House of Bam

2003-09-22T19:49:00.000+10:00

Bam101

This is, if you haven't noticed, the House of Bam. By the way, if you really hadn't noticed then you should probably spit out those tasty little blue pills you found on the floor.

Many of you who have noticed are probably wondering what bam is. For those of you who are familiar with one of my favourite shows, Jackass, no, this has nothing to do with Bam Margera (though he is pretty awesome). If you don't know what Jackass is, or have never seen it - go and find out right now. Now, I said! What are you still doing here?

Dictionary.com defines bam as "An imposition, a cheat, a hoax"; "To cheat, to wheedle". Well, I cannot tell a lie. This site will at one time or another, if you do not understand my jokes or if you take me too seriously, appear to you to be a hoax. You may feel cheated. But fear not. Nerding up will help lessen your feelings of intellectual inadequacy. Once nerded, your now understanding mind will in no time return to frolicking gaily through my witty comments and revealing truths.

But alas, neither of the above definitions have any link to the naming of the House of Bam.

Bam was first seen in comic books as an action word along side "POW!" and "WHACK!". For a long time it stayed as an action word. Stagnant. Hibernating, perhaps. Awaiting its chance to leap hungrily off the musty pages of some glass cased collector edition comic book and into our modern everyday world.

It was spoken by the chef from Futurama, Elzar. He used bam in such sentences as "And to your lady friends may I say - Bam!", "I bumped it up a notch - Bam!" and "Get lost old man - Bam!". Clearly a linguistic pioneer. How can one not admire such genius?

The bam contributing to the House of Bam is a conglomeration of the bam as used by Elzar and the bam in those old comic books. It is a versatile word, a simple word and regardless of what some say, a meaningful word. You say bam when you're throwing someone out. You point and say bam when you want to hit that jerk that's been grating on you all day. Bam when you surprise someone, or bam when you crash your car.

Now that you have been introduced properly to bam, you must be careful with the secret of it. Not everyone is ready to know about bam, and knowing about it doesn't mean you have the skill to use it. You must use it carefully, and never - ever - for evil.

2003-02-19T19:48:00.000+10:00

Gnome + Yogi = PM

Isn't it interesting how much perspective can change the importance of some things?

Here in Australia there is, of course, talk about George Bush and Tony Blair and Iraq, but there is a lot more talk about our Prime Minister, John Howard. According to our media the Australian population doesn't want to be involved in a US lead war on Iraq. We worry about increasing our risk of terrorism - as if our country is considered one of the world powers.

Some people in Australia take Johnny seriously. You note I said some. Personally I think this "some" is a very, very small fraction of the population. In typical Aussie fashion, most of us shake our heads and laugh at him. After all, he sounds like yogi bear, looks like a five foot high caricature of an owl, and insists on working as many good ol' Aussie slang phrases as possible into every speech. And to complete it all, he takes himself very seriously.

John Howard places a lot of emphasis on his meetings with George Bush. He assures us that Bush values his advice, and Johnny knows this because George said so himself. And our revered leader also tells us that they speak on the phone all the time. I wonder whether they exchange recipes, or talk about the weather. Maybe they try to outdo each other with their political activities.

Howard's speeches have been on a roll lately. He has told Saddam "Mate, you'd better get fair dinkum" or something similar. He's referred to the voting population of Australia as "the mob". Thanks Johnny - way to go to get us some credibility from the other world leaders.

The highlight of his last trip to the US was when Johnny got to give a press conference at the Whitehouse. The American press had more questions for the white house officials about Turkey than for an Australian Prime Minister. In fact, I don't even think the press could be bothered publishing a footnote about his visit.

But the best one was, of course, from the Iraqi Prime Minister a couple of weeks ago. When asked what he thought of Australia's alliance with the US and commitment of troops to Iraq, he laughed, shrugged and asked the reporter something like "Australia, is that the sort of country you would seriously want to fight along side you?"

Such a snap back into reality for some of my fellow Aussies. Ahh well, we laugh at ourselves... How can we expect the rest of the world to take us seriously?

As Australians, do we honestly care if the rest of the world takes us seriously or not? Perhaps in the current political climate it is a blessing to be considered so insignificant.

2003-02-11T18:50:00.000+10:00

Left Wing Columbians

We all wandered down to the local for some pub trivia Monday night and returned home victorious under the somewhat questionable banner of "The Left Wing Columbians".

Sorry - too soon? Ha!

This is from a team playing under such names as "The Axis of Evil Feat. Ronnie Irani" and "6.66 is one hundredth of the batting average of the beast" the latter due to Triple J's fictional Salmon Haters band.

I don't know a lot about trivia events but I do know this much: the following identifies a dodgey trivia guy -

he gives out socks for prizes

he pronounces the French "oui" as "oohey" (sounds like Louie without the L)

he says things like "Yeah - I don't know the answer to that one, so didn't give any points for it"

he decides on the spot that he doesn't like a question and tells everyone not to worry about it.

Our trivia guy was decidedly dodgey. You would think that the trivia guy, after being involved in trivia for some time, would be a little educated - and considering that this particular one is provided with answers as well as questions, you would also think he might at least have an idea of the correct answer.

Well you and I both thought wrong.

Erm.. If you're reading this, trivia guy, I thought the way you used the prizes as an ash tray was really classy. Thanks. That was great.

2003-02-07T18:14:00.000+10:00

Introductions

Well, here I am, finally. I wonder where this need springs up in people, to publish - well, pretty much anything - before the world and see what comes of it. Needless to say I've included myself in the group of people that have succumbed to this odd inclination. Actually I find it a bit amusing.

A bit about myself will help, I guess. I'm a (currently) 22 year old Australian girl, going to uni and working full time in software development. A year or two ago when my friends discovered that I had never heard of "All your base are belong to us", they decided it was time for me to nerd up some more. Much to my dismay I have so far enjoyed my nerd evolution, even if my non-programming friends no longer get many of my jokes.

So thats about it. The rest can come later.