Scientists have invented a new material that reverses the direction of light. See here for scientific details and scoff at the last paragraph where one of the inventors said they haven't been considering the practical applications of what amounts to be an invisibility cloak.  Who in their lives has never considered what they would do with an invisibility cloak?

Most people would probably snigger and make jokes about sneaking into the change rooms of the opposite sex or becoming a total voyeur. Personally, I would have heaps more fun than just perving... but don't get me wrong, there would definitely be perving.

I'm not a very friendly person at the best of times and I haven't really grown out of the mischievous imp phase I began when my little sister was old enough for me and my brother to make fun of every day for the rest of her life (yes, we are still going and she's 21 now - it never gets old). If I got my hands on an invisibility cloak, you can bet your arse I'd be the bitch sitting on the stairs at Flinders St Station tripping people over as they walked by. I'd walk through a crowded city centre knocking off people's hats and lifting skirts up. I'd sit in a garden somewhere with a slingshot and a bucket of something gross flinging it at people.

I would definitely be a master thief. I'd be nicking stuff left, right and centre. I'd walk on board a plane (even though I hate them) and find myself somewhere I'd never been before. I'd go to meetings I'm not invited to and listen in on conversations I'm not supposed to - all the benefits of being able to hear peoples thoughts but without the subsequent insanity of not being able to switch it off.  I'd never have to buy another ticket for a concert again. I could just walk right through the doors and see any band I want. Hell, I could go backstage any time I'd fancy.

The possibilities are endless!

What would you do with an invisibility cloak?

The word that has been getting up my nose the most as of late has to be the word fiance. I'm hearing it every day now and I want to scratch my eyes out every single time I do.

It may or may not have something to do with the fact that most of my friends and family have now hit their mid 20s or are pushing 30 and mad panic buttons are being switched on inside their brains as they all rush down the aisle with their parter of the moment. This is not necessarily a good thing and I can see several marriages being formed that are set to fail right from the outset. I don't have any particular issue with any of my friends or partners getting married, I just don't think some of them should marry each other just because they're suddenly of the age where it is expected and failure to aquire a permanent partner by a certain age seems to signify that there's something wrong with you and you are subsequently shunned from civilised society like a leper.

It may also have something to do with the fact that it looks too much like the word finance which is a doom and gloom word all on it's own. When you consider it in conjunction with the word fiance, it's a sure sign that the apocalypse is near, your life is over and you will be thus relegated to domesticity for the rest of your existence. If you're a man that means you have to work to supply your woman with all the pointless riches she desires and cave in to all of her insane demands to eventually go completely mental and have an early onset mid-life crisis complete with Ferrari and young mistress and then the cycle repeats. If you're a woman it means having to quit your job to clean toilets for a pig who can't do anything for himself and be turned into a glorified brood mare until you're too old and haggard to be anything more than a piece of the furniture that everyone shits all over.

But the thing that really gets me about the word fiance, is the way in which people say it. Go on. Ask some bint with a big whopping sparkler on her digit something really innocuous like "Where did you say your partner worked again?" and she will tilt her head upwards, place her left hand upon her breast so you can't miss the diamonds twinkling in the light and say "Oh well my feee-on-say" like she's suddenly the Queen talking down to the masses of peasants huddled underneath her balcony hoping for a glimpse of their benevolent leader. Every single time, no matter what manner of woman you speak to, she always puts on airs when she says the word fiance. I hate it. It's cultural snobbity, like it's some sort of status symbol to have managed to snag someone who wants to put up with your shit for the rest of ever. I'm not sure what guys do, most of my guy friends are all either metalheads or supernerds and they collectively refer to their women as exactly that, "me woman".

I have a fiance. Just writing that made me want to slit my wrists so that I don't inadvertently let my brains dribble out of my ears when I tilt my head and start babbling about wedding plans.  It's embarrassing watching people fall all over themselves getting all giggly and gushy and I hate it when people start asking stupid questions about venues, themes, reception menus and what colour the fucking colour scheme is. I cannot stress enough how much I do not care about any of that bullshit. Which is why, I refrain from naming my significant other as anything other than "my man" (my male friends have a point) and nor did I tell anyone when we decided we would eventually get married, and that's what it was, a decision that we would maybe eventually one day get married, none of that stupid proposal bollocks. Ugh. Romance is lame and incredibly embarrassing if you are the recipient.

Anyway, the point is, I can't even say the word fiance without wanting to vomit in my mouth. It's a stupid word and it turns rational women into insane Bridezillas.

I need to eat dinner now. Goodbye.

So I had occasion to walk through the city this afternoon and observed a rather large portion of the population while I was at it.

As I was walking through City Place a group of young girls walked past us, probably aged very early 20's, if that. Definitely not any older. They were all decked out like a christmas tree; hair done in ridiculous upstyles or flat ironed so straight it could cut you, enough makeup to shame Kiss, jewellery enough to sink the Titanic and heels that would make even the most hardcore dominatrix pale in fear. Their clothes looked incredibly hot and uncomfortable given that it was more than likely at least 37 degrees (that's celcius by way non-Australian peoples). As they tottered past one of them tripped up and naturally I pointed and laughed and said "What kind of dickead wears shit like that walking around the city?". Of course that didn't win me any friends, but it did elicit a snigger from the guy I was with.

Women do some seriously weird shit all in the name of vanity. I saw a girl on Friday who had huge long nails, the kind that you look at and wonder how they manage to do anything without ripping themselves apart (use your imagination). She had little rings on the ends of them and diamontes glued to them. WHY??? Why would anybody want to do that?

Why would you spend hours perfecting your hair and makeup and then spend the day walking around the city in sweltering, melt your face off kind of heat? You're going to look like Alice Cooper's little sister by the end of the day. Why not just wear something cool and comfortable? Oh yeah, that wouldn't be, like, cool, to be seen like au naturel. Because we all know that breaking your ankle from teetering about in sky high heels is something to brag about. And wearing clothes tight enough that I can count the change in your pocket as well as see the outline of what you had for breakfast snaking it's way down your digestive tract is sooooo attractive.

You know why women do these stupid things? Women's magazines. Seriously. If you are A: a man; or B: a woman who has never read one, purely as a social experiment go and have a look at one. "Ten ways to a slimmer new you! - Top tips to make your tummy toned for summer! - What does your clothing style say about you? - Boost your self confidence! (after we tear it down)" the headlines all read.

Reading a women's magazine is tantamount to having hot bamboo rods shoved underneath my nails. They are filled with articles talking about empowerment and self confidence and on the very next page show this years 'must have' jeans with a size chart... if you are above a size 10 you get the message "Sorry these jeans don't come in this size because you are a fat arse". Way to build a girl up and then tear her down again. We're constantly made to feel bad about ourselves because we don't look like the anorexic hos on the catwalk who are being hailed as the image women should strive to be, never mind the fact that for 99.99% of women, unless they have their ribs removed and all their bones shaved in half, being that thin is absolutely impossible. We're expected to look at pictures that have been photoshopped beyond recognition and think to ourselves "Golly gee, I should look like that too" and subsequently spend our entire life savings on overpriced beauty products, ugly clothes, tasteless accessories and then be driven to spend all of our time slaving away at the gym or over the toilet bowl with our fingers down our throat trying to acheive a look that will kill us in the end. Women's magazines are there to capitalise on your insecurities by ingenious product placement and hypocritical editorials. Get a clue idiots, it's not cool.

So with that in mind, I have accepted the fact that I will never be cool. I don't want to look like a trussed up peacock or an acid rainbow. I don't want to wear bubble skirts that look like lampshades or wear baby doll tops that make me look pregnant. I don't want to spend hours painting my face or doing my hair.  I'm too lazy to be a 'real woman'.

English speaking people all across the globe seem to have all kinds issues with English which is a little ridiculous given that it's their native language.

I simply cannot abide horrendous spelling. When I read an email from someone who spells 'sure' as 'shure' it's the equivalent of dragging nails down a chalkboard, only the sound is internalised so I can't escape it. The word 'sure' is taught to us as bloody first graders so there is no excuse to not be able to correctly spell it at the age of 30. I think that by the time the next generation of teenagers procreates the English language will be so hideously mangled that those of us who grew up speaking Queen's English will have as much difficulty trying to communicate with their offspring as we would suddenly finding ourselves in Rome in the year 200 with absolutely no knowledge of Latin. I won't pretend that this thought doesn't terrify me. The thought irritates me so much that for a fleeting moment I thought about a career change to become a teacher and had all these high and mighty ideas about ensuring the next generation could speak, spell and understand their own language better than teenagers can presently and that I would live in a bubble of self satisfaction knowing that I helped to prevent the apocalypse (I'll have to write my theories on the impending apocalypse at a later date, it's a rather involved story which I completely made up and has nothing to do with religion or prophecies, just our own stupidity as a race).  I decided in the end that it would depress me too much when they eventually succumbed to cultural pressure and started writing things like "Rbca sez dat wd b gr8 if u cld. C U @ 4".

That was not really the point of this post, I could go on ad nauseum about it because it's one of my favourite topics. It's only mildly related to the next part of the post, so I thought I might as well squeeze it in there.

The point is - *drumroll please* - there are a lot of words in our language that are just ridiculous. Actually, that's not entirely true, the things people use those words for are ridiculous in many instances.

Let's take the word hunk for example. Why on Earth did someone pen the phrase "Generic Ken-Doll Boy is such a hunk"? Why the word hunk?  Traditionally, hunk means a chunk, or a big piece of something. Are you trying to tell me that Generic Ken Doll Boy is chunky? Are you trying to describe him as a big piece of something? If it is indeed the latter then you're going to need to correct your sentence and tell me what he's a piece of.
I actually do think of the word chunk when I hear the word hunk. I work in the medical industry so you don't want to know what kind of images go with the word chunk. That is not the most effective way to label someone as being good looking, in fact if you describe someone to me as being a hunk, I will assume he's revolting, malformed and possibly covered in mucus. Now if someone could please spread the word to PR people and journalists that describing somebody as a "homegrown hunk" is not a compliment and is as off-putting as could possibly be I might be a little happier because then I could read the entertainment news while eating my breakfast and not feel like throwing up.

Snap is another word I have issues with. After insulting someone, another person jumps in and says "Oooh, Snap!" What the hell? Snap is a word that describes a sharp sound, something breaking suddenly or taking a picture. The delivery of a well constructed retort should never be polluted with some idiot yelling snap.
Similarly distasteful is "You got served". Served, seriously? If I had been served, someone dressed like a waiter would have delivered to me a nice medium rare steak and a bourbon. Or something covered in chocolate if it was later in the evening. That is my expectation of being served.
Slang is all very well and good when used appropriately but most of the time you sound like an idiot.

Getting back to describing the physical attributes of people, calling someone fit is stupid too. A lot of people I know from the UK do it and I have to wonder what the point is. If you're waxing lyrical about how wondrous and beautiful some guy or girl is, surely you could come up with a better word than fit? Presumably you're describing the fact that said guy or girl happens to have a toned body in which case the word fit is entirely superfluous.  But maybe you're trying to describe how good you think the two of you would be together and in your excitement forgot a few words?

Rack is a perfect example of labelling someone's physical attributes with a word that has absolutely nothing to do with anatomy. Men say women "have a nice rack" all the time. When I think of racks I think of oven racks since many is the time I have had parallel lines seared into my skin from burning hot oven racks. I've had people say "nice rack" to me while pointing to the charred flesh of my arms and winking at me like they're so clever at the punning. Dickheads. I don't find that saying someone has a nice rack is offensive in anyway, I just think it sounds like you're trying to complement me on my kitchen.

That's enough for today I think. I'll come back with a few more words that irritate me me. I promise I will also write up my apocalypse theory... it all starts with people not being able to spell.

When you think of slogging it out in the gym, I bet you think of young, tanned, muscular men and their slightly smaller but equally tanned and toned female counterparts.

I've had a zillion gym memberships in every suburb I've ever lived since I was about 16 and I've learned that nowehere else on Earth do you find such a diverse range of people. They come in all shapes and sizes, they're there for all sorts of different reasons. Some are lazy. Some are intensely dedicated. Some are young. Some are old. It never ceases to amaze me.

I went to the gym this afternoon. My gym is fairly small local one. It boasts only a handful of weights and machines, a room for classes and another one for RPM classes. But the range of people is incredible and I love how it's really one place where the usual stereotypes are chucked out of the window.

For instance, I myself love going to the gym and my father is a personal trainer. But I have huge boobs and a fat bum and he's a formerly obese middle aged male (sorry dad).  You could look at him easily and just think he's nothing special compared to the muscle bound twits that are immediately called to mind when you think of personal trainers, but he's a man who once weighed as much as all five of his children together (to be fair, we were a lot younger then) who completed an 80km marathon, in the dark, starting at 1am, up the Glasshouse mountains with guys 20 years younger than him. Not even your average gym junkie could do that (and I certainly wouldn't ever entertain the idea, let alone attempt it).  He attempted to ride the 2500km between Killarney and Cairns but was forced to train it home from Rockhampton after several incidents of getting stupidly lost (as will happen when you have a bunch of men and lots of gadgets but lacking the ability to read a map). You could look at me and be forgiven for thinking that with my baggy clothes and red face that I'm a lazy sot (which is sometimes true I'll admit). I'm built like a brick shithouse and I can carry my other half around with as much ease as I can my 2 year old cousin (he doesn't squirm as much or try and smack me in the head with wooden blocks so that makes it a bit easier).

I have been on a treadmill next to someone 3 times my size who was running at twice the incline I was and almost twice as fast - if I ever ran that fast I would probably have an epic accident of tripping up and having the belt tear my face off after catching my earrings or nose ring. I have seen skinny people struggle to lift the first weight on any of the weight machines. I have seen an old man, who had to have been well into his 70's, outpace the athletic young girl next to him. I've seen all sorts and all sizes defying every stereotype you can imagine.

Some people are there to overcome the terrible fate genetics handed them (like me), others are there to train for specific events, others are there to make an effort to improve themselves, others are there to build up strength as part of their rehabilitation (like after an accident or a long illness) and others just do it because they want to.  But I never get tired of going to the gym and seeing firsthand exactly how rubbish stereotypes really are.

Now if the rest of the world would just relax it's rigid assumption that the only people worth anything are skinny little twats in lycra, the world would be a much happier place.

Imagine if you will a very busy main street in a metropolitan area or at the very least in the centre of what passes to be a city wherever you live.

Now picture lots of cars zooming down the street. There are no traffic lights on this section of the road so the flow of traffic is highly unlikely to cease any time soon.

Now picture a pedestrian crossing about 10m away from where you are standing.

Now think about crossing from one side of the road to the other.

Do you:

This little gem kind of says it all really. And that stirring piece was written by the Chief of Staff.

As I was reading it I was wondering how it was going to end. I was hoping for a nice cheery "and this sarcastic piece of inane vitriol was all in the aim of fun fun fun".  Unfortunately not. It seems this wanker was actually serious.

Issue #1: "Virgins are pure of character and strong of will."
This is a very generalised and broad statement, which given that the nature of his column is a blog, can be slightly forgiven. But I still find it sets my teeth on edge as it seems to imply that once you lose your virginity you turn into something slightly less human. I don't think that I, or any of my friends who are no longer virgins, have lost our strength of will or have had our sense of decency lessened in any way. Nor do I find that those friends of mine who chose to remain virgins until their wedding day, chose to wait until they felt they had found the right person or those that waited (or are still waiting) thanks to bad luck, bad taste and certainly not for lack of trying are necessarily pure of soul either.

Issue # 2: "I watched in wonder at their unique ability to laugh and dance the night away without a skerrick of sin or illegal substances involved. Then I remembered they were virgins, and quickly realised this was their secret weapon."
This makes me want to get up and whack "The King" with a sharp pointy object. The ability to laugh and dance without drinking or drugging oneself is certainly not restricted to virgins wholly and solely. It's certainly possible to have fun in a large crowd without ingesting large quantities of booze and puking up all over your shoes and waking up in a gutter. It's even more possible to enjoy yourself without swallowing strange substances of questionable origin, acting like a fruit loop for a few hours before doing something incredibly stupid that likely results in some serious self harm in a variety of ways. And I especially resent that this wanker seems to think that virginity is a weapon. For heaven's sake! What kind of society are we living in when someone writes about virginity being a weapon? Virginity is not a weapon. It's a word describing someone who hasn't had sex, for whatever reasons, more than likely because of their own personal choice.

Issue #3: "Virgins, I can safely assume, don't bully other kids, or do drugs or binge drink or bash old folks."
What is that oft-coined phrase about assumptions? Oh yeah, they make an ASS out of you and me. Why is it safe to assume that only the deflowered folk are the ones binge drinking or bullying? That I can safely say is absolute crap. I've known some very nice Catholic boys, virgins, who have downed as many if not sometimes more beer than the rest of us in a pub on a Friday night after a really shit week at work.  What about bullying in primary schools? It's getting to be a rather large problem these days, are we going to assume that the children doing the bullying are full of rampant sexual hormones and are out shagging everything they can lay their 11 year old hands on? I highly doubt it.

Issue #4: "No sex means no babies. That's good for our population quotas and even better for those of us who like to travel on planes in peace and quiet."
If you don't like travelling on planes next to children, who have as much right as the next person to be allowed freedom of travel, then you can pay the extra money for a business class seat, or take advantage of the in flight entertainment, take an ipod, take a laptop and watch a DVD or better yet, get a train (which in a country the size of Australia is problematic but I really hate dickheads who yell at parents on planes about babies). And when you're old and sick and need quality care and wonder why there is a shortage of well educated medical staff trying to save your life ask yourself why. Oh that's right. You preached for the world's youth to remain virginal. Everyone else is dead and all the women are past child-bearing age now.

Issue #5: "Unfortunately, the crowds of God's chaste children are now returning to their far-flung countries, leaving us with a vacuum of virgins. So when crime rates suddenly soar, financial markets nose dive and the sun stops shining, you'll know it's because the rest of us are too busy copulating."
Of course, the crime rates wouldn't suddenly soar from the release of most of Sydney's police force being released from Pope duty or doing crowd control at a long event with numbers pushing well close to half a million (seriously, that's a lot of people) and actually being able to catch baddies. I'm pretty sure the sun won't stop shining because the Pope and his pilgrims have departed our shores either (although those particularly religious folk might think so for a time).

I'm still hoping that this douchebag has written this as a sarcastic social commentary, noting that while hundreds of thousands of people flocked to Sydney for World Youth Day there were no (that we heard about anyway) incidences of violence, rape, drinking and drug fuelled idiots causing havok or causing trouble of any kind whereas if you got that many people together for say, a heavy metal concert, it's likely there'd be a whole lotta booze and quite a few fights (and you'd find me right in the middle of it). But as "The King" has a tendency to just write whatever is on his mind and doesn't seem to mind pissing people off left, right and centre with his poisonous diatribes, I've decided he's erring towards the slightly more serious than sarcastic side.

So I'm left with a slightly dirty taste in my mouth, but that's probably just because I'm not pure of mind and soul, given that I have sex and drink booze on a regular basis. I suppose I should join the rest of the crew down at city place. We've got a mob bashing scheduled for 8 and after that we're going to mix some meth and coke, rob a liquor store, drink it all and knock over old ladies and break a few windows. Coz that's what us boozing non-virgins do.

This piece here showcases one of the biggest problems I have with journalism today.

I like news and I like stories, but the news is not a story and should never be written like the intro to a bad horror themed book. The subject of the article in itself is horrible enough without adding cliches like "every family's worst nightmare" in the opening paragraph.