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I'm honestly not too worked up about that. There's hope of heaven, too.

Also, a guy at my internship just made a joke about how Australians are surprisingly radical.

Yes. Radical in their laziness.

Er. Well, no. It's an internship on CBRN terrorism. And we were having a meeting to discuss the cases we did the last week. And something like three other people had distinct, unrelated cases from Australia.

Honestly, the place is very quotable. Last week it was "ah, I love the Chechens." This week, too, somebody mentioned where the spy got poisoned with polonoium? And said, "oh, I really liked that one!"*

*She was serious. She thought it was interesting. It still made me laugh in sheer horror.

So you meant radical in our counter-terrorism?

It's definitely an interesting story. Remember that NCIS episode that was about that? That was a good one.

No. He meant that you have a lot of radicals. Three terrorist attacks from a country universally known for their easygoing, levelheaded dispositions? Hard to believe.

Nope. Did it involve a large man with an impressive knife and a snazzy hat?

Oh. Really? I haven't heard about any terrorist attacks in* or by Australians. A few stories of them being thwarted by out intelligence, but I think we've been pretty lucky thus far.

And, no, it didn't. It involved a russian guy who owned a bookshop, and I think a Korean lady.

* Unless you count Bali, that was pretty major.

Well, I don't know what the cases were, but the majority of what I've seen have been interdicted. There's more of those than successful ones.

Vaguely rings a bell, maybe, but what's it have to do... oooh! You were talking about poisoning with radioactive materials. I DO remember that. I was sitting here going, what? I don't remember any Aussie terrorists on NCIS.

I'd just say we've just got a fairly racist population. All our radicals generally come from other countries, who come here and try to make our country like the one they fled.

You should know that Australia doesn't exist in American TV.

Sure it does. Wasn't Survivor there one time? And, uh... yeah, that's about it. If it makes you feel any better, New Zealand doesn't really exist either.

(Also, I wrote a short story in which you Aussies got a an honorable mention! That's BETTER that TV! Some of your navy guys sold some beer to an Indonesian salior who sold it to my protagonist.)

Whst brand was it?

...I don't know, but I'm editing it right now, so do you know a brand of beer that might turn up on an Aussie navy ship?

Seriously, I'm always looking for stuff to make it look like I was paying attention and actually did the research. Right now the limit of my research was going, "do the Aussies allow alcohol on their warships? I dunno, maybe, I know the Brits do. Or used to?" If they don't, my ass-pull is going to be "okay, somebody snuck it aboard." Or "okay, they made a stopover in Australia and got it there."

Fortunately for you, my dad was in the Navy. He says it was 2 cans per man, per day, provided you weren't in trouble or on duty.

You should make the brand Carlton Draught.

Sweet. Thankses... isn't that the same name as your AFL team? Carlton?

You know the funny part? I include that in my story revision (it's for a class) I send it out to my classmates for comments, I swear to god one of them is going to scream that they wouldn't let sailors drink.

Hell, the first time I sent it around I had someone demanding to know why the Coast Guard was part of my extremely hypothetical Bay of Bengal International Neutrality Patrol, because clearly they were only allowed to operate in our waters.

That is a coincidence that it has the same name as my AFL team, yes. I picked it because it's a popular beverage which is brewed here, and I thought you might want to add some more realism to it.

I should also say that the beer drinking rules might not be the case now, but they were the case in 1980.

Wait, those last two paragraphs didn't make a lot of sense to me. Please rephrase.

Lies. You were just trying to push your team on everyone else.

I'll pretend they are, and no one will know the difference.

Creative writing workshops. Write story, send story to classmates, classmates read story, critique, discuss one day in class.