Peter Combe's new song 'Free David Hicks'

Download the latest song from Peter Combe and you won't regret it.

The renowned South Australian children's crooner (He's the Michael Buble for kids if you didn't know) has turned away from relatively apolitical songs, such as 'Juicy Juicy Green-grass', and towards the area that will shake the world as we know it with 'Free David Hicks'.

What happened to the rule of law
The democracy we had before
Are we really thick as bricks
Free David Hicks!

A written response from Prime Minister John Howard was received by Upshake.com today, it reads: "I was moved by the new Peter Combe song and its catchy tune. I love it every day spaghetti bolognaise."

'Tis the Season to be Male

The other day I was strolling past my local Christadelphian Church, and I noticed quite a bizarre sign on their message board:


At first it didn’t make much sense to me. A Christmas without women? Why would a Church be promoting such a crazy idea? Sure, it would probably reduce the Christmas present expenses of men by a good 50%, but… to deny the female section of our population the enjoyment of Christmas? It just seems a bit uncaring and uncompassionate. And that’s against the spirit of Christmas.

Still, I was intrigued by the idea. So I decided to follow it up with a bit of Internet research. And what I discovered was even more bizarre. It turns out that my local Christadelphian Church isn’t necessarily against a female-inclusive Christmas day, as the sign would suggest. No, I’m afraid, my local Christadelphian Church is against Christmas as a whole.

This is because Christmas is never actually mentioned in the Bible. In fact, the Bible seems to specifically rule-out any form of Christ worship. To quote Mathew 15:9, “But in vain they do worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men”. According to the Christadelphians, Christmas was instead originally derived from a Roman harvest festival. This celebration only morphed into what we now know as ‘Christmas’ after the pagan harvesters converted to Christianity, and still wanted a reason to party in late December. So, instead of celebrating the moon and the sun like they used to, they decided to celebrate Christ’s birth.

The Christadelphians have a problem with this, because this harvest festival, as Wikipedia describes, used to be “a time of general relaxation, feasting, merry-making, drinking, gambling, and singing, and even public nudity”. In other words, Christmas was originally a pagan ritual, and therefore, it is actually against Christ’s teachings.

So, then, why label Christmas in such a cryptic message as “a tradition of men”? It’s because, supposedly, Christmas is not a tradition of God, or Christ. Instead, it is a tradition of those decrepit, sordid, despicable types that we all loath: men. Which means Christmas is no different to celebrating one’s own birthday. Or the Clipsal 500 race. Or going out to a strip club on Saturday night in honour of your winnings at the greyhound races. Like all the above, it’s a pagan thing.

So you should all watch out. Celebrating Christmas could result in your banishment to the gates of hell. As one website advises in an article, “Resisting the Christmas Spirit”:

God expects you - as a pioneer of His soon-coming perfect society - to stand against the current. But, as December 25th approaches, you must prepare now, and be ready to stand your ground without compromise - to properly go against the Christmas-keeping crowd, and to be a witness of God's truth to your peers.

Here’s another example, from “The True Origin of Christmas”:

The most common justification that one will hear regarding Christmas is that people have replaced old pagan customs and intents by asserting that they are now “focusing on Christ.” I have heard many say that they are “honoring Christ” in their Christmas-keeping. The problem is that God does not say this is acceptable to Him! Actually, He plainly commands against it! Keeping Christmas dishonors Christ! He considers everything about it to be an abomination!

I just thought all readers should be aware of these developments so that they can make informed decisions about avoiding hell in future. I know that some sections of Christianity, such as the Catholic Church or the Anglican Church, do recognise and celebrate Christmas… but really, who is to say that just because they represent 95% of believers, their views are necessarily correct? Maybe they are secretly sending you all down the festive, merry road to DEATH BY DAMNATION.

So be warned. The Christadelphians say no to Christmas. And maybe next year, you should too.

For more information, consult the Christadelphian Hall, Goodwood Road, Adelaide, Australia. Merry pagan harvest to you all!

PS - Seeing as Christmas is now a “tradition of men”, could someone please inform the following Murray Bridge chapel about this:


There’s no man in ‘minge’. What an embarrassment.

Personal Blog Entry #1

I finished a roll of floss today. That's 25 metres of flossy goodness, all gone. I am pretty sure I have never felt the sadness of the click at the end of the packet when it has no more white gold left to give. Packets have always run free (to frolic in the wilderness with odd socks and semi-used pens) from my bathroom drawer at some stage before all dignity was gone. How sad for my old Colgate friend. Clearly, the dark lord of fluoride (my dentist) succeeded to break my will with mind-altering drugs and forced me to destroy such an innocent victim. R.I.P. Flossy.

How's that for a personal blog Cam? Is that what you were looking for?

End PBE#1, begin real blog entry. This is mainly a maintenance entry. There has been some changes around the place, hopefully for the better. We now have 4 blogging supremos- Me, Cam, Niczilla and Sam. Some may already be aware of Sam via his aggressive comments on some topics. For better or for worse he is now the resident illustrator of UpShake.com. However, he's been pretty slack so far in meeting my requests, so we'll see how long he lasts.

The other thing that has changed recently is my Digg links. If you don't know about Digg, probably best to Wikipedia it up here. If you think that was a stupid question, I was talking to a guy last night who hadn't heard of YouTube. The amusing part of the conversation was that once I explained what it was he said, "Oh OK, I've been to xtube.com, now I realise where the name comes from". So much for Time Magazine's Person of the Year selection. Anyway, I use it (Digg, not xtube) to archive the 'interesting' Internet stuff I look at. It also keeps the blog ticking over when no one is posting.

Traditional Japanese Mushroom Games

I was cleaning up around the place recently and I found many long-lost treasures. The best of these was the packaging for the 'Mattake Geemu' I bought for Cam last time I was in Japan. Mattake actually is short for Matsutake (Japanese mushrooms), so don't go about thinking it is anything else. I'm sure it is just a traditional game played in Japan for centuries (the invention of plastics allowed for a cleanable, reusable version, and that's when the game really took off). I'm not quite sure of the facial expressions of the characters in the pictures- in particular the guy on the right. His look says a lot more than, "Oh I seem to have misplaced my mushroom, have you seen it?".

I'm not sure what happened to my favourite inflatable phallic mushroom- Cam, have you still got it? I guess there's only so many times you can play the games demonstrated on the pack before it gets either burst or stolen when you are making off with ladies from the playboy mansion.

For those of you in Oz with Foxtel, I noticed there is a marathon on December 30 of the quality game show Takeshi's Castle (or MXC). I recommend taping it and playing it the next night. I can think of no better accompaniment to New Year's celebrations than good, clean, pain. Interesting point of note: Beat Takeshi of Takeshi's Castle fame moved on post-TC to become an acclaimed director and actor. There's no doubt his experience with people hurting themselves came to assist him when directing samurai flick Zatoichi.

Thou shalt not eat prawns

Did you know that, according to the Bible, it's a sin to eat shellfish? It's true - consider the wise words of Leviticus:

Leviticus 11:12: Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you.

Even Deuteronomy agrees:

Deuteronomy 14:10: And whatsoever hath not fins and scales ye may not eat; it is unclean unto you.

So with Christmas coming up, i thought all readers should keep that in mind. No prawns, mussels, squids, eels, seals, or plankton may be eaten. To avoid hell, just stick with the lamb.

For more information on crazy Evangelical nutritional trends, look here.

Picture credits go to Lachy.

Ship 'em to Sweden

Ok, I’ll apologise in advance this time. I’m afraid I’m about to post yet another anti-Liberal rant. But, really, if I don’t spit out my vile hatred for conservative politicians periodically on this blog, then, in all honesty, there could be worse consequences for society. I mean, it’s quite possible that if my anger and tension built up long enough, you could witness the explosion of a later-day Incredible Hulk – complete with even more tight and revealing purple pants that you may be used to (yes, much tighter than those pictured). And be warned: this Incredible Hulk wouldn’t be embarrassingly girly like Eric Bana in that silly movie, The Incredible Hulk. No, he’d be downright mean and nasty like Eric Bana in that awesome movie, Chopper. So be scared. Be very scared.

Anyway…what’s got my Labor-voting blood boiling this time round, you may be interested to know? Well, it seems like the Immigration Department has deemed it necessary to deport a Swedish-born man back to Sweden.

“What’s the problem?”, I hear some readers quip, “Sweden’s nice. They have a lot of fish there. And hot springs. In fact, come to think of it, I’d like to go to Sweden. So this lucky chap gets a free trip to Sweden – what’s the big deal? Why does this centre-left arsehole always complain so much? I’m going to go listen to Alan Jones instead”. Well, you ill-informed and slightly degenerate bunch ‘mortgage belt’ wankers, the problem is that this particular gentlemen is 33-years-old, and has lived in Australia his entire life except for his first 4 weeks. He just happened to be unlucky enough to be born in Sweden while his mother returned there on holiday.

He can’t speak Swedish, barely knows his Swedish relatives, yet he is currently in a detention centre somewhere in Australia, awaiting deportation to his alleged ‘homeland’. The legal argument behind the deportation is that this man has spent much of his life in jail – he is a convicted criminal, and, under the government’s recent immigration reforms, any non-Australian citizen who has spent more than one year in prison is liable to be sent back to their own country.

But this is absolutely absurd. It isn’t Sweden’s fault this guy is violent and dangerous. Unless you start arguing that criminality comes from genetics, or even worse, from nationality…. then the responsibility for this bloke clearly rests upon Australia’s shoulders. He’s lived here for over 1721.856 weeks. He’s lived in Sweden for 4 weeks. How could this possibly be Sweden’s fault? Indeed, many far-left philosophers would even claim that the poor guy didn’t exhibit human consciousness for his entire time spent in Sweden. All he did there was eat, sleep, and poo bright yellow liquid for a few weeks. He didn’t even get the chance to sing his first Abba tune.

But our ever-caring and motherly Immigration Minister, Amanda Vanstone, remains unflinching in her desire to get this guy out of the country. She just said it was her job to remove such an “unlawful non-citizen" from the country.

A number of court challenges have failed, too. It seems the arguments of ‘farcical’ and ‘bloody stupid’ doesn’t work too well in Australian courtrooms. However, the judges of the federal court still saw it necessary to demonstrate how profoundly unimpressed they were with the laws. As The Age reports:

Justices Michael Moore and Roger Gyles described the use of character grounds to cancel Mr Nystrom's visa as "disturbing" and suggested the Immigration Minister review the law. They said while Mr Nystrom had behaved badly, he was no worse than many other Australians. "The difference is the barest of technicalities. It is the chance result of an accident of birth," their judgement said. "Apart from the dire punishment of the individual involved, it presumes that Australia can export its problems elsewhere."

This is just craziness. It’s kindergarten politics. It’s almost as bad as the views of this guy. I'm starting to get the impression that our xenophobic tendencies in Australia are reaching new extremes. (Indeed, i heard recently that Pauline Hanson will be returning to politics soon...)

Bah I’m getting angry, and my fingers are beginning to turn bright green with rage, so I’m going to head off before I go topple San Francisco or something.

Acoustic Juice and Other Problems with the Music Industry

Having finished my demanding bar and waiting (note: thought I'd include a link as a homage to LeBlogMac) course, I applied and instantly scored a job at the Adelaide Convention Centre. There seems to be some deal between the two organisations. I assume the bar and waiting fee of 750 odd dollars is a clear enough indication that you have no concept of the value of the Australian dollar and therefore are a valuable slave, gimp and employee (all these elements are required for the job). In all honesty the job pays reasonably well, but the shifts cut seriously into my drinking times, which is something that just won't do long term. Not to worry too much, my outstanding and obvious inadequacy will soon ensure that I have plenty of free time on my hands once one of the 'black coats' realises this.

Black coats. That reminds me. There's a bizarre segregation vibe that the place gives off too, with each type of employee wearing their specific uniform. Depressingly, it reminds me of 'A brave new world'. If memory serves, I think the name of my position is 'epsilon', which is a stupid, chimp-like, grunt work type. That's me; an epsilon. (If I was LeBlogMac I'd include an irrelevant link here. If I was Niczilla, something about my lefty righteousness, my liberal guilt, third world debt or getting f-ed in the A in guantanamo. But i'm not either. It's just gonna be a different sort of post.) ~LeBlogMac edit: irrelevant link~

anyway I digress......

Tonight we had one of Adelaide's largest functions (so they said) 'Santa's Workshop' (They made me wear a Santa cap. I still feel dirty). The annoying din of a female B-grade radio host wailed through the first hour or so of the function after which followed a couple of bands, the second of which was Acoustic Juice. Introduced as 'one of Australia's best corporate bands and Adelaide's very own: Acoustic Juice'. I winced in pain as I passed by my tables when they made this announcement. Middle aged, long balding hair, playing the very best hits of six months ago to two years ago, they were just about every fucking cliché of an aging rock band conceivable. Not that the crowd seemed to mind (it was open bar after all) with a hundred or so on shaking their stuff (badly) on the dance floor and posing for the cameras. I thought I was stuck in the radio with the dial stuck on SAFM. Bad cover after bad cover. Initially cheap and disposable pop tracks were only further bastardised by the band one three minute piece of shit after the next.

Ah, that's about all I can be bothered with. I have to go through all this again tomorrow. There's your damn post, Leblogmac. Fuck, I hate public opinion. You all make me sick.

8008135 - We're going Old School

So there were several comments after the last post complaining about the lack of toilet humour recently on UpShake. Therefore here is a delightful post containing more than enough smut to make your whole week. Don't read on if you are easily offended.

First, there was turtle rape. Then there was the teenage mutant ninja turtle rape remix. And how could you forget turtle rape 'full and uncut'. Now, see dog rape gone bad.

Here's what to do if you get a bee up your skirt.

Want some home surgery tips?

And finally, the craziest, most abusive old man in the world.

I hope that has temporarily quenched your thirst for some disgusting crap you didn't really want to see, but you broke it you bought it. Not quite quenched? This'll do it.

Also, I've moved up the DUGG section so it is more conveniently accessible. It usually gets new additions each day.

Quote of the Decade

The year was 1995. A year in which OJ Simpson was acquitted of a crime he "could have committed", the film Batman Forever was released, and eternally destroyed the best comic book franchise in the world, and, in Australian politics, John Howard saw fit to describe Paul Keating in these most ironic of statements:

John Howard: "It was a straight-out lie, lie, lie, by the prime minister [Paul Keating]. He [is] so used to getting away with telling lies, so protected is he with the paraphernalia of government, so drunk with power has he grown after 12 years in office, so believing has he become of his own infallibility and so authoritarian has he become that that is how he behaves."

It's good to see that our current PM has such a staunch background in demanding truth from government. It makes me sleep easier at night, that's for sure.

Book Review

Since we added another blogger to our clan at UpShake I have received many comments regarding the seriousness he adds. Therefore, I thought I should keep up with the new type of reader Niczilla is bringing to our site. How better to do that than with a book review!

I didn't choose the book, it pretty much chose me. The Philippines apparently has its own version of FHM. While Australia's own FHM is classy enough, when it is placed through a cultural filter there certainly is a lot lost in translation. Please enjoy some of my hand-picked highlights.

Nothing really to be said about MACHO MAN.
As for INSPIRED- considering its content, I'm quite confused as to how FHM inspired him to a Mech Eng career. Surely starting a topless restaurant chain is a more common inspiration for their readership...













This was in a section instructing men on how you "make sure you impress the ladies at men's clubs". It seems the solution was to walk into a club with a stethoscope around your neck, and feign a heart attack. Can't argue with the result.











Below are 2 of the "5 Lovemaking Occasions For The Season" they carefully chose. #5 is my favourite- one for the SNAGs. If you were interested (or looking for tips), the other 3 were: "Balikbayan sex", "She's stressed, your stressed", "On Vacation".