Merry fucking Christmas
And a happy New Year!
How you even being to wrap a year like that is beyond me. If you were simply to look at tabloid headlines, this was the year that turned everything on its head.
China holds the games and Tibet, success.
They did a pretty good job really. Few billion people crammed into the rafters and yet they still managed to clear the place out, throw a set of games, put on a good show (lip-synced or otherwise) and keep everyone alive.
Monks complain about their occupation, get some publicity, China says “leave them out of this” and blacklists anything remotely connected to Tibet (again). Moral uproar ensues, but as usual, people let the topic fade into the twilight. Notoriety in news, after all, is a fickle thing that depends on what sells the papers – and no one wants to be on China’s bad side and miss a slice of that economical pie.
Martian lander finds water, love, and some kind of fecal matter.
So we sent technology to Mars. Go us. We managed to maintain a radio wave link that could control the thing from.. how far away are we again? We landed the bastard, played with our interplanetary remote control car for a couple of months and used its Tonka truck arms to dig for stuff. There’s some ice out there. Nice. Maybe, it was once even habitable.
We taught it to build blocks out of our trash, and when the aliens landed and started shooting lasers at us and stealing our last surviving plant, we made love to them – while throwing off our evil robot oppressors.
Aussie dollar plummets amid a world in financial turmoil.
But what’s to be expected really. We don’t make anything any more. We’ve sold all our shit to someone else, and all but closed down our manufacturing sector. Bar a few commodities in mining and farming, we’re now a service based industry and therefore a risky capital investment. On the plus side, we can offset that risk a little via our banking sector, which isn’t permitted the same loose rules systemic in the US.
It’s one of the weirdest crashes you could possibly imagine. Because the first people to suffer their fate were the people at the top. Tall poppies, really tall ones, that actually felt the pinch. That almost never happens.
Now, as inflation plummets and Joe-battlers enjoy their free government handouts, petrol prices are almost half their indexed price and banks have been quick to pass on the mega-low interest rates to customers. Win.
And there’s just three things.
There’s also:
A new US president, and he’s black. Woah.
There’s the almost internationally accepted need for environmental reform. Again, woah.
Japan’s own ministers admit whaling is a dying practice. Woah.
And many more.
But, really, however
No one wraps up a year based on headlines. Hopefully, you’ve had a rich year with friends, family and/or loved ones close by.
Hopefully, you’ve said, done and accomplished what you set out to. That’s the real testament to success and happiness, I think. Having some goals, struggling to achieve them perhaps, maybe re-evaluating how long it might take you, but getting there none the less.
Stay safe on the roads.
From the dwindling days of the year 2008, we wish you all the very best over the holiday season and many, many frosty amber suds in the new year. Peace out.
what's this do? | doy | 22 December, 2008
Thought provoking. I love you Doy.