Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together.

Look! Hairy Henry is trying to explain the possibility of life on Mars to Ezra.

If it were me, I'd just give him a copy of Hunky Dory, some eyeliner and spandex pants and be done with it!

No evil propensity of the human heart is so powerful that it may not be subdued by discipline.

I'm not sure what these birds are doing lurking up on some luxury flats above Salamanca Square. Whatever it is, it can't be good. I've seen that film by Hitchcock. No, birds gathering, it has to spell doom.

As I was looking at this photo, one thing that struck me was the yellow tone. I don't do a lot of yellow, and I don't know why...

If anything can, it is memory that will save humanity. For me, hope without memory is like memory without hope.

Last weekend I was lucky to get an opportunity to spend some time in the company of both lads, with some halfway decent light for a change. This has afforded me the opportunity to snare some good shots.

This one I like to call Henry as Audrey Hepburn.

We do what we must, and call it by the best names we can.

Okay, okay, settle down. It's another "surface of the water" shot. I can't help it that I like them. This one I'll call The Curse of Transcendental idealism or, Wer bin ich?.

I don't like the label neo-Kantian. I am far more comfortable proclaiming myself a neo-Fichterian. I proudly proclaim that that self-consciousness is a social phenomenon, and that every subject's self-awareness is predicated on the existence of other rational subjects!

Christ, I have to stop reading Kundera on the bus, it brings up all sorts of stuff I thought long buried...

Try to become not a man of success, but try rather to become a man of value.

I'm tired, and he's cute.

More of the same then...

You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity.

Theme Thursday yet again, and today the theme is LIMO.

One assumes that we are to talk about a limousine, that is, a luxury sedan with a lengthened wheelbase and usually driven by a chauffeur. The cocaine being snorted off a high price call girl's breasts is an optional extra.

I think that I am safe to assume that these three are most definitely not waiting for a LIMO. The stop would indicate that the Metro X-press (how hip) to Glenorchy is more likely.

As my sloth in getting this post up might indicate, I've been busy, so I've little time to waste!

The first thing I think about when I hear the word "LIMO" is wanker a story shared by a world weary colleague who mused on the differences between an American and an Australian, and yes, there is a LIMO involved.

In many ways, Australians and Americans are alike. Former English colonies. "New World" rather than "Old Europe". Outposts in a rich an bountiful, yet dangerous and foreboding, land. We've evolved (somewhat differently) into multi-cultural societies, melting pots of taste, fashions and looks.

In other ways though, we are quite different. Australia wasn't forged in revolution, rather evolution. We're sedate, while they're passionate. One suspects that we things move a little slower here in Hobart than they do in the bustling metropolises of NY, LA or indeed French Lick, Indiana.

My colleague said to me that one of the starkest difference between Australians and Americans can be seen in our respective responses to sighting a limousine rolling down the street. He said:

"The average American sees a LIMO with its ostentatious wealth, its unabashed hubris and he thinks, 'what's a fellow got to do to get himself one of those? That's the life!' Whereas. the average Australian sees a LIMO with its darkened windows, its fancy trim and thinks, 'who's that wanker in the flash car? I wonder who he ripped off getting that rich?'"

Call it the difference between the entrepreneurial spirit and the egalitarian drive.

I'm not sure whether such generalisations hold as true in 2009 and they might have in the early 1990s. Similarly, I'm not sure whether the degradation of entrepreneurial zeal or indeed a commitment to equality is a thing to be celebrated.

The real truth about children is they don't speak the language very well... And they are ignorant of our elaborate ideas about right and wrong.

"Do you know what it's like to fall in the mud and get kicked... in the head... with an iron boot?"

"Of course you don't, no one does. It never happens. Sorry, Ted, that's a dumb question... skip that."

I think that I know what it's like, if you think of the iron boot as a metaphor for sheer, utter, short-sighted stupidity and ignorance.

Truth would quickly cease to be stranger than fiction, once we got as used to it.

What sort of Mexican food might one expect to find from a place with a neon cactus in the window?

It used to do the job, but since its embrace of the "fish-bowl margarita" crowd of screeching happy hour harpies, the quality of the food has diminished in lock with the ambience.

A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future.

"Please pick me up."

"Please pick me up."

"PLEASE pick me up."

"Pick me up."

"PICK ME UP!"

"Please pick me up."

"Please."

The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.

It's off to work, and it seems like I might not be the only one take a detour by the waterfront this morning.

Alas, this was last week. This morning we've got snow halfway down the mountain, unceasing drizzle, and a southerly so chilly that it would perplex a penguin.

Here is a poem that I have written:

A Poem That I Have Written

we do that

we took that

we want that

we need that

we know that

we hope that

we wish that

we knew that

we wanted that

we asked that

we heard that

we stopped that.

Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt.

Ladies, ladies, ladies. Cool your jets.

There's plenty of stud to go aound.

Just be patient and wait your turn.

Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.

Cockatoos looking for a feed by the side of the highway at lunchtime, Geilston Bay.

The cockies are back, and by golly they don't half make some noise! Think thirty newborns eager for a feed, and you're on your way to imagining the delight of a big flock of cockatoos.

That said, flock is entirely unsuitable as the collective noun. If pressed, the appropriate term of venery might be "an ebullience of cockatoos".

How about "an exuberance of cockatoos"?

"An imbroglio of cockatoos"?

"A seraglio of cockatoos"?

I dunno.

What do you reckon?

Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities, because, as has been said, 'it is the quality which guarantees all others.'

Ezra is a Rat.

Henry is a Dog.

I am a Snake.

Jen is a Dragon.

Ezra is also a Crab.

Henry is a Tampon Set of Scales.

I am a Bull.

Jennifer is a Bucket of Water.

A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one.

I've featured a lot of pictures looking north on Elizabeth Street, but from memory this is one of the few taken looking south. This was taken on Thursday, at around 4:30 pm, as I am grumpy waiting for the 4:20 express.

Sunday Top Five!

A wisp of melancholy and an intense feeling of being old accompanied my oversight of a "best singles on the past decade" list online yesterday evening. More precisely, I either failed to recognise, or flippantly dismissed most of the entries.

You see, my formative musical years happened some time prior to the year 2000. Thus, today's list. In chronological order, I present to you My Five Favourite Record Albums of the 1990s!

U2: Achtung Baby

R.E.M.: Automatic for the People

Pulp: Different Class

Radiohead: OK Computer

Wilco: Summerteeth

Just missing the cut were a long list, culled to a very short list that included: Manic Street Preachers' The Holy Bible; Portishead's Dummy; Guided by Voices' Alien Lanes; Pavement's Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain; Radiohead's The Bends; and Spiritualized's Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating in Space.

No place for the Macarena, unfortunately.

What else have I missed? Who have I dissed?

Feel free to voice your dissatisfaction.