For those interested in making a few bucks for buggerall effort: There are a lot of companies that specialise in "group discussions". I registered with one recently, and just scored my first gig two nights ago. Seventy smackeroonies for sitting around quacking on about soft drink. Not bad, eh? (And actually quite interesting, believe it or not.)

I'm registered with a few of these places, but I might go crazy and register with heaps. Could supplement my meagre income quite nicely, I reckon. Say one every 2 to 3 weeks, that's about 1500 hundred bucks a year.

This is just another nice aspect of capitalism. What would the comparable commie gab-fest be like? Well, you'd probably be there under the pretence of giving "free and frank" feedback about The Party's direction. Of course you'd feel anything but free or frank, probably more fearful and furtive. And the reward would be shit, too. Might just score a desiccated spud and a bent durrie, or somethin'.

Some bloke called Simon Chapman rails against celebs like Nicole Kidman, Sarah O'hare and others for puffing on durries one minute, promoting cancer awareness the next.

I think the effort is wasted, but. You're never gonna get consistent, rational behaviour from a star. Why? Because aside from being airheads, all their actions are driven by ego, and buggerall else.

Still, at least the babes he mentions aren't stupid enough to quack on about politics (well, as far as I know), like some other bimbos from Hollywood do.

Re that crap Brown-Nettle agit-prop performance of a view days back (by the way, d'ya reckon they scored a grant for it from the Australia Council?) and the ensuing kerfuffle:

I think some people have gone a little too far with the criticism. But there was no doubt that it was a truly disgraceful display. Simon Crean - bewildered 'tard that he is - managed to acquit himself reasonably well and act with a modicum of dignity in a ceremonial gathering designed mainly to re-affirm ties with our number one ally. But Bob and Kerry? Gawd. When even serial heckler Nick Bolkus is rolling his eyes in disgust at your behaviour, then you know you really have crossed the line.

He's all passion, no thought, is Bob; not just a force for nature, but a force of nature. Imagine if he ever became PM! Yikes. How scary is that? I can see him on the phone to Tony Blair: "Don't call me again ya speciesist, racist, sexist cunt... But while I've got you on the blower, tell that elitist slut Liz Windsor - or whatever her name is - that she can go an' fuck herself!"

Crikey! He'd probably try and puncture the wheels of the Pope-mobile, he would.

What's amazing is that his silly yammering has probably scored him more votes - or at least more sympathy - amongst the defectorate. The pink pixies of Kookybullshitland are now all asquitter about how locking Bob and his, er, left hand person out of Parliament House was an appalling act of censorship. Yet they were the ones being censorious, because they were trying to shout Dubya down.

The Greens' tactic is very clear: Create a highly emotive situation in which the forceful (yet civilised) exchange of arguments is eschewed for yelling your bloody lungs out! Then, when everyone's sqawking up a storm, the biggest, meanest, loudest mob wins. Finally in power, the Greens can implement their wacky anti-human, pro-plant agenda. (I'd call it hedge politics, myself.)

It's definitely a tribal, primitive way of doing things. But does that make them fascist, in the most sinister sense of the word? No. Not yet. But give them time...

Another plug: I had my home page designed for me by a talented (and patient) designer from Red Riding Web and Print Services. The website is here, if you want to have a look.

Still more cyber-anxiety. Just downloaded a free - it's always free with me, notice that? - personal firewall. No probs there, except that now I keep getting these alerts whenver I log into one of my e-mail accounts. There's a bubble that appears listing an IP address and something about "pings". I suspect some scum-sucking spammer has managed to lob some spyware into my 'puter, and it gets activated whenever I check mail or something. Or maybe it's something to do with all those e-mails for cheap Viagra and Vicodin that sit in everyone's Hotmail account. Whatever it is, it creeps me out big time.

Bob Brown is arcing up about being slandered as some kind of Nazi. Considering that he and his quackolytes are so ready to condemn Howard and Dubya as fascist (and Saddam as the victim), isn't this a case of the pot calling the kettle black... or brown, or, er, green... or something?

It must seem ironic that one of my last posts was about how I was hooked on blogging, then I wrote nothing for ages. Kathy Kinsley thought I might have been trying to give it up.

No, not in rehab. And re that: I wonder what that would be like for blog addicts ("blunkies"?). I mean, what would be the methadone equivalent? Handwritten diary entries?

Anyway, not trying to give it up. Just bloody knackered. Busy trying to earn a living and also chip away at other writing projects.

I just thought of a new word to describe the craven use of intimate associations with the famous for massive financial gain: "burrellous".

I'm feeling very inadequate today. Not only is my namesake Matt Hayden more famous and wealthy than I am, and has a more beautiful wife than I do (er, 'cause I don't have one); he is now elbowing in on my turf: writing.

Next thing I know he will have started his own blog! And if he does he's sure to rack up more hits than me. Would probably score 380 in the first hour, the bastard.

It's so weird. This browser is fine for Blogger, Yahoo, Speedymail and general browsing. But for Hotmail it's stuffed. Keeps seizing up on me!

They're weird these things. Moody, capricious - like people.

Iam glad this thing is still working. Didn't sleep all that well worrying about whether it would or not. I think I really am becoming way too dependant on my blogging - and PC for that matter.

And recently I've developed another cyber-related habit. It's what I would call "software addiction". (Hell, it's even got its own ready-made acronym: SADD. And how sad is that?) I buy those computer mags with CD freebies on them, then I rush home and, sweating and twitching with frenzied anticipation, download the programs.

Why the obsession? Maybe it's 'cause I'm such a cheap bastard, and I feel like I'm getting something for nothing. Or perhaps it's just an acute form of that fascination that blokes have with technology (you know, "boys and their toys"). Whatever it is, the habit is spinning out of control. I might need counselling soon.

And speaking of sad. That's the emotion I feel whenever I look at the old Opera icon on the desktop. It's still there, and it opens up when I click it. It says it's "finding site" and "sending request", but that's where it ends. It just can't quite connect.

Makes me think of an ageing Gidget standing on Malibu beach. The barrels are pumping, and Moondoggie and the crew are out there gettin' radical, just as they have been for the last forty odd years. Gidget really wants to join them. But she's forgotten how to, er, surf.

Have been having some 'puter trouble. Tried downloading ICQ from some CD onto my PC. But it couldn't manage it. Then my main browser (Opera) bit the dust. (Well, technically perhaps not. Maybe there's some glitch out there in cyberspace.) I think some of the ICQ files elbowed out the browser files or something. Anyway, I downloaded a Mozilla one. This seems to work fine. Thank God for that!

Touch wood everything will be okay from now on. It really freaks me out when I have tehcnical glitches. I start hyperventilating and everything.

I'm like a junkie, ferchrissakes. My whole world just starts to fall apart if I think I won't be able to blog.

Blog-addiction must already be a serious problem. Before long it will be in the DSM, I reckon.

Just signed up to this pay per-click search engine program. It's here if you wanna have a look. There's a permalink down below, too, just under the dating site banners. (By the way, I've already earned a whopping 3 bucks US from that Friendfinder one. Impressive, eh? Already well on the way to cyber-moguldom...)

A fine example of the leftist malevolence driving many of those shaping the minds of this nation's youth.

Fluffs are no-doubt creaming their beanies over this "sheriff" line. More disturbing evidence of Bush's cowboy delusion etc.

But what exactly was Dubya's intention? I suspect that as well as communicating a strong sense of allegiance he was being mildly humorous - as he is wont to do occasionally.

Take the line: "There's nothing deputy about this relationship." It's kind of colloquial, slightly self-parodic. Has a bit of nuance, light and shade - which is why retarded, credulous fluffs can't process it and immediately go spacko.

Saw a very slick, fascinating doco last night on political cartoonists. Crikey, I thought I was highly strung. But these blokes? Gawd. They were just full-on wired, like pubescent whippets on crack!

I just felt the need to do a shameless plug:

A few months back I bought this refurbished computer for about 200 bucks (I kid you not). The service was great (they put up with all my ill-informed, nit-picking questions without becoming remotely flustered) and I've never had any problems with it.

If you're looking for a cheap, reliable PC, this is the company. I recommend them without reservation.

Fitzy the Boofhead is arcing up again. He's so emotional this guy. He just goes for it hell for leather - and damn the bloody consequences! - like he used to on the rugger field in his youth. Quite lively and amusng, but is it, er, appropriate for the opinion pages of a major newspaper?

In this piece he cracks the shits with John Howard, wheeling out the ol' "arselicker" angle. Yet, predictably, he expresses teenybopper-like adoration for Clinton, as all fluffs do.

Hey, but didn't Bill order a coupla bombing runs of Baghdad back in the late 90's? Oh, well, it had UN approval or something, so it was okay. Or, we know he was doing it for the right reasons, so we'll trust his good judgement, etc.

The Boofster concludes with these paragraphs, which predict the Government's grovelling behaviour in the hypothetical case of Howard Dean being elected prez, and yanking the troops out of Iraq: "Do John Howard, Alexander Downer, et al, then do a screaming U-turn and declare that is exactly what they were thinking, precisely the policy they were going to propose and, come to think of it, just about everything Dean says makes them want to leap to their feet with acclamation?

"Do we have no gravitas of our own?"

Well this ain't gonna happen - that Howard Dean bloke's got a butterfly's chance in hell, I reckon - but still, you could easily flip this scenario the other way around to illustrate fluffy wuffy hypocrisy.

That is, if a Howard Dean (or a Hillary Clinton?) were to become president and, surprisingly, keep the troops in Iraq, and seriously continue to wage the war on terror, "Do Peter FitzSimons, Anne Summers, et al, then do a screaming U-turn and declare that is exactly what they were thinking, precisely the policy they were going to propose and, come to think of it, just about everything Dean says makes them want to leap to their feet with acclamation?

"Do they have no gravitas of their own?"

Answer to the first question: Yes, they will, of course. And they'll also probably burst into tears of joy, then happily offer to kiss the guy's butt and clean out his limo with their tongues!

Answer to the second: Nope. They don't. Not even a friggin' scintilla.

Damn fluffs. They shit me big time.

I clicked on a Blogger ad about how to make a few bucks blogging. I think it's more for business blogs etc, but there are some good points in the intro page.

It includes some thoughts from Jeff Jarvis, who is an online publishing guru or something: "One of the rules of marketing that I learned early in my career: segment the market until you get it small enough so that you can be the leader of it. The same applies to blogging. If being popular is what you care about, specialize in something, says Jarvis. Become the online expert at something. This makes a lot of sense to me."

I like this. "Specialize in something... Become the online expert at something."

Hmmm. What, though? I suppose I'm an expert at shat-off-ness, since this whole blog is basically one long bitch session - mostly about lefties, moral relativists and New Age nutbars. (You know: fluffs, the lumpen squitterati, the alternative establishment.)

But there are heaps of bloggers who specialise in that. And they work much harder than me. See, basically I'm pretty lazy.

There! That narrows it down. I'm lazy as well as shat off about fluffs.

But there are probably hundreds - if not thousands - of other bloggers like that out there. My niche needs still more defining.

So, er, what exactly is it that shits me off about fluffs? Well - apart from the fact that they are surreal idiots with their heads stuck up their arses - they invariably earn heaps more money than me. That really shits me. Take this peckerhead, for instance. The guy's rolling in it!

How ironic is that? I'm the would-be capo, and I'm damn near skint. Yet this self-described "mendicant" is up to his heart chakra in friggin' moolah! (So's his cat, by the way.) I tell you, I'm ready to punch the friggin' monitor...

Still, this does narrow my area of expertise even more. I'm now an authority on lazy shat-off-ness about New Age fluffs with cats who earn heaps more money than me.

There! How's that for a niche? That's about as nichey as you can get, isn't it? Surely there is no one else on the planet who can challenge my knowledge in this area?

So, er, where's all this dosh that's supposed to flood in?

Damn shonky internet money-making schemes! They shit me.

Ha! Another niche!

Watched Lateline last night. It ran a story on the killing of that bomb-maker al-Ghozi who escaped from prison when Howard was in the Philippines.

Understandably the Oz Government was pleased to learn of this small victory in the war aginst terrorism. Yet reporter Greg Jennett described its reaction thus: "The Australian Government's enthusiasm for al-Ghozi's death bordered on the ghoulish."

Downer's calmly spoken response followed: "It is with great delight that the Australian Government has learnt that al-Ghozi has now been, um, has now been, um ... well, he's actually been shot.

"Perhaps one shouldn't say we're delighted that someone's been shot, but nevertheless, we are delighted that he is no longer on the loose."

Does that sound near "ghoulish" to you? Crikey, what's wrong with expressing a bit of satisfaction that such a murderous scum-sucker had bought the farm? I'd describe his reaction as "bordering on the subdued" myself. I'd also describe Jennett's intro as "unequivocally emotive and biased".