I was listening to myself talk the other night at work, to one of the co-workers. She had out this magazine and she was looking through it and gossiping, asking my opinion on this and that and I gave it, generally agreeing with her or grasping out vague ideas I thought wouldn't be too offensive or different.
Then she got to the crossword and started asking me questions from it, not filling them out or anything, just asking questions. Not really sure what prompted that. Since it was a trash mag the questions were all pop culture, and I came right to life, disagreeing with her when I knew I was right, actually talking about some of the questions. She didn't believe me there was a movie called 'The Purple Rose of Cairo'. Probably wouldn't have believed me it was actually a decent Woody Allen movie, either.
Then I got a phonecall and the conversation ended, as they do in callcentres. Got me thinking, wondering why I can't sound like that all the time, like I'm there in the conversation and taking part, that I'm a human with opinions and interests and not just a guy who talks about his cat like he's Ralph Wiggum or something.
But fuck it, I like the way I am, all the other fuckers can be normal, there's enough of them already. I'll be stilted and shy and weird, for now at least.

Thursday morning and I'm sitting here thinking about how much I want a goddamn pepperoni pizza from Naples. It's all I can think about. I'm so goddamn hungry. Rar.

Forget about it, Jake

The concrete of the aquaduct will last as long as the pyramids of Egypt or the Parthanon of Athens, long after Job Harriman is elected mayor of Los Angeles.

It's time to chuck some books out. I'm cleaning up my room and trying to fit everything onto the bookshelf and there's just not enough room. It's a pity they're things that every second hand book store in the world already has fifty copies of. This is crap like all that Dean Koontz stuff I loved when I was a kid, the David Gemmell book I thought was awesome when I was young but dropped in laughter when I tried to read it a few months ago. It was that fucken terrible. So off they go into the recycling bin. Sigh.

Goddamn did the final episode of Life on Mars suck. It's disappointing. The show wasn't amazingly fantastic, but it was a pleasant diversion, occasionally clever and frequently entertaining. It was a little too episodical in nature, which is an odd criticism for a television show really but I've come to expect more from the medium than just 'face crisis, return to equilibrium' every week. I blame the Wire.

There were some really good episodes in the second season, particularly the kidnapping episode where Sam was experiencing the effects of an overdose on his future-comatose body. Then the penultimate episode was great, with Sam remaining loyal to the Guv when everyone else turned their back. But then in the last episode two seasons of character development get thrown out with Sam betraying everyone twice. The stuff with Morgan and Sam's supposedly created persona didn't make any fucking sense either. And then when he does end up back in the future you want me to believe an ace detective can't even do some basic police work and look up a few records from thirty years ago to find evidence of what happened? The shoot up in train was awful, and the way everyone suddenly forgives him for being an utter bastard leaves only one conclusion: the whole damned thing was just a coma dream he's returning to in the moments he lies dying.

Which is then contradicted by the sequel series where another detective travels through time back to the eighties and runs into DCI Gene Hunt. Maybe I'm expecting too much, but you don't have to create an overarching narrative for every tv series, just make sure when you step back and look at all the peices they fit and don't contradict each other. This shit is only one step away from eighties family sitcoms where a perfectly normal looking teenager suddenly had a crisis with pimples or getting fat even though they looked exactly the same as they did the previous episode.

Down with sickness

I got my test results back on the infection I've got in my ear. Turns out instead of being a standard nostril-variety golden staph colony it's some novel medication resistant bacteria normally only found in hospitals which is interesting because I'm normally not found in hospitals. Because of the doctor's pronounced Polish accent I couldn't really understand the latin name he quoted for the infection so I can't look it up on wikipedia, which is kinda annoying. So now I'm on antibiotics with the following warning on the packet:

Take ONE tablet TWICE a day Take on an empty stomach, at least half an hour before food or two hours after food Do NOT take dairy products, antacids, iron or calcium supplements within 2hrs of this medicine *Avoid excessive sunlight or sunlamps until all finished

That's verbatim. Apparently the pharmacist knows what a comma is but not a period. Two things interest me on there. I'm not allowed dairy products for two hours after taking the pill. Two hours without coffee. And I sorta should be worried about the sunlight thing, but I've never really been one for direct light anyway.

Dear Diary. Today I was an asshole to a customer. I could have fixed their problem but I refused to because it was probably against bank policy. And they annoyed me. The banks have been legitimately called out on Today Tonight without being fazed, so I'm really doubting said small problem is really gunna worry us. I didn't eat lunch because I forgot it. And I drank too much caffiene and talked crap with my coworkers. Now my cat is going crazy. The end.