Matthew Ford’s Infernal Blog

I have finished and released a fiction project which is minor and experimental (aren’t they all?) but hey, it’s a release. See it at A Very Special Shutdown Notice. As I explain in the About page, my main goals are to popularize and explore the Simulation Argument and transhuman issues; to build an audience for my eventual game Pod Tycoon; and to drive some traffic so I can exercise my site in preparation for release of my first game. Please check it out and let me know what you think by leaving comments on the post at my company blog or the Google group mentioned on the project’s About page.

Once the site starts to show up reliably in search engines, I will make a push for a viral spread-the-word campaign. For now, don’t make any special efforts to spread the link around. Stay tuned for my request for you to do that soon!

Muhuahaha… I set up Dylan’s PC so that the icons were hidden as well as the taskbar and set the following as his desktop background. An oldie but a goodie. I made the pic with a few minutes of Photoshop and a quick visit to Hello Kitty Online. Priceless! After a minute of shock, he thought it was funny.

(Text says: Microsoft Windows Required Update in Progress… 14% complete. To comply with USA Family-Friendly regulations, all users under 14 are having their operating system upgraded to safe and friendly Hello Kitty Online.)

One of the things I love about Australians is that they (can I say “we” yet?) are so much less uptight than the USA about sex. And using sex not in the (IMO) creepy Asian way or the blasé Euro way; it’s fun and lusty and mischievous. Here are a few examples:

• On the most popular nationwide breakfast news-lite show, they broadcast from a museum that had a whale penis on display. The onsite host and museum staffer played around with it and the studio hosts, both male and female, made a number of naughty jokes about it.
• The same show frequently has a “joke of the day” which is almost always some kind of dirty joke, read and submitted by both men and women.
• A big billboard on the way out of the Brisbane airport touting a time-saving parking pass or the like has the tagline, “Slip in and out faster”.
• A TV commercial for “Titan” brand garage doors: A young man is talking with his dad in the yard standing in front of his garage. He says, “Hey da, you know how I was complaining that my last girlfriend didn’t have a Titan?” Dad nods. “Well, this time I’m going to do interviews.” The young guy talks with a number of sexy girls who are sitting up on his workbench right in front of him while his dad chats up the ones in line. The naughty part is that in the Australian accent, “Titan” sounds the same as “tight one”. So the guy sounded like he was saying to his dad, “You know how I was complaining that my last girlfriend didn’t have a tight one?”

Would any of this happen in on USA broadcast TV? I think not.

It was a holiday on Wednesday. After a bit of indecision and regrets about having to leave the dog behind we accepted Robin and Paul’s invitation to go out to Bribie Island. I’m glad we did. We caravanned to a 4×4 lot and took Robin’s 4-wheeler up the beach, with me, Kat, Dylan, Robin, Penny, and their son Toby. It was exciting and bouncy, and a bit scary to be plunging up and down the sand rises next to the crashing waves. (continued »)