Read about it here http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/men-told-to-soften-the-f-up-20110705-1h0a6.html

For those who have had friends and family who have come to the conclusion that ending their own lives is the only option, they know the devastation, guilt and trauma that it leaves behind, often rippling through and damaging so many more lives than the person could have ever imagined.

I stopped posting very much on this site after a close friend of mine chose to end his life back in February 2010. It was a tragic time for all of his friends and family and he left behind 3 young and beautiful children. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of him and not a day goes by that I don’t think to myself what more I could have done to prevent it. We all knew he was down and we all knew he had tried before, and we all tried to prevent it, but you can’t be with a person every minute of every day.

One thing however does come back to me and that is, if I had approached it more softly and asked him to speak about it rather than offering my typically male opinion and offering tough love. It doesn’t work and men certainly do need to learn how to be softer, and talk about their issues, whether to a friend, family, a therapist or even anonymously on the internet. The more you bottle it up and the more you think along the lines of “Harden up” the worse your situation will get.

Personally I don’t like the term Soften the fuck up, however its point is well made, even if mine is not.

So this post may be lacking in any real structural point, but I hope that some read it, think of a friend or think of themselves, and reach out and try to help someone, or themselves.

For those in Australia seeking help, please reach out to http://www.beyondblue.org.au/ a great charity and initiative that can help you work through your problems.

Don’t get me wrong I understand the romance side of things, but pulling out a camera should by and large be left for the bedroom and tourist attractions. In all honesty, I just want to eat my meal whilst it still has thermal nuclear properties and isn’t getting on the cold side. I can’t foresee a time in the future where I will site back and think, hmmm you know, I wouldn’t mind going through all those old photos of the dinners we have eaten. Hell I can’t even imagine saying to any kids I may have in the future “And this is the panfried Sea Trout that we had, ooh and that’s the lemon sorbet we had for desert”. I am all for torturing my children through boredom but even I have limits to my mental cruelty.

I decided to question Wifey on what her reasoning was behind this, and her response chilled me to the bone. Before I offer it to you I should give you some background. Some friends of ours were in town and heading out to dinner, they asked for some suggestions, so we offered up some of the nicer eateries in the town that we have found to be both delicious, well services and reasonably priced. These friends however, decided to ignore our advice and went to an all you can eat Chinese buffet. I know everyone has different tastes, but please, lets be reasonable here, why have buffet chinese, when for the same price you can have a specialty cooked gourmet dinner?

Now despite what may otherwise be assumed of my nature, I am actually a fairly passive and patient man, sure I have my pet peeves, intricacies and mental health issues, but by and large I am an easy going, if slightly psychotic person and let things go fairly easily. So the above, was something I simply shrugged off as not impacting my life at all….but wifey?…no her reasoning for photographing the meal was so that she could show our friends what they missed out on, and stick it to them…….is that not one of the scariest things you have heard.

I take this as further proof that women are just plain crazy, and should be restrained to the kitchen and kept away from the BBQ……right?

Moo

This is a delicate subject to broach but one that must be mentioned, I also want to quickly put it out there, that this is about my past and not my present, but something someone mentioned to me about their life, and an observation I shared, my friend didn’t have a name for it but CCS is a well known phenomenon and all men need to be aware of this in order to either make your life easier through expectation or to fight it off, but be aware we will all be confronted with it at once stage.

So I guess here is the optimal spot to actually explain what CCS or Comfortable Cow Syndrome is.

Comfortable Cow Syndrome: The Comfortable Cow Syndrome is the name given to the weight that is gained by females when they enter into a serious relationship. CCS usually shows early signs around the 6 month mark of a relationship, in the early stages the signs are often not always obvious, especially if cohabitation is not yet apart of the relationship, but increasing amounts of chocolate wrappers and increasing apathy on the part of your female companion often become more obvious in this early development stages, though your companion will oft tell you a suitable reason, this is only the start, and reading these signs could save you embarrassment down the line.

The middles stages of the syndrome often make themselves known with a higher frequency of the following comments.

“Do I look fat in this?” and “Does this make me look fat?” (To which the correct males reply should be “It’s not the clothes that are making you look fat”)

Further comments that whilst they may seem harmless on first appearance, and are oft mistakenly waved away as the female love of shopping are:

“None of my clothes fit anymore, I need to go buy new ones”

This should be an immediate red flag, and the savvy and experienced man should immediately reply with “Your clothes don’t fit, because you have packed on a few (your chosen weight denomination), perhaps you should put the money towards a gym membership”
Offering to pay for the gym membership is often a way to help, but you need to be sure the financial loss with be worth the kilogram loss, it may just be better and easier at this point to trade your partner in for a younger, trimmer version with a willingness toward sexual exploration.

The final signs, don’t need to be mentioned in great detail, if you have been there you know them, they usually involve a lot of cake, junk food and the licking of every plate in the room after dinner and a hungry eying off of the dogs dinner sitting by the back door.

At this stage it is mission critical, your sex life has likely dwindled and although you think seals are cute and elephants mildly amusing, attractive is not a word that you would use and if it is, then you are way beyond my help.

Generally once you hit this stage your options are very few, though there are ways that you can get things back to wear you wanted, I will offer a couple, but you take what you want out of it and use them at your own peril.

1 – Constant belittlement and ridicule. I find this works well and serves the double purpose of ruining your partners self esteem altogether therefore, meaning your suggestions in bed are less likely tto be refused. Start out with little names, and within a short time period (I like to give it 3 hours) start your full on assault, try naming her Fatty Fat Fat Fatson, and every time she gets up, have the Baby Elephant Walk handy to be played. Jokingly holding on to the furniture and walls as if the Earth is shaking when she walks also works well in this method

2 – “break the car” you don’t have to actually break it, just pull the starter motor wires or something, and tell her it’s broken, sure it means you have to walk too, but some pain is worth it, suggest she walk to work, or better yet, just push her along until she walks of her own accord. Even making  hat with some cake dangling off the front is worth a shot.

3 – Remove all food from the house and replace it with bread and water and vegetables, take her money and credit cards and force her onto this Gulag diet. Don’t forget to stock your toolbox and shed with whatever nourishment you require just in case

There are plenty more ideas out there, and I would love to hear some. But join me in the fight against CCS. I will looking at starting this effort soon, something akin to the spread Firefox logos etc, I expect to see people and sites everywhere with the soon to be released “I joined the fight against Comfortable Cow Syndrome” Moo logo’s, so get involved and rid the world of this horrible debilitating syndrome.

And remember, keep an eye out for the signs, catch them early and you should be fine, no longer will it be “Stop, drop, roll”, but instead “Stop,! You  have Rolls”

So heinous is the breaking of the rules I can barely bring myself to publish this.

However this site and rule breaker need to be outed!

What is the rule I hear you ask?

• Rule 4: No man, excepting for on his bucks night, Mad Monday footy team celebrations or for comical appeal, shall wear womens clothing, wearing of womens clothing and attempting to make it Manly is a crime against all who have penis knocking between their thighs. Rule breakers should be shamed and forced to watch movies such as Rocky, Dirty Dozen, The entire collection of Chuck Norris shows and movies and last but not least, should watch at least 24 hours worth of Lesbian Porn, to hopefully drill it out of them.
• Rule 4, Sub-section a: If during the viewing of the Lesbian Porn, the perpetrator of the heinous act again Manliness, utters any line such as “Wow I like her dress” or comments at all upon the lovely actresses clothing, apart from saying “She is wearing too many clothes” the man shall immediately hand in his penis to the nearest surgeon and be forced to become a full time woman, banning them from a spot on the couch during any cricket, football or car racing event.

You have been fairly warned people

1. (and very possibly the most important) Friends, and other men, should not let friends wear speedos, there is no excuse for this rule, anyone caught wearing speedos, must immediately have the light thrust upon then and their sexuality seriously questioned by all men who witnessed the wearing, worse still the friends of said speedo wearing friend, must surely be ostracized until such time as they have proven themselves to be fit for blokish social exposure.
2. Men should never discuss with another man, the goings on of any soap or reality television show, unless it is to inform the other man, of an opportunity to see bare breasted women. Any information beyond this, especially when speaking of the lives of the cast of the soap or reality show outside of the show, should be deemed woman’s talk and the breaker of said rule, should be forced to wear womens clothing until they are sufficiently shamed.
3. When confronted with the question of whom should drive, no man should, unless they are unable through the drinking of many a beer, disability or other extreme exceptional circumstance, shall allow a woman to drive, especially if there are other males present to take up driving duties.

These are 3 of the most important rules of being a man, however in the coming weeks, I will continue to update you with further rules, and ask you to offer those that I have missed

These are speedos…these are wrong:

These Are Speedos....These are wrong

It seems to m that sentiment appears to be slowly fading in importance to many, now I don’t know if this is due to a decline in the socialist style culture of Australia and a push toward more pure capitalism which we have seen over the past 11 years of the Howard governments rule in Australia. From some of my disjointed ramblings you can probably tell that I am somewhat of a socialist, I am not talking about your extreme socialism, of the communist kind. I am more of a Democratic Socialist, the reason being for this, is that wealth is not of great concern to me, sure at one point it use to be, to an extent, everyone grows up with the ideal of being rich and famous and not having to worry. But what occurred to me as I have grown older, seen more of the world, experienced life as an adult, had my highs and had my lows, is that, no matter the amount of money in your pocket, you will always have worries, concerns and priorities.

So as I have traveled through life and reached the age now of 26, I have been able to figure out what is important to me, and it isn’t the car I drive, the house I live in or the things I own, I know this sounds conceited and Cliché, but it is the truth and something it has taken me a long time to realise.

You see these days, what is important to me means so much more, and it is something that how much I earn can not change, and if it does, then  the things I lose as an effect of having less money just are not worth having anyway. As corny as it sounds these days what I enjoy is quality time with my girlfriend, family, dog and friends. I enjoy the simpler things, like playing soccer with mates, surfing and just relaxing. Somewhere over the past 11 odd years we have lost this ideal, the ideal that Australia use to be great for and we all started chasing that extra buck, that bigger car and that big house. We should very much be ashamed about this in my view, and i am glad that I have started to realise the importance of the above simple pleasures.

What this lengthy waste of disk space is really leading to is the loss of sentiment, over the past few years I have noticed that not only have people stopped adding sentimental value to activities and to the small pleasures around them and their families. More and more people say I am too sentimental, but I fail to see the problem with this.

You know what, I think I more just wanted to wax lyrical about a socialist society……

Hell even these guys had the right idea. Walking around naked, waving sticks and just generally being guys, oh how i envy them.

Though somewhere between our tree climbing, stick carrying past and now, we developed enough brains to become consciously stupid, I hope to coin that phrase, I really do.
It took millenniums of evolution to grow a brain that is large enough for us to really do stupid things and it took the ability to reason to understand them as stupid, I guess now the best thing we can hope for is that the universe stops expanding and we can go into backwards evolution and eventually become survival motivated creatures with no ability to reason.

Now my point has become a little bit, shall we say lost above, but that is just the way that my brain works. However what I am trying to say is that when did humans,

a) Decide Rape was a good idea
b) Decide that rape is the fault of the victim

What scares me about the article is I can actually see part of their logic in the thinking that “If she wasn’t in the car with men that were not in her family”. I don’t agree with it but I see their logic.
The problem with our ability to reason and our consciousness is that we become human, but we forget to treat everyone else like humans. These, and I say this at the risk of being persecuted by extreme Islam, neolithic, backward thinking, unfeeling lunatics haven’t stopped to sympathise with the poor girl at the heart of this, but have instead decided to make her a further victim. Some people never recover from the horror of rape and these people want to scar her further.

How can anyone first of all rape a person?
How can they then place any blame on the victim?

I am not a religious man, and I treat all religions with the same level of disdain, when are we going to move on from the ideas and stories of people from a past when forward thinking was packing enough food for your Donkey and you in case a sand storm whipped up?

Cut this poor girl some slack and punish the assholes who put her in this situation, I worry for all the women who are persecuted like this and I worry at what this world has become, I am sure that when we first walked from the trees and began to utter words, our thoughts were not of how we can punish, how we can take from people and how we treat anyone the way that people get treated in this world. If there is a god, I am sure that unless that god is a sick sadistic being, that this was not their will, this was not their intention.

However on one of my new perusals I came across the following story http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22762751-29277,00.html and was absolutely disgusted. When did good old Australia become the paranoid sepo land, the United States?

Before little Johnnie, everyone loved Aussies, well apart from the Kiwi’s but who gives a turd about them anyway? You could go anywhere in the World, people would hear your accent and then know right away all you cared about was a beer and the surf conditions and that you weren’t there to bother anyone. Now it seems that with little johnnie doing horsie rides on the back of George W all the way into Iraq and Afghanistan has put us smack bang in the middle of the map of Dick Heads with a big fuck-off star on top.

Not content with this little Johnnie decides that he needs to spread his fear and paranoia internally, whether it be interest rates, economy or terrorism, the little worm who hates the worm, is doing all within his power to scare us into keeping him in power.

Now what annoys me about the above listed article (http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22762751-29277,00.html) is it also shows the under current of racist redneck Australia where some of the populace are too stupid and naive to see through the bullshit presented to us by a Government who have not only lost touch, but have also lost the ability to care, they have long forgotten that politicians are representatives of the people and not their controlling overlords.
A large amount of Australia needs to wake up, read some books and find out about the big fuck-off world that is out there.

First of all how dumb are the punters who complained about a fiction book being read by a patron?
Secondly, how dumb of the bouncers to act on the moronic complaints of redneck hicks with the IQ of an over-cooked pea?, though after all they are bouncers, so you have to cut them some slack since their thought process doesn’t go far beyond, the gym violence eating and flexing muscles. Surely though common sense would be enough to say

“Hey, why would a terrorist be reading a book about terrorism in plain sight?”

I don’t expect too many to pick up on this, especially the moronic populace of Cairns who were involved in the incident but the Irony is a gem, and really highlights the important message that some people, like the author Richard Flanagan are trying to get across.

The best thing Australia could do for themselves is to pick up a book and read it and stop reading the fucking trash Daily Telegraph.

….Blokemane