For the bogan, failure is not an option. Until it fails. Until then, anything the bogan applies its formidable frontal lobe to will result in maxtreme success, monetary gain and a bevy of fecund teenage nubiles waiting in the harem. The simplest, most effective, surefire means of success is winning money purely by applying its savant-like statistical skills to the art of gambling and winning heaps of cash. And the place it can do that, while nestled in the cocoon of a room full of other bogans, is the casino.
The casino represents everything the bogan likes, wants, aspires to and fails at. An enormous glitzy shortcut of a metropolis that promises instant riches, human peacocks, velvet ropes, year-long Cirque du Soleil (or other franchised entertainment), suiting up, bad nightclubs and, of course, lots and lots of shopping. Often emblazoned with a title like ‘The Entertainment Capital of the World’, it is a schmaltzy nod to the depravity that is the ectoplasm of the bogan city. Every major city has a casino, and bogans will drive for upwards of 100 kilometres to arrive at its shining temple to mediocrity.
Here, the bogan can apply its skills as an uninformed gambler to its heart’s content, on a variety of games, from cards, to spinning wheels, to computers with fixed odds. Of 87%. Poker machines, beloved of bogans and elderly folk everywhere, are an incredible example of the mind-boggling mathematical ineptitude of the bogan. For every dollar that gets put into poker machines in a given state, they will return as little as 69 cents. Yet still, the bogan knows it will ‘beat the house’. It knows this because it once saw an episode of Las Vegas, where an affable simpleton overcame insurmountable odds through simple persistence and self-belief and won a million dollars. Characteristically, however, it failed to realise the distinction between what it sees on television and how it lives its life. Life imitating crap art. The bogan doesn’t care for Oscar Wilde, so heads for the counter to get more dollar coins. This could very well be its lucky day.
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gold!
…also another opportunity for the bogue to suit up.
unless they’re in Cairns; possibly the only casino in the world where the bogue need not change out of it’s thongs and boardies to enter.
The bogue is obviously oblivious to the conventional wisdom “the house always wins”
henceforth, for self, this shall read as “the bogue always loses”
Cairns has a casino?
Sure does.Like all the best holiday destinations. After all how can you realy enjoy yourself with out the opertunity to give away hundreds or even thousands of dollars to some rich casino owner?
Oh yes.
The big news is that it now opens at 9am, clearly a vast improvement on the previous poor effort of 10am.
Given that it shuts at 5 or 6am, it still leaves FNQ’s problem gamblers with the horrifying prospect of having nothing to lose their $ to for three long hours. Such irresponsibility.
Tombarina,
The only reasons it closes at all is so the bogans do not get to see the huge amounts of cash being removed from the different machines .
Other is the difficulty of cleaning the place with punters glued to poker machines
back in Connecticut our only real tourist attractions were Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods, the two Indian (Native American casinos)
bit sad
Cairns casino also has a ‘rainforest room’ on top of it complete with birds flying around the place and a saltwater crocodile.
Yes Shirley, Cairns has a wonderfully underwhelming casino on offer for the bogues.
I recently had some mining bogans visit and display a wish to enjoy the delights of said casino. I said no. They forced me to go. I swear. After listening to an appallingly bad cover band I steered them away from the pokies and tried to teach them to play blackjack without losing too much. Another pointless task. The night ended with one of them diving into a bush.
The bogues declared that it was a great night and fun was had by all. I got drunk and went in search of a pig that I could teach to sing.
Sounds delightful!
God, It’s been years since I last dived into a bush…
I think it was after a big night at the maroubra seals club. my mate Pete did it and I thought it looked hysterical. more of a body slam really, into this giant box hedge thing. turned out it was a very thorny giant box hedge thing.
lesson learned.
chubby, it was one of those thorny box hedge thingys that mate dived into.
But this one was more maxXxtreme…it had metal stakes sticking up out of the garden bed underneath it.
ahh… metal stakes, the natural enemy of the bogue.
Did one of those out the front of a McDonalds (I think it was Gladesville, or somewhere nearby) when I was in my 20s. To this day I have no idea why I did it… I don’t think I was even drunk at the time. And it was a proper dive, no thorns either.
Clearly never been to Canberra Casino…
p.s.
cheers TBL, I love an early breakfast.
Bravo, TBL.
Casinos cater to the bogue’s pack mentality. Just like the races, it offers the opportunity to dress up in semi-themed yet universally-unfortunate ensembles, and ‘hit the tables’.
In the unlikely event that one of these idiots-minus-the-savant-bit does hit a winning streak, the manly urgings of its slack-jawed dullard mates to “go again, go harder” will inevitably ensure that it goes home as empty-handed as the rest of them.
At this point, broke and pi$$ed, it will discover that it has to wait for a cab. Quite rightly outraged, the bogue will then get into a fight with those well ahead in the queue prior to eventually getting into a taxi which will be driven by one of those darkie towel-headed types. The bogue will pass comment upon this, get into another argument and find itself abandoned on the side of the road, thus confirming its beliefs about why the Cronulla rioters were on the right track.
It will then repeat this entire misadventure at the earliest opportunity, in the never-ending quest for an ace night out.
Cool story bro.
True story.
I work near Brisbane’s Treasury Casino, and am often treated to the fetid sight of seven fools in matching gangsta suits, complete with fedoras, rolling up in a maxi cab.
You just know it isn’t going to end well.
According to the newspaper it ends with a Glassin. Warms the cockles of your heart don’t it.
i like my fedora
reminds me of Swingers
Putin closed down all the casinos in Moscow last year. There’s supposed to be a special legalised gambling zone in some remote corner of Russia somewhere… but it’s not set up yet.
The annoying thing for me is the only place in Moscow which showed NRL and State of Origin games was a casino.
I can understand completely. It must have been annoying having your night out at the casino ruined by having the NRL on the tvs.
Touche !
Hahaha Wall to wall bogans all thinking that they are the ones who will win. I’ve been to crown cashino twice both times I swore I would never go back! 😉
Is that really a lycra tattoo sleeve on Shane Warne?? Just when you think society can’t sink any lower.. And i love the current attempts on commercial tv at making poker cool – interviews on ACA with dipsticks who stay at home surrounded by 12 computer screens playing online poker 23 hours a day and making their first billion by the time they are 23 year old. The celebrity poker games are even more ridiculous – who next ? Delta. And it all started when crown got re-licenced toa dd another few thousand poker tables. Shameless
Read it and weep: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/nobody-calls-warnes-tattoo-bluff/story-e6freye0-1111118618606 TBL
Just when I thought it was physically impossible for him to be a bigger wanker, he out-cocks himself.
Damn you, Shane Warne….
Michael Clark getting Lara Bingle’s name on his arm was well thought out. Maybe he should have tried it on in lycra first.
no, it was big around 7 years ago in the States
as always, Australia is behind
I always feel deep shame that we’re slower at being stupid than the good U S of A.
Viv, poker is regarded as a sport now, so that makes every bogan who plays it an athlete!
Did Joe Hachem ever do an Uncle Tobys ad?
Not an Uncle Toby’s ad, but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen him on the telly trying to flog something…can’t remember what…
His autobiography, perhaps? The one with a ‘co-writer’ and entitled “Pass The Sugar”?
What a ripping yarn that would be.
Tombarina,
Co-writer or ghost writer ?
Co-writer, thereby neutering the “auto” part of the genre.
Ha. I like it. Think I would have entitled it “One of a kind”.
Zing! Very droll.
they aired it on ESPN (American cable sports network)
‘course they also aired Magic: The Gathering
only sports i like are robot sports
ESPN, home of such fantastic ‘sports’ as the hot dog eating contest and the national US spelling bee and cheerleading championships.
Geez… M:tG on ESPN? That’s just plain ridiculous.
I notice the Poo was also appearing.
It must have been a classy event. It drew the finest people.
Panthers World of Entertainment is western Sydney’s mini casino and bogan mecca…I used to work security there and often saw people on the pokies at the start of my shift who were still slipping in $50 notes 8 hours later as I was leaving…at 5am I might add!
Apart from the idiotic boganity of it all, the question I always asked was “where is all this money coming from?”…are there kids at home going hungry because mummy ‘Shaylah’ didn’t get laid and now needs to sooth herself with the razzle dazzle and lights of the machines??
Ah yes, where does the money come from? embezzlement, lost houses, redraw facilities on the mortgages, drug sales, and shaylah getting laid but charging jaxon for the privilege(?)
Pension day, and don’t forget that you save on babysitter fees if you leave them locked in the car.
The money is coming from overpaid tradie work. The bogan hates immigrants but likes knocking down houses and making unit blocks so immigrants can pay half a million for a dogbox.
My paramour used to work at the Treasury Casino many many moons ago. He regales me with tales such as old ladies pissing themselves rather than having to leave their machine. Depressing much?
I’ve heard similiar stories Shirley…also the old men who carry empty bottles with them to piss into lest some other desperado steals their imagined cash cow.
Forget the bottles…I’ve heard stories from friends who have worked at Crown Casino of large sections of carpet having to be replaced around the tables because people just piss straight onto the floor. I can’t think of anything more uncouth!
Yet these places still have dress codes… Please wear a collar and tie prior to coming in and pissing wherever you please. No denim, dress to impress.
The tie distracts from your cock hanging out your zipper…
The good old “Julian O’Neill Comfort Stop”
In SA it is called “doing a league”.
Can’t believe someone hasn’t already mentioned this, but… nappies?
Sigh…
Ah, memories. I threw a few pokie pissers out of The Randwick Hotel after race day.
Another vivid memory is telling an asian man in a dirty white singlet, shorts and thongs he couldn’t get in because he didn’t meet the dress code only to be overruled by the Hotel Manager who whispered to me “leave him alone, he spends a fortune here every night!!”
Responsible service of gambling anyone?
Surprised there is no mention of Joe hackem or whatever, the world champeen of poker, you pictured warney but left so much unsaid.
I often drive past crown casino and see long, long queues of cars full of folk waiting to give away their money, i want to stop and say just give the money to me at least i can appreciate it
the casino’s pensioner clientèle (not seen in the ads of course) are example of the rich robbing the poor
Does it need to be mentioned that Jaxxsuon and L-ailaishiae are wilting in the car whilst Shazza tries her luck. Probably not.
aquaintences of ours in Adelaide used to go to the casino expecting to lose a “few hundred” for a fun night out.
MrsH and i were concidered strange because we did not go,did not want to go and couldnt “get it”
The interminable reports from thes people on the best ways to lose money, Pokies verves roulette verses poker . Who gives a toss it is to me just a crazieness.
These same people would spend hundreds at the races and bemoan the “stupid horses” that didnt win according to their plan ! The horse ,stupid. It just tried to win.
Back in the old days I remember little old ladies at the pokies at Manly Wharingah Leagues Club with a leather glove on their right hand so they wouldnt get blisters from pulling the pokies levers. !
One glove, just like Michael Jackson – I smell a conspiracy, perhaps he was killed for gambling / pokie debts.
I’ve been to Star City two or three times and at least half the people there were Asians. They looked pretty daggy. Laundering money a lot of them I reckon.
My elderly mother had never seen the inside of a casino before, so after a luncheon function years ago I took her in to the casino area of Jupiters Casino at the G Coast.
We watched a little asian man drop about ten thousand dollars in about 10 minutes on the roulette wheel.
For child of the depression, I still don’t think my poor old Mum has forgotten that sight!
Good call on Cirque du Soleil. It was absolutely the most painful three hours of my life. Loud, shitty Enya-esque music, maxxxtremely revealing outfits, all for $110 for really mediocre seating amongst other ruminants who go for their annual alotment of “culcha”. The bogues fucking love that shit sick.
Am I the only one that finds the camp burlesque of Cirque du Bougain slightly creepy?
I’m not usually one to criticise, TBL, and as much as I enjoyed the sentence ‘life imitating crap art’, I think you are being too generous. How about ‘life imitating not art’?
I’ve been to Star city, joined got a free coke and $10 joining chip, put it on some number in roulette and lost.
My friend managed to annoy everyone at blackjack by beating everyone whilst being taught how to play, people are so impatient to loose their money.
BTW WTF is so attractive about gambling? I find it boring to the nth degee. When I play poker with friends I end up getting bored and either not looking at my cards and doing random things or I just go all in on the first hand and watch TV , play snap or sh!thead with people.
Maybe im a bogan for not being able to sit still for long periods of time, when it isn’t counter strike, wow or BF BC2.
gambling hits the same addictive urge video games do only you actually lose money
i’m a pinball addict, but it’s an easy habit to afford
I do deeply dig pinball.
the Judge Dredd pinnie kicks ass!
Now ya talkin’ lol-plates!
I desperately need a new machine so I can waste long periods of time (and greatly annoy Mrs Antosha) snuggled up to BF BC2 and/or Dragon Age.
Besides the casino, there is also the touching belief that employment of the savant-like statistical skills will result in a maxxtreme Lotto win followed by an appearance on TT/ACA.
Even after a loss, there will be a TT/ACA “exclusive” to repay gambling debts.
I’m usually a fan of freedom but i’m in favor of banning ‘pokies’. they destroy families and kick out live music, pinball, and videogames
Good call, when the revoultion comes we can ban pokies and cranky religions .
They both destroy families and good music
i’m with you on pokies, but as an atheist i enjoy the religion inspired music of Johnny Cash (and the whole country genre), the Mountain Goats, Neutral Milk Hotel, Hold Steady, most of classical and operetic music, gospel, blues, soul, jazz….
Brim, I’m with you. I’d go so far as to say they’re immoral.
Interestingly, there are a couple of pubs in Bris which generated a lot of publicity for turfing out their pokies, and enjoyed a major upswing in patronage.
While this wouldn’t have fully compensated for the loss of revenue from the pokies, the licencees said they slept better at night knowing they weren’t robbing pensioners blind.
On one hand i agree with you that pokies are pure evil – there’s no denying that they are, however if they were to be banned, the same people would move on to another form of addiction. What is truly immoral is that we as a society have completely failed these people. It is sad that an elderly pensioner goes and plays pokies for 16 hours stints, pissing themselves all the while because they are lonely and we provide sweet FA in terms of social support services for them as an alternative. Same goes for young mothers etc.
I know that’s is very bleeding heart and acknowledge that people have to accept personal responsibility for their addictions, but as a society, we have seriously failed if a large percentage of our state taxes and income is generated from licensing these machines.
Viv,
If they are allowed to exist at all then it is good that we have very high taxes on them so that some of the monies can be directed to aleviating the woes caused.
Unfortunately governments shove the money into consolidated revenue and it never helps those that gave it up.
The governments themselves are addicted to the income.It is an “invisable”tax so they dont want ot ban the machines then have to put up taxes someplace where people will notice.
I think Nick Xneophone the Anti Pokies Independent from SA has the right idea. just phase them out as quickly as possible.
http://messandnoise.com/articles/3991498
looks like the Annandale doesn’t make money from pokies and it’s hurting
but pokies have no benefit. drinking is bad, but it’s good for socializing, fun, tasty, etc. ditto pot. video games can be addictive but they’re mostly harmless
pokies are just FUCKED
can’t believe the state runs things like TAB
TAB, pokies, the casino all make me feel depressed. And I think part of the reason is what you say Viv – there is a pervasive sense of loneliness and disconnection. Malls induce a similar feeling – if I take a day off during the week its is often elderly people milling around for lack of anything else to do, stopping for a coffee before returning home to the telly. And you do stop and think what the heck is the point of just aimlessly circulating around in this society of excess.
Ugh… I dread the horrors of old age.
Good thing I almost certainly won’t get there.
Sten,
The good thing about getting old is that you only have to do it once.
I think I’d rather just enjoy my younger years.
Sten,
Your going to leave that young body behind anyway so you might as well get the maximum use out of it while it still works.
I remember the days around the time I left school back in the early 90s and the pokie room was just a small dark and dingy, anti-social room with about 10 pokies, because that was the limit. Pubs still had bands playing, but they were good and proper bands, it was when Oz rock still had talent not the faux libtard metro talentless gen y retards that make up 99% of bands today. I think I’d prefer to play a poky rather than listen to some snotty turd play their shitty pretentious music. I think it’s just a bit of fun for most people and not some massive problem. But then again I don’t live in Penrith or whatever.
Someone should blow them up.
waaaaiiit a minute! I have a great idea for a song!!!
* sound of hurried footsteps, door shutting and screaching car tyres.. *
Antosha,
Pleanty of NH4NO3 round the mines powergel detcord
,Hmmmmmmmmmmmm
I love the smell of Ammonium Nitrate in the morning
Antosha,
The detcord is realy cool for tying the bad guys to the chair,
Heheeeeeeehe
Including Eddie McGuire?
Antosha,
YES ! ,
Way to Goooooooooo
I’d rather play the pokies than listen to The Whitlams. Actually I’d rather just not be in a pub at all and just post on TBL.
aawww marty, you’re just so damn cute!
Banning pokies would also drastically reduce glassings and violence against women. By that I mean, pokies fund most NRL clubs.
Nrl,AFL,Footbal(Soccer),Golf,workers,RSL, They all the same Pokies pokies bloody Pokies.
I don’t know that that’s true. Certainly the NRL have cried foul about pokie tax increases threatening to kill their game though.
Would that be a loss ?
Just think of the amount of hospital theater time freed up? No knee shoulde and jaw reconstructions.Less idiots on the roads so reduced road trauma.
Maybe they all go to the pub and the hospital is inundated with glassing victims ?
Knew it couldnt work.
Hmm, when I was a uni student, I got told to piss off out of a pub because the pinball machine I’d put 15 bucks through was making it hard for the old farts to hear the TAB results.
When I asked why they had a pinball machine in there if it was such a nuisance, I was informed I was a smartarse. Silly me.
But where else could you order a dark & stormy with breakfast at 6.00 am?
My house. Nothing says “breakfast with dad” quite like spirits and eggs.
I’m glad in WA (upon landing, please set your watches back two decades) that we have been laggards in one regard: pokies.
We’re the only state in this (not always) fair Commonwealth that restricts such machines to the casino, Burswood, which is now owned by Packer Jr. Before his daddy bought it, there were quite strict dress standards (i.e. no jeans, shirts, runners or casual shirts in the nighttime). At least if someone really badly wants to lose their money, they have to make an effort.
Never much liked the “caz” or gambling—I remember when it opened in 1985, for we’d drive past on the way to my uncle’s home nearby and I’d point out to my dad, “the money bin!”, a perceptive comment. From a ten year old, no doubt a disappointment to my father, of whom used to frequent those illegal card houses in Northbridge, run by shadowy types, blowing his tradie’s income playing briscola.
I was at Burswood recently for a friend’s birthday dinner at the buffet there. We all later repaired to the main floor, where they all converged to a bank of pokie machines: the rest of them were needling me incessantly about getting a Club Burswood card, whereby I could’ve got a cheaper meal and a free punt. I replied that I don’t want to hand over my personal details to Packer Jr. and besides, I added, “he really does not need my money”.
Fu¢k Packer.
Yes Bag’O, thank god we don’t have pokies in pubs.
But we do have TAB’s in pubs, which is an equally fucked idea.
One of the first things that struck me when I came to Darwin is the amount of pokies in pubs, they are everywhere. And also Club Keno here is prolific i’m surprised they don’t have it in the schools and hospital.
That’s one thing in Melbourne—a city I otherwise love and admire—that unfailingly gives me a headfnkc, even many years on, is the fact that there’s a Tabaret at Flinders Street Station. What bollocks is that?
I mean, FFS, can’t people wait until they’re in the city to get their dose of money liberation, accompanied to the trapped techno beats, created by a failed DJ utterly bereft of a moral compass, as well as talent?
I haven,t had the pleasure personally, but my sister informs me that in Las Vegas they have pokies (or slots) absolutely everywhere… laundromat, convenience store, elementary school…
The WA Govt probably doesn’t feel as relient on pokie revenue.
mmmm… mineral royalties…… * salivate *
For WA’s sake.. I hope you guys stick to your guns and keep them limited.
Neither of the major parties would dare suggest legalisation of pokies beyond the casino: it’d be electoral suicide.
In the fullness of time, it has become patently clear to both Sandgropers and their elected representatives that the costs of such far outstrip the benefits of open slather with pokie machines; there are some pollies in the other states and territories who wish that they could reverse what has unfolded, but simultaneously worry about the wrath of vested interests in attempting to just that, such is the vice-like grip that gaming revenue draws.
I am a firm adherent to the notion of legalisation of such vices, as banning them just pushes them underground and allows unscrupulous sorts to profiteer outrageously, but to keep those activities well-regulated and on a short leash; keep an equilibrium in affordability and access in striking a compromise of keeping options outside of legality unattractive, gaining revenue from them to act as a user-pays insurance policy and putting safeguards in place when one goes beyond the pale.
Nicely articulated.
QLD was relatively late to the pokie craze.. but now it is manic.
I can’t see Captain Bligh reigning them in any time soon.
Ah yes. The Steve Carfino. The maxtremest pokie den of them all, the RSL on ‘roids, where the chance of pumping your hard-earned into an actually cashed up reverse ATM is at its very lowest. The misery in Crown Casino is palpable, from the broken Asian cabbie to the skint and blind Buck’s attendee who’d already forked out five hunjy on pis$ ‘n strippers before the cry had gone up for a little pontoon.
Unless I’ve missed the entry, surely Poker Machines deserve their very own dedicated section on this website. Pokie rooms are simply a haven of bogan bravado, wisdom and bullsh!t, where you can hear such gems as:
“Told yz it was gonna be black” – after a different form of ‘suiting up’ went awry
“I just bet down!” – after winning the ‘foicha’ having plugged in 20 cent hits the whole way down to $1 from $50
“I’m still up” – after a solid two hours slapping, three trips to the ATM and a fifty dollar payout that was back in Queen of the Nile before you could finish asking “Can I get you a complimentary softdrink?”
Tah love.
It’s not true the sun don’t shine in Vegas. I’ve seen it once. – Drive-By Truckers
far out!
I just heard the drive by truckers for the first time yesterday!
coincidence.
reminded me slightly of Southern Culture on the Skids playing a punk bar.
The mathematics of gambling interests me, the only part of gambling that appeals to me.
BTW would investing in stocks be considered gambling?
Depends.
If you maXXXtremely give it an red hot go yourself with borrowed $ after attending a two-hour “Get Rich Or Die Trying” evening workshop at the Rooty Hill Bowlo, and describe yourself as a ‘trader’, and tell people that it’s a piece of p$$ and you don’t know why anyone would ever go through a broker, then yes. And you’re a d!ckhead.
If you invest in accordance with your risk appetite, budget and actual knowledge and experience, then still probably yes. But at least you’re not a d!ckhead.
What about just buying into an index?
This means you’re buying into a portfolio with capital gains, which is not ideal.
And index funds, while having a lower level of trading compared to active managed funds, still have some level of trading as investors come and go from a fund – what might be described as “liquidity trading”.
DISCLAIMER: I’ve no idea what that means – I googled and cherry-picked a few bits of jargony, second-hand wisdom. Mucho recspek to those with an aptitude for the finer points of finance – that’s why I pay them to paddle my canoe for me.
That’s still gambling on the future of the wider market, rather than individual stocks.
Bogues are more inclined to invest heavily based on a “hot tip” they overheard at their watering hole.
Of course they are… being part of an elite inner circle is worth almost as much as the money made.
You see they all want to be undeclared “Insider Traders” whilst at the same time decrying any “Fat Cats” who rip everyone off by “Insider Trading”
Makes sense ?
The index is fine for the risk adverse. Buying the index means that you will never get ahead of the market; you gains and losses are equal to what the market is doing. IMO, in the current uncertain climate, the risk adverse are better off putting their cash into a high interest bank account and earning interest and eliminating any market risk (and potential losses).
To actually get ahead, you must know a stocks Alpha and Beta. Alpha measures the risk of a stock; will it yield more or less than the market.
Beta (which takes into account the stocks Alpha) measures the stocks correllation or volitility to the market. If the market goes one way by a certain percentage, the Beta will determine which way the stock will go and by how much in comparison.
Calculating Alpha and Beta require long mathematical equations which the bogan does not understand. So he will take the quicker and easier option, with the belief that he has much more control over his money, by sticking the whole lot on black.
Ah yes, a post on bogan finance is definitely in order. Bogans have no need of a well-diversified portfolio or a coherent investment strategy, Jennifer Hawkins was the face of the (overvalued, poorly timed, just generally shitty) Myer float and that must mean Myer shares are good for bogans!
I’ve always wondered whether risk aversion was in any way a useful concept for bogan investors. More risk is more maxxxxxtreme irrespective of the risk/reward ratio, right?
In order to effectively ascertain risk, an investor needs to be able to rationally think their way through various scenarios. The bogan can not effectively ascertain risk. TBL
Esssss (18:06:10) said: Ah yes, a post on bogan finance is definitely in order.
It was to some extent covered off on the harvey norman/interest free thing. But a broader post including pay day lending etc would be enlightening.
It’s certainly worthy of a look. TBL
Oh man I am salivating in anticipation at the prospect of payday lending. I will have to control my urge to launch into a massive tirade on the stupidy to earnings ratio.
Other things that might be worthy of a mention is bankruptcy advice masquerading as debt consolidation; and reverse mortgages.
I wouldn’t presume to suggest one way or another whether these are worthy of a separate post or can be lumped together in “fail financial products for fail people”. The reason I wouldn’t presume is because I acknowledge TBL’s greater expertise, and because I (and everyone else) comes out the winner either way.
Have to disagree with you on this one, DA – I’m not thrilled at the prospect of a payday lending yarn.
No CUB or NAB worth their salt would be seen dead there – not when there’s easy money to be made at the casino. While there’s no doubt that the odd bogue seizes the opportunity at 700pc interest finance, it’s far more likely to be the utterly desperate and the mentally deficient.
I have it on good authority that the aging poor are a major growth market for these sharks – poor old ducks who need new teeth, but don’t have the ready. I know of a woman in her 40s who ended up turning to payday lenders to pay for Tamoxifen, a highly effective breast cancer treatment which wasn’t on the PBS at that time. It cost her about $20k to stay alive so that she could continue to raise her three kids.
To be honest, TBL, I’m not really up for taking the pi$$ out of people society has failed.
We’ve actually already written a couple of currently unposted entries on finance stuff, you can assess them when they see the light of day. TBL
eeck..
That is a depressing story.
Not sure how those pay day sharks sleep at night. I guess they are a different breed…
Antosha,
Pay day loans and paycheque cashing in the UK are apparently how Alan Bond made his millions this second time round. So maybe this tells us something.
Um, I reckon there would be a high degree of overlap between bogans that incur massive poker-machine losses and payday loans. If we are going to exclude subjects on the basis that they are discussions of things that also “exploit” the elderly or infirm or other vulnerable members of society, then this post on poker machines itself would never have seen the light of day.
Also, my tip for the older people will be reverse mortgages. In theory they could provide a lot of benefits but once the banking sector gets a hold of it it will mutate into one massive ongoing today tonite/ACA binge.
Hold on, think about the risks the payday lenders are incurring and the administrative costs of the “short-term loans” they provide. Yes, converting that application fee into the equivalent of an annualised percentage rate of hundreds of per cent seems exorbitant but in context, and considered in light of the probable default rate, they’re probably not making much.
Also, if you remove the possibility of payday loans (which are now to be brought into the regulatory net, and the massive loopholes under the UCC hopefully addressed) then they really are left at the mercy of real loan sharks.
don’t forget the ‘mum and dad shareholder’ euphemism used by governments to communicate reassuringly to the equity-rich bogan populace, with its hidden message that everyone’s in on it and set to make a killing….yeah mate I got some of that Telstra T2 action at 7 bucks a share, I’m stoked!!
Nelson Esq (14:56:08) said: “Calculating Alpha and Beta require long mathematical equations which the bogan does not understand. So he will take the quicker and easier option, with the belief that he has much more control over his money, by sticking the whole lot on black.”
At the risk of oversimplifying things, isn’t it more the case that you are looking for the delta value (ie the trend of the individual value) vs the beta value (the trend of the general index or group) and then looking at the sigma squared value (ie the magnitude of the deviation from the trend) for the volatiliy? In which case, wouldn’t you just punch it into your software package? What is the intuitive derivation of the alpha value?
I am more in the area of deriving long-term bond rates so not 100% sure on the other areas of maths, that’s just how I’d do it if I had to. I really can’t see anyone manually working out equations.
devil’s advocate by name and nature!! You’re a cheeky bastard!! 🙂
Unfortunately I don’t get to apply much theory from my finance degree in my current job. But I am sure that many traders and brokers get to plug figures into computers all day which spits out Alpha’s, Beta’s and all sorts of otherinteresting ratios to determine whether particular stocks or derivatives are either cash cows or dogs.
Alpha and Beta can be applied to either an individual stock, an index or portfolio as part of a capital asset pricing model (CAPM). Agreed that Sigma can be useful to determine an individual assets returns (and therefore price) when compared to a portfolio or index.
Not sure where you’re going with Delta??? Isn’t Delta is used to determine the change in price of a derivative, such as an option, relative to it’s underlying stock?
Back in uni, much like constipated bankers, we worked these things out with a pencil. Had to learn these things the old fashioned way, no fancy computer programs for us back then. I can’t see anyone actually working these things out either, myself included actually, especially since financial ratios for businesses such as Beta, ROI, EPS and P/E are available from stock brokers. Having access to and understanding these ratios to make educated investment are two different things altogether as well…
For delta I was really only suggesting the coefficient and sign of the trend (if one exists).
Back to the orginal discussion, I guess I see the index precisely as someone pointed out before, which is a bet on the stockmarket as a whole, which in a country like Australia I see as a reasonable bet.
I really lack the time or inclination to engage in active trading, even though it would probably introduce some balance into what is a very risk-averse approach on my part (out of laziness, if I’m honest).
It’s like LOTTO. As they say, the lottery (and gambling as a rule) is a tax for people who are bad at maths.
It’s gambling, but rather more gentrified: much sharper suits and driving Porsches rather than Monaros.
Yeah. Casinos are chicken feed compared to the global casino that is the world’s economy.
This is where the Tobin Tax would be useful, by imposing a small (≤0.1%) levy upon international share and currency transactions.
If only one could just levy a Bogan Tax… oh, wait, Labor’s trying to do just that with the Mining Tax!
Or so the mining industry and their Bogan horde would have you believe.
Australian casinos are crap. I would never gamble in the first place but imagine my surprise when I was taken to a casino in Macau and all the food AND drinks were for free if you pretended to play. So I put $5 in the pokies and had a lovely meal and a few cocktails. Why can’t I get that kind of service at home?
Now THAT is fantastic !!
I can see Antosha and Mrs Antosha taking the absolute pi$h out of that complementary service!
They used to have free non-alcoholic drinks service at pokies, which in aggregate was probably profitable for them because the more time you’re lining up at teh bar the less time you spend feeding the machine.
My main problem with pokies is that they are so goddam boring. Leaving aside the financial loss, if someone offered me my wage per hour i would have a hard time deciding whether I would prefer to be in front of a poker machine or working. It’s just loud and bright and unpleasant (the pokies, not work). And the people are depressing. And…
nevermind.
what pisses me off is going into the pokie room to sit down and talk to my friends ’cause i’m at a loud gig/club and the bouncers telling me that if i don’t play i have to leave
Brimstone,
Make you wonder what they put the chairs there for ?
so people will sit there and play for hours and hours and hours
it’s horrible
And now the NSW gubmint wants to give poor struggling pub owners a hand by not taxing their poker machines at all on the first $200,000 or so they take from the dopey punters… the logic of this baffles me.
Hi,
way off topic but did any one read the following Ben Cousins interview?
Surely he reads this blog and is just taking the piss right?
http://wwos.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=1077972
“If it happened at the pub you’d just take a glass and smash it over his head” – Role model
True though, if a guy punched or pinched you in a pub it seems the logical next step. Or if you saw a St Kilda playa!!!!
Simon ,
Very good ! Especially the playA bit. You have obviously noticed that Victorians seem to finis every statement with an emphasised “A” on the end of the last word. Weather it needs it or not !
Strange lot “south of the border, down Mexico way”
so rugby league is not the exclusive province of the violent drunk?
maybe we can lay off now people?
hmmm?
Pinching and punching – it wasn’t the first day of the month, I suppose?
The media seem ok about it though. Good thing he isn’t a racist.
On a serious note I rank gambling right up with smoking as one of the dumbest things humans do to themselves. However the Gubbmint makes maxxtreme amounts of tax out of it so appears to be here to stay despite the obvious harm it causes. Shame really.
That and alcohol. Tax aside, imagine if alcohol had never existed and someone tried to sell it to the government today.
“No, you’ll love it! It’s a liquid that produces euphoria in mild doses, but can cause increased aggression and possible vomiting and even death if you drink too much of it. Sustained abuse can lead to crime and the breakdown of families.”
They’d slap it right on the prohibited list with heroin.
They’d probably love it. Stops the sheeple going mental when the slave like reality of the system becomes too overwhelming.
It’s bread and circuses, but it a different form. The great unwashed are happy, as long as there’s plenty of piss and Bogans walloping the crap out of each other on tele.
We’d have to have gladiators again if there was no piss.
Did they have piss in Rome? I bet it was expensive. No VB factories back then. Oh yeah, they had wine didn’t they, no wonder they had to have gladiators, wine sucks. You can’t listen to pub cock rock and have male bonding whilst drinking wine, I’ve tried it and it doesn’t work.
They had beer too. In fact, they had beer before they had wine.
Beer was invented in 106BC by the Roman centurion Massivcanus Boganicus
Bless him.
All Hail Massivecanus Boganicus!
That’s true… that’s where the Spanish word “cerveza” and the French word “cervoise” come from – after the Roman goddess of grain, Ceres.
Our words Kernel and Corn also derive from there.
Beer was one of the staples of the Roman Legions when they were on the march – for its high calorific value.
I’ll tell you what, Antosha, I also read somewhere that beer (or at least certain types of beer, English Pale Ale for example) is also high in calcium. So between all the beer I drink and all the cheese I eat (really, who needs anything else? I could even go the rest of my life without meat, as long as I had beer and cheese), is it any wonder I’ve only ever broken one bone (my nose, as if that counts) in my thirty years on this planet?
I couldn’t live in a world without beer. I’d have to become a bootlegger, or at least make enough for consumption by myself and my circle.
I already do that…except without the bootlegging part. Homebrew beer doesn’t give you the chemical headache of the shit CUB churns out.
Funny isn’t it…CUB = Carlton & United Breweries and Cashed Up Bogan.
CUB for CUB’s
I used to make homebrew years ago, I’m thinking I might get back into it – sometimes one requires something a bit tastier than the mega-swill offered by the Big Two.
That’s why Cooper’s exists!
I’m partial to the odd longneck of Pale Ale, aka Cooper’s Green: not only from the palpable refreshment it brings, but I can retain the crown-top bottle to make both sauce and homebrew with.
Win/win 😉
Don’t get me wrong, Turnips, I like homebrew, but I don’t like the yeast… so Coopers is out for me. The best beers made in Australia are St Arnou Pale Ale (used to be fairly common on-tap in city pubs, now there’s only one place I know in Sydney where I can get it) and Barons Pale Ale (very tasty, makes an acceptable substitute for St Arnou).
But these are new-ish Sydney brewers – doubtful if you could get their products outside of Sydney.
A few years ago, sometime in the mid 90’s maybe, the Treasury Casino seems to have become aware of the hordes of bogans who were just waiting to be skinned alive on the gambling floor. However, the bogan, despite its best efforts to dress respectably was being denied entry due to the pedantic and unreasonable enforcement of a dress standard by the Casino. It should be said that my recollection is that bogans did not “suit up” in the early to mid 90’s, at least not as frequently or in the numbers they do today, but I stand to be corrected.
In any event, it was at this point that the Casino heads woke up. The Treasury was transformed from an admittedly tacky but otherwise palatable venue when at a loose end, to a beer barn where bogans reel and lurch in the reek whilst dutifully allowing themselves to be relieved of fistfuls of their hard earned.
I was foolish enough to venture in to the Treasury with some colleagues last year (not a lot of choice in brissy on a Tuesday night) after not having darkened its door step for at least 10 years.
I was very nearly floored by what I saw. I realised that I had stumbled onto the main nerve of boganity. The epicentre. A swirling vortex of concentrated, unadulterated boganity. It was both shocking and extraordinary.
In all directions I was surrounded by bogans, pressing against me, stumbling into me, jostling, swearing, liveried bogans. All emboldened with drink. All holding forth on ways to take down the Casino. An undercurrent of violence permeated. I was transfixed for some time before I regained my senses and left telling myself that never again will I be foolish enough to venture into the Treasury.
I spent a large chunk of a night with some mates at the Premiers Bar at Treasury Casino after attending the Olympic soccer quarter final at the Gabba in 2000. It was actually quite fun. Everyone was happy.
Can’t say I’ve been there since… Seems 10 years can be a long time in Bogan evolution.
It is interesting that you say 10 years can be a long time in bogan evolution. I agree. It is somewhat of a paradox; the bogan species evolves but stagnates at the same time. We can only hope the bogan species accelerated evolution is commensurate with the time it takes for it to arrive at extinction. I don’t hold out much hope though.
Not really… the Bogan changes superficially with it’s disposable income. Deep down though? Still a Bogan. This leopard can change it’s spots, and that’s all it changes.
Like common garden weeds on the soil of society. Apply more fertiliser—ostensibly to assist the growth other the other useful plants, and all you do is just get even more vigorous weeds and more of them in number 😦
Speaking of which, I gotta soon go dig the weeds, and not in the double entendre sense.
That’s a very good way of putting it, Turnips.
Good luck digging those weeds.
I was coerced into going there about six months ago for the first time in a decade.
Security was a joke – one satellite member of the group was admitted despite being so trashed he was struggling to stay awake.
Inside was like the heaving bowels of hell, exactly described by Citizen74. I’ve never seen so much orange upper thigh and sunglasses – at about 1am. Absolutely vomitous.
I’ve since been back for a genteel beverage at the Premier’s Bar which, at least, has balconies opening to the outside world and is relatively quiet. Because the live music doesn’t kick off in that part of the building until later in the evening, it’s tolerable. But I’d only go again under sufferance.
beautifully put.
almost too much for a man who carries a gun for a job?
Thanks. Us roo shooters can write good when we want to.
Things Bogans don’t know;
Its called gambling, not winning.
They build casinos for losers, not winners.
~~SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT FOR TBL REGULARS~~
I might’ve mentioned before that while I’m not studying for my “higher degree” in biology, I work (shamefully enough) at a discount department store named after a letter of the alphabet (one or the other).
Tonight I’m spending 12 hours from midnight working the annual ‘no deposit layby’ christmas toy sale, right in the heat of the action. Yes, people do line up for 3 hours at 2am to buy toys. No really.
These things are seriously THE maxtreme bogan event of the year, with every bogue (oldschool AND new age) in my city rocking up to lay claim to massive piles of toys they don’t need and can’t afford, for the kids they otherwise ignore for 364 days of the year.
If I don’t get stampeded by the raging intensive pigfarm of shazzas, I’ll write a TBL entry-style report tomorrow with choice quotes and graphic descriptions of all the bogan greed and excess, for your gratuitous enjoyment. Sample from last year: “gotta buy them [a PS3 and Xbox360] each, that way they dun haffta share”
(sorry for attention whoring but I can’t imagine the TBL team would spend much time at these things and they deserve a mention on here)
He was a fine young man Will, tragically taken from us far too early in a stampede of puffing bogans.
Will S commiserations and if you survive the stampede, we look forward to your report!
One of my poor students will no doubt be dragged into this muck. I should send some sort of fruit basket to his mum and dad.
I for one am looking forward to your written account. Unfortunately, I don’t hold much hope that you will come out of this thing without physical and mental scars but fight the good fight and don’t lose hope.
To go with this ACa are doing a special report on how to get the best out of the toy sales. Keep an eye out for Grimmers Wil.
No sudden movements, Will. And don’t make eye contact.
I hope you have pre-filled work cover forms ready to submit.
During my undergrad days I worked in a casino. One day I had to resort to using the, ummm, sanitary vending machine in the staff ladies’ change-room. It greedily gobbled my $2 and failed to disgorge the much-needed product. As I uttered a few choice unladylike words to bemoan my desperation for lady-things, a passing colleague quipped “well I’ll be damned! Even these blasted things are stacked in favour of the house”.
On a side note, I was also a union delegate there. Gaming tables staff –sorry — croupiers can also be bogans of the highest order. With delusions of grandeur about their process-driven occupation, they regarded all other staff with a perverse distain and they possessed a hallucinated snobbery that was borne of the money they handled rather than their actual income (a bit like some retail workers in upmarket shops). Like most middle-class aspirants on almost minimum wage, they seemed to hold the opinion that a trade union was beneath them but still whinged about their conditions and remuneration. Not surprisingly, this workplace culture – the false glamour and snobbery– is one encouraged by the HR minions in the McJob recruiting industry to sell faux “careers”. Hey, there is nothing wrong with one being proud of one’s occupation but their collective pride was achieved by disparaging and scoffing at others.
I refuse to go into David Jones these days, or at least the one near me. The snobbery and arrogance is palpable.
I like my local David Jones. The only reason I go there is to occasionally pick up some N2O bulbs (that reminds me, I need some for this weekend!). They know perfectly well I’m not whipping cream, but I’ve never had any attitude, indeed, they seemed a bit curious as to why I was only buying (relatively) small amounts of the stuff.
Ahh bulbs, we used to add a few drops of amyl to the bulberator and run a thin hose from the nozzle to the inside of a bucket bong – your throat simultaneoulsy freezes, burns and chokes for a few seconds. For the truly courageous, add some powder to the cone. Have an ambulance on standby. Lucky I grew out of this sort of behaviour.
Oh gawd, not bucket bongs… once was enough for me. Mind you, I’m pretty piss-weak when it comnes to the herb anyway.
As for amyl – the closest I’ve come to that was at a festival a few years ago. My friends and I caught whiff of something very nasty, only to see a pack of eastern suburbs Bogues passing a vial around and laughing like idiots while jammed up against the barriers.
It was nasty enough down-wind. Not sure I’d want to get any closer.
Tch tch, naughty gen x’ers. I was one of those too. Bulbies were cool. I remember my voice turning into one of those really deep mechanical voices the bad guy uses in movies to disguise himself when he talks over the phone. Or at least that’s how it sounded to me, my actual voice didn’t change. LSD was way too intense for me, only had one good one out of about 3 or 4, and even then it was too full on. Speed was the most fun imo. It’s great feeling like you’re 7 years old with a tonne of energy. Sounds like that whole scene has been ruined by ice/meth, I haven’t had illegal drugs for nearly a decade.
Yeah, I agree with you on the LSD, Martin. I’ve had it twice, bad trips both times. Mushies, on the other hand, I’ve found to be comparatively gentle and all-over enjoyable.
Tried Ice once. Never again.
Never had mushies, they might be something I’d be willing to break my non drugs thing for.
I had a sniff of Amyl Nitrate once, that was kind of cool. Just a head spin basically.
If i never smelt amyl again it would be too soon – talk about head ache inducing ! I live a a very pure and wholesome life these days – about ten years ago i decided that I’d done enough drugs to last a lifetime and that my life was a whole lot simpler without them. I stopped everything except pot, which i grew myself , until three years ago when i decided i’d had enough of that too. I’m one of the few rare and lucky people that can take a hideous amount of drugs over a long period of time, not get addicted and then just say enough and stop. If only it were that simple for everyone the world would be a better place. Each to their own though. As long as my house isn’t being robbed.
Fuck, I love drugs. But I don’t like gambling, hmmm
hah!
screw gambling! I’ve just sunk our entire fortune into greek bonds!
suckahs!
I think the esteemed Mr BoT touched it briefly, but hasn’t Mr Packer the Younger Younger punted his family fortune on the gambling biz?
are frank and kerry fighting for rolling space in the great beyond or has young James inherited the family talent for milking the bogue? No doubt time will tell…
canberra has a casino???
(chubby and edna reporting live from the clouds at a secret location in the atherton tableland. a beautiful, Beautiful place. Like the bellinger valley and dorrigo plateau on steroids. maxtreme beautiful steroids.)
“green like you’ve never seen”
aha haha haahaahaha ha ahhaa ha ha ha!
hoo.
sorry, private joke.
@ Chubby
A psychotropical shade of green, hmm?
No doubt one of the attractions of the region 😉
Give my regards to Yungaburra. Or Millaa Millaa. Glorious part of the world. Be sure to check out the Yungaburra pub – magnificent old building.
…and Go Wil S.
we love your work.
I’m anticipating a weekend on heavy dissociatives (genuine ahuyahuasca apparently) . I’ll try and post from the field too…
Yaje!? Wow… you certainly know where to pick up the interesting stuff. I’ve only ever heard a friend-of-a-friend account of yaje… weird stuff.
Have fun, Chubby. Hopefully I’ll be on the mushies.
I had the same reaction; yage??? I’m a big Burroughs fan.
I’ve had (native) DMT before, but this is supposed to be the full shamnic trip for a wee group of us (which I think is a little hokey, but hey, watcha gonna do?)
I am privelaged to know some very interesting cats. A friend down south is working his way through PIhKaL, some seriously sweet stuff in there, but pretty much reccomended for advanced players.
I guess at this point I’m looking like a complete drug crazed loon…
but if I might speak in my own defence…
I’ve been at this shit for over 20 years now and am pretty sure I’ve tried it all (except this miaow miaow thing) and as the radio demagogues would have you believe I’ve paid a pretty heavy price. I’ve been gaoled and have 13 convictions to my name (all for posession of various things) I also have spent about six months “down and out” in Brisbane and Sydney. I wanted to write it up in a tribute to Huxley (was it?) but Bryce Courtney gazumped me with Matthew Flinder’s Cat. A pretty accurate description of life on the streets IMO, except his version of rehab was different to mine. I’d love to say I didn’t regret a moment of it, but that would be horribly disingenuous. I will say I am grateful to have experienced things which might break a lesser man. Most particularly rehab. I went through a process called a Therapeutic Community, one aspect of which is to sit down and take “feedback” from twenty or so peers without the right of reply once a week. A valuable addition to an examined life.
So yeah I still do a lot of shit in spite of it all. I have learnt what to avoid. I still dream of opiates, and I knew the first time I tried Meth or Ice or whatever the kiddies call it these days that this was something to strenuously avoid. Vile stuff. These days I stick pretty much to the old C. Sativa and my beloved psychedelics with just a dash of MDMA now and then. I do believe the Law is the greatest impediment to safe drug use (greater minds than mine have expounded that line of reasoning at length) I personally have suffered no discenable physical or mental long term harm.
You mentioned Mushies Sten, I’m curious as to what type at this time of year? Amanitas? Scary. Amazingly I found gold tops just a couple of weeks ago at a place roughly parrallel with bundaberg. I didn’t think they would be out at this time of year, but they were prolific in this particular spot. For mine sitting in a pretty spot on nice Gold Tops is an absolutely beautiful experience, an unparallelled sense of profound beauty and wonder which everyone should experience if only once. And ditto that for screaming one’s head off at a party with some bangin tunes and like minded cronies on some kuta eccies. experiences which can not be matched with sober mind. Which is not to say I need substances t have fun and again that also has been expounded at length elsewhere.
what was I saying?
um…
ah whatever.
Eloquently put, Chubby. It’s comforting to know that there are fellow travellers of the mindscape, imbibing various substances, not to abuse them—that is the trait of the bogan and others who just want to get munted just to blot out the banality of their own existence—rather, use them as a conduit to Another Road, Another Kind of Mind, as sung in Paul McCartney’s ode to herb, “Got To Get You Into My Life”.
Hope you have some fantastic experiences on your trip within the trip…just reminds me how much I love the green and the creative doors bursting open, either with the camera, or slinking back into the recliner with a pair of Sennheisers listening to fine musical explorations. And I must confess that I have yet to launch into shrooms myself, but I can imagine that I could appreciate the effects 😮
All hail our psychonautic engineer…we’re not worthy!
you are too kind.
too many of the wrong people using the wrong things for the wrong reasons have given the whole scene a bad name.
I doubt I do much to alter that perception, but nonetheless despise being maligned and criminalised for my choices, especially in the face of the sort of behaviour we are wont to ridicule in these pages. Ask any Ambo (cop, doctor, etc) if he would rather deal with a junkie or a drunk.
well before the meth explosion anyway and with due deference to TBL’s observations under “Last Year’s Designer Drug”
When I am emperor, naturally psychoactives will be legalised, but it will also be compulsory to apply to review board for permission to use them. Bogues will be denied. (as an aside the same review process will apply to breeding and naming of progeny)
Along with Gin & Tonic the harmonious melding of music and drugs may be evidence for a benign creator.
There is no other evidence however.
Hey Chubby, that was quite some story… glad to hear things worked out for you in the end, I know enough people who ended up in a very bad way to be careful about that I expose myself to. In terms of street drugs, I’ve done most stuff, except H and Coke. It was fun when I was younger, but the price I paid the day after quickly outweighed the few hours enjoyment I got out of it.
I’m not sure what type of mushies I’ll be getting, but I’m pretty sure they’re not actually native – I believe the starting culture, or whatever it’s called, came from Hungary (makes sense as I reckon they’d cope with the Aussie winter pretty decently). I’ve had them before and they were very enjoyable.
As for DMT – isn’t that derived from the bark of certain Wattles? I’ve been eyeing up the wattle up the road from my place for a while now… you can also use the bark to tan leather, for what it’s worth – perhaps worth knowing in the event Bogans and their international cousins totally overload the planet’s ability to support civilisation.
off topic @ p!nky
gruen reports an ad during masterchef costs 70k…
masterchef officially warrants a post of its own.
(i know reality’s been done… But…)
That was analysed last week by Media Watch, similarly about the ethics of such intimately integrated product placement…those amongst us here who’ve watched both that and tonight’s Gruen Transfer would have had our righteous disdain for Master Bait well reinforced.
I wonder when the rest of the hoi-polloi who commit sensory abuse will have had jack of this non-stop marketing pack-rape, realising that they, the viewers, are in fact not the ones being gratified, but just being used ‘n’ abused as slags to be whored all in the name of consumption?
That’s the nefarious genius of marketing. I’m sure I have the intellectual capacity, analysis and understanding of misanthropy required to succeed, but I do not have the requisite moral capacity.
Turnips, I can sympathise with your last point – I used to work for a marketing company (not actually in marketing, praise Xenu), and despite being quite the misanthrope myself (you’d have to be at least a bit of a misanthrope to enjoy TBL the way it is intended), I thought, every morning, something along the lines of “I hate myself”.
Maybe that’s why there are so many Bogans working in marketing – they love to get one over on people.
Seconded. The Bogue could even say “I’m not racist! I voted for Poh!”
Well and truly overdue.
oh! Oh!
the bogan proof fence!
take a bow TBL!
Aww, sh¡t a brick, do we have to keep them all here?
Then again, I wouldn’t blame the rest of the country to keep them out!
Hey TBL! Are you responsible for the cool changes to the email notifications, or do we have wordpress to thank?
Here’s some ideas, I don’t know if they’ve been covered yet – only recently came across this great site, and I’m working my way through the list.
Those hideous Australian flags that people (bogans in particular) attach to their car, generally for australia day, but the average bogan keeps them on year round.
Infomercials. Proactiv, Zumba, crappy get-fit-fast-the-easy-way style gym equipment etc
backyard spray tanning. I know a group of bogans that all pitch in together to hire a travelling spray tan lady, who spray tans you in your backyard. They all lined up in their bikinis whilst she sprayed them one by one. Looked really dodgy. How do I know about this? Well naturally they took loads of pictures and dedicated several facebook albums to it! It was quite the journey – pasty, flabby bogans in all their glory becoming oompa loompa hued “beauties”. In fact any service that come to them, they seem to love – beauticians, nails, massage etc.
Where’s Will S this morning? Hoping he made it out alive…..
Rabble, rabble, rabble.
Every person I met who goes to the casino to win assures me that “..I have a mate who’s friend ‘has a system'”.
“System” I love that word…
There are certainly tricks to winning money at the casino, but it involves playing off other players rather than the casino.
Of course the best System to have if you want to win big at the casino is to simply own one.
A skilled gambler knows that in general the odds of winning most games are tipped in the houses favour, they also do their study of the most likely outcomes of any game based on the previous cards drawn or the previous numbers appearing, but keeping in mind that if you flip a coin 20 times and get tails each time, there is still a 50/50 chance that you can flip it again and you’ll still get a tail.
However the bogun processes none of these skills, as during year 9 maths class it was far more fun to tease the “egghead” of the class than actually learning something. Thus at casino time, they will go in with their excellent maths stills, and happily watch the “egghead” win all of the bogan’s money.
But this doesn’t matter as the bogan knows he’ll simply glass the cunt later on that night.
Gambling was covered in Year 11 Maths at my school. We had an excursion to the Track and everything.
Cue teenagers gambling and drinking in school uniforms.
Only in Sydney.
@andrew
the bogan considers said glassing as an epic win, so it’s all good.
something’s tickling my brain about bogans and the great genetic lottery…
but it won’t coalesce.
alas.
Chubby,
Looking at the genitic lottery one could ponder that so many parents lost their lifes savings ? or was it their deposit that they lost ? certainly their divedend dosent deserve much interest !
i wish the site did not allow comments, i feel it takes away from the creative cred TBL derserves for such observant wit.
the regular posters here have the lamest, most contrived topics to bring up… i feel like im in a crowded room full of middle management plain jane caucasians.
Happy ,
so we may better appreciate your point could you describe yourself ? as you see your self will do
So entertain us with your intellect, insight and prescience.
Martin,
Maybe Happy is not happy ?
anyway I know that I am not a plain jane caucasian. I realy do not think that chubby or viv or antosha or your good self are either and Fiona is definitely not . Pinky , Tombarina and Shirly ,I dont fit so Im not sure if hes got the right post ?
Poor Happy. It’s easier to be a critic than to participate. I think pretty much anyone here could write a TBL piece if they wanted to.
Whilst I think the discussions of old, maybe from a few weeks ago were a bit better I think the discussions are still of a decent quality. There’s only so much bogan bullying one can exercise, well, no, it will last a lifetime I’m sure, but of course the initial onslaught will be of a more vibrant quality. Especially seeing as this is probably the first time that the bogan has had his/her comeuppance.
Geez Happy, that post is wetter than a vegetarian fart. Fire up a bit will you? It’s what TBL ‘derserves’
the Hack program on JJJ doing a piece on online hate. could be interesting. going to air now east coast time.
@ happy.
I see this is quite a prob for you (the comments thing) gee, what possible solution could there be?
I wonder…
how could someone avoid reading all those inane comments…
gee…
I’ll have to ask a smarter person.
I’m a bit buggered so my wit may not be at its usual bowling ball-esque levels of sharpness. Also, the punters didn’t seem as foul as in previous years so I feel a bit silly bagging them out. Still, here it is.
Things Bogans Unofficially Like: Toy Sales
Raising children is tough; it requires patience, persistence, sensitivity and a sharp awareness of others’ needs. Unfortunately the bogan possesses very little of these, so it compensates by providing its offspring with ridiculous names, and imbuing them with spurious allergies. It also masks the guilt felt for the lack of attention given to its spawn, by supplying them with immense quantities of overpriced, brightly coloured plastic objects on one or two arbitrary days of the year.
The bogan’s love of no-deposit is well documented, and no greater example of the consumer frenzy induced by apparently “free” stuff can be found than the annual no-deposit layby toy sale. The pilgrimage begins at midnight at the local discount department store, with the bogan male performing unnecessary commando rolls under the shop door, “like they do on TV”. Two to three trollies are quickly filled to the MAXTREME with all manner of overpriced junk, and further supplemented by grotesque quantities of consoles, video games, (which the bogan can later blame for its offspring’s misbehaviour), huge TVs, and outdoor equipment of questionable safety. The bogan queues for up to five hours in order to stake its claim on the loot, some hoarding over $4000 worth of trash despite their evident inability to properly clothe or feed their kids. During the long wait, the bogue becomes extremely irate, often releasing tension through shoplifting, graffiti, and tantrums at both staff and the young children it drags out at 3am on a school night.
On reaching the counter, the bogan displays remarkable specificity and precision when demanding particular arrangements of games and toys, while simultaneously being unable to recall its current surname or phone number. After a brief explosion over the compulsory service fee (‘I FORT IT WAS F***** NO DEPOSIT C***’), the journey is complete. This is made more remarkable by the fact that there is often no intention on the bogan’s part to collect the items captured, with the process simply indulging its consumer fantasies (while preventing people who actually want the items from being able to get them). Its guilt only partially alleviated, the bogan makes tracks for the next store to repeat the process. Somewhere in the herd of ruminants, a hungry child cries out for attention; “shut up Grayden or I’ll f***** smack ya” can be heard as the bogue passes down its massive can to occupy the child.
Not a bad effort at all, Will.
This bit in particular made me smile:
“while simultaneously being unable to recall its current surname or phone number”.
Nice work Will, do the old school bogans still ask for Rain Checks still, or has that finally ended, like polio?
Possibly related posts : (Manually Generated)
# 13 – Misspelling Their Kid’s Names
# 56 – Post-Christmas Sales
# 66 – Glassing Cunts
Tags: bogan, irate, massive cans
1 Response
Pandabater (18:20:43)
Fantastic post, this is a subject that has been crying out for the Will treatment for some time, I can’t believe that someone would not be HAPPY with it. Keep up the good work.
Excellent Will!
Excellent work Will. As a former customer service assistant at a well known supermarket during my uni days, I am glad you got out alive last night.
Wil, dude, great stuff. Kudos on survival.
Well done, you brave little Anzac! You made it out in one piece AND produced a deliciously scathing critique on the experience.
Just one question – please tell me you made up the $4000 bit. I’m praying that that’s generous use of journalistic licence.
Other than that worrying note, great stuff!
Well not $4000 in one hit, they break it up into several sections, e.g. one layby for each of their kids… usually the biggest ones are those for which the customer never comes back.
Also today just found out there was a punch up in the line, and a lady collapsed at around 3am because she’d not had any food or water since around 7pm that night.
Thanks for the clarification.
I’m trying to imagine how many kids you’d need to have to warrant $4k worth of layby. My pelvic floor gave way at the thought…..
@wil
bravo little champion!
Today, In Teh Worst—no, not my esteemed confrères at The Worst of Perth website, but The West Australian, our daily tabloid, was a mention of TBL when deferring to this blog’s intimate understanding of what constitutes a bogan in 2010.
Here’s a transcript of the article in this morning’s “Inside Cover” section, compiled by resident raconteur, bon vivant and gourmand (or, as some may say, an ageing hipster, dilettante and wine snob), Rob Broadfield:
BRISTLING BOGANS
We seem to have tapped a rich cultural vein with our continuing saga about the Great Bogan Bust-Up.
Amazingly, there are some purists who feel that going to Burswood to see Mamma Mia! and that having a punch-up in the theatre is not an intrinsically bogan act.
Mark Stoner, who runs a website called Bogan and Proud, got in touch to suggest that such behaviour may even be the antithesis of boganity, because the music is so far removed from bogan staples such as AC/DC and Midnight Oil.
“Mate, c’mon, if it was an AC/DC concert, they would be bogans”, he said.
He then rather shot himself in the foot by speculating that Saturday evening’s biffo was fuelled by chardonnay—surely the most nouveau bogue of grape varietals.
Stoner complained that, over the years, the bogan stereotype had been watered down more than a carton of mid-strength and that many things were labelled as bogan these days that were a million miles from the traditional flannel shirts and mullets.
He even denied that public fisticuffs was an exclusively bogan trait.
“What if it’s two lawyers fighting? Is that bogan”, he asked.
We don’t know, but it would be great fun to find out.
We’re starting to feel slightly out of our cultural depth here, so we will defer to the ultimate authority of the blog-based Bible of Bogue, Things Bogans Like.
For the record, it says that bogans enjoy Ikea, partly because it reminds them of “singing ABBA songs on karaoke and Mamma Mia! the musical”.
So there you have it.
Brawling in the stalls at a performance of Mamma Mia! is officially bogan. Unless you’re punching a lawyer.
Good pickup, we weren’t aware of this one! I’ll email it around to the other writers of this blog-based Bible of Bogue. TBL
beautiful alliteration there bo’t.
Can a blog be listed as a national heritage item? Because if it can, surely TBL has to be a candidate.
the Burning Bush speaks for Turnips.
nice one.
Bible of Bogue indeed!
I got quite excited seeing the “bogan proof fence” piece on Gruen. It seems TBL is quite the phenomenon. Suddenly the bogue menace is on everyone’s lips. or is it just a manifestation of thompson’s fallacy?
Either way, Congrats all ’round TBL.
Oh, FFS.
Here’s that spanker Warne tweeting about how mean the nasty people on British Airways are being to him while he flies first-class for free to Vegas for….wait for it….the Up The Ante For Africa famine-busting poker tournament.
travel/news/shane-warne-in-british-airways-first-class-rant-on-twitter/story-e6frfq80-1225887844762
Thankfully, he clearly wasn’t wearing his lycra tatt sleeve. So much boganity at altitude would have torn the time/space continuum asunder.
D!ckhead.
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