Christmas downsizing

[PhoneLobster]

I know people who still work in IT, the Sydney and Newcastle job markets haven't changed a jot.

I made a career change because I realised further investment of my time and money developing skills that wouldn't be recognized and chasing jobs I wouldn't be offered was wasteful. So I certainly won't be moving to Canberra on the off chance.

(Interestingly one of the reasons I suspect I never got a Sydney job was none of the employers ever seemed to believe I was actually prepared to move to Sydney at the drop of a hat.)

I've now invested a lot in my new career, and I have been out of the IT loop for something like 5 years now.

The odd employment agency still contacts me due to my specialist experience but I tell them...

No, returning to an insecure, underpaid, overworked career in the IT industry seems really stupid to me.

No, I haven't got an updated resume for you.

No, I haven't done anything in the field recently.

No, I won't go to interviews, nothing short of a flat job offer will tempt me back.

[Koumei]

That's because the idea of living in Sydney is crazy. The place is linked directly to Hades, and drains the soul out of you until you realise the options are to either become an alcoholic, move out of there or eat a bullet.

I knew it was time to move out of Sydney when I said the words "You know, being able to win a round of Dynasty Warriors doesn't make me sober. It just makes Dynasty Warriors really fucking easy. I just can't control this damn Katamari. I should probably stop drinking."

I've barely touched the stuff since.

[cthulhu]

why does sydney make you an alcholic?

Admittedly my 'dream' sydney job would be a fly in/out gig.

[Koumei]

Because being awake, sober and in Sydney at the same time makes you very unhappy fairly quickly. Seeing as you can't really do anything about the first and last at times, the next best option is to start drinking at Booze O'Clock. Now, most Australians will tell you Booze O'Clock is around 2PM. However in Sydney it coincides nicely with Breakfast Time, and continues to Bedtime.

[josephbt]

How come there are so many Australians here?

[Koumei]

I think we covered that on another thread, possibly the one about Nazis.

Basically, Australia is a shit country, so all you have to do is hang around on the Internet. Also, the closest person you know could feasibly be a hundred miles away, so you may as well do all your socialising online.

[Crissa]

That doesn't answer why Australians comprise such a large number of the cool people online.

Honestly. The best gamers, most friendly raiders and people I've met from lp-mush to Warcraft always includes a goodly chunk of Aussies.

Now, I know they have their shits, too, I've met some. But still, their representation in the rarified cool people is much higher than their proportion, even taking into account their higher online propensity.

-Crissa

[Koumei]

Heh, thanks Crissa.

I'd joke that it's because the majority of Aussies who are pricks are also drunk morons who like to hot their cars up to be "fully sick, mate", engage in Race Riots (the state sport of New South Wales - the state Sydney is in) and surf all the time. They don't know how computers work.

I would joke about that, but it's more or less the truth.

[PhoneLobster]

I'm going to suggest that despite Australian's having a reputation for being cool dudes, and constantly going on about how totally cool we are we in fact are mostly not cool dudes.

Huge numbers of Australians are incredible mean and ignorant. And a lot like the old South Africa these people don't even begin to realise how shitty they can be.

As someone darker than incredibly blonde, shorter than six foot four, with a funny accent and a partially ethnic (and openly so) background, academic interests, political interests, ANY openly expressed interests, a dislike for traditional adult Australian male social bonding (something akin to the social networks of preschool bullies) and a stubborn resistance to tow the "ozzie" tribal line and pretend to never ever care or know about anything.

Well seriously, so many Australians are shits. And maybe its tourist syndrome but I've been elsewhere, and also mixed with shifty foreign types come to steal our jobz and womenz and frankly it is a distinct local kind of shittyness.

So why do Australians turn up as people Crissa might think "cool" on the internet all the time? I mean our population is LOW, our internet technology is totally dark ages, and many if not most of us are cruel wilfully ignorant fuckwits.

Well you see there are all sorts of very isolated areas. And even large swathes of major cities are very socially isolated suburban wastelands that stretch for vastly underpopulated distances with very few social venues adequate for less mainstream social networking.

And those wastelands and isolated areas are full of total pricks. So the few not so total pricks are very isolated and quickly start pedalling their home made generators to access the internet.

So yeah, that's my theory, pretty close to 100% of the drop outs from the last generation or so of our disfunctional society are on the internet because there are overwhelming obstacles that at the very least cripple our real life social networking.

[Koumei]

You put it well, PL.

I seriously wouldn't miss the country if it was used as an atomic testing ground and the whole place went up in nuclear fire.

Well, partly because I'd be dead, but you know what I mean.

And trying to find a girlfriend in Australia makes you hate Asians. Srsly. (Whereas living in Sydney makes you hate Lebanese, living anywhere makes you hate typical white Aussie blokes, and the public transport makes you hate everyone). But yes. Single males and lesbians, come here to Australia to cure any Weeaboo tendencies by developing a hatred for the Asians so fierce that you wonder why America didn't go the full distance when ending WWII.

[Draco_Argentum]

1197881469[/unixtime]]Honestly. The best gamers, most friendly raiders and people I've met from lp-mush to Warcraft always includes a goodly chunk of Aussies.

I'm going to guess its the societal expectation to be laid back and relaxed.

PL and Koumei are southerners, they're apparently less relaxed down there. Also house prices are worse. And theres race riots rarely and racial tension pretty much always. Up here its mostly just when you talk to people that you hear someone spout something amazingly racist out of the blue.

[cthulhu]

most of the wankers are from demographics that are less likely to play WoW, or indeed engage with internet communities, though this is changing.

Edit: Aside from a strong tendancy towards insularness (not that I am any better understand, but you know) why does australia make you hate asians?

[Koumei]

In general, it's because they come here and steal not our jobs but our women. I think this is due to the fucked up society in most of Asia that says "Drown your female babies. Only males are any fucking good." As a result, there are three goddamn female Asians on the bloody planet, and 86 British Billion Asian males, all swarming here like a ZERG RUSH KEKEKEKEKE to steal our females, and it needs to stop.

My recommendation is to fire melta torpedoes from orbit until most Asian soil is steaming, bubbling magma. Let them die off peacefully, or as peacefully as is possible when you consist of superheated vapour, then start afresh.

Or just change their societies and also stop luring them out here with "You don't need to be smart to pass, just rich! We love full fee paying foreign students!" degree vending machines. I mean, "Universities".

This is sort of a two-pronged thing in my case. Partly if you step outside and look to your left, then your right, you'll see white girls clinging to Asian boys. Incidentally, in China they had this little fun event once, where black males were taking all their females (Uni age), so the Chinese held a protest or a riot or a rebellion or possibly they asked Zhuge Liang to launch a fire attack on the capital or something. Anyway, the government responded with military action, but it then actually imposed laws on the black males to stop that kind of shit. It should be done here to the Asians. I guess we need Zhuge Liang to launch a fire attack, though.

The second is a simply personal issue where my best friend who I was far too attached to despite knowing she's straight (though to be fair, she made enough allowances that it was easy to be mislead and to think I could be an exception) had a habit of saying "I don't want a partner" at random, then one week later declaring that she was fucking another Asian. All the while using me as a source of extra income because I'm a stupid bitch who actually reaches for my wallet when asked nicely to pay for FFXII or whatever.

So Asians played an important part in my mental breakdown and to the closest I've yet come to taking a nice carbon monoxide breather. I bought the bag of BBQ fuel, then the meds kicked in on the way home.

Oh, there's also the fact that I have yet to meet an Asian face-to-face, aside from the "born in Australia" variety or special "I'm visiting here as an exchange student/teacher!" kind, who knows how to say please and thank you. The rest of them come across as incredibly rude, so they can fuck right off.

There, you asked for the reason, you got the short version. The long version is exactly the same, but with slightly more use of the word "fuck".

[PhoneLobster]

I'm going to guess its the societal expectation to be laid back and relaxed.

A typical comment from someone immersed in "Ozzie" culture. As is all the more expected of a stereotypical Queenslander or Darwinite (its like coming from Alabama or something).

Not that I could claim a better regional stereotype being a Novocastrian and all.

Anyway the whole laid back bullshit is actually VERY up tight about forcing everyone to be laid back OR ELSE!

You have to be "laid back", uncaring, never passionate, never interested, never offended, never excited, never knowledgeable or informative.

You must instead integrate into a social group that looks like a bunch of preschool bullies, never showing weakness or revealing anything you care about (caring about anything is a weakness) and tolerate (and propagate) endless insults "its all just a joke mate, don't have a sense of 'umour? What are yah, a Wog or somethin'?" or even physical attacks in an endless round of "who is bigger dog" that the ignorant sods don't even recognise they are playing.

And god help someone they ranked as little dog who bites or barks back, because as much as "Ozzies" pretend they don't engage in social stratification and prejudice we are in fact divided by prejudices and etiquette rules as strong and deep and insane as any British class conflicts or Apartheid racism.

Oh yeah, and you had better drink like a fish until you pass out at every opportunity and try not to know or use more than a fraction of the English language (communication? major social gaff).

As for this Asian stuff Koumei is going on about I got no idea. (edit: if for no other reason than ethnic minorities being decidedly rarer and more thoroughly underground in my region)

[Count Arioch the 28th]

That's odd to me though, an asian man with a european female. I don't think I've ever seen that around here. Ever.

It seems to me that in the area where I live, there's only three proper interacial couplings available: black guy and white female, hispanic guy and white female, and white male and asian female.

I did see a white male black female couple once, but I was in DC at the time.

[JonSetanta]

So, Australia seems like Baltimore city, but on a national scale.... and no surfing or toxic beasties...
And we have the Bloods here. That's our vermin.

America is like the D&D setting style of "points of light", where as a foreigner you might assume every damned city is like L.A. or New York City, but really.. it's just a handful. Easily over 95% the country is similar to the social and environmental inhospitability of The Outback, but with suburbs and long stretches of highway over farmland between each state instead.

And about invading Asian culture (must .. resist.. tirade..); maybe us westerners owe them something, given that we resculpted their entire way of life, and all.
We give them the Big Mac and better techniques for fossil fuel abuse, they give us schizophrenic Korean adoptees (yes, I've met too many within the nearest 100 miles alone) and sickeningly contagious cartoon fads.
Sad, that you Aussies have it just as bad if not worse. I figure you have more Japanese, though, given proximity.... and the fact that my American did, within living memory, attempt to herd Japanese immigrants like cattle into one spot about 60 years ago.

Count: It's more common here near the capitol than you think, in any form. And also, not a big issue (unless someone is ex-KKK or Black Panther or some shit.)
I'm practically a mongrel myself, with only a vague half-Irish heritage to even call my own.
Oddly, the people I've met that have the biggest problem with interracial couplings are black. Or at least the most verbal about it, which is certainly better than smiling, agreeing that it's OK, and then meeting up for a lynch mob on the weekend.

[tzor]

I'm going to disagree with the notion of "points of light" because it's more like "webs of light." Consider New York City; it's webs reach all the way down Long Island. In fact most of New England are covered by various webs of various lights. Not all these webs share the same level of light, however. What happens in the darkness depends on the particular region.

Where I am there are tons of sushi resturants. I can count of at least 4 within a 5 minute lunch drive of where I work.

[Cielingcat]

Let's see, sushi places around me... There are 3 within walking distance, and at least 3 more within 10 minutes.

[tzor]

Within walking distance, I recently got a Greek dinner. (At least it would be walking distance if they actually put sidewalks on the roads.)

[Crissa]

We only have one sushi restaurant at the corner near our house.

There's two chinese restaurants, two indian-pakistani, one hawaiian-chinese, one pho-vietnamese, two burger places out of three fast-food... Oh, wait, two sandwich places, two pizza chains that we never eat at (they're terrible, even for their chains), and a mexican restaurant.

Still...

-Crissa

[PhoneLobster]

There is one restaurant within walking distance of me.

If you count an entire day trip as a walk.

It has no specific theme at all and is only sometimes open.

It does not serve sushi.

Edit: Also there is no side walk between here and there. Or curb and guttering. Or municipal sewerage.

[cthulhu]

If you count walking as 'technically walking distance but in reality I'd drive' then I have 2 italian places, vietnamese (national award winning), chinese x 3? which are terrible, thai (national award winning), indian and the usual fast food crap.

Edit: I forgot a local buger n pizza takeway (good food) another thai place, and a turkish place

[Koumei]

Within walking distance we have:

Hungry Jacks (Burger King)
KFC
A Thai Restaurant
An all-you-can-eat restaurant (expensive, but good food)
The major shopping centre - the biggest mall in the country, apparently. Which has a variety of cafes, coffee shops and a large food court with all the usual suspects.

Oh, and for the record, you'll never see me say "Now I'm not a racist, but _____". Because I know I am. But I don't pretend to be a paragon of virtue, and I don't commit hate crimes, so it really doesn't bother me.

[CalibronXXX]

We have a corner deli with walking distance, a mile, everything else would take too long to walk to to even be remotely worth it. We do have a pretty nice restaurant in town, about a 7 minute drive, and a number of less fancy but still good restaurants within the same distance.

[Maj]

Within five miles of here there's the Evergreen College's cafeteria. The rest is mostly trees.