I don't know if you guys do the same thing, but each Christmas I round up all the little kids in my extended family and read them 'The Night Before Christmas' by Clement Clarke Moore. Of course, if you've read or heard the classic tale, you'll probably know it's a little bit out of date. Today's kids are a little harder to win over, so when I read it, I update it a little. Only a tiny bit, just enough to make it modern without ruining the heart of the story.

I recorded it, if anybody is interested. It's a nice thing to play to the little tackers. Hope you like it too.

Download the mp3 here or the .zip here.

Everyone makes typos when they penis write, it's human. Of course, sometimes typos are really funny. Like when juries spell the word innocent 'guilty'. Or when the Federal Treasury includes a typo that says 'wages will now fall' instead of 'wages will not fall' in a document released to prove that wages for lower-income earners won't fall. God, it's so ironic Alanis Morisette just had a hands-free orgasm.

Which leads me to the next bit. No, it's not about Alanis Morisette fudding herself, it's about a typo. Of massive proportions. TIME Magazine (of which I am a subscriber) just released its annual 'Person of the Year' issue (I like mentioning how I subscribe to TIME so people think I'm smart). And just like the last two out of three years. (Ok, I just buy it for the photos of the naked African chicks), they have pussied out and chosen more than one person for their Person of the Year Edition (wait, that's why I subscribe to National Geographic. Why the fuck am I subscribed to TIME?).

Not the first time Bono has come between Bill and Melinda Gates

This year, it's Microsoft owner and international playboy Bill Gates and his wife Melinda , and U2 frontman Boner Bono. Apparently it's for their work "giving to the poor" and "reducing third-world debt" and Bono's promise never to sing that piece of shit "Vertigo" song ever again. Previous years when TIME's editors were being indecisive pussies included 2002, when the female whistleblowers who uncovered scandals at Enron, Worldcom and the FBI picked up the gong, and 2003, when it was given to the American Soldiers, who then proceeded to stack it on top of a human pyramid.

I liked the good old days, when TIME was run by people with balls (or is that 'Persons with balls') who weren't afraid to choose Hitler (1938) or Stalin (1939, 1942). And what's the go with 'Persons' anyway? It's 'PEOPLE'. Christ. They should have listened to me and avoided this whole mess. Then the TRUE Person of the Year would receive the recognition he deserved.

Well, summer is well and truly underway, and so is the television non-ratings season. Which means we're going to be spoonfed a whole bunch of crap on free-to-air TV until February. As a media graduate (hopefully), I feel it is my responsibility, nay, my DUTY to guide you through the torrent of turds that is summer television. So, without further ado..

Tommy's Guide To Summer Television

Shit Shows

- Ghost Whisperer
- Surface
- King of Queens
- Stacked
- Tommy Lee Goes To College
- Headland
- Smallville
- 5ive Days To Midnight
- Charmed
- Third Watch
- The Bachelor V
- Empire
- Blind Justice
- The Secret Life of Us
- Boston Legal
- Australia's Funniest Home Videos Summer Series
- Growing Up Gotti
- Joey
- Veronica Mars
- Two And A Half Men
- Dragon's Den
- Sports Disasters
- Less Than Perfect
- Heartbeat
- World's Craziest Videos
- World's Wildest Weather
- Threshold
- Wife Swap
- Beat The Chef
- Grounded For Life
- Sabrina, The Teenage Witch
- Will & Grace
- Midsomer Murders
- Quincy, M.E



Good Shows

- Family Guy




I hope you find this guide useful

Love,


Tommy

Shit Hits The Fan In Cronulla and maroubra and brighton

The violence yesterday wasn't confined to males in the crowd. Several females were involved in fights, including 16 year-old Cronulla girls Samantha and Emma. "I hate the Lebs. Today I punched one fat girl in the face. We just want them off our beaches," Samantha said.

- The Daily Telegraph, Monday 12 December, pg. 21

I think that about sums up the stupidity of yesterday's riots. Lebanese gangs are a massive social and criminal problem in Sydney's suburbs. What happened to the two lifesavers last week was a disgrace, but 5000 drunk, redneck vigilantes is not the solution. The fact that I can figure this out sitting behind a computer in Baulkham Hills, having watched twenty minutes of footage on the news, yet there exists people who TRAVELLED from Castle Hill to Cronulla to 'defend the Shire' is mind-boggling.

I thik we all just have to accept that there are always fuckheads. Lebanese fuckheads who form gangs. Aussie fuckheads who think the best way to stop Lebanese gangs harrassing their chicks on the beach is to assault an Arab on a train. Ignorant politically correct fuckheads who scream 'racism' when cops try to do their jobs. The even more ignorant xenophobic fuckheads who think anybody from Lebanon or Syria or Turkey is going to rape their daughters and blow up their football stadiums. Fuckheads the lot of them. It's a fuckhead infestation of fuckheadian proportions.

I said Garlic sauce on my Kebab, not fuckin Hommus!@

And then there's the media. Channel Nine News last night blamed talkback radio for inciting much of the violence. True, talkback radio is the home of the racist fuckhead, but I have a crazy hunch that the thousands of young Shire guys aren''t exactly cranking John Laws or Alan Jones before their morning surf.

But they might be reading the Telegraph. And watching Nine News. Seeing and reading journalists and producers desperate to sensationalise anything they can get their hands on. Just ask John Brogden.

It's not a battle between the Shire Boys and the Wogs. It's definitely not a battle between the Bra Boys from Maroubra and the Bankstown Boys from Wogland. It's a battle between normal, rational people and the fuckheads from both sides. It won't be solved by getting a dozen of your closest mates and beating up a Middle-Eastern looking guy, or by playing 'Smash The Skippy' with your cousins, but with...

uhh...

umm..

I have no idea.

um..

Maybe pancakes can solve it. I don't know, I'm not a doctor. All I know is that violence begats violence, and what happened yesterday in Cronulla is going to happen again in Bankstown, and Cabramatta, and Parramatta, and Winston Hills, and Baulkham Hills and ohshit.

Oh shit.

GO HOME LEBS

AUSTRALIA IS FULL FUCK OFF

The Real Schapelle

Well, the Schapelle Corby saga has taken an interesting twist, with a joint South Australian-Queensland police operation uncovering photos of Corby with an alleged drug dealer, taken before her ill-fated trip to Bali.

As I am gifted with an innate talent for journalism and uncovering the truth, I decided to do a little investigation of my own.

I was absolutely shocked at what I discovered. For you see, Schapelle Corby is not the woman you think she is. Turns out, Schapelle has popped up in photographs with a whole bunch of unsavoury types. We'll do this chronologically.

Berlin, 1939. World War Two is underway, and Adolf Hitler's Germany looks set to steamroll through Europe. But, like all Europeans, Hitler pauses for a spot of tea. He does so with a mysterious woman, whose identity has been unknown.

Until now.


After the fall of Hitler's Third Reich, Corby escaped capture by an Allied task force led by Captain Ronald Spiers, smuggling herself into Asia. Corby led a life of solitude in the mountains of Afghanistan for decades, before falling in love with a young mujahadeen. The two became not just husband and wife, but the figureheads of the Afghan resistance, fighting the Russian invasion during the 1980's. The name of this young mujahadeen?

Osama Bin Laden.

Don't believe me? Here's a photo of Corby, husband Osama, and an international terrorist known only as 'The Tea Toweler', taken by an undercover CNN reporter in 1994.



But Corby's depravity doesn't end there. This temptress of terror, this diva of depravity, this wordforfemale of adjectivethatmeansevil would soon leave her husband Osama following the September 11th attacks. According to sources inside the Taliban, Corby felt the attacks were 'bush league', and returned to her home country of Australia to find a partner who could unleash the widespread destruction she so desired.

After her dreams of global terror and misery failed to materialise with Adolf and Osama, Corby thought they were just that - dreams.

Until she met an unlikely couple.

Corby wasn't interested in the sex. It was good, but it wasn't the reason she stayed. In Australia, Corby found two men who had the power to realise her dreams of destruction. However, a fact-finding mission to Bali, where Corby was meant to scout out potential targets for carpet-bombing, ended with her arrest. Her dreams were shattered.

According to sources inside Corby's cell-block, she spends hours staring at a single photo on her wall, day after day. Corby doesn't speak often of the photo, or the two men she is with. But her tear-filled eyes reveal that after decades of searching, Schapelle Corby finally found her soulmates.


God speed, Schapelle.

God speed.

SOCKO VS SOCKO

There's a reason my blog is socko.blogspot.com rather than the obvious tommyfuckinlegend.blogspot.com, because the name 'SOCKO' and I have a long and storied history. Back in 1999, when I was an even bigger dork, I used to play games like Quake and Counter-Strike (until all the Koreans started playing at least) under the name of SOCKO, which I ripped off WWF Superstar and legend Mick 'Mankind' Foley, who used to carry a sock puppet to the ring named - you guessed it - SOCKO.

And I figured I'd staked out a nice claim as SOCKO. Until I was alerted to the presence of this.

http://socko.schwoit.com


Yes, it's "SOCKOS SPOT" (notice the lack of punctuation - a clear sign of a name stealer)

Now only does this "Socko" steal my cool internet pseudonym, but she also steals my interests. Read the blog. This bitch likes NRL and Professional Wrestling - all she needs is a tattoo of Latham on her left arse cheek and a wide variety of veneral diseases and she is the female Tommy. Hell, she probably even looks like me.


See?! It's UNCANNY.

Normally when I review other blogs, I go into long-winded tangents, full of insulting paragraphs and harsh personal attacks. But I can't do it. Not to Socko. Not to my soulmate. Not to her beautiful triple chins.

I couldn't bag out her inviting Picture Gallery.

Or the picture of her and her husband 'Shadowknight'. Her husband 'Shadowknight'. Her husband Shadowknight.

(paragraph format copyright Matthew Reilly 2005)

Or even the picture of 'The Cupcake She Almost Lost'. From the looks of her other pics, I'm going to imagine losing a cupcake is a first for her.

NO. I didn't mean that. Socko, I'm sorry. I shouldn't say those things. Especially about your ugly baby. Or the child who you've forced to hold a whiteboard containing a message he obviously didn't write.



God this makes me so angry, but I can't do it. I can't insult a fellow Socko.

So I'll just let Matt do it.

The saddest part of this image is knowing that mankind is now being scourged once again with more sub-humans from this outcast of the gene pool. I mean, the kid's head looks like it has had a third story built on top of it, he can't even focus on a fucking camera lens, and he's being forced to hold a whiteboard with a message written in a handwriting so far out of the range of a three year old as to be ridiculous. So, either this is some sort of mutant adult or an easily manipulated child ensnared by this buttertroll; either way, he'd better hope that Bobbie is some sort of euthanasia practicioner and he's buttering him up to just make the misery stop.

Take that, person who stole my internet name. That will teach you to mess with the real Socko.


Damn I am cool.

The Little Differences

A sit-down chat with Prof. Matt Sampson.

Recently my good friend and loose acquaintance, Matt Sampson, left for a three month sojourn in Europe without so much as a ‘goodbye’, more of an elaborate hoax to make people think he was entered onto an international version of MTV’s ‘The Real World’. Be that as it may, I deemed it necessary to find time between my busy quitting-Subway and becoming-aroused-by-small-animals schedule to sit down with Matt and find out exactly what went down, dawg.

Tommy: So tell me again about the hostel bars?

Matt: Well what do you want to know?

Tommy: Well getting trashed is legal there, right?

Matt: Well, I mean, it’s legal, but it ain’t 100% legal. I mean, you can’t just walk into a restaurant, mainline some absinthe and start tripping balls. They want you to have a few beers first, maybe meet some deceptively underage women, do karaoke in languages you’ve never heard of before, get lost in a Red Light District, steal things from town halls, go swimming in a loch, climb on public monuments, things like that.

Tommy: And that’s what you do in Europe, right?

Matt: OK, it breaks down like this. It’s legal to buy booze in supermarkets, it’s legal to drink it almost anywhere, and if you’re the proprietor of a bar, it’s legal to sell it to pretty much anyone, regardless of age, gender or ability to stand up straight. It’s illegal to steal it, but that doesn’t matter, cause if you get stopped by a cop in Europe, chances are you’ll be so high you won’t notice you’re in jail till the week after anyways.

Tommy: That’s it, man – I’m fuckin’ going, that’s all there is to it, I’m fuckin’ going.

Matt: I know, baby, you’ll dig it the most. But you know what the funniest thing about Europe is?

Tommy: What?

It’s the little differences.

Tommy and Matt conducted most of this interview in their Chevy, then realised they should have shotguns for this kind of deal.

It’s been about two weeks since I returned from an alcohol-soaked, party-centric Eurotrek through the western countries of Europe, in which I hit more than twenty-five cities and did irreparable damage to my liver, brain and international reputation. Anyone who tells you to go over there and get a job either hasn’t been there, doesn’t know what they’re talking about, or just plain fucking hates you. Your first trip to Europe should undoubtedly be purely for the experience, and then forgetting all about the experience through dangerous levels of alcohol consumption.

If you don’t have any friends who want to go with you (or just don’t have any friends at all), don’t worry about it, travelling on your own is a terrific experience, provided you’re not a nineteen year old girl who wandered into my hostel room at three in the morning and now has to spend the rest of her life in therapy. If you have a few buddies that are willing to drink with you till you can’t feel feelings anymore, all the better, it’s great to have someone to bail you out of a Belgian prison for attending a film festival party and ordering a round for all your newly found Europals, only to find out later that the beers weren’t free and you’re now being asked for more than 200 euros which you can’t cover because you spent your last cash on an overweight hooker with facial hair named Bettina. Quick useful fact, Gent is about half an hour west of Brussels and has a fantastic Red Light District.

Gent brothels are some of the cheapest and most mind-scarringly terrifying in the known universe.

People often ask me what I miss most about Europe. Is it the freedom, the culture, the people? No. Quite simply, it’s two things:

• Kebab shops in every European city, on nearly every street. And I ain’t even kidding you. Every city you go to in Western Europe has kebab shops, and if you’re in an area that has one, chances are you could see four others whilst standing in its doorway. The areas of Paris, for example that have, shall we say, more terrorist-oriented races populating them, can have five or six kebab shops right next door to each other, followed by five or six houses to give the kebab shop owners shelter (as if their body hair, odour and seemingly never ending grease secretions were insufficient), and that will make up the entirety of the street. To the French zoning commissioners, that’s a useful way to allocate the space. Residential, Commercial, Industrial and Kebab. No wonder we still don’t have a cure for cancer.

• Nudity in advertising. The last, and most powerful of the European Intoxication Trifecta. It doesn’t matter what the fuck those Euros are selling, be it shoes, condoms, deodorant or children’s schools, there’s going to be a girl on a billboard with her tits out. It’s the kind of thing that actually numbs you to a state where you only notice when someone’s fully clothed, and will say to the person unlucky enough to be next to you, ‘My word,’ at which point your monocle should pop out, ‘that chick has got her tits in! I haven’t actually seen a bra since I left home! And that was on my father!’ Oh that’s right, kids, they were disturbing times.

If you put these two things together, you basically have hot, greasy, delicious food and boobs everywhere you look. What, I ask you, could more accurately fulfil a man’s desires? Add to that getting trashed every night and being surrounded by women who think the Australian accent is the hottest thing since Orlando Bloom’s last piece of homoerotic celluloid, and that’s a recipe for shenanigans. Just take this email which I recently had the pleasure to send to our head honcho:

Mr Howard was very pleased to receive my letter and his puppet friend, Mr Costello, read it with him.

> Original Message Follows

> To: Mr Sheen <johnhoward@australiangovernment.com.au>
> From : Matt 'Eurotrash' Sampson <mitsarensen@pseudonyms.com>

---

Dear Mr Howard,

My name is Matt Sampson, I have been an Australian citizen for all of my 21 years but have currently just returned from holidays in Europe. I am writing to you, sir, for a matter I consider of the utmost importance. Although I am aware Australia has intelligence agencies that are monitoring situations around the globe, I believe they have overlooked a crucial fact that is crippling our nation as you read this. I am, quite simply, shocked that no member of your cabinet is either aware of this or has thought to bring this to your attention:

Swiss women are the goddamn hottest women in the world

No, seriously. I didn't know this either. I got there and was shocked. I think you know where I'm going with this, sir, as you are as intelligent and thorough as I am. Almost. As you already know, in light of this new information, we must immediately withdraw all forces from Iraq and other hotspots around the globe, combine them with forces currently stationed in Australia and the ever-useful-and-deadly Army Reserve, and redeploy them to the new Swiss Front so that we may capture these women and return them to Australian soil where we all know they truly belong. Of course, we must do some research first, such as working out how the hell Swiss men get anything done around here, but it is crucial we secure this country and block it off before some other tourist gets wise as well and alerts their government also. I'm sure there's at least one other person as cluey as I am to do that. Maybe.

Imagine, sir, if the Chinese government beat us to the punch here. They have NUCLEAR ARMS. You can't hug your children with nuclear arms, and we sure as hell can't have amazing, hot, Swiss ski bunnies just parading around our streets if the Commies get here first.

You know this is the right choice, sir. I look forward to your reply, and to the immediate invasion of Switzerland by Australia. Till that happens, I'll head back there and soak up some atmosphere.

On second thoughts, take your time.

Love and kisses to Janette,

Matt Sampson Esq.

Turns out from January 7th, we won't be able to discuss Euthanasia on the internet or on the phone, so I may as well get this out of the way.

EUTHANISE YOURSELVES NOW
A suicide-inciting article by Tommy

Unless we're lucky and die an instant death at the hands of a vehicle, a bullet or Chuck Norris, chances are we're going to go through insane amounts of pain before we die. Diseases like cancer eat away at your body until there is nothing left. To watch a family member go through such pain is pretty much the worst thing imaginable. To go through the pain yourself is, I imagine, even worse.

Some people believe this pain is a part of life, that voluntary euthanasia is a cop-out, just another name for suicide. Let me make it clear, I'm not advocating suicide. To take your life because you're in a financial mess, or because your girlfriend left you for Chuck Norris, is nothing more than a cop-out. But if you're in the latter stages of your life, you should be allowed to make a decision to peacefully die on your own terms. Obviously, there are complications when someone terminally ill cannot make such a decision, as shown by the 1-month hullaballoo over Terry Schiavo in the U.S earlier this year, but that's another blog all together.

I'll let Attorney-General and Darth Sidious look-a-like Phillip Ruddock sum up the contents of the bill: (link is a .pdf file)

“…the Bill introduces important new measures that will criminalise the use of the internet to encourage others to take their own lives. The Bill will make it an offence to use a carriage service, including the internet, to access, transmit, or make available material that counsels or incites suicide."

Not from a Jed-iiiiiiiiiii

Sounds cool, right? The Federal Government, and Labor who supported the bill's passage through the Houses, claim they are merely protecting vulnerable individiuals from those on the internet with a 'destructive intent'. And, in some way, they are. This law makes it illegal for people to make suicide pacts on the internet, or engage in suicide cults in chat rooms like those seen in Japan.

But then you look at the bill a bit further. Aside from the idiocy of trying to censor the internet, the largest global medium in the history of the world, the bill is full of contradictions. From January 7, it may be illegal to provide information about euthanasia over the phone and e-mail, but not in person. It may also be illegal for the Euthanasia Society of NSW to campaign for the introduction of voluntary euthanasia legislation in state parliament, unless they restrict their campaign to non-electronic media!

The architect of the bill

Senator Grieg from the Australian Democraps spoke of a book called 'The Final Exit' by Derek Humphrey, a guide book designed to show the terminally ill how to go about ending their lives peacefully, complete with drug dosages, tips on how to find the right care and legal and psychological advice. Grieg said that uploading or e-mailing passages of this book on the internet would constitute a crime, yet this is a book freely available in book stores and libraries. Apparently reading how to off yourself peacefully in html is somehow more dangerous than reading it in print. Thank you, Federal Government, for protecting us from the evil binary code.

If the major parties were more concerned with the impact of suicide, they would spend the money and time wasted generating and implementing this piece of shit, free speech-restricting, contradictory and useless bill, and use it funding programs aimed at reducing depression among young adults. Fix the hundreds of HSC and VCE students who kill themselves every few years before you worry about passing a bill designed to shore up your support from right-to-life pressure groups and the Religious right.

And just to make sure I'm arrested by Ruddock's clone troopers come January 7th

Jumping off cliffs is fun

That's hot.

Audio Blogs!

• Mark Latham Interview
• The first audio blog, with the man himself.
  
• Mark Latham Interview II
• Hilarity ensues when EMO Week and a Latham Interview coincide.
  
• Mark Latham Interview IVIXVXICCXIVIII
• Tommy interviews Mark about his recent legal troubles.
  
• President Bush Interview
• The Commander In Chief talks to Tommy about his new defense strategies.
  
• President Bush Interview II
• Hilarity doesn't ensue when Tommy wastes time ripping audio clips of President Bush.
  
• Premier Bob Carr Interview
• Tommy interviews Mr. Carr the day of his retirement as Premier.
  
• Work Choices Starring Tommy
• Tommy sells out and does a favour for the Liberal Party.
  
• Al Qaeda Message Translated
• Tommy sells out less and does a favour for Al Qaeda.
  
• Television Classification Starring Tommy
• Tommy swears lots for cheap laughs.
  
• Tommy's Night Before Christmas
• Tommy ruins a childhood favourite for cheap laughs.