Category: Comedy

War Pigs…

War…What is it good for? According to Edwin Starr who originally sang the hit song… Absolutely nothing.

In war there is an assumption that there is good and there is evil, there is a right and a wrong, there is justice and injustice. That’s not always the case though, nations go to war for a variety of reasons. Each party is emphatic their justification for war is righteous, but that is not always how the pieces fall on the board. In some cases there is pure right and wrong. In most cases it’s because both parties can’t come to a mutually agreeable solution that is peaceful. As humans we often resort to violence when we don’t get our way. A show of force to get what we want. Is it brought on by ego, by arrogance or by our end to control the narrative which is often driven by the two former mentioned qualities.

Before your brains begin running off and wondering what we are talking about. No, we aren’t here to talk to you about the war in Ukraine and the horrible atrocities committed on both sides of the ledger. Instead we are going to update you on a war a lot closer to home. A war that’s being played out daily by everyday civilians right in front of us all. No it isn’t a piece about your government spying on you through the interconnected world we live in. Have we got your attention yet?, because it’s only going to get spicy from here. A little like that cough out of China. The team at A Mind of Its Own have inadvertantly stumbled into non-conventional warfare at the highest level. We are talking about rolling out the CBRN suits. That’s chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear for those playing along at home.

By now you are wondering what the hell we are talking about, so let us set the scene. There are over 14,000 battle spaces in Australia alone, not to mention every other country around the world. There would be hundreds of thousands if not millions around the globe. On average at least once a day a bomb is detonated on one of those battle spaces if not multiple. These aren’t your conventional weapons, these are biological. Weapons banned by the United Nations, weapons that have been banned since the close of the first world war and reinforced in 1972 and 1993 by the prohibiting their development, stockpiling and transfer.

We should also point out that we are not calling children in childcare pigs, or in this case war pigs. As we’ve previously pointed out, all our titles are songs and sometimes have absolutely nothing to do with what has been written. In this case the term ‘War Pigs’ was popularised by the Black Sabbath song that has become a popular heavy metal anti war song. War Pigs however are sometimes used as a proud boast of one’s behaviour or attitude. It could also be someone who supports warfare as a valid way of settling political, economic or even religious differences. So in this case we are sitting on the fence. Maybe they are war pigs based on who they take their orders from or maybe it has nothing to do with the content of this piece at all.

As it turns out the commanders of these battlespaces have forgotten the rules of war and those enforced by the international community. They have taken it upon themselves to spread biological pathogens through slow ticking time bombs. Those timebombs walk, talk, dribble and poop themselves without even knowing they are waging war on poor and innocent parents and families, not to mention the people that look after them on a daily basis. Yes ladies and gentlemen we are talking about daycare and parents who send their children along knowing they are unwell harbouring fugitive germs that will spread throughout the daycare centre and families whose children attend those biological warfare spaces.

Much like Wuhan, every daycare centre is one step away from a full blown biological outbreak. Don’t worry about covid it’s just a blip on the daycare radar of viruses that run through those living petri dishes. We spoke to one family whose son had spent 6 days out of 15 at daycare in his first three weeks. He’d picked up four contagious viruses (hand, foot and mouth, gastroenteritis, Bronchitis and Conjunctivitis) all within three weeks of being at the centre. From there he spread the pathogens through surface contact, airborne particles, bodily fluids and skin contact further infecting his parents, grandparents and anyone willing to pick up the cute little germ warfare vector. According to other parents who have had several children go through the daycare/germ warfare division of modern society, the first year of childcare is hell. They, the little germ carrying warriors, pick up everything and spread it to their greater community.

It’s not the child’s fault, they are sent into the battle space like little suicide bombers unaware they are doing their commanders bidding. Much like following a radical imman the little cherubs are just doing what they are told. The big question is why are children sent to childcare sick? As parents surely, people know when their child is unwell and the way the system is set up in Australia you pay whether they are there or not. But by sending them are parents just continuing the vicious circle of biological warfare that parents play when sending a sick child into a daycare centre. We get it some parents can’t afford to take time off work but isn’t that a little bit selfish when you are then infecting other children and their families forcing them to then take time off? We are sure it’s a question whispered in the hallways of childcare centres the world over.

So we’ve got the who, what, where, when, the how and part of the why but surely there is more to it than parents just waging biological warfare on each other due to the price of daycare and having to work to put food on the table. Mothers and fathers across the country have screamed about rising cost of living and loss of wages if they take a day off with their little one to ensure they don’t spread their germs to families and friends. We researched heavily but could not find a good reason other than one mother who was honest to the point saying her child was a nightmare to deal with when she was sick so she put her in daycare, wiped her hands and said not my problem.

So to surmise daycare centres are like level 4 biosafety research facilities working on only the most lethal pathogens known to man and most likely including man flu by the time it hits dads around the world. Some parents are selfish jerks who send their snotty nosed, spotty handed and gunky eyed children into the battle space to wage war against their fellow man all for the mighty dollar much like governments going to war for riches and resources really. But it’s not all bad soon to be mums and dads. They say it gets better after the first year once their little immune systems develop. We’ve given you a list of the biological warfare that could soon be making its way to your homes below once you start sending your child to daycare.

Like prepping for the end of the world or a pandemic you’ll soon have your at home biohazard facility setup to include multiples of everything, loads of tissues, towels, washing liquid, antibacterial this and antibacterial that, spill kits and possibly even a couple biohazards suits according to several parents who don’t deal with the sick, poo and other bodily fluids that tend to make there way out during times of sickness, infection and waiting for the next day they are put into daycare to spread their germs.

According to many websites there’s a raft of common viruses that travel around childcare centres. They are even known to have times of year when they pop up and infect those around them. In no particular order her are some of parents favourite viruses to spread around childcare centres:

  • Pinkeye
  • Common Colds
  • Influenza
  • RSV – Resulting in Pneumonia or Bronchitis
  • Gastroenteritis
  • Hand, Foot and Mouth
  • Conjunctivitis

As some childcare experts have pointed out and most centres have this rule, if your kid is presenting with symptoms keep them at home, take them to the doctor and once they are cleared you can then return. Because that one day off could potentially turn into several if you don’t. Peace Out people! Be kind, be courteous and most of all be polite to one another. From the team here at AMOIO, we’ll catch you on the flip side! Man it’s good to be back!

What it Feels Like to Be a Ghost…

We are back, we’ve finally crawled out of our hole we’ve been hiding in to write you something to write you something, this week you will get two blogs to ensure we are back on track to hit our target of one blog a week at a minimum for twenty nineteen. Whilst we won’t be disappointed if we don’t reach our goals it is still always good to have something to aim at. Goals are a good thing to have and here at A Mind of It’s Own we have plenty of goals and plenty of ambitions for the next couple of years to come.

After a week in hiatus and having to shut down the office in order for a hazmat team in to come in and decontaminate the place the team are slowly starting to bounce back. It’s been a week of antibiotics, steroids lots of tissues, snot, and absolutely not the glamour that we are used to. Gone are the designer suits, shoes, shirts and watches to be replaced by the daggiest clothes we could find. When the term “Netflix and Chill” was created we doubt they had the image of 30 something year old males coughing and spluttering on the couch while watching reruns of their favourite shows from yesteryear. Such has been the way of life for much of the team over the past week.

Having been struck down with a vicious case of the “Man Flu” and yes it is just as real as thigh chafe and bra rub two of the more common ailments our female friends tend to suffer. So this week’s blog is solely dedicated to the plight that thousands of males go through, that’s right we’ve dedicated this weeks blog to the Man Flu. It’s taken us over a week to recover and we are still working through the remainder of what is the worst Man flu to hit the crew since the Black Plague ripped through Europe from 1346 to 1353 and killed millions upon millions. It’s time to wake up people Man flu is a real thing. Yes all those wifes, girlfriends, lovers are groaning and palming their faces, shaking their heads and mouthing “whatever” before looking at every sick man with disgust.

Firstly for our readers who don’t know what it is the ‘Man Flu’ according to both the Oxford and Cambridge dictionaries, that’s right ladies and gentleman it is now in the dictionary and defined as ‘a cold or similar minor ailment as experienced by a man who is regarded as exaggerating the severity of the symptoms’. Another reference taken from Urban dictionary called it ‘Wimpy man syndrome’. Commonly used the term could be describing a constitutional character flaw of men who when felled by cold or flu embellish the severity of their symptoms. That however is about to change, no longer will man need to feel bad for being afflicted with the Man Flu.

Over the centuries women have pointed at, made fun of and even spoken down to the sick man. They’ve said men become sooks or as pointed out ‘Wimpey’, painful and don’t know how to deal with pain or how to handle a little common cold or the flu. Well ladies and gentleman stress no longer because the good people at Memorial University of Newfoundland, that’s in Canada ladies and gentleman. Our good friends over in the land of maple syrup, hockey and Michael Buble have done men the world over proud by actually going out and proving once and for all that men were right for once in their lives .

In what is thought to be the first study of its it’s kind headed up by Doctor Kyle Sue a clinical assistant professor, a team analysed relevant research and found evidence that adult men have a higher risk of hospitalisation and higher rates of influenza associated deaths compared to their female counterparts regardless of underlying diseases.Furthermore the good doctor also found that men, yes ladies men are more susceptible to complications and higher mortality from many acute respiratory diseases, while some evidence supported that those with a dick and balls suffer more from viral respiratory illnesses than women because sadly we men have less robust immune systems.

That little hormone that makes us different from our female biped friends, you know the one, some old men get it as part of replacement therapy as they start to run out of it later in life. Testosterone that thing that athletes and big burly men often spray across the floor of stadiums and sporting fields in order to impress women, get women and often scare off women, could be the one thing that is causing the Man Flu. Testosterone the thing that makes us men, the one hormone we have more of than anything is else the one thing that could be ensuring we are forever to suffer from the dreaded Man Flu.

Thought to suppress the immune system, testosterone could lead to men’s inability to combat things like the common cold and the flu unlike our female counterparts whose sex hormone is believed to boost their immune system. So looking at the research we are sure doctor Sue has helped plant a flag for men around the world and helped to wake people up to the plight that is the Man Flu. It also helps to explain why men are more susceptible to secondary infections and viruses.

For years we have been banging on that we are misunderstood and the man flu was real, now we can finally say that someone has actually done some research, that potentially will forever change the perception of Man Flu. Like all things that people don’t understand our good friend Man Flu will rise up from the ashes and totally shine a light on the fact that it is indeed a real ailment, it is indeed not a myth, not a false claim but is indeed a real life thing that men all around the world have been suffering for centuries. So from all the men around the world thank you to Doctor Kyle Sue and his team for painting some light on our plight.

No longer do we need to be spoken down to in our moments of need, our moments requiring support and most importantly a little compassion and love. Man Flu is real, it is now, it exists and most importantly it defines why we cop a bad rap when we are sick. So without further adieu we bid our loyal fans goodbye for yet another episode and start preparing for next week as well as finishing off the previous weeks blog. With a tonne of writing to get to we’ll leave you with this, if someone is sick or unwell just treat them the way you’d want to be treated it’s the best thing you can do and it’s also pays to be nice. That being said we’ll leave you to it for the week. Long live Man Flu!

A Decade Under the Influence…

Of all the asinine things in the world we’d have to say we’ve hit the mother load this week as we head into another chapter of A Mind of Its Own. Just when we thought the world couldn’t surprise us anymore, just when we thought we were slowly starting to get on some stable footing and just when we thought there’d be some good news to come across our desks. The world flips us on our head and pushes us into a deep, dark pit of despair once again. Why you ask? Because for people who are meant to be at the top of the food chain we do some very stupid things. Things that often leave us scratching our heads and asking whiskey, tango, foxtrot (WTF)? And if you don’t know what that means we aren’t going to spell it out for you this is a safe environment that tries not to offend readers with profanities.

Human Beings for all our brilliance often do some very dumb things, recently an article came across the desks of one of the writers who often provides this fine blog with ideas, inspiration and from time to time a piece of writing or two. The article whilst on first glance was quite mundane and something that normally wouldn’t interest the team here at A Mind of Its Own. But after a second glance and a few giggles, like we were back in primary school hearing the words penis and vagina for the first time. Reading it again and again we began to see the stupidity that comes when people see something that could potentially be used as something else or will give them an ability to get more likes on social media.

So we’ve all walked past one of those Lush cosmetics stores, you know the ones you can smell them from one end of the shopping centre and you’re standing down the other end on the lower level. Yeah you know the one we are talking about now. Well it seems they’ve brought a new bath bomb range just in time for valentines day, what that’s not a surprise you say given they are known for their fruity chemical cocktails that get lobbed into your bathtub turning the water every colour under the sun as they foam up the water from their fizz. Well our dear friends this isn’t just any bath bomb range this is the bomb range to end all bomb ranges in your bath. The range includes an emoji peach, a banana and the one phallic symbol that every dirty text message since emojis were invented has included and been banned by instagram. Yes folks you’ve heard it here they’ve come out with the big eggplant emoji in a bath bomb. That big purple monster can add some fizz along with a little hilarity to your valentines day bath.

What’s the big issue you ask? It’s a little fun and something that might spice up your romantic overpriced, commercialed day. Well the issue ladies and gentleman is that some of our female species and potentially male have decided that since it looks like the big eggplant they’ve been sent in many a text message from people feeling in the mood, they’d try to use them as a sex toy. Instead of that fizz dissolving in your bath it’s now fizzing away in vaginas and anuses all around the world. Again we can hear people saying what’s the issue with that? If people want to use the Eggplant emoji bath bomb as a dildo why can’t they? Firstly just don’t and secondly well just don’t there are several medical reasons as to why you’re not supposed to put bath bombs up your vajutes or butt.

If we hadn’t found several articles on it we wouldn’t have believed it ourselves, by doing exactly this you are compromising the good bacteria inside your vagina, direct quote from a doctor, someone who actually took the time to go to university for 6 plus years and learn all about the body. This particular doctor though specialises in Obstetrics and gynecology so we trust her judgement on the matter. Oh and she’s a woman so she has one, a vagina that is. To put it bluntly you are killing all the good bacteria that helps your vagina self regulate, yeah we learnt that as well this week, the vagina is an amazing organ that cleans itself. They don’t teach you that in sex education, instead they introduce you to the banana yet another phallic symbol that has often been where it shouldn’t have as well. Causing a slight itch or at worst a severe urinary tract infection.

The fact that bath bombs include the following ingredients some of which are chemicals we might add is a clear indication as to why you shouldn’t put them where they don’t belong. Citric Acid, Bergamot Oil, Ho Wood Oil, Litsea Cubeba Oil, Tonka Absolute, Fresh Aubergine, Cream of Tartar, Water, Titanium Dioxide, Sodium Coco Sulfate, Propylene Glycol, Synthetic Fluorphlogopite, Tin Oxide, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Alpha-Isomethyl Ionone, Benzyl Alcohol, Butylphenyl Methylpropional, Citral, Coumarin, Hydroxycitronellal, Limonene, Linalool, Perfume and Colours a shit load of colours each with a different 5 to 6 digit number.

If that’s not enough to turn anyone off from trying to make love to one of these eggplant emoji shaped bath bombs we don’t know what is. The fact that putting any of the above in your vagina screams please give me a serious urinary tract infection if i put this where it shouldn’t go, should be enough to stop people but alas it doesn’t. Despite all the warning labels and warnings from specialist doctors people are still trying to use them as sex toys which takes us back to our above statement about humans being stupid. Maybe some of it’s inherited, maybe some of it’s the internet and social media and maybe just maybe its something do with our laziness as people. Always looking for the quickest and easiest way from point A to B.

Ladies and Gentleman if you feel that you need to make love to an emoji that looks like an eggplant we have done our research for you. Guess what? You are in luck! There is a company that makes an actual sex toy shaped and coloured like the emoji symbol so many people are using as a dick in text messages these days. It’s made of latex and apparently is safe for you to stick where the sun doesn’t shine till your little hearts are content. So instead of sticking that bath bomb up there and compromising your bodies internal ecosystem spend the money and get one that you don’t have to worry about the effects on your foo foo or butt hole.

Is it just the team here at a mind of its own or is social media not only allowing people to do dumb things but driving them to do them as well? With the main driver behind Instagram being to get likes, influence others and grow your network. The trend of “Doin it for the Gram” has seen a spate of idiotic post make their way onto instagram and other social media platforms. We can only imagine the posts making their way onto instagram the days and weeks following the release of lush’s new bath bomb emoji line. #Soreanditchyvagine not put these in your peach etc. There you go folks coined a new hashtag right here. If it’s not people shoving things into orifices they don’t belong, then it’s something else completely idiotic.

Scrolling through Reddit we came across a feed for something called the Tide Pod Challenge you’ll have to forgive us if this is old news but like the ice bucket challenge or the somebody Kardashian lip challenge we were and always will be late to the party. So this tide pod challenge what on earth could it be. Living close to the ocean our money was on something stupid involving the ocean and getting dunked. Lucky we didn’t have a bet down or that money would be going straight to the house. They say the house always wins, in this case it would have won without a challenge. The Tide Pod Challenge like the ice bucket challenge made its way onto social media when a teenager ate one of those prepackaged laundry pods that wash your clothes or dishes and dared his mate to take up the mantle of the challenge.

Again are people getting dumb? That shit can kill you! Depending on the ingredients you might be lucky to just get away with explosive diarrhea but more than likely if it doesn’t kill you it will give you caustic burns to your cheeks, esophagus and stomach. So while you’ve got explosive diarrhea there is a good chance you will also be bleeding from your bum, coughing up blood and not in a good way at all. Good one humanity we are really showing our finest selves on the internet these days. And we thought people experimenting with there sex toy like bath bombs was bad enough, nope some idiots on the internet had to go and one up them and eat washing powder. Seriously what is wrong with people these days? If anyone knows the answer we’d love to hear it. It’s bad enough we can’t seem to find a decent leader to look after our country and our closest ally is ruled by a freaking umpa lumpa who wants to build a wall and a space army.

It seems even the smart people are being struck by dumb although the more research we do here regarding Mr Musk the more we begin to question whether he actually does have any smarts or he’s just got some very smart people working for him who have some genius level ideas that once down on paper make him a fortune. Example in point is that he managed to sell 20,000 flamethrower guns to the public. Our American friends are already crazy enough without there own flamethrowing guns. Toted as the extreme BBQ lighter it wasn’t long before internet erupted with people doing stupid things with there newly named ‘not a flamethrower’ due to some law around calling it an actual flamethrower.

Wait, wait, wait you can’t call it a flamethrower but you can sell it to the public? The majority of who will no doubt do something completely idiotic with it? Who’s the silly person here Elon Musk for thinking this is a good idea? Or the authorities for allowing his drilling company BORING to sell the damn things to the public in the first place? Either way the man with the mouth that never seems to stop and who thinks he’s smarter than everyone in the world made $10 Million selling flamethrower guns and internet got a new bunch of idiots doing stupid things with guns that throw flames. High five said no one with half a brain anywhere!. We’d love to say all these incidents are isolated to the continental united states but unfortunately they aren’t. Australia is seeing its fair share of idiotic things as people are regularly warned and advised by professionals not to do things and yet we keep doing them.

Then there are the people who just don’t have brains, like the countless people who get into bar fights after getting so plastered they don’t remember what day of the week it is or how they got to the bar in the first place. They then end up with an injury that requires a couple of stitches or a bone being reset. Managing to get themselves into a cab, they show some signs of brain function. Right up until the point they dial 000 on there way to hospital and ask for an ambulance. Yeah you might be drunk but surely you are not that stupid, folks it’s time to wake up and stop taking the silly pills. We are top of the food chain for a reason, we have brains and imaginations on top of that we have opposable thumbs and are able to think for ourselves, fend for ourselves and most importantly be ourselves. Unless yourself is a complete moron, then be someone else please for the love of humanity.

So ladies and gentlemen, if something doesn’t look like it should be placed in one of your orifices don’t do it that includes bath bombs and pods. If you have the opportunity to buy a flamethrower just don’t. Unless you are planning on joining a militia, joining Trump’s spaceforce or like most people who bought one just don’t have a brain. One thing writing this post did, was teach us that despite all the warning labels, public announcements and common sense people are always going to do what they want and as they say rules are their to be broken right? Seems if it can hurt, is bad for you or can ultimately kill you someone, somewhere will do it and with social media these days, there is a good chance that someone is filming it for the world.

Until next week stay safe and heed the following public service announcement. Dumb people will continue to do dumb things over and over again continuing to get the same results. Smarter people will do it once or twice before realising that they are being dumb and Smart people just won’t do it at all. Don’t use your bath bombs as sex toys no matter how appealing it might be. Don’t eat your dishwasher tablets because curiosity got the better of you and last but not least leave flamethrowers to the military those guys are trained professionals. Be good to your folks and we’ll be seeing you next week for a brand new episode of A Mind of Its Own…

Everything Must Go…

The one thing traveling certainly creates is the opportunity to meet new and interesting people from all walks of life. People that you may not interact with on a daily basis. People who you normally wouldn’t consider your type of people. People who challenge you to step outside of your comfort zone and try something a little different. The other thing travel does is create an opportunity to collect stories and ideas as you go. Everyone has a story to tell and if you give them enough time they will tell your their story/stories over a coffee or alcoholic beverage. Well at least that’s what the team tends to do when they begin tell stories of their endeavours to complete strangers in attempts to pass the time.

Having travelled a lot over the last couple of months, the team at A Mind of Its Own has had the opportunity to sit and listen to a lot people share their stories, experiences and knowledge. Whether it be in direct conversation or through the ancient are of active listening and people watching. Yes we know it is a little creepy but you should really try it some time. Sitting there, over hearing people talk in cafes, bars, restaurants or the airport lounge. Like we did you will hear thousands of stories that range from the believable to the downright insane but there is always someone there sharing with friends or family. By sharing our stories we ensure they are passed on from generation to generation or captured for time eternal when someone takes the time to write them down.

For centuries human beings have shared stories whether it by to pass on history or for entertainment purposes. Humans have always been fascinated and intrigued by the storyteller, from the days of cavemen sitting around a fire grunting their history to children to modern-day parents taking their children to the local library for storytime. Before books, magazines, movies and social media we told each other stories ranging on true to flights of fantasy. From the day we are born till they day we move on from this world we continue to listen to and tell stories whether it be by recounting a memory or moment in time or creating something fictional from the creative recesses of our minds.

Mystery, Horror, Science Fiction, Thrillers, Action and Adventure, Western, Romance and Drama are all categories born from the imaginative minds of storytellers, from everyday people who found an idea and expanded upon it creating and building each scene, each character in their mind like a picture while they recount their story to those who were willing to listen. Even as you recount a memory to family or friends you can’t help but see it moment by moment in your mind, clear as the day it actually happened. As technology advanced and humans developed we were able to take down accounts of those stories. Firstly on stone, then papyrus, finally paper and now digitally to forever live in the cloud (Some guys computer and server in India or the Philippines).

Your favourite writers, artists are great storytellers who have earned a living out of using their wonderful ability to charm and create a story in the minds of their readers, listeners, viewers or even on a blank canvas. Yes each painting, drawing, sketch, doodle tells a specific story in the mind of its creator, yet the person looking at it may see a completely different story in their head. It is their ability to draw in an audience that allows them to craft their art and become masters in their chosen field. Even the guy at your local bar, you know the one we are talking about. The one with his favourite stool that no one else sits in (Well no one who’s a regular anyway), no matter what day it is he’s there sipping on his mid strength sharing a yarn or two with anyone who is willing to listen.

By the time you’ve had your third beer you are enthralled by the man’s life and the things he has seen. The pictures floating through your mind are reminiscent of a motion picture, you give faces to the people, colour to the picture and create life all within the recesses of your own mind. Like a wizard casting a spell, the storyteller has you once again has you entranced and under his spell. Instead of worrying about the outside world for the first time in a long time you find yourself present in the moment. Sharing a drink, a laugh and a story with someone you might not necessarily take the time to stop and talk to on an ordinary day. But you’ve sat there enough and overheard enough of his stories that it’s piqued your interest.

Sitting around the office we began to banter around some of the more out their stories of people we had heard or had recounted to us over the past couple of weeks. There were stories of tragedy, stories of pain, stories of growth and great triumph, stories that made us laugh till a little bit of wee came out and then there were the stories that just had us scratching our heads and asking if that had really just happened. After bantering about the stories we began to storyboard them in what would later be known as the Travel Diary of Deviant Men and Women. We wondered if taking the names and places out could we share some of them with our faithful followers. After a quick google search around proprietary information and copyright laws it became quite clear that as long as we didn’t claim them as our own we were good to go and able to share them with you we just had to ensure that we included a disclaimer..

The following is a collection of storytellers we’ve gathered from around this beautiful country during our travels over the last couple of months. We have tried to recreate events, locales and conversations from our memories of them, In order to maintain their anonymity in some instances we have changed the names of individuals and places. We may have changed some identifying characteristics and details such as physical properties, occupations and places of residences. Google told us we should include a disclaimer so that no one sued our backsides. We are in love with Google here at A Mind of Its Own, it’s like an all-knowing prophet that provides us with much-needed free legal advice. Could google be the fabled Cyberdyne Systems of the Terminator franchise? Oh and that isn’t us saying if you have legal issues just google everything. If you are in trouble go and see someone who went to university studied law, passed the BAR or whatever we call it in Australia and is practicing law as a paid professional

Trying to choose our stories and their storytellers is like you trying to pick your favourite children, yes you all say you don’t have a favourite but deep down we all know you do!. We ummed and ahhed amongst the team as to who should be included and which stories. There was also the element of what was safe and what wasn’t safe for publication after all we are a family friendly blog who never posts anything that is Not Safe For Work (NSFW). At the end of the day it came down to the coin toss, stories and their tellers pitted against one another in the ultimate decision-making process. Heads versus tails, two on a Wednesday outside of the Anzac period is frowned upon but look we aren’t gambling with any money, just people’s ability to tell share their stories on our esteemed platform.

Some of the stories we’ve heard over the years have been better than others like the guy who’s sister arrested him for public urination off a bridge in the wee hours of the morning (pun intended). Or our first story-teller the ‘sausage king of Canberra’ as we came to calling him, had us in stitches with his self-proclaimed status of King, but his realm is not one that most people would want to rule over particularly in this day and age given the #metoo movement and push for greater equality and rights for women. Just all round treating woman better, well not just women, treating everyone in general better.

So SKOC for short is one gentleman that certainly had us somewhat baffled and enthralled at the same time by his stories. He works with some pretty high up and influential people in the country who would be pretty shocked to hear that his hobby and so-called Kingdom was collecting pornography. Not only did he collect it but then he also categorised it and saved it. The kid had over 3 terabytes of porn and growing, safe to say he was also a virgin who doesn’t have a girlfriend. But nevertheless he had us mesmerised by the stories he told, in such detail that we knew then they weren’t a lie. But to be safe we often fact checked his stories just to be on the safe side.

The second cab to pull away from the curb contains our next story and it’s teller. Riding in the backseat while pecking away at some document to ensure is employer doesn’t get screwed in some major deal. Joey, Joseph or the law as he is better known to his friends and family has become someone we trust, admire and perhaps even look up to a little. A self-proclaimed trendetarian he’s always working on some diet he’s read up on the internet and happy to share it with any and everyone including his wife and kids. Most of his stories though if he’s not recounting something legendary his kids have done come from time before all that.

A time when we was young and wild and free thanks Snoop you are still a great rapper even if you now have to collaborate to make a decent song. Back to the law, he’s a bit of a storyteller in general but once he’s had a couple of the finest low carb beers available there is no stopping. There are stories from his misspent childhood through to his university days and even some of the nights out we’ve had out with him over the last couple of years when things have become a little hazy. As some of his mates may remind him frequently when they get together and he gets on a low carb beer induced roll ‘we’ve heard this one before’.

Being a father it’s no wonder he’s a good storyteller and we can’t wait till the day he can sit back with his son’s or daughters, we can’t remember how many he has or what sex they are (Ok we know how many, their sex, ages and names, we are trying to protect his anonymity), and recount his youth with them over a nice cold tinnie or two, no doubt it will be low carb but we’ll never get him on full fat frothies. Regardless of his poor choice in beer we’ve had a good yarn or too and shared some stories with him over time and hope to share many, many more.

Our third and final storyteller is the greatest of them all, a man who had seen it all, done it all and was made out of solid stone. Tough as nails and yet compassionate and caring at the same time. He was a man that books should be written about, a man that in our eyes was a hero, a legend and an all round great man. Yes before we go on, we acknowledge that we have haven’t been very equal in our choosing of storytellers and for that we apologise. We have nothing against women or women who tell a good yarn, in this case they just lost out to luck. That simple toss of the coin excluded them from making the cut.

A husband, father, brother, grandfather and son, he was the best of men always there with an anecdotal reference, a story or to lend a hand. He was a many that told many a story both fact and fiction, from the times they’d finish work and ride their horses down to into, and yes you didn’t read that wrong, into the bar to the times he played football for Fitzroy. He would sit with you listen and then tell you a story that would put everything back into perspective.He was always ready with an example of the good old days, of a time simpler before technology began taking over our lives and the lives of those around us.

An accomplished horseman watching him work with stock whether it be sheep, cattle or other horses was reminiscent of watching the man from snowy river. He could hunt, fish and camp with little to no supplies. A true man of the land, a true cowboy a man with many tales to tell, a man who died with many of those stories still in him. Someone that the team here will always hold dear to them he was a true storyteller and someone who lived a long full life that allowed him to gather his own stories and those of others around him to pass on. An inspiration that helped start this blog he was always someone who told you to follow your dreams no matter how many times you stumble and fall. If you keep getting up you will eventually get what you want. They can take everything from you but they can never take the fight. Not a truer word could be said. Not a truer more genuine storyteller will ever be found.

So as we close our blog on the storytellers, on the men and women who have inspired, encouraged, educated and often distracted from the day-to-day worries of life we take our hats off to the Kings, Cusslers, Rowlings, Lees just to name a few and other storytellers of the world who have inspired us and future generations of storytellers, artists, poets and musicians to continue telling stories whether they be fact or fiction the power of a story is stronger than we realise. The power of a story can often be the thread holding society together, a dream a mere idea that can give power to bigger things. From that one little spark of an idea grows into something to be shared throughout time, from generation to generation.

So from the team here at A Mind of Its Own, if you find something that inspires you to create, to inspire, to share, to dream! Do it, if it makes you happy, if it makes you stop and think and want to inspire others then we encourage you to do whatever it is that makes you want to share your story and stories through your passion whether it be a hobby or your job. As we bid you another farewell until next week, stay safe and be good to your parents, they’ll share the most stories with you throughout your lives.

When the Night Falls Quiet…

With the Christmas season in full swing we decided to head out to the coal mine and dig up some presents for all you naughty boys and girls! Welcome to the silly season! The time of the year where you let your hair down, enjoy a drink or two and from time to time make an absolute arse of yourself at the company Christmas party only to regret your actions the next day as your hangover kicks in, your re-flux system goes into overdrive and you start your full day of hugging the porcelain throne feeling sorry for yourself as you rid yourself of the previous evenings poison.

The seasoned veterans here at A Mind of Its Own have taken it upon themselves to put together a public service announcement outlining what not to do over the silly season no matter how good an idea it seems at the time. Call it our civic duty to our adoring fans or call it a much-needed look at the realities of christmas parties around the world. Whatever you do this silly season follow this advice and do not do what the clowns in these examples have previously done. It did not end well for any of the sampling of people we have used as examples.

Office Christmas parties, a time of year where you can celebrate and blow off some much-needed steam with your colleagues after what is often a hectic run up to the Christmas period. That does not excuse any of the following behaviour and nine times out of ten will land you in hot water with human resources or worse case in front of the boss receiving your marching orders effective immediately without that much need reference and let’s be honest christmas and the new year is not the time you want to be looking for a new job. Last thing you want to be doing is explaining to your wife, partner, housemates and or parents how and why you got fired. Merry Christmas to you here’s a Centrelink form happy dole bludging.

First things first, there is acceptable behavior, questionable behaviour and then there is the just don’t do at Christmas Parties. Whether the party be for your work or with family or friends. If you have to ask yourself if its ok then like the Christians ask themselves ‘What would Jesus Do?(WWJD)’ ask yourself ‘What would sober me do? (WWSMD)’. We’ve all seen the effect Alcohol can have on people. When we finally get to see some of our colleagues on the sauce whilst it might be absolutely hilarious at the time watching them make a fool of themselves just remember that could be you or once upon a time was you till you wised up and worked out work not to shit where you eat.

So this festive season take our advice and the advice of those that have gone before us. Please don’t do any of the following no matter how good it seems at the time! Remember WWSMD!

1.Drunkzilla…FREE Drinks! You beauty! Now before you go off blazing into the sun and making sure you get your fill of freebies remember to pace yourself. Generally the Christmas party goes for a couple of hours and then if you are cool enough you head out to a nightspot with those still up for a party. With a long night ahead it is important to ensure you are there at the end of it with your mates. Don’t be the bar fly that downs drink after drink in an effort to recoup all those hours of overtime you never got paid for or the salary increase you are well and truly overdue. Only to be stumbling into a taxi two hours after the party began. Enter Dave, Dave is a hard-working enthusiastic guy who does a lot of things for people around the office whether he has time or not without pushing back. When he can Dave likes to let his hair down and throw back a schooner or two with his colleagues. Come Christmas time Dave is often feeling a little unappreciated and disgruntled. Reluctantly he attends the Christmas party lured by the free beer on offer. Within the first hour Dave has had downed six beers and is well on his way to drunk-town population Dave. By the end of the Christmas party Dave has no idea who he is, where he is or what he is doing, his legs don’t work and drinks keep finding the floor… Don’t be a Dave!

2. The Hula Hypothesis… So some genius in marketing or HR decides you should have a themed Christmas party, because nothing says merry Christmas like watching your colleagues get dressed up in some theme that makes them feel good for a day. You’re thinking to yourself great a Christmas party with people I barely tolerate in some god awful theme! Can I just poke myself in the eyes now? Some of the classic themes are the ugly sweater as long as it doesn’t have reindeer mating its appropriate, Mexican as long as you don’t go full Mexican it’s appropriate, Australian and the often popular Hawaiian theme. Ladies and Gentleman when we say be theme appropriate ask yourself if your outfit is something you really want you colleagues to remember you in for years to come and would you wear it if you weren’t at work?. Enter Trent.. Trent is well-respected around the office but is known for having an opinion, voicing said opinion and pushing the boundaries where and when he can. Trent’s company like many others decided to have a Hawaiian themed Christmas party. Trent being Trent decided that if the women could get away with Grass skirts, leggings, boob toobs/crop tops and coconut bras then Trent could get away with a grass skirt and a G-String. Ok it’s sticking with the theme, points there for Trent, however, while Trent thinks he has a good body and in the eyes of some people he might. The issue here is that Trent was not really wearing any clothes and it wasn’t appropriate for the office christmas party. There were a few complaints to HR… Don’t be a Trent!

3. Bruce Banner and Gamma Rays… It is a well known fact that alcohol which is a drug by the way people, lowers a person’s inhibitions. Often we will see a side of someone we’ve never seen before. Once they’ve had a couple of the amber ales or brown burners. As a depressant it can make people a little more sensitive than usual and in some cases that sensitivity can lead to the Hulk making an appearance where he does not belong. No one likes an Angry drunk. Hulk or She Hulk drunk should stay at home or around friends who know how to handle him or her. Whatever you do stay away from the Rum! Nothing good ever came from it unless you were conceived after a big night on the Rumbos down the local tavern, but you might want to tell your folks they are being a little too open with you if you know that. Enter Bruce… Bruce is usually the happy-go-lucky guy around the office. After a few drinks though Bruce can become quite sensitive and take things to heart, he’s also not a fan of condescending people around the office who think they are better than everyone. At the Christmas party Bruce didn’t take to kindly to the way the CTO was speaking to him and those around him. Within seconds Bruce transformed into the Hulk and rather than using his fists to rearrange the CTO’s face Bruce threw water in his face which caused the CTO to fire up and almost lead to a fight. Bruce is now banned from attending the Christmas party this year. Don’t be a Bruce…

3. The Closet Creep… We’ve all seen it when we’ve been out at a pub or club, there is always that one sleazy predator that’s sniffing around the ladies looking seedy as all hell. When that guy comes to the christmas party however and starts hitting on Marcia from Accounting who’s just gone through a divorce or Sarah from Marketing who’s had a recent string of bad luck with the men. That’s when he should be asking WWSMD? Enter Matt from IT, normally a shy, introverted character who barely says boo to anyone in the office except for “Have you check to see if it’s plugged in and turn it on and off, Did that work?”. Midway through the first of many lip looseners Matt spots Wendy from the corner of his eye. He’s had his eye on Wendy for some time now but hasn’t had the guts to ask her out on a date. Always the nice guy, Matt would normally just say hello and scurry off back to his desk before she could get out a response. But not tonight! With some Dutch courage now coursing through his veins, he’s feeling invincible and like he can talk to anyone. He’s come out of his Shy closet and morphed into that touchy feely creeper that women look at shake their heads in disgust. After Wendy rebukes his advances he moves on to Claudette in Sales and so on the circle goes until Matt gets too drunk to stay out and is put in a cab and sent home. Come Monday morning he’s in HRs office feeling more than a little ashamed and looking down the barrel of the Sexual Harassment policy for inappropriately touching someones bum. Don’t be a Matt…

4. Opinionation Station…While you might have been waiting all year to get a chance to talk to the CEO, the christmas party is not the place to discuss those little tidbits with the head of the company no matter how many drinks they’ve had and how much courage you have to finally voice your opinion. Enter Sarah… Sarah is an up and comer with the company, she’s a head down, bum up make it happen kind of girl, her boss loves her and she inline for a promotion. She’s found the champagne and as the bubbles go to her head she spies the CEO milling with the rest of the executive leadership team. I a wolf separating a week calf from the herd she’s sliced her way in between all the bigwigs. Normally not one to voice her opinion unless it’s behind closed doors with trusted colleagues Sarah has decided now is her time to speak. Launching into a diatribe about her vision for where the company should be going and urging the CEO to grow a pair and take a risk every now and then. Rather than worrying about his own bonus as he does every year. People try to pull her away but she is not done yet spewing the truth from her mouth like diarrhea. Everything that anyone has wasn’t to say to the CEO has found a voice. Literally every bad thing someone has said is voiced in the form of Sarah, she’s tanking her career in what she feels is only benefiting her advancement. She’s talking to the head honcho and telling them what they need to hear. No Sarah the reason things are said behind closed doors are because the CEO doesn’t want to hear them and if they do the person voicing them tends not to be around for long after doing so. Don’t be a Sarah…

The team had literally a handful if not more examples of that person not to be at your Christmas party this year! After much deliberation and chuckling around what should and shouldn’t go in this weeks post we chose the above five examples of people who not to be this year. What we can say is have fun but as always ask yourself WWSMD in this situation. If sober you is just as much of pest as drunk you than as the saying goes… You do, you! Just remember when the night falls quiet there is going to be a lot of noise the next day around your behaviour. Keeping in mind, with every action there is a reaction. From the team at A Mind of Its Own, have fun and most of all be safe this silly season. Always have a plan B or designated driver. Until next time keep it real…

Motorcycle Driveby…

Are there such things as curses? Can they relate to just one area of your life? How do you get rid of them? We are about to take you on a deep dive into the world of curses and how to rid yourself of the voodoo that plagues your life. With A Mind of Its Own the head honcho is once again travelling with the job that keeps the lights on here where, we were left to laugh at his unfortunate string of bad luck when it comes to flying across this sun kissed land. In the space of the last month he has been travelling 3 out of 4 weeks and each of those weeks has met with its own challenges when it comes to the wonderful world of corporate travel. Whilst some of this stories have entertained you in previous post it did make us ask the question of when it comes to travel is the man cursed?

What even is curse and how would one become cursed? Does it start with someone placing it on you in some weird lights off, candles on with a hood over your head while chanting something indecipherable into a mirror or does it start from you doing something bad and you just become cursed as a punishment for your misdeed? Or is it something that’s passed down from generation to generation until it’s broken by completing some heroic quest in which you have to go through heralding trials testing your every fibre of your being? Whatever the answer is we’ve decided that there are those that are just naturally lucky and those who are somewhat unlucky bordering on cursed or just downright cursed altogether.

Back in the day, way before Charlie was in the trees and this would have been chiselled out on a stone tablet or written in squid ink on parchment people were cursed by the local witch doctor, sorcerer or dark magic/black magic mage. In times of battle they would often curse whole armies who would perish in strange weird events that were unexplainable yet now could be put down to biological warfare. But how do you explain events that continue to happen to people that everyone would put down to bad luck? Is it the universe trying to tell you something or is just bad luck and should be taken as things happen. Is it a test of one’s patience? There are a lot of questions that as we attempt to answer them just continue to raise more and more questions.

Like a gambler at a blackjack table blaming his turn in luck on the changing of dealers or an athlete wearing the same piece of clothing or a soldier carrying a talisman to ward off evil spirits we donned our protective wear and headed to the streets to ask your day to day average joe there thoughts on curses and how to get and how to get rid of them. Safe to say there was some strange yet entertaining answers that allowed us to build and develop out a hypothesis all of our own while allowing the wonderful people of the Nation’s capital and then the plastic fantastics on the Gold Coast.

Much to the amusement of the team we collated responses and began our scientific approach to answering the questions raised earlier. In order to do this we smashed a few mirrors, walked under ladders, opened umbrellas inside and there was a thing with a black cat (No animals were harmed in the making of this blog!) anything that was supposedly going to bring us the curse of bad luck for all eternity we tried. So if all of a sudden half the team disappear can someone in the writing community please continue the blog in our honor?

As the days ticked by we documented anything out of the ordinary that happened that may have seemed like bad luck this included giving away our pay to the a long lost uncle we’d never heard of and the Nigerian prince that contacted us via email needing help desperately to flee persecution. After a long week of trying to nail down whether anyone in the team had managed to be obtain, catch and or get a curse through any means possible it was decided that while this was all become increasingly time wasting activity that if we had picked up a curse it may not manifest itself in the ways we were thinking.

Changing tacks we thought we could ask someone if we were cursed. Siri said she had no idea what we were talking about, Google gave us a list of psychics in our area and Alexa just wanted to recommend we upgrade our kindle and home entertainment systems. With Google throwing out the best online we decided that maybe we should ask one of Australia’s many, many psychics who were more than happy to take our money and stare into their crystal ball only to give us vague answers to our questions. We’d almost get the same response from a magic 8 ball brought from the local toy shop.

Another dead end, another rabbit hole, so we tried tarot cards. Apparently the dogs are having Puppies and there is going to be some big changes in the future. The first one is highly unlikely without balls unless the vet did a bad job on both the boys and one of them is secretly a little girl puppy. The second one we could of told you without having to shuffle a deck of oversized picture cards. With a decision made it was off to the local witch doctor as one final roll of the dice to find out if we were truly cursed and if we were how we could rid ourselves.

Piling into the Tarago family van and cruising down the M1 towards Australia’s A listers holiday spot of choice we turned off way before Byron Bay inland towards Australia’s home of the best brownies and cookies, no not those brownies or cookies we made our way towards Mullumbimby where Rita a retired veterinarian from the Ukraine resides. Rita who asked not to be identified by her real name for personal reasons she later shared after a few too many vodkas. A master of the dark arts she took a sample of our saliva, some hair and a drop of blood before going into a dark back room and clanging around for a very long time before returning with a tree root and telling us to naw on it and demanding payment for wasting her time.

As it turns out we aren’t cursed and the boss certainly does have bad luck that can be attributed to one thing and one thing only. Climate change ok there are two things resource management and management of personal at Australia’s airlines. So two things, climate change and Trump will tell you it doesn’t exist and Airlines. They are the sole reasons he’s had a bad run of late. Dust storms, storms, high winds and the use of technology have all had a part to play in ensuring he is delayed, stuck or being put on other modes of of transportation like John Candy in Planes, trains and automobiles.

Ok so we didn’t dive as deep as some people may have liked but if we did that you’d be bored after the first paragraph and wanting to go and read another blog about travel, fashion, fitness or parenting and we just can’t have that! We need our loyal fans and supporters to continue reading what is no doubt twisted take on topics your typical teenager wouldn’t touch with a 10 foot pole unless it has something marketable in it they can spruik to their adoring fans. None of that here we don’t have any sponsors to bore you with.

People are either lucky or unlucky and people around the world have superstitions whether they are curses or something else often there are things that just need to go into the unexplained basket and left there till someone finally solves the problem takes out the laundry and puts it on spin cycle before regurgitating to the public in a model they are comfortable with. So from the team we wish you all a happy week and an even better weekend. Until next time chase those rainbows you might find your pot of gold at the end or at least a cranky little Irishman…

Bottom of the Ocean…

What starts with W, Win, walk, wife, wall, wish there are literally thousands of words that start with W in the English language. Wanker yep that’s one of them but not the word we were searching for and yes there are a lot of them in the world. We are sure you’ve called people one before but no the W we are searching for is the W Hotel. That’s right ladies and gentleman this weeks A Mind of Its is Own is coming to you live well not so live as you are reading this but at least we can say it was written from the 28th floor of the W Hotel in Brisbane. What a place! The team minus the paw patrol who have brought you so many good reads decided that it was time to live the high life.

Ok it was the bosses wedding anniversary and he decided to stop being a tight arse and pull his wallet out to treat the wife and the rest of the schmucks in the office as long as they wrote something on tour. So we sit here tapping out a piece sipping on beer he made us buy from the bottle shop instead of paying for drinks from the minibar. So he may have pulled his wallet out but he didn’t pull it out all the way and sort out the juice that lubricates the amazing minds that bring you a piece writing that is often boarding on Pulitzer Prize winning or at least a Nobel laureate. Well at least in the minds of the people who write them for you, our loyal, amazing fans.

What this week you’re wondering to yourself? Well have we got a piece for you! Sitting with our founder, editor and chief writer and big cheese we started brainstorming ideas for A Mind of Its Own and where it could go next. Podcasts have been on the books for a while now with the team and as we head into the festive season we’ve decided it’s about time we put last years Christmas presents to use and got to work on the first installment of a podcast that will no doubt have you rolling around the floor laughing as we tackle some of the hardest topics around the world.

Forget the experts because well let’s be frank no one listens to them anymore anyways so we decided to get the average joe off the street to give us the real deal. There are a million bloggers out there who have no certifications, degree and or knowledge and yet we listen to them on Facebook, instagram, twitter, MySpace. Ok maybe not MySpace but all the other current social media platforms that men and women give us advice, guidance and their views for free without having to go to university.We thought why not jump on the bandwagon and utilise these self-proclaimed experts on our latest platform for you the people.

Our only problem now is what topic do we start with, well for that went to leading topic expert for online talks. That’s it folks we sought some advice from the one, the only Ted. Famous for his talks we must admit when we first heard about them we were hoping it was the lovable bear character created by Seth MacFarlane. The same man responsible for American Dad and Family Guy the animated tv series that like South Park pushes the boundaries. You can immediately see our disappointment when the team found out that Ted Talks were about important topics, that intellectuals actually want to hear about.

It wasn’t long before our disappointment faded and the entrepreneurial side got the better of us as the ideals began to form. Yep like the Chinese we saw an opportunity to rip off someone who had made something from nothing and earn ourselves some street cred with those pesky students who only listen to professors or skinny bikini models drinking green juice on instagram. Then there’s the YouTube crowd who also need taming before they run wild with there crazy ideas on the internet, spreading them across the world.The team decided it was our social responsibility to ensure that you get the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Come January 1 be prepared to have your ears assaulted. In a good way, it’ll be nothing like listening to death metal in a padded cell before being waterboarded. Safe to say there will be no torture techniques thanks to our friends in the CIA who we hope never read any of our posts as we’ve shared a lot of classified information over the year. Area 51 is real, the Illuminati run the world, the Rockafeller’s blocked a lot of renewable energy, there already is a cure for cancer sitting on a shelf somewhere at one of the major pharmaceutical companies. By no means are we conspiracy theorists but there is certainly a lot of shade being thrown by some of these organisations.

With literally thousands of topics to cover including 3D printing, how many 3D printing experts are there in the world? Apparently enough that nine different experts have made ted talks on it and its applications in the ever-changing world we live in. Other topics ranged from Technology including science fiction applications in the real world through to war and the application of the Higgs boson theory in battlefield planning. The last one wasn’t a real topic however we’ve just submitted it to Ted to see if he’ll bite at the idea. We could certainly see someone like Patrick Stewart or Neil deGrasse Tyson talking their way through the applications of theoretical physics on the battlefield.

Grab a voice like Morgan Freeman, so god like and soothing and it would be the most peaceful talk about potential killing application you have ever heard. Come to mention it James Earl Jones would be another great voice to listen to voice any Ted talk topic. Instead of those great voices our listeners will get Trent from Punchbowl or Mick the Kiwi from the Goldie who’s been in Australia for over 10 years and still sounds like he’s only just hopped the ditch and landed at Coolangatta for a new life amongst the plastic people or the southern Queensland.

No matter what the topic you can be assured of one thing when you listen to our yet to be titled talks powered by A Mind of its Own… What you ask? What will you be assured of? That you are getting the topics that matter most to you our readers and soon to be listeners. Like our blogs if you ask we will deliver and we’ll make sure that it’s fun and enjoyable whilst being always informative. You might laugh, you might cry, you might even switch it off and ask yourself why? But it will be the continued quality that you have come to expect from the team. We’ll still hit you up with a written piece every week but you can expect your ears to be bashed every second week by a plethora of different topics.

Until then continue to enjoy our writing and as always if there is something you want the team to tackle hit us up in the comments section and we’ll give you a shout out as we write our take on your topic. Until next time, be nice to your parents and opinions are like arseholes… Everyone has one… Unless you are one of thousands of people born each year without one.

Beauty in the Bricks…

As the heavens open up and bathe the earth once again we thought it was about time we hit you with a dose of the best distraction pill available on the market. That’s right the doctor has spoken and prescribed you with a dose of A Mind of its Own to aile your woes. It’s been a couple of weeks since we last graced your screens with our rather unique brand of blogging, straight from some of the strangest minds in all of Australasia. Our off kilter approach to the worlds issues has the health authorities wondering whether they should have us all thrown in the loony bin.

For the first time in a while the team here stopped and took a look at the world around them. The ins and outs of what was happening in the world and the human beings ability to continue to adapt and overcome. There are plenty of unanswered questions about the world, particularly those about our purpose and how we came to be at the top of the evolutionary food chain. But all those can wait for another time and another place. If you wanted to read about that you’d have logged on to National Geographic or the Discovery channel website.

What do the people want to actually read about? You know it’s funny as human beings one would think we wanted to hear about nice things happening in the world but as the marketers say there are only two things that sell news papers. Sex and things that no one wants to hear about like murder, robbery and anything of the ill elk. Well sex isn’t really our forte and we promise you’ll never get a 50 shades of grey from us.The things no one wants to hear about, well they are rather depressing. Hence why the team here tend to have no idea what’s happening in the world. The news is never on and the papers are rarely bought and if they are it’s only to help start the fire at the manor.

So what does this weeks blog have install for the faithful A Mind of its Own followers, good damn question. With so much happening around the world and so much happening around us there should be a million and one things for the talented team here to write about but it seems like a case of writer’s block has infected the whole team. Without a dose of antiblocktics lying around we’ve had to tough it out and pull together something that will hopefully make sense and allow you to enjoy yet again another blog from our stellar team.

We’ve had some great feedback over the past couple of months from our followers ranging from great content to it’s an enjoyable read while i’m on the toilet. The last one was a little strange and disturbing but at least we now know that we are making toilet breaks around the world a little easier on the minds of those reading along while they void their bowels of their last meals waste. Sounds pretty shit it if you ask us, pun intended! So besides being a toilet break filler for those that need one, we tend to try and be educational, funny and a little on the crazy side when we can.

Speaking of the crazy side, the team has been playing a lot of Red Dead Redemption 2 as of late on the Xbox. An escape from reality as some of the wives continue to point out but never the less a distraction from the troubles in the world around us. The Rockstar games western themed second installment of the Red Dead series got us thinking about when times were a lot simpler. Simpler, yet harder in some aspects. Riding around America in the early 1800’s on a trusty steed with a pistol strapped to your thigh, the wind running past your face as you gallop through plains and meadows chasing your next dollar by robbing a stagecoach or train that’s if you wish to be an outlaw. You could be part of a posse chasing down those outlaws and bringing them to justice. Each to their own we say.

Oh how the world has changed since the days of the wild west, no longer is it socially acceptable to-day drink, well it is as long as you are at a function and it’s in a licensed venue or in the comfort of your own home. Office settings are not an acceptable place to drink or start a brawl when someone offends you and you need to defend your honor. You can no longer sit in the main straight swigging from a whiskey bottle, saying howdy and tipping your hat to every man, woman and child that walks past unless it’s concealed in a brown paper bag even then it tends draws a lot of attention.

A lot has changed since the days of outlaw gangs and cowboys. People no longer ride horses in gangs and have swapped the graceful beasts for the metal version on two wheels. They still tend to draw the outlaw tag and often are stereotyped into being part of a gang whether they ride for recreation or they truly are outlaws who run drugs, guns, prostitution and rob people or places in order to make a living. When we referenced that it was an easier time we were referring to the fact that towns or cities were small and miles in between, you could disappear for weeks on end and live off the land if you had to. Taxes were something you generally avoided and wearing chaps as a male was acceptable in all places aside from a strip club.

There were many other things the team came across that we noticed were different from back then till now. Hygiene wasn’t really high on the priority list with bathing happening every so often in some cases they took better care of their trusty mounts then they did themselves. You could camp where and when you pleased without the need of a permit and payment for use of the ground. Hunting just happened and tended to be your source of food while living off the land and there was no such thing as a balanced meal.

In fact everything that is now considered bad for you was considered to be good for from smoking through to sucking out the poison from someones snake bite and drinking heavily while operating firearms from a horse. Ok so maybe we’ve painted a picture that all cowboys were drunks that’s not the case but they did tend to drink quite heavily. Saloon brawls were a common occurrence and duels were an actual thing. Yeah fastest draw wins literally, their life and their honor back. Pace it out ten steps and fastest to draw their weapon and fire, it was as simple as that and it was done for money and for pride on a regular occurence with most of the town watching on..

We don’t think you could challenge the new graduate who mouths off around the water cooler to a duel, gun him down and walk away a hero these days. Firstly murder is not ok, secondly the workplace is not the place for firearms unless you work at a gun shop and thirdly today we are told to use our words. One thing that has changed overtime is chivalry, it is no longer deemed chivalrous to pay for everything and be a gentleman. People are just as likely to go on dates these days and the lady pays. Call us old-fashioned but some traditions shouldn’t change and good manners cost you nothing.

A lot of things may have changed for the better however there are a few things that make us turn around these days and think toughen the beep up. Where as in the old days you would be pushed in the mud and taught that it was not ok to not be tough. Hence the place we are in today where it is not ok for men to show weakness, compassion and anything that would not be deemed manly, it definitely was not ok to talk about your feelings as a man in the wild west. You would be labelled a yellow belly or a coward. But at least kids weren’t soft and got trophies for participating even if they finish last. As Ricky Bobby said “If you ain’t first, you’re last”.

So what have learnt from playing a game that is a lot like a my little pony simulator for men, teaching you to tend and care for your mighty steed? Other than being drunk in the 1800’s was a mandatory requirement each day. Being an outlaw was somewhat cool despite having to hurt and often murder people just so you could earn a living. After all you were your own boss, grifting from town to town, gang to gang. Stealing was a common occurrence and if you were good at it you tended to have your own gang. The law often appointed themselves and were just as corrupt as they still are today. The tobacco industry was in its infancy of becoming a world power, the church was its usual god fearing, preaching self and railway tycoons were the one true power throughout the land.

Much like today if you had money you had power, if you had power it often went to your head and you only wanted more of both. Whilst being a cowboy looks somewhat cool it would have been a hard life both mentally and physically. For now we are just happy that we were born in this century and have the luxuries that allow us to live quite comfortable lives. Oh and the fact that when we run out of ideas as to what to write about we can turn to an alternative source of inspiration. Virtual reality or augmented reality, well in this case video games that got us thinking about how life has changed and how we have a little more respect for ourselves and each other. We said a little…

One slow and we say slow because it’s still dragging its heels through the mud like a lame mare, change that has definitely changed is the way women were treated. We aren’t saying its in a good place now but it is certainly a lot better than back then. Like a caveman belting a prospective wife over the head with his club and dragging a woman into his cave. The wild west was not short of its share of violence against women. So the team are glad that has changed and there are no more damsels in distress requiring a cowboy to come along and defend their honor. These days there are a lot of women who would kick your arse at the mere suggestion. You go girls! As some of the younger generation are pointing out they can do anything including the things you thought only men can.

From the often confused and wonderful minds here it’s time for us to say farewell for another week, tip our hats, spit out our tobacco, slap our horses on the rump and ride blissfully into the sunset. We hope besides learning that day drinking was a thing and cowboys now ride motorcycles the message from this weeks post is that violence of any sort if not ok, especially against women. Until next week partners we hope you enjoyed another foray into A Mind of Its Own. Stay tuned for a double dose this week as we come at you with another post about god knows what but it is sure to keep you distracted somehow.

Home in your Head…

In a surprise move that shocked the blogosphere the team at a Mind of Its Own took a second week off to relax, unwind and reboot the system. From the Chief right down to the mailman who happens to be one of two lazy office dogs who are more concerned with bringing in gifts of the dead bird variety than actually doing the jobs they were employed for in the office otherwise known as the madhouse.

There is something to be said for reboot the system every now and then. Getting away from the daily grind and just shutting down. Clearing your mind and recharging the batteries that push us through the weeks, months and years in our nine to five world of jobs that on average 67% of people are unhappy doing. So why stay doing something that most of the time isn’t satisfying or enjoyable? Money?, Stability?, Laziness?, Fear?, whatever people’s reasoning for not doing something about improving their happiness, as long as they don’t look back and regret it than all book in our book.

We pondered a topic for this week’s instalment, do we write about world events? Do we become like the thousands of travel and body image bloggers already flooding the internet with their health tips, travel stories and often unwarranted advice on how you too can get a Kardashian bum by never skipping glute day. Whilst we often take the Mickey out them we do so in jest as we respect the efforts and hard work they go through each week including the mental strain of wondering whether their audience will appreciate their writing. But that doesn’t help us come up with a topic.

So rather than settle on one topic we thought why not just follow our namesake and let this week’s instalment truly take a mind of its own. That being said we thought we’d start with the fallout from Australia’s favourite reality love show, yep the Bachelor, finally someone has done the right thing by them and picked no one! Did he waste the public’s time and the time of those girls? Ah who cares its reality TV remember! Looking for love in all the wrong places should be the title of the TV series. Good on the honey badger for having a set on him to do right by him plus it made of entertaining TV.

On a side note are we all that bored of our own lives that we become outraged by a reality TV show where someone goes against the grain? Come on people we are better than that. It’s not real and no doubt there was a lot of scripting going on behind the scenes on what he could and could not say in the finale. It’s like telling people who survivor Australia is filmed on some tropical island and not in the lush rainforest behind our office in Northern New South Wales or Queensland. Come on Australia wake up and smell the roses pretty please.

Speaking of waking up, do yourselves a favour and don’t read the news first thing in the morning unless you are happy to see the idiotic acts of a race that is meant to be highly intelligent. At this point we are waiting for the dolphins to walk from the water and flipper slap us for being so stupid. In what must be a slow news day we had everything from Channing Tatum’s new girlfriend some little know Uk Pop Star by the name of Jessie J to our fluro clad tradies duking it out over a road rage incident. Heck even old mate Mel Gibson got slot for losing 14 kilograms. At least he wasn’t throwing phones at people, that’s a plus.

Surely there are some worthwhile things happening around the world that deserve someone to report on. And why is it that you rarely hear of nice things in the news. A professor once said after bollocking his students about being naive to the world that no one wants to read fluffy nice pieces. Disaster, chaos and the dark side of life will sell more papers and nice piece about humanitarian efforts in some far off land. But does that mean that these nice pieces should be pushed to the bottom of the page and give less acknowledgement than a politicians affair or love child? Hmm makes you wonder doesn’t it?

In a world where everything is open to comment and interpretation by any and everyone with smart device it makes us wonder whether people prefer to worry about what’s going on around them, rather than having to deal with their own issues and problems in their lives. We’d be remiss to say that at times throughout all our lives we haven’t dug out problem not of our own so that we didn’t have to deal with things going on in our lives. The only problem with that is the more you sweep under the rug the bigger the pile gets before it starts spilling out from under said rug.

Once your rubbish reaches out and begins to touch you that dirty feeling that creeps in where you should have done something earlier to sort it out. Taps you on the shoulder as if to say ‘Told you so’. Then comes the feeling of regret and shame for being too weak to do something about it. Do we really want to be those people?

It’s no wonder people create and build safe places in their minds, a place where no one and nothing can harm them. A home in their own head if you will, somewhere to retreat when they need a break from the world around them. We’ve read several articles on kidnap victims, child abuse, domestic abuse where the victims had created their own safe place in their minds where there tormentors can’t reach them. In some cases it’s the only thing that has kept them alive. In other cases it has been the world in which they have given their lives to escape to.

The mind is an incredible place and the saying it’s all mind over matter is often true in some cases where people have mentally focused all their energy into achieving something that they were told was beyond their reach. The mind can do some amazing things when aligned with the heart and soul of an individual. It is in our opinion the most beautiful part of someone. It can be creative, destructive, nurturing, caring and loving or it can be the complete opposite but it is still the most amazing part of anyone you will meet.

As the sun dips over the horizon on yet another episode of A Mind of Its Own, we are reminded we are all human and in the words of The Beautiful Girls ‘We’ve all got to learn ourselves before we can judge someone else’. So until next week, work on you and ensure you have some fun! You only live once so make the most of it! Be safe and don’t do anything we wouldn’t do! Peace be the journey…

Somewhere in Neverland…

It’s that time of year again, that season of seasons, the part of the year where some, not all Australians decide they are going to follow in the traditions and celebrations of our brothers and sisters across the sea. It’s about this time you are all thinking to yourself what in the hell are these guys on about? Have they lost the plot once again? We know it’s the name of the blog but do all of the guys and girls that write for them really have to follow the premise of the publications name? Well that’s a negative but it tends to work in our favour.

So what do pumpkins, sheets and lollies all have in common? Individually nothing but put them all together on one night of the year and you end up with kids running around on sugar highs, mutilated pumpkins and mums good sheets now having holes in them along with the edges taking on a dirty blown hue from being dragged through the streets. Welcome to Halloween. The second best day of the year for all our alternative friends after comicon or Supernova. Another excuse for Man, woman and child to dress up as their favourite character or something scary.

An event that can be a fun family activity or the stuff nightmares are made from if you believe all the horror flicks that have been made. After all it is Halloween and who knows what could be lurking in dark, around the corner or down the drain. Spooky is often the theme of the night and if you believe some of the things on the internet it all started as a pagan ritual and we all know those crazy kooks were into some weird stuff to say the least. But alas the show must go on and we better pump out a blog for you fine people to read or waste some time out of your day pondering whether we are mad or just slightly insane here.

Besides an excuse to dress up and knock on random strangers doors to ask for a treat, cause let’s be honest no one does magic anymore and anyone carry around a deck of cards in their pocket either has a serious gambling problem, is a shark or your local blackjack dealer. What is the premise behind Halloween? A quick search on the world’s largest search engine and 1 Million plus results later, a few clicks and we over at the most reputable website on the net to learn all about why Halloween is celebrated, how it started and why it’s loved by people all around the world now.

Ok what we’ve learnt so far is that the Irish are to blame for Halloween, the Americans also get blame for commercialising it and Christians can cop some flack for trying to turn it into a religious holiday. Halloween is an annual holiday celebrated each year on October 31. It originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off ghosts. The evening before was known as All Hallows Eve, and later Halloween. Jus so we are all on the same page here’s a definition of what Samhain means. Samhain is a Gaelic festival marking the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter or the “darker half” of the year. Traditionally, it is celebrated from 31 October to 1 November, as the Celtic day began and ended at sunset.

Now that we know we can use Halloween to ward off ghost does that mean we don’t need to dress up? Of course not all the Cosplay kids would be extremely disappointed if they didn’t get one more opportunity to wear their cleverly created costumes one more time for the year. Halloween allows the young and old to be someone else for the night, to forget about all their worries and disappear under the mask of someone else. Unless you are the dirty old man from down the road and dress up as a giant penis with a pirate hat and start calling yourself the captain.

A further flurry on the keyboard and google was soon directing the team towards the most popular costumes for Halloween 2018, which sadly did not include Donald Trump but did include a few surprises from cows through to avocado on toast along with a list of pop culture costumes some slutty anything and more Britney Spears than anyone should ever see. Adding Australia to that search and we finally hit pay dirt! It looks like our political incorrectness and love for being larrikins leads to what some might say is politically incorrect costumes. Finally Donald Trump got a nod holding his wall high with pride, going as a schooner seems to be popular, any costume with an added appendage that can be flashed, lamps that need to be rubbed and hold the phone a middle eastern person riding a camel.

And people wonder why we get called a racist country. Not only did we invade a land, degrade and destroy a culture whilst keeping them oppressed for far to long but we also take the piss out of every other country. At least they can keep a leader in place for longer than six months before deciding to squabble in their own party because Jim was left out of a decision and now wants his turn at the big boy table.

Meanwhile we are busy preparing to ensure we create some shock and awe through the streets or at the local Halloween party on the 31st. As many Australians don their costume of choice on the night and saunter off to get liquored up at a part or walk the streets with their kids as they munch down their trick or treat spoils. Some may do it a little more traditionally with a bonfire, some candles and a few prays to ward off the evil spirits. All we know is that you can have fun and dress up like a dick for the night in some cases literally.

No doubt we’ll see the cosplayers at their best, the mums and dads with their last-minute efforts and lots of people getting annoyed that their doors are being knocked on by complete strangers for no other reason than to solely get something for free. A little like hawkers that come to your door trying to sell you something. Stock up on the lollies and chocolates folks because Santa Clause could be coming to a town near you. Not sure it’s the best costume but Halloween allows you to be who you want to be.

To the Captain we salute you! Whoever you might be just remember to keep it clean and enjoy Halloween folks, the team here at A Mind of Its Own have decided to go as Vegan T-Rex’s this year in an effort to stay as far away from any politically insensitive topics that may arise from poor costume choices. So from the team we wish you a spooky evening and don’t forget to brush your teeth after all those lollies and chocolate. Mmmmm Chocolate!!! So until next time it’s a solid see you soon and remember if it isn’t fun it isn’t worth doing…