The Goood Life?
A guest blog by REDACTED
It’s that part of the semester again. All the mature age students are pumped up and us lazy regulars are slowly accepting the fact that we might have to do some work now. As an education student, our practicum placements represent only a small part of our third year at uni. This semester, we are supposed to do 6 days with 5 lessons across those days. For each lesson you have to make lesson plans, sequences of learning and lesson evaluations. All in all, a pain in my lazy ass. Such a predicament is added to by the fact that I have been placed this semester to teach Year 6 at one of the richest, most exclusive Sydney all boys Primary Schools.

The most major thing I realized during prac was the difference seen between this particular school and any other Primary school I’ve spent time at. I realize it first when I’m driving up the road on the first morning. I slowly roll my ’84 Civic past a line of parents dropping their little brats off, looking as each car I drive past has another 10 grand attached to the price tag. Beamers, Jag’s, MG’s and four Lexus’ 4WD’s that were identical but for the colour. There were even a couple of freakin Bentleys. The Staff carpark is similarly arranged except for a vintage Volvo and the Art teachers Vespa. I carefully park my Civic around the corner and walk the rest of the way. While my suit might present me as a straight up and down kinda guy, seeing my bomb isn’t going to instill any feelings of professionalism in either the students or the staff.


The new Bentley, for when being a massive prick just isn't good enough.

Dropping in the Staff Room before school starts the gap between reality and this school grows even more. I glance at one of the kid’s canteen menus. What other Primary school has sushi and smoked salmon sandwiches on its menu? The staff fridge does have half a case of Coopers green though. The bell goes and I head for the classroom.

My master teacher is an old man who started at the school 37 years ago. He lives onsite, has no car and basically never leaves the grounds. I figure this kind of imprisonment cannot be healthy. The kids seem to like him though so I’ll give him the benefit. He takes me on tours or the grounds while the students are at Art, Music, Italian, PE, Drama, Computer, Science or Library lessons. I discover that he only teaches Math’s and English and so has the students only half of everyday.

When touring the school, I can see great similarities between him and Johnny Depps ‘Willy Wonka’. He gets on heaps well with the children but avoids most of the other staff and it seems he doesn’t like adults company, rarely going into the staff room. He also tries to present almost prepared facts about the school in casual conversation and then forgets he’s said them and re-tells me on the way back. “We had Eddie Jones here last month for a bit of extra rugby training” “This is our new library mural, each student in the school placed a piece in the mosaic” “A couple of weeks ago we had Eddie Jones here. He did some extra training with the boys.” He seems a bit stupid but apparently he spent 5 years tutoring the PM, the GG and the vice PM’s sons back in the 70’s.


An artist's impression of Eddie Jones

We’re back in the class and I’m doing some marking. Use ‘among’ in a sentence. “I am among poor people.” I feel so sorry for you buddy. Having to spend time with all these other kids whose Daddy doesn’t earn as many millions as yours does. The kids name was Robin and he was as poncy as his name suggests.

Flicking through the newsletter at lunch waiting for my turn to go on playground duty, I discover that the exclusivity of such a school brings opportunities we don’t even get at uni. A reminder to all students that Athletics, Rifle Shooting and Fencing Photos are on next week. Archery practice this afternoon has been postponed till Thursday. Thanks to Dom and Chaz from The Chaser for running our Trivia night last week.

Ahhhhhh. It drives me mental. These little bastards will never, never, never land in reality. The privilege gained cause their old man runs a sweatshop in Ghana means they don’t have to worry about normal things. Kids in the playground only get teased if they go to an inferior sports coaching place or their personal tutor has less references. This is insane. These are kids. Where else to do you see a 5 year old with a tie, a boater and garters to hold his socks at his knees? Where else is a point made of calling a woman Headmaster instead of Headmistress? This school is crazy.

Although,

It is nice getting called Sir.

The End

As some of you didn't seem to get the poignant subtlety of the last post, I'm done with the blog thing. Thanks craploads for reading and commenting and e-mailing and stalking. I'm pretty proud of the two+ years of content I posted, and it wouldn't have been nearly as fun without you, my double digit readers. I look back fondly at the times we shared, like the 100+ comment flame wars about terrorism and religion, and that time we both went for the same muffin and our hands touched and it was like nobody else existed except for us

Let me also apologise for the crappiness of the early audio blogs. Not the Latham ones though. They were awesome.), a

Props also to all the guest bloggers over the years, particularly Matt and REDACTED. A special mention to guest blogger Richie for his I Love Cats blog, which is still probably the greatest thing on the internet.

As for why I stopped, well for one thing - bitching about John Howard was about 50% of my gimmick. Having a full-time job also put a spanner in the works, as I don't think I could stop myself from bitching about that fat chick at work and then I'd just get fired. And yeah, two years of three posts a week (rounded up) was stretching it. I literally ran out of things I had an opinion on.

So thanks again, and.... well.. I promised myself I wouldn't cry :(


Love


Tommy


xoxoxoxo

The Fall Of Howard.

Mission accomplished.

Election 2007 - D-Day - The 'D' stands for 'Dork'

I don't really care who you vote for today, as long as it's not this guy:




His name is Pastor Paul Green, he is the Senate candidate for the Christian Democratic Party, and from the looks of that photo he enjoys bow-ties, weird stubble and pedo smiles. He's also known for calling for a 'War' on Islam, and is passionate about important issues facing the nation, such as the cancellation of Carols by Candlelight services.

At the risk of posting two blatantly defamatory blogs in a row, I won't say he also likes luring children to the bow-tie cave located inside his giant forehead. I absolutely will not say that.


As for tonight, well... Go Mark Kevin.

Matthew Reilly: 100% Straight

Regular readers should know my position on best-selling Australian author Matthew Reilly - lying on his back in a small ditch slowly filling with dirt and shredded copies of Ice Station.

And they should also know that I don't like him. And neither does the Sydney Morning Herald's photo editor or caption writer, judging by this:

Matthew is smirking because he is thinking in itallics

(At this point, Tommy resisted from drawing a cartoon penis on Matthew's face, because the last blog was too literal)

And come on, Reilly. Did your mum buy that shirt for you? 'Super Hero'? The little black and grey patches? Red after Labor Day? What were you thinking?

And who holds their jeans when they pose for photos? And the brick wall? Is this a publicity shot or an album cover?

And the quotes in the article. Good lord.

"In Seven Ancient Wonders, Jack West and his team break someone out of Guantanamo Bay. I'm not going to preach to people and say, 'Guantanamo Bay, bad', but I will have my hero go and break somebody out of it and maybe people will think about it that way."

Wow Matt, that's so deep. Who needs an in-depth critique of the execution of the war on terror, or even a complex moral argument about the justification of torture in order to prevent civilian deaths when we've got your crayon written shit.

'Well, I wanted to let the audience make up their own mind about abortion, but I will have my hero prevent the spread of a biological virus by terminating fetuses with a clothes hanger and a length of rope,' Reilly added, curling his poofy fringe.

Now, I don't want to risk getting sued by his publicist, but let's just say Ratthew Meilly sounds an awful lot like the name of the prominent Australian author who is a giant wanker. Thank you.

Election 2007 - Rejected Attack Ads

I used to be in demand from all the major political parties, thanks in part to my biting insults and wicked photoshop skills. Well, Family First never showed much of an interest, but that's because I haven't sent enough naked pictures of myself around the internet. Apparently 5 isn't trying hard enough. Hard enough.

There was a time when I was cranking out a dozen or so attack ads every election season. Remember 'L-Plate Latham'? That was me. Calling John Howard a rodent? Me. The short-lived 'Costello is a Pedo' rhyming jingle? Me. All me.

But this election... well... I don't really seem to be getting much work. Sure, there's my royalty payments for the Gillard beaver shots, but the cupboard is a little bare. (So was hers, if you don't mind me saying). And I don't understand why, because I think my ideas this year are just as good as elections past. Check out some of these babies...


This first one was made for a Liberal 'dog whistle' campaign, but it didn't seem to go down well in the test electorate. In my defense, putting it up in Cabramatta was ill-advised.





They say the best ads don't promote something new, they just reinforce previously established beliefs. So, I went in that direction for this Labor Party ad.




The environment is a hot button issue, and it's always good to use newspaper headlines to back up your point:




And this last one... Well........ Probably a little too high brow.




And in retrospect, the T-Shirts were probably a bad idea too.


Oh well, I can always get a job with the Democrats.

Election 2007: Poll Dancing

Now the Election is drawing nearer, we seem to be getting more polls than Lara Bingle at the Allan Border Medals. You've got Newspoll, Morgan, Nielsen, Galaxy, national polls and electorate polls, face-to-face and telephone polls. There's so many polls here, Germany keeps trying to invade us.

And right there is the third poll joke in three sentences, if you included the topic which is not only a delightful pun but also a callback to Kevin Rudd liking strippers.

(My writers are on strike)





But the thing you need to know about polls is that they're really, really expensive. And the newspapers that pay for them are going to milk these polls for all their worth eww are going to make sure they get their money's worth.

So, no matter what the poll actually says, they're going to BS their way to a front-page story with a nice narrative. When Labor's lead increases from 55-45 to 56-44, a one point shift well inside the margin of error (about 3%), we get 'HOWARD'S TITANIC HEADS FOR ICEBERG OF KEVIN'.

When it happens in reverse, and the Libs close the gap from 54-46 Labor to 53-46, we get 'HOWARD'S MAN OF STEEL COMEBACK: SHOULD KEVIN RESIGN?'.

Just wait for this week. Labor's at 53 in the latest Newspoll, and if they go back to their normal level of 54 or 55 next week, it will be 'RATE RISE BACKLASH - HOWARD IS FUCKED AND OLD'.

In other words, don't trust the newspapers.

Trust me.




Vote Kevin.

Election07 - BREAKING POLITICAL NEWS

The Family First logo looks like a sad dead clown :(

Election 07: The Master Debators, and who didn't expect me to make a masturbation joke when I blogged about the debate

Just in case you were wondering - no. I'm pretty much only going to be writing about the election for the next few weeks. If you're looking for some hard-hitting pop culture pisstakes, go check Boredomistan or download a Get This! podcast. Or maybe think for yourself for once, loser.

The Debate was on Sunday. I watched intently, mainly to see what the Worm would do. He went well, but I think Kevin Rudd beat him.

(that one took me a few days)

The Debate had three highlights. The first was Kevin Rudd smacking his microphone after his very first hand movement, putting an early end to the contemporary dances moves he normally breaks out when giving speeches.

The second was Ray Martin doing some subtle bitching about the National Press Club's decision to cut Channel Nine's feed after their unauthorised use of democracy - the Worm. While some claim the Worm was biased, and the panel of 80 undecided voters that controlled it were all Kevin-lovin' clones of me, that's just ridiculous.

For proof, look no further than this photo taken of the Worm Panel:

The third and final highlight was the near-biff between the two old bastards over some figures from the OECD. Luckily it didn't go to fisticuffs, because I reckon Howard could take him. I picture him like a less nimble Mr. Myagi.


But all in all, it was an even affair, with both men proving they are worthy candi- HAHAHAHA RUDD WON SUCK SHIT SUCK SHITTTT WOOP CHOO CHOO ALL ABOARD THE FUCK OFF EYEBROWS EXPRESS

TOOT TOOT MOTHERFUCKERS!@#

Dude...... Dude that's just gross

Election 2007: Time's Up, Cockbrain (also Tommy's Guide To Holding An Election Party)

Obviously by 'Cockbrain', I'm referring to John Howard, whose brain is actually made of tiny, floating cocks.

Now that's out of the way, let's talk Election Parties!@ Perhaps the coolest of all parties, second only to Grand Final Parties and Wakes. And I know everyone is as keen as mustard for November 24th, so here is

Tommy's Guide To Holding An Election Party

Step #1 - The Television

The first ingredient you need for an Election Party, keeping in mind I've never held or been to one (An election party I mean. I go to lots of parties. Mainly for children.), is a nice television. You can then choose from a few options.

The ABC has Kerry O'Brien, Antony Green and a set they've re-used since old episodes of The Sullivans, but give you the most comprehensive facts and figures without much BS.

Sky News is like ABC, except their sets are made from painted cardboard and their political reporter is twelve years old.

The grey hair isn't fooling anyone, Speers

Channel Nine is the old standby, with Ray Martin alongside a chick, and Laurie Oakes alongside a bucket of chicken.

And then there's the new entrant - Channel Seven, which has oh fuck it's kochie

have you read my god-damn fucking joke book

Let's move on.


Step #2 - The Food

This one is pretty simple. You want snacky food, and a light dinner. After all, elections go for a while. Once the Tasmania results are in, maybe bring out some Salsa, then move on to your meal-like snacks such as meat pies, chicken fingers and spring rolls.

If inviting a Liberal Party supporter, ensure a steady supply of babies for them to munch on during the proceedings.

An Asian baby isn't ideal, but will do in a bind

Step #3 - Alcohol

Doctors reccomend every hour of watching the ABC be supplemented by at least 8 standard size drinks.

Step #4 - Mid-Election Entertainment

I could and will watch election coverage all day, but not everyone is as pathetic awesome as me. So, you'll need something to do during the boring bits, like the vote tallies and shit. Prepare back-up entertainment, such as old tapes of Question Time, Mad Libs with the Australian Constitution or maybe Soggy Sao. One of them.

I know which one Alexander chooses



(the one where dudes cum onto a Sao)

Step #4 - The Results

Woops

Step #5 - The Results

This is where your party can fall apart. If the wrong side wins on the night, it could lead to anger and fisticuffs. Or even punching. So, ensure that lefties sit far enough away from righties so you can intervene, locking a Liberal Party supporter in a full nelson then swinging them so they kick the head of the Green Party supporter, then drop the Labor guy with a Stone Cold Stunner.

While they recuperate, remind them that they're all Australians and that whatever the result, she'll be right.

Oh, and be sure to lay down some plastic sheets on your carpet, just in case Kevin Rudd loses the election from here and Tommy blows his fucking brains out


Thank you for your time, and have a good party.

BACK SORRIEZ

No, the blog isn't dead. It's weird though. I become a productive, full-time tax-paying member of society, and then suddenly can't think of anything to blog about. I don't know if that says anything about people who have blogs.

Thanks for the comments encouraging me to return, too. I especially liked the one about how I beat off over the elderly. Without focusing too much on such filth, let's just say there's another reason they keep 91 year old women in storage cupboards at Royal North Shore.

(The first reason is because of the underfunding of hospitals. The second is because I rape elderly women.)

I think when the Election gets called I'll have more stuff to blog about. It's been a long time since some comedy gold came from that side, with strip clubs and John Howard falling over now but distant reminders of how blessed we were a few months ago. What do we have now? Cutting down trees in Tasmania, and according to the Daily Telegraph, Labor members giving free handies to the Bali Bombers on death row.

Not Penny Wong, though. She's a lesbian.

So, with politics more boring than usual, we turn to my other hobby - Jack Bauer. Kiefer Sutherland was arrested for driving under the influence (of awesome), and is being sentenced in December, threatening the production of Season 7 of 24: Tony Strikes Back. Now, there are two explanations for this:

1. Kiefer is planning on going undercover in an L.A prison in order to extract information from an informant.

2. The Los Angeles police department want me to kill myself, because I'll fuckin do it if Jack disappears halfway through Season 7 and they replace him with this guy:

Looks like the terrorist...... just got terrified.

*pause*

YEAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!

Actually... No. No Tommy. Caruso would be much worse.


Anyway, that's what you've all waited a few weeks for. Sorry. I might put a teaser for my next blog, to force me to write one. Here goes:


Next on Tommy's Blog: Tommy's Guide To Holding Your Own Election Party

Later on Tommy's Blog: How Come Nobody Is Coming To My Election Party

Even Later on Tommy's Blog: What Am I Going To Do With All These Chips :(

The Game Changes - SGS enters the Election

It may be the only thing that can stop Rudd-mania running wild across the country, the only thing that the Man Of Steel John Howard is truly scared of. No, not Latham. It's another man. With three first names, and a dog called Nattie.

Yes, Samuel Gordon Stewart is running for parliament, in the Canberra electorate of Fraser. In the time it took for him to announce his candidacy on John Kerr's radio show ('The Boring Old Fuck Variety Hour'), the prospect of a Samuel Gordon Stewart Prime Ministership has risen by over 3000% percent. 3000%. It's science.

So what does this mean for the people of Fraser, and the people of Australia? Let's take a glimpse into the near future, under the stewardship of Prime Minister Gordon Stewart.


Here he is at APEC. If you're wondering why George Bush is there even though his term ends in 2008, that's just because Saddam killed all the Mandelas.






Here's his first interview on Lateline...




And finally, his first sex scandal...




And his second...






You know, Prime Minister Stewart might not be all that bad. We can call him 'PMS', and it would save the taxpayer because he lives in Canberra anyway. I don't know about his policy of federally mandated handjobs for John Laws, but it's no WorkChoices.

And hey, he'd be better than Costello.

Things I Noticed At My Job

So, I've been at my new job for about three weeks now. Everything's going well, especially the XBox 360 I bought with my winnings. Ain't nothing like killing some zombies with a chainsaw in a shopping mall after work, and playing on the XBox is fun too.

Because this is my first real job (Subway doesn't count, nor does my brief sojourn in Monaco where I taught at the Sojourn School Of Pooncy Words), I've been noticing a lot of things about work life. Let's go through them one by one, because doing them all at once would make any punctuation I include pretty worthless.

7 THINGS I LEARNT AT WORK :)
The Work Edition

1. Work is absolutely nothing like The Office. When you try and mess with the guy named Dwight, he reports you to the boss. And if you hit on the secretary, he tells you to piss off.

2. You'd think not being at home would mean you ate less and better. Wrong. People in offices use any excuse to eat cake. See #3.

3. A lot of people in offices are fat. One lady at my work is so fat she only sits on her swivel chair with one of her arse cheeks. The other cheek hangs over the edge like a beanbag, and provides shelter for a small family of migrants.

4. Being paid monthly is awesome, because I don't have a mortgage to pay off and it's like receiving a small inheritence every four weeks (I also hate my extended family).

5. Channel Nine are fucking retarded.

6. People actually download the show How I Met Your Mother. And they watch it. Voluntarily. These people are dangerous.

7. Having a job removes most motivation to update your blog frequently. Instead, you create 7 point list blogs, and use the final joke to talk about how dodgy they are. Also, you find less time to update your 2nd blog, where you pretend to be dyslexic and upload really depressing pictures of people feeding livestock.

Even the animals are weird in China

take that, darwin

what the fuck

Bin Laden's New Video

So, Osama is back with a sequel.

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Osama bin Laden will release a new video in the coming days ahead of the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in what would be the first new images of the terror mastermind in nearly three years, al-Qaida's media arm announced Thursday.

I love 'Al Qaeda's Media Arm', just quietly. Call me crazy, but shouldn't they have been blown up by now?

Anyway, now I work in the industry, I have a bit of access that I never had before. I can't show you the video itself, that will be released in a few days by Al Qaeda's Internet Arm and Al Qaeda's Postal Delivery Arm, but here is a screengrab:

I'm not sayin' I'm a prophet....

But if the shoe fits:

Deadline Hollywood Daily:

Finishing the Top 10, Paramount's romantic fantasy Stardust hung in for a 3-day weekend of $3 mil and a predicted 4-day holiday of $3.9 mil from 1,766 runs; but its new cume starting four weeks in release is just $31.9 mil, thus cementing its status as a flop.

Tommy in July:

OMGZ STARDUST WILL BE FLOP K?

Now, all I need is for someone to write a book about me and in a millenium or so there'll be a religion named after me. It will be called Tomslam.

Sock It

Along with Father's Day, it's also my birthday today. I turned 23, which is kind of depressing. Sure, I got some sweet presents, like the Bargearse/Olden Days DVD and the 24 DVD BOARD GAME~!, but I also bought myself socks for my Dad to give me. Socks.

Socks.

I didn't even realise what I was doing. I needed some new socks and a new belt for work, so I bought them. Then I thought 'Hey, I can scam these as a birthday present so I don't have to pay for it'. I never even considered the connotation.

And, at that precise moment, my young life was over. I had voluntarily received socks as a present. In another timeline, 10-year old Tommy is slapping the shit out of 23-year old Tommy.

Life has a way of reinforcing its point, just in case you missed it the first time. So, even if I hadn't realised then that buying socks for my birthday was the beginning of a miserable, perpetual cycle of horrible presents, the universe was making sure I got it by the time I turned 23 for good. Because this morning, I unwrapped another present to find these:




Kill me.

Defenders Of The Earth! DEFENDERS!

I can't be the only one who read this on ABC News:

And thought it meant this:

He's a cool dude.

And now, after the first Billy Zane reference on TommyIsCoolDotCom, Tommy is proud to present this, the first in the range of Billy Zane Blog Reference trading card memorabillia. Collect all 293.

Looking Back #1 - The TommyIsCool Victims

I start my new job tomorrow, so blogs may become less frequent, or at least happen on different days. The blog isn't closing or anything crazy though - as long as John Howard is still Prime Minister, I feel a patriotic obligation to hate on him.

But I thought, as the blog enters a new, employed era, that I would take a stroll down memory lane. A bit of a Where Are They Now, just without Kochie and the dyke. In this installment, we take a look back at the TommyIsCool victims, the people who I've mercilessly crushed with my witty rejoinders and words like 'rejoinders'.




Our first gravestone in this stroll down memory lane? Our old favourite, Taco Girl. You might remember her for the '100 Things You Don't Know About Taco Girl' blog, where she told us that she loves sour cream, has an eating disorder, got knocked up by a convicted felon, hates her husband and is incapable of being happy. And Owen Wilson thinks he has it bad.

Almost two years later, and Taco Girl has changed a lot. She still has an eating disorder, hates her husband and got knocked up by a convicted felon, but now she hates her children too!




I don't feel guilty. It's obviously the child's fault for wanting to spend time with their friends and not their psychologically abusive step-father.

Up next, another target from two years ago - Razali Ali, the world's lamest emo. He's the one who came up with emo-tastic gems such as:

my toe is bleedin.stupid.hit it against the wall.my mom is goin out.so is my bro.n my father.everi1 is out.cept me.bgus.my sis just bought me a slippa.she called to ask wat colour i want.tanks.
sheesh.tis sucks.sumting is wrong all over again

It requires incredible skill to get emo over selecting the colour of slippers, but somehow he did it. Sadly, my comprehensive owning of Ali forced him to take his own life, as his blog comes up with an error.



Victim #3 is is an example of the rehabilitation services offered by TommyIsCoolDotCom. You might remember xJARENxMANATEExENDANGEREDxCOREx. He was the subject of the wildly successful Emos In The Wild series of blogs. When we first met Jaren, before he got the IsCool treatment, he looked like this:

jaren trying to cut himself with amplified sound waves

But, 18 months later, Jaren is completely cured of any emo-icity. He even set his MySpace to private, proving that he no longer feels the urge to share his poetry with a wide audience of like-minded souls in the rivers of despair. Check him out:

i'd hit it

See that? His mood is BOUNCY. He appears to be typing in his underwear, with no hair over his eyes, and is that a smile I see? Yes.


So what have we learnt? What good has my blog achieved? Let's add it up.

• 0% reduction in eating disorders amongst self-hating emotionally traumatised women
  
• 0.02% increase in Worldwide Emo Suicide
• 50% Emo rehabilitation rate

I am doing God's work.