They’ll be expecting something for sure, so I may as well get on with it. They advised me that they wouldn’t read it, but I understand that in all probability they will. I’m sure they will not be expecting this however. They’ll be expecting something childish, immature, something they would expect to come from some kid with no brains or ability at anything worthwhile. They’ve misjudged gravely in their falsely elevated state, the way they misjudge every kid with any real talent in this godforsaken school. It’ll be over before too long anyway. It escapes me at this very moment what exactly I mean by that.

As compared with the majority of children, I guess it could be argued that I am rather atypical. While the other boys are out playing hug the guy with the big ball, you’d find me spending my high time reading or playing guitar in my room or something else weird like that. I’d read all kinds of silly books alone in my room. No one bothered disturbing me at all really. Most of the time I would have the whole empty house to myself, with my Aunty Olivia out all the time dabbling in god knows what. My brother Earl would come to visit once in a blue moon. I liked him, despite him being a complete and utter nut case, but far be it for me to hold that against him, me of all people.

Well, just recently my feeble existence it seems has taken on a rather eccentric element. Some might argue that that is a vast understatement. None is as uncertain as to what the future holds as I am in these unsettling times. Perhaps Rev Gallantry is right in making me record all this craziness. Perhaps it may help in some strange way, for it seems that nothing else is helping much at all. The darkness is setting in, and I can feel it creeping up upon me, ready to engulf me into its eternal oblivion. Sounds depressing I know, but at times it can really get like that, the highs contrast so completely with those death-defying lows.

None of them can say what’s truly the matter with me, the expensive doctors, the kind-hearted musical therapists (the rapists), hungry for your soul, or even if there is anything really the matter with me at all. I can’t say myself really. I only have these perceptions and no one else’s, just as anyone else, and as such, as everyone, it becomes a matter of guesswork as to whether your own world view is in some way sub-standard to the rest of them. But perhaps that’s not it at all, levels of standards out the window. Sometimes I think that it is a mere case of compatibility. Though if what they say is even remotely correct, then how have I seen the things I’ve seen, the way things have been?

And yet another thing comes clear to me, that if they are indeed right, then they had better lock us all away quick smart, if preservation of their precious established system is in their high priorities. For it seems for those sitting upon the fence, that it is catching, this pestilence, this so called disease.

A generation, my generation, our generation, emerging upon the world.

Well now, it seems that during my relatively brief time on this so-called planet earth, a few people may have already guessed that the name I usually go by in this part of the woods is Walter Fisher. I guess I should get that one out of the way quite early on. Oh and this as well, as most introductions usually go, that most people who know me, do not in actual fact call me Walter. Somehow, though I most definitely do not purposely influence them in their calling me it, they get it in their heads to call me Wally. I don’t particularly mind it though, and never really persuade anyone not to call me Wally, so it’s fine either way. To further elaborate on my current existence at this time, I feel, would be quite unnecessary. I will in all probability cover all that when the time comes around.

To explain this body of work, which I expect will certainly not be extensive by any means, I should state that, through no fault of my own of course, I am reluctantly being forced into writing this, and as such, I fully expect that whatever ghastly rubbish I write down here will almost certainly not be worth the paper it is written on — especially should that same paper be of the expensive kind that you might find in some kind of fancy stationary store. It was in fact the only paper I could find in the drawers. My Aunty never writes letters these days anyway. I do quite like the fancy little gold trimming around the edges however. So classy!

This will supposedly help me. It will be beneficial to my development as a young individual on my way forward in this world, towards wherever the hell it is they want me to go.

Somehow I don’t think so.

In fact, there is more than probably a hundred million young boys — and what the hell, girls as well — who look, think, and act just the way I do, and what’s more, who somehow emperorishly believe themselves to be one of a kind, a snowflake, an anomaly of nature, that no one knows what it’s like to be the bad man, that no one understands. A snowflake however is a snowflake is a snowflake is a snowflake, just as a duck is a bird is a plane, is superman. Ok I will stop now.

Of course, that being said, there always remains an inkling, a sinking suspicion — call it a minor defect of consciousness in its quest for self-promotion — that there is that certain special something, the differentiating quality lying dormant deep within the soul somewhere.

It’s the same in us all.

Here’s what I did to automatically mark all spam messages as read, thus eliminating the spam count and stopping me from wasting my time looking in that folder over and over again. You can even have gmail look for certain words, such as your name or company, in emails that may be not spam (yummy ham) and bring them to your attention as a false positive.

So what you do anyway is from the Gmail inbox click Create a filter. Now in the Has the words box type in:spam and in the Doesn’t have box type any words that you want to exclude (your name for instance). Click next and disregard the warning message that shows up; they don’t know what they’re on about.

In the next step check the Mark as read box and then Create Filter.

And you’re done. No more spam count. Just make sure you check it every so often in case something slips through.

Now go get some real work done

First thing you’ll need is a free email certificate. I was previously using thawte to generate certificates, but found Comodo’s system to be heaps easier and vastly superior. So head on over and generate a secure email certificate. They will send an email to you instructing you how to collect it, and assuming you’re using Firefox (and you should be), the certificate, combined with a unique private key, will be stored within your browser.

Export the certificate/key file to your desktop or somewhere through the Advanced Options -> Encryption tab by clicking View Certificates, selecting your certificate and hitting Backup.

Then you need to import the certificate into your email client; most modern ones support S/MIME. In Thunderbird Account Settings find Security in your account then View Certificates -> Import. Then select that certificate for Digital Signing and Encryption.

Now when a new message is composed, there will be an option to encrypt the message, or digitally sign it, or both. Signing a message ensures that the email really came from the person it says it came from and was not tampered with during transmission. To encrypt a message so that nobody can read it except its intended receiver you need to have the recipient’s public email certificate. The easiest way to obtain this is to get them to send you a signed email.

I’ve set Thunderbird to automatically sign every outgoing message, so that people can reply with a secure email. Otherwise here’s my public email certificate in case you wanted to send me a secret message.

I’m phocks at gmail.

Take care.

With this, in turn, emerges an impressive assortment of technology. Astounding!

Here’s a vid.

Lady Beetle in Backyard from Joshua Byrd on Vimeo.

Running Guns
Sounds like Lou Reed with the Go Betweens and The Stooges in a dirty Brisbane carport. The future of rock.

The Strange Attractors
Sounds like a Dandy-Primal Scream-Small Faces-post Manchester freakout. Good to see the Brisbane tradition of sharing band members is alive and well.

Good night, good music. Thanks for the smoke.

–Brad, Engineer & Music Critic

’twas quite a night, a night of chaos. The next is on the 25th October at the Jubilee Hotel.

Recently I’ve been trying out another similar service called Brightkite, much like Twitter, but with a focus on locations and mobile photography. Good thing I recently got my mobile email workingm to post pictures directly. Currently the service is invite only, but you can check out my profile, and if you want to give it a go, just give me a yell and I’ll send an invite. One thing that Brightkite does have over Twitter, as @lexiphanic pointed out, is its free sms notification service internationally, which Twitter turned off a little while ago.

Eager to see what further changes Twitter decides to make anyway, and still wondering when exactly they’re going to fix their IM service and Tracking.

Such a laugh, I had to steal it and scan it. It is uncertain if those are his underlines and highlights, or even if it is for real or just a satirical piece. It’s funny all the same.

1955, what a time to live.

E------------0-2-----2-|-0-----0---------|---------3-----3-|-3^2-2-2---------|
B----------------3-----|---1-----0-------|-1-----1---0-----|-----3-3---------|
G----------0-------2---|-----2-----2-----|---0---------0---|-----------------|
D--------2-----0-------|-3---------------|-----2-----------|-0---0-0---------|
A-0-2--3---------------|---------0---0-2-|-3---------------|-----------------|
E----------------------|-----------------|---------3-------|-----------------|

E---------2-----2-|-0-----0---------|---------------2-|-0-0-0-----------|
B-------1---3-----|---1-----0-------|-------1-----3---|-1-1-1-----------|
G-----0-------2---|-----2-----2-----|-----0-----2-----|-2-2-2-----------|
D---2-----0-------|-3---------------|---2-----0-------|-3-3-3-----------|
A-3---------------|---------0---0-2-|-3---------------|-----------------|
E-----------------|-----------------|-----------------|-----------------|

It’s uncertain whether I’ll continue with this song, but this should give anyone a good starting point to teach themselves the rest.

Good luck!