern Cross Station taken before Xue abandoned his daughter.

Nai Yin Xue, of the Xue family murder and abandonment notoriety (also known as the ‘Pumpkin’ case here in Oz) says he’s innocent.

Sure you are. That’s why your wife was found naked in the boot of your car strangled with one of your own neckties and why you abandoned your three-year-old daughter at a train station in a completely different country before going into hiding in the U.S, then denying everything once you got caught, deported and made to stand trial. Clearly the actions of an innocent man.

The nerve of you. No amount of jail-time or media haranguing or hate mail will ever make up for the terror and torture you put your wife through, the pain you have caused your daughter that is now her lifetime legacy, the grief of an entire family and friends. You aren’t fit to utter the word ‘innocent’, scum.

Fightbook

Facebook provides me with entertainment in many ways. People fighting in the ‘comments’ section of their friends’ status updates is one of the main ones.

Just a warning, I’ve directly quoted comments (albeit with all names changed to obvious pseudonyms), painful misspellings, grammar/punctuation abuse, and all; there is also swearing and some offensive remarks. Hey, I'm not editing this crap!

Molly Pollywaffle: i dont care i am not paying for your gastric band surgery !!!stop eating have some exercise and go on a diet !!

That’s a status update by the way. Curious as to what the hell she was on about, I clicked to read the responses. That girl was always thin as a stick during high school, and she is not somebody I would consider overweight in any sense, so I caught a whiff of Thin Privilege, if that is the correct term, as well as an instinct she was going to take the self-righteous they’re spending my HARD-EARNED TAXPAYER DOLLARS route.

Debbie Deffington: hahaha, dont complain! trent pays about 40k a year IN TAX! so we pay for 2 people to bludge on the doll. THAT i think is bullshit >:(

Molly Pollywaffle: thats bullshit i mean why cant these ppl go on a diet excerise eat healthy seriously why should Mr. Pollywaffle pay for that

When another friend points out that losing weight easy isn’t for some, that she knows of somebody who needed gastric band surgery as a ‘matter of life and death’, and that Molly shouldn’t ‘think the worst of people’, Molly defends herself:

Molly Pollywaffle: i dont think the worst of ppl i know obese ppl who found it hard to lose wieght but they have done it lost have the wieght just do the hard work

And Debbie Deffington backs her up: i think the worst of those who bludge on the doll, and my hubby and i on our single income pay for them to do nothing… gastic bypass is a last resort, and honestly....nothing worth doing is easy [referring to losing weight]. gastric bypass leaves you with alot of flabby skin that then requires a tummy tuck to get rid of. so molly has a point. it shoudnt be something covered under health cover. it should be paid for fully out of pocket for those who are too slack to get off the couch.

Somebody else chimes in saying these two don’t know all the facts about people undergoing this surgery, including whether or not it is always covered by private health insurance or taxpayer dollars, and whether or not some people can’t lose weight for health reasons.

Molly Pollywaffle: honesty did u see the ppl on the biggest loser some of them were obese they didnt need gastric band surgery !

Debbie Deffington: and you know what - ANYONE is entitled to put their opinion on fabcebook. if you don’t like what you read, close your fucking eyes.

Everyone is entitled to put their opinion on Facebook… but not YOU ya skank, so shut up! Hey Debbie, how about if you don’t like what others are saying back to you, you close YOUR eyes? Apparently it makes the problems magically go away! And I was so waiting for somebody to use The Biggest Loser as an example in that discussion. Oh, you girls kill me.

Edmund VonCrybaby is another good ‘entertainment contact’. When I didn’t know him that well I used to actually be really concerned that he actually had some sort of depressive illness or needed help, until a mutual friend told me he’d been saying this kind of emo crap via MSN since Year Eight (over a decade ago). His status updates/comments etc. are annoying and ignorant, with whiny emo stamped all over them, and he’s often abusive or downright offensive through them, but I can’t bring myself to delete him ‘cos he’s such a hilarious tantrum-throwing attention seeker. It’s like having a troll on your friends list – only you know exactly who they are!

Edmund VonCrybaby: Do i deserve to be alive - All fingers point to NO

Edmund VonCrybaby: [after voting ‘no’ on a Legalize Same-Sex Marriage’ poll]: Its bad enough there are gay people in the world, we need this disease to die. P.s sorry to any gay friend that i have on here. LOL

Edmund VonCrybaby:To all my ex-friends that didnt bother to reply to my emails, you can go and fuck yourselves.

Edmund VonCrybaby: Doesnt care about life and stuff, soon my gf will leave me and her friends will be happy and god will be happy and the world will continue, she will get a much hotter bf just like she always wanted, well congratulations.

> Bertie Wilkins: (@Edmund VonCrybaby): u better be back at christmas woman or else ima send edmund over in a container to come and find u and bring u back

>Edmund VonCrybaby (@Bertie Wilkins): Christmas is soo long away. I will have faded away in the shadows of aloneness by then

Edmund VonCrybaby: Everyone on my friends list can go fuck themselves, you are all pathetic pieces of shit who should be shot for being fuckstains on the floor of your pathetic sad bedrooms you dumb fucks. Eat my dick you homosexual lesbian seamen manipulating little cunts.

Oh God, what a fucking idiot. And I do not manipulate sailors, how dare you? It takes every ounce of willpower I have not to comment on these ‘LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME!’ posts. Luckily he has some girl on his friends list Pepper Papadakis who usually says pretty much what I’m thinking.

Pepper Papadakis: suck a fat one

Pepper Papadakis: whatever dropkick

Pepper Papadakis: Ohh seriously shut the fuck up you depressing cunt, for some unknown reason you actually have a girlfriend so stop being a downer before she realizes she can do better

Pepper Papadakis: ♥

[that loveheart thing being her only response to the ‘Everyone on my friends list can go fuck themselves’ post]

HAHAHAHAHA!!! So not deleting you Edmund, even though you’re an insufferable homophobic wanker with some rather painfully obvious issues.

Anyway, you just martyred the guy.

WTF?

Do pro "life" extremists honestly not see their own hypocrisy and evil when GUNNING PEOPLE DOWN? In a fucking CHURCH, no less?

I can't believe Dr. Tiller even continued his work after 1985, after his abortion clinic was bombed. I would never have the courage to continue anything in the face of violence and terrorism and hatred, faceless people threatening my family, after bullets in both arms and angry vigils outside my home. I would have packed up, or given in, or gone insane, or changed my identity entirely. I would never have just kept going. But Tiller did for decades.

I do not see how committing horrific crimes can solve anything or be remotely helpful to any serious cause. For the record, most major pro-life organisations have condemned the murder of Dr. Tiller, rightfully saying that violence, terrorism and murder are quite obviously contrary to their goals of protecting the right to life. Some have done so in a pretty backhanded manner though.

"George Tiller was a mass-murderer. We grieve for him that he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God. I am more concerned that the Obama Administration will use Tiller's killing to intimidate pro-lifers into surrendering our most effective rhetoric and actions. Abortion is still murder. And we still must call abortion by its proper name; murder. Those men and women who slaughter the unborn are murderers according to the Law of God. We must continue to expose them in our communities and peacefully protest them at their offices and homes, and yes, even their churches."

Randall Terry of Operation Rescue

What exactly is your "most effective rhetoric and actions" if you are concerned that a cold-blooded murder will compromise them? I am really, really disturbed by that statement. Why, after this heinous highly-publicised crime, would you keep perpetuating hate-filled propaganda and practically excuse the murder of a man with friends and family by basically saying, "Yeah, he's dead, too bad he's going to Hell, but he was a murderer 'yknow, great work guys we must continue to 'expose' these people!"

As for you, Scott Phillip Roeder, you perverse, sadistic, pathetic coward of a human being. You value life then shoot it in the face once it's out of the womb, is that how it works?

Murderer.