I worry about some people
Hi Kids.
Okay - going to get a bit ranty.
Here in Oz we have a business/sport called the AFL. You know, ball, teams, fans, TV rights, kick, Grand Final day. Personally I have always played lacrosse (in fact I started playing lacrosse at such an early age I had hair at the time - honest) and never really enjoyed or got into the entire 'footy' thing.
Anyway, there is a national league, it is big business and there are literially tens of thousands of fans across Australia who have fun with it.
So, very early last Friday morning, the head coach of one of the team - the Adelaide Crows - was stabbed to death in his home after, so we are lead to believe, an argument with his adult son turned violent. His wife and mother of the son was also injuried, one assumes while trying to stop him. So a man is dead, a woman is in hospital and a young man is in custody. There has been some comment about the son's mental state and comments that 'clearly he must have had a drug problem'.
No, it isn't a nice thing. As my 'big sister' from my local pub said 'No one ever expects to be murdered by their own children.' It is a tragic reflection on domestic violence, possibly drug use and possibly mental issues.
What it is not, and sorry if I come across as a complete heartless prick here, what it is not about is the bloody AFL. Yes he was an ex player at the national league level, and since retiring as a player has had some respectable amount of success as a coach. Dare I say it, he was living the dream job as far as his working life was concerned. Yes I understand how shocking it would have been for all his players to have to turn up and be told their coach, mentor and friend had been violently killed the night before, but at least they knew him personally.
The thousands of members of the public who have spent the last three days with their team scarfs on constantly? Sorry, I know this sounds cold, but deep down this didn't effect you and deep down what you are really thinking is just how this is going to effect the team's finals chances. This is cult of personality and the news cycle of morbid. He was not killed in anything remotely related to football. He didn't die on the field. His attacker was not an angry fan or a disgruntalled dropped player. Tragic truth is people are injuried and killed in domestic situations ALL THE TIME. What made him special? Had he been a nameless member of the public he may have been a 30 second filler on the tv news just after the report about Greece and before the segment on how you can save money on fuel prices. Had a whale been beached recently the death may not have ever been reported at all.
Instead there was an hour long special edition of the news, with reporters stationed all across the city so they could cross for 'live updates' on just how it was effecting everyone's lives.
Some may wish to compare this to the death of cricketer Phil Hughes late last year. Hughes was hit in the back of the neck by a ball he was trying to hook during a Shield game. (Shefield Shield, Australian cricket's national level comp). He wobbled briefly and then collapsed, never to regain consciousness and died some five days later.
That hurt. He had died playing cricket. We have all watched cricket. Many of us had watched Hughes, as for a brief time he was in the Australian Test team. Many of us played cricket. It is not something anyone could expect to have happened. You get bruises playing cricket. Broken fingers maybe. You don't get hit in the back of the head and die. The nation felt a sense of deep shock.
Sorry, but this stabbing death was not about sport. It was about domestic violence and the things that cause it. Unfortunately none of the masses and their TV ratings are going to care about that. No one is going to talk about violence within the home, because they are all trying to claim ownership because the dead man worked in football and football is the game they support and love.
Sorry. That got a bit venty. Not a lot of jokes or anything in that one. Sorry. I was going to change up a bit in this post but that is a bit ranty as well. As the long term fans may know, I have been taking part in NaNoWriMo for a couple of years now. By and large it is good fun and I enjoy the community, both online and face to face and like being part of it.
However I do have a love/cringe in horror relationship with the forums and some of the people who post to them.
This morning I was the closest I have ever been to replying 'I am sorry, but you are too stupid to write this novel.'
Honestly, I do believe that literally 35% of the people involved do NOT know of the existence of Wikipedia or Google. There is a 'reference desk' sub section of the forums where people post questions to the collective brains trust in hope of answers. A lot of them are the sort of thing you can only find by asking a subject expert or by quizing someone with first hand experience. People can ask things like 'I need a job for my main character that pays well but can also been done from a small town. I don't want him to have to commute massively as I need the character to spend a lot of time with his family.' Fair call, and people give advice and suggestions.
You also get questions on life experiences, which is fair as a lot of the NaNo people are still in early teens. 'I am 15. What's it like to be drunk?' is a common one. I myself have asked stuff about if one of my supporting characters would really be wearing a skirt while adventuring in Darkest Africa and not trousers, and that since I am a guy and are not remotely going to comment on my secret cross dressing past, I was after some imput from the women in the forums.
You also get the 'WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!?!?!!!' type questions where someone - normally younger and trying to be dark, progressive and edgy - just tries to go dark, progressive and edgy just to prove they are mature and adult and yeah, look at me, I talk about sexual violence. Serious, there are some very very weird question topics.
Then you get the one's who get obsessed with an idea and refuse to let go. There was one where a girl was trying to write some 19th century fiction and had the image in her mind of her male character, after a long night dealing with a death in the family, was peeing in a chamber pot first thing in the morning while looking out the window at the city surrounding him. The author girl wanted to know if, when peeing in a chamber pot, if the end of the penis ever hit the side and was it cold.
Multiple guys replied - NO.
But what if you are not paying attention?
Ummm.. still no.
But what if you are really tired?
LOOK! A GUY PEES THREE OR FOUR TIMES A DAY EVERY DAY EVERY YEAR! WE KNOW HOW TO KEEP OUR DICKS OFF THE COLD THINGS! IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN THAT WAY SO MOVE ON GRUD DAMMIT!!!
It wasn't even a plot point. It was just some tiny bit of colour to add to the paragraph before this character got dressed and went out to face the new day, but no, this writer wanted some penis and cold chamber pot interface action and was not going to rest until she got it.
(and, if on the odd chance that that was your posted and you have randomly stubbled across this LJ entry, your question wasn't stupid, but the FACT YOU WENT ON ABOUT IT FOR ANOTHER TWO WEEKS certainly was.)
So, back to this morning. A girl (although her gender is not that important, just background) posted to ask if there were any big battles in Germany during WW2 at the same time as the Blitz was happening.
Ummm... okay. First answer (which was not from me but I will quote in full to give you the full feel for just how poorly thought out this question was)
"Nope"
Secondly, why did you not Google this?? Why did you not look at Wikipedia? For all it's errors, blantant bias personal opinion and hidious sentence structure, Wikipedia normally manages to get the dates of historical events in the right order.
The orginal poster then followed up to ask were there any battles in Germany at all? She was hoping to have a battle she could have her characters get involved in and 'almost get themselves killed'.
Again - Why did you not Google this??!
Also, honestly, if you are this vague on the basic structure of WW2 then you probably REALLY shouldn't be trying to write a story set in it.
So, there you have it - my faith in my fellow human beings has been shattered. It is however Sunday, early afternoon, sunny and I think I may just going out and sit in the park and read for a few hours :)
Okay - going to get a bit ranty.
Here in Oz we have a business/sport called the AFL. You know, ball, teams, fans, TV rights, kick, Grand Final day. Personally I have always played lacrosse (in fact I started playing lacrosse at such an early age I had hair at the time - honest) and never really enjoyed or got into the entire 'footy' thing.
Anyway, there is a national league, it is big business and there are literially tens of thousands of fans across Australia who have fun with it.
So, very early last Friday morning, the head coach of one of the team - the Adelaide Crows - was stabbed to death in his home after, so we are lead to believe, an argument with his adult son turned violent. His wife and mother of the son was also injuried, one assumes while trying to stop him. So a man is dead, a woman is in hospital and a young man is in custody. There has been some comment about the son's mental state and comments that 'clearly he must have had a drug problem'.
No, it isn't a nice thing. As my 'big sister' from my local pub said 'No one ever expects to be murdered by their own children.' It is a tragic reflection on domestic violence, possibly drug use and possibly mental issues.
What it is not, and sorry if I come across as a complete heartless prick here, what it is not about is the bloody AFL. Yes he was an ex player at the national league level, and since retiring as a player has had some respectable amount of success as a coach. Dare I say it, he was living the dream job as far as his working life was concerned. Yes I understand how shocking it would have been for all his players to have to turn up and be told their coach, mentor and friend had been violently killed the night before, but at least they knew him personally.
The thousands of members of the public who have spent the last three days with their team scarfs on constantly? Sorry, I know this sounds cold, but deep down this didn't effect you and deep down what you are really thinking is just how this is going to effect the team's finals chances. This is cult of personality and the news cycle of morbid. He was not killed in anything remotely related to football. He didn't die on the field. His attacker was not an angry fan or a disgruntalled dropped player. Tragic truth is people are injuried and killed in domestic situations ALL THE TIME. What made him special? Had he been a nameless member of the public he may have been a 30 second filler on the tv news just after the report about Greece and before the segment on how you can save money on fuel prices. Had a whale been beached recently the death may not have ever been reported at all.
Instead there was an hour long special edition of the news, with reporters stationed all across the city so they could cross for 'live updates' on just how it was effecting everyone's lives.
Some may wish to compare this to the death of cricketer Phil Hughes late last year. Hughes was hit in the back of the neck by a ball he was trying to hook during a Shield game. (Shefield Shield, Australian cricket's national level comp). He wobbled briefly and then collapsed, never to regain consciousness and died some five days later.
That hurt. He had died playing cricket. We have all watched cricket. Many of us had watched Hughes, as for a brief time he was in the Australian Test team. Many of us played cricket. It is not something anyone could expect to have happened. You get bruises playing cricket. Broken fingers maybe. You don't get hit in the back of the head and die. The nation felt a sense of deep shock.
Sorry, but this stabbing death was not about sport. It was about domestic violence and the things that cause it. Unfortunately none of the masses and their TV ratings are going to care about that. No one is going to talk about violence within the home, because they are all trying to claim ownership because the dead man worked in football and football is the game they support and love.
Sorry. That got a bit venty. Not a lot of jokes or anything in that one. Sorry. I was going to change up a bit in this post but that is a bit ranty as well. As the long term fans may know, I have been taking part in NaNoWriMo for a couple of years now. By and large it is good fun and I enjoy the community, both online and face to face and like being part of it.
However I do have a love/cringe in horror relationship with the forums and some of the people who post to them.
This morning I was the closest I have ever been to replying 'I am sorry, but you are too stupid to write this novel.'
Honestly, I do believe that literally 35% of the people involved do NOT know of the existence of Wikipedia or Google. There is a 'reference desk' sub section of the forums where people post questions to the collective brains trust in hope of answers. A lot of them are the sort of thing you can only find by asking a subject expert or by quizing someone with first hand experience. People can ask things like 'I need a job for my main character that pays well but can also been done from a small town. I don't want him to have to commute massively as I need the character to spend a lot of time with his family.' Fair call, and people give advice and suggestions.
You also get questions on life experiences, which is fair as a lot of the NaNo people are still in early teens. 'I am 15. What's it like to be drunk?' is a common one. I myself have asked stuff about if one of my supporting characters would really be wearing a skirt while adventuring in Darkest Africa and not trousers, and that since I am a guy and are not remotely going to comment on my secret cross dressing past, I was after some imput from the women in the forums.
You also get the 'WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!?!?!!!' type questions where someone - normally younger and trying to be dark, progressive and edgy - just tries to go dark, progressive and edgy just to prove they are mature and adult and yeah, look at me, I talk about sexual violence. Serious, there are some very very weird question topics.
Then you get the one's who get obsessed with an idea and refuse to let go. There was one where a girl was trying to write some 19th century fiction and had the image in her mind of her male character, after a long night dealing with a death in the family, was peeing in a chamber pot first thing in the morning while looking out the window at the city surrounding him. The author girl wanted to know if, when peeing in a chamber pot, if the end of the penis ever hit the side and was it cold.
Multiple guys replied - NO.
But what if you are not paying attention?
Ummm.. still no.
But what if you are really tired?
LOOK! A GUY PEES THREE OR FOUR TIMES A DAY EVERY DAY EVERY YEAR! WE KNOW HOW TO KEEP OUR DICKS OFF THE COLD THINGS! IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN THAT WAY SO MOVE ON GRUD DAMMIT!!!
It wasn't even a plot point. It was just some tiny bit of colour to add to the paragraph before this character got dressed and went out to face the new day, but no, this writer wanted some penis and cold chamber pot interface action and was not going to rest until she got it.
(and, if on the odd chance that that was your posted and you have randomly stubbled across this LJ entry, your question wasn't stupid, but the FACT YOU WENT ON ABOUT IT FOR ANOTHER TWO WEEKS certainly was.)
So, back to this morning. A girl (although her gender is not that important, just background) posted to ask if there were any big battles in Germany during WW2 at the same time as the Blitz was happening.
Ummm... okay. First answer (which was not from me but I will quote in full to give you the full feel for just how poorly thought out this question was)
"Nope"
Secondly, why did you not Google this?? Why did you not look at Wikipedia? For all it's errors, blantant bias personal opinion and hidious sentence structure, Wikipedia normally manages to get the dates of historical events in the right order.
The orginal poster then followed up to ask were there any battles in Germany at all? She was hoping to have a battle she could have her characters get involved in and 'almost get themselves killed'.
Again - Why did you not Google this??!
Also, honestly, if you are this vague on the basic structure of WW2 then you probably REALLY shouldn't be trying to write a story set in it.
So, there you have it - my faith in my fellow human beings has been shattered. It is however Sunday, early afternoon, sunny and I think I may just going out and sit in the park and read for a few hours :)