Spirit Street

2009-05-12T12:39:00.003+10:00

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.

2009-05-11T15:32:00.001+10:00

2009-04-22T10:52:00.000+10:00

2009-04-02T02:10:00.000+11:00

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.

2009-03-27T09:09:00.001+11:00

Forget about it, Jake

2009-03-27T05:26:00.004+11:00

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.

2009-03-27T03:56:00.002+11:00

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.

2009-03-27T01:50:00.002+11:00

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

2009-03-25T22:29:00.002+11:00

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.

2009-03-24T08:19:00.002+11:00

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.

2009-03-21T09:59:00.002+11:00

Well that was fucked. I got to the doctors about fifteen minutes early. Sat around for nearly an hour. And the doctor wasn't there. So I made an appointment for some time next week. He probably showed up right after I left, but whatever.

2009-03-20T23:37:00.003+11:00

I have this thing I do at work when I fuck up. I consider myself a pretty smart guy, but whenever something goes really wrong and I'm the cause I stand up and say 'oh! well you see! that happened because I'm stupid! So, you know, you really can't blame me for that. Because I'm stupid.'

And it works. It works really well. People expect other people to be stupid, so I guess I'd be pretty stupid if I didn't play up to that. Saying 'I'm thick' is a lot easier on the boss than me going 'Well you know, that customer was kind of a dick and it was getting to the end of the night and it was my last job and what the hell are they calling up this time of night anyway so I just sorta didn't do it.'

That'd get me fired so fast. I've seen it happen. But me going 'duh I'm sorry I hit wrong button and computer stopped worky so check out the food spills on my tshirt.' That gets me another chance every time.

2009-03-18T20:44:00.002+11:00

It's my night off, I'm full of pepperoni pizza, watching movies, and I can't have a bloody beer. It's especially galling where everyone's sitting around in a bar drinking dark, dark ale. And I can't bloody have one.

2009-03-17T12:05:00.002+11:00

So I'm sitting here with my head tilted nintey degrees waiting for the ear drops to stop tickling. Turns out I've most likely got a staph infection in my head which is causing all the swelling and the leaking and I've got to use drops, ointments and antibiotics until said symptoms cease. The only problem is the antibiotics. No booze for two weeks. Goddamnit.

The doctor was this nice Polish feller the long, lank hair and round glasses, the type of look that usually means 'serial killer' in police procedurals. He made a few jokes, poked around in my ear a bit then prescribed a billion medications and gave me a week off work. I had to take the swabs to the pathology group down the road, and I went in the wrong place. Turns out in Balaclava there's two pathology places next to one another and chose the wrong one. Good on me. Once I was in the right place I witnessed an old lady abusing one of the receptionists for being Polish and demanding someone Russian to help her.

Then I got coffee. The end.

He's in the best selling show

2009-03-16T00:19:00.002+11:00

2009-03-15T23:50:00.004+11:00

Two things have been keeping me occupied lately: the first season of the UK Life on Mars, and The Witcher Enhanced Edition. Both are flawed but enjoyable. I was also playing Empire: Total War for a while but it's too danged easy on the difficulty level I was playing so I'm a bit disillusioned.

Life on Mars is about John Simm being a police who gets hit by a car so hard he wakes up in an episode of The Sweeny. John Simm's always entertaining to watch, although his character reminds me more than a little of the Simon Pegg's supercop in Hot Fuzz. The main reason to watch the show comes from Detective Chief Inspector Gene Hunt, a swaggering, hard bastard who insists on being called 'Guv'. The character frequently crosses the line into characiture, but it doesn't stop the show from being entertaining and worth watching. I'm gunna pick up the second series once I'm done with this one.

And the Witcher has really caught my attention. It starts off pretty trashy, with the main character turning up with amnesia after being missing-presumed-dead for five years. You're Geralt, the Witcher, a monster killer for hire with heightened abilites resulting from a mutagenic process that somehow turned all the hair on his head white but left him with a permanent, dark, five o'clock shadow.

He's faster and stronger than a normal person, immune to diseases and resistant to poison. He's also sterile which is good considering the number of women he can sleep with. He also can create potions out of bits of monsters and alcohol, the potency of the potion relating to the booze used. Like I said, it's trashy. I can imagine the creator of the novels getting along really well with R.A. Salvatore.

One part of the game that gets remarked on often is the sexual content, which isn't as unusual as people seem to be assuming. Most of the Black Isle rpgs allowed the characters to have sexual encounters, as did the Troika games. There's a brothel in Arcanum where you can have sex with a sheep. What's unsual is the sex is displayed on the screen, if too blurry to make out, and the player is rewarded with a 'sex card' showing the conquest in a state of undress.

Sex shouldn't be kept out of computer games just because they're games. It's ridiculous. Hip hop music videos have worse content and they get played during supposed g-rated slots. The 'reward cards' allow the creators to put sexual content into the game without the characters sledding upon each other down the uncanny valley in the way that made the Hot Coffee mod in San Andreas so bloody horrifying.

One problem is though there's no consequence for the multiple sexual encounters. Geralt sleeps with anyone who crosses his path because he's sterile and immune to disease. Meanwhile the rest of the game is all about action and consequences. I'm in the second chapter of the game, investigating a murder. But my main lead is dead at the hands of terrorists I chose to supply with weapons in an earlier chapter. Meanwhile I can follow another lead at he hospital because the main guard is someone I saved the life at another point through a different choice I made. It's really interesting the way it's all working out and makes the game compelling.

2009-03-15T14:10:00.002+11:00

So I'm sick. Left ear's all swollen and closed up. Guess it's a liability of workin in a call centre. Thing is I don't have a number to call in, so I gotta get dressed up for work, go in and show them my ear. Doesn't half fucken hurt.

2009-03-14T04:21:00.000+11:00

So the hot water was out for two days. When the real estate agency got around to sending people around they decided before fixing it they'd first send around groups of people to tell us they couldn't fix the problem. They even sent around a plumber who told me he couldn't fix the problem. I'm not really sure why they did it but I'm guessing they all got paid for it and the real estate agent got a cut of their payments. That's just a guess.

The last guy fixed the problem, in the way of these things. He was this tiny european feller with a grin of crooked gold teeth and one of those accents that could have originated anywhere between siberia and poland. He disconnected the hot water from the timed line and attached it to the same power that runs the lights, which is awesome. The timed line only operates between midnight and eight so we were always running out of hot water.

He wanted to be certain the water was heating so he waited around. I don't have a lot in common with a near-elderly european immigrant of uncertain origins and to be honest our accents made us each unable to understand the other, so it was kind of awkward. I let Smokey out of her cage because the electrician had stopped coming in and out and she was really unhappy about being confined for an hour. She came out and was all purrs and happy and the electrician thought she was cute and there was an exchange of pats and affection. Then she rolled over on her back.

Anyone who's patted Smoke knows this means 'stop patting if you want to come away with all your skin'. I dunno why she does it, I didn't raise her, I just have to live with it. I warned the electrician, told him he'd better stop. He said it was allright and started tickling his belly. If he'd been looking at me he'd have seen my look of terror. She started to bat at his hand gently and nibbling at his hand. That's a sign of progress, an indication she may be softening up, giving off little warnings like that. I told the guy again he needed to stop. Again he said it was allright.

Then she attacked, paws locked across his arm, back legs kicking and her teeth trying to rip skin from his hand. I had to jump in and seperate them before they hurt each other. He was definitely bleeding and chuckling a little as I cradled her and calmed her down. He left not long after that, told me to call him if the water didn't heat up.

Have you ever tasted skin?

2009-02-28T15:51:00.000+11:00

Drums.

2009-02-07T21:01:00.002+11:00

Had my first day when I couldn't sleep properly. Probably something to do with not getting up until three last night. I've been trying to keep my sleeping pattern stable so stuff like this wouldn't happen but I'm going to work tired today. They keep telling me at work that shit like this will happen, but they also keep telling me how hard the job is and that's always been bullshit. Anyway, here's some ducks:

2009-02-04T08:47:00.001+11:00

Teenager of the year

2009-01-27T21:12:00.001+11:00

2009-01-26T20:57:00.001+11:00

I am nervous as hell right now. I'm gunna show up at work for the first time on the night shift and have no idea what the bloody hell I'm doing. Gunna try and get there early to see if I've gotten any emails detailing what I'm supposed to do. Are they gunna put me on the phones? Am I gunna listen to other people's calls? Is there gunna be any kind of induction? Ah well, at least I'm wearing comfortable clothes.

Take the canolli

2009-01-26T18:38:00.004+11:00

Watching the Godfather for the first time is weird. It's been referenced so often that there's so many moments of 'oh so that's where that comes from'. Not just the horse-head thing, but the way they talk, the things they mention. I gotta wonder how much 'mafia mythology' has its beginnings here.

2009-01-26T17:33:00.003+11:00

I start the graveyard shift tonight, got five hours until I have to be there but getting up at five in the afternoon is a good start. I must have slept restlessly, I'm achey all up my neck and shoulders. I really should get up and do something to loosen everything so I don't feel like this for the rest of the day. Or night. As you will.

I got woken up by Smokey killing her bear, which appears to be rather a noisy activity involving lots of chirps. Or they might be little growls. Not proper growls because I've heard those when she's threatening to kill the neighbour's dog. The neighbours don't bring their dog by our front door anymore because Smoke's a tiny killing machine.

2009-01-21T22:28:00.001+11:00

It's ten thirty. I should be in bed. But fuck that. Tomorrow's my last day. I refuse to do it any way other than tired.

2009-01-21T22:13:00.002+11:00

Doot de doo. So yeah. I was unemployed in August. Made redundant. How can you be 'made redundant'? The 'made' part sounds redundant. I got fucken fired. The company took a dive and I took the shot that turned the ship around and got all hands on deck or some bullshit. I only pretend to understand this stuff.

So then I got a job somehow. Somehow. I jumped down, turned around, picked a bale of cotton and I was getting paid to listen to people's problems with their bank accounts. My take-home pay was nearly doubled. That was in September.

Then we got an email asking if people wanted to move to the night shift. I replied I would. Why not? Somehow they accepted me over others, people that had been there for years. I suspect my team leader wanted to get rid of me because I'm a fucken pain in the arse. I dunno. I wouldn't wanna be my boss.

So now I'm in the night team. Every night I start at around ten. Then I head home at around seven. This is from next week. And I'll be easily being paid more than people who've been there long enough to be team leaders. People who've clawed and smiled their way up the shitty ladder, people who've worked their arses off to get where they are. Seems weird when I think about it like that. I'd consider it good luck if it weren't for the last decade of shit I've put myself through.

2009-01-20T21:26:00.003+11:00

But none of that matters. I'm going to night team next week. I'm sure I'll get a decent amount of entitled customers living overseas demanding I fix the problems they've made for themselves, but that's what the job's all about. The responsible, polite, sensible people don't call up because they don't get themselves in the shit I can fix.

2009-01-20T21:18:00.002+11:00

One thing really gets me at work. Finances are complicated. Household finances are complicated. People try to juggle so much, accruing as many reward points on credit cards while avoiding interest, mortgages, personal loans, insurance payments, direct debits and more and more. And then they get stung somehow. And they ring me up and ask my why they got stung and to get them out of the situation. I usually transfer calls like that to another department. I'm not an account manager. That's what these people need.

2009-01-20T20:42:00.002+11:00

Okay Mad Men is improving. Episode five is kicking arse. There's still the occasional Simpsons-style flashback episode moment, where they mention events or names from the era for its own sake, which is kinda annoying but I guess that's inevitable in a 'period' production, kinda like the Earp boys turning up in Deadwood. Ah well, the characters are becoming interesting and it's got Saffron from Firefly in it. Rowr.

2009-01-19T22:57:00.002+11:00

I answered a call today, some dumb shit about some dumb shit. 'Duh duh me did boom boom in me underwoos and wah wah me needs changing.' Typical crap on a typical day. And I could hear music in the background. Bugged the shit outta me for nearly an hour but I figured out what it was. It was the outtro to this:

2009-01-19T22:34:00.003+11:00

I've been on a bit of a dvd binge lately. I've got curb your enthusiasm, which is fun but too awkward to watch too many episodes in a row. And I got the first season of mad men. I'd heard really good things but most of the first episode was a real let down. Seemed to be a lot stuff about 'omg how quaint were the sixties?!' Lots of overt sexism and racism for its own sake. And the 'gay guy who doesn't realise he's gay' Maybe that's the way it was, I dunno, but it did seem contrived rather than real.
And then the episode ended and goddamn what a kick in the teeth. Guess I'm gunna have to watch this thing through.
Oh and anything you've heard about how awesome the wire is? It's true. Goddamn I can't wait until I get the second series of that.

2008-11-22T02:57:00.002+11:00

Today I went to work for the margin lending team for three hours. Margin lending is essentially a system where people or groups put stock up as security for loans. They're borrowing money against money they've invested. When the price of stock falls, as it has been frequently in the past few weeks, then someone has to call the owner of the loans and tell them they owe the bank money. Guess who volunteered to do that job today. Go on. Guess.
I should have realised people don't like being told they're a great deal poorer. I got a few snippy answers and one guy spent a full minute screaming at me. When the customers get angry with my usual reaction is to sit there composing sentences that'd send them over the edge, make them real mad instead of just venting. Not anything aggressive or anything. Just stuff like 'well I could help you but I've decided not to because of the way you've behaved.' And then I sit there, daring myself to say it. And that's how I'm gunna lose my job if I keep turning up tired.

Holy fucking christ

2008-10-31T04:25:00.001+11:00

2008-10-21T05:59:00.001+11:00

When did being able to produce text and images with video and sound become normal? It's fucken weird and fucken weirds me out. All of a sudden. Like a wild cat leaping from the undergrowth. Or some shit.

2008-10-21T02:59:00.000+11:00

2008-10-21T01:43:00.002+11:00

Sitting back with beer and food watching Firefly makes the whole damned week worth it. Worst customer today rang up screaming about how she gets mail from us about personal loans then gets rejected for them. She wanted to be taken off the mailing list apparently. I didn't actually get to say anything before she hung up. Luckily she'd come through authenticated by the system and I was able to take her off the list. Although it was bloody tempting to leave it the way it was.

2008-10-20T01:57:00.002+11:00

When I first started out on the night shift I cooked every night. I made it a point of putting together meals, something decent, because I figured nowhere would be bloody open when I got home.
Then teh cat tells me that Topelz is open until two every damned morning. And then someone at work mentions how nice their steak is. So now I eat Topelz every damned night. That in addition to all the Coke I'm drinking is probably gunna make me fat. But anyway, I'm watching lots of stuff to get my mind off work while I eat. At the moment it's Firefly. I've got a notion to get me the DVD though.

2008-10-20T01:09:00.004+11:00

So what the hell's been going on? I've been working at my new job, blowing people's minds with how awesome I am at it all. Which is only half a lie. Since my last real post I've had more shit holding me back but I've gotten over it. I swear I really am unlucky when it comes to being on certain systems. I don't show up on file. It's like vampires with mirrors except I must be an electronic vampire, sucking static and white noise from machines to make it through the night and retiring to my computer room to sleep out the day. Or some shit. I dunno. See, what happened is everyone else in my training group got their logins for the systems we have to use. And I didn't. Okay, one of the other guys didn't get his either but he submitted his security check a day later than everyone else. That apparently had some bearing on the situation.
So everyone else had working software and I didn't. So for a whole week I was turning up and not working. Which honestly does sound a bit sweet but godfuckingdamn it nearly killed me. Of about three hours at staring at the support files for 'educational reading' I'd get this headache and a completely imagined roaring sound in my ears. Nearly sent me batshit.
So a week after I supposed started out of training I got some access to some programs. I seriously wasn't completely set up until last weekend, after I'd been at the place for five whole goddamn weeks. We're supposed to have logins ready when we initially start so that the first thing we do is the online compliance testing.
But yeah, now I'm in the system and kicking arse. Since we're a basic servicing call centre we've got a set of statistics that we're supposed to match on things like average calls handled per hour and percentage of calls transferred. I started on the phones a full week later than most of the team and I'm coming third in the stats. Because I'm the goddamn super oates.

2008-10-20T01:06:00.002+11:00

Shit. I don't remember making either of those posts. But they're both things I'd post. What the hell.

2008-10-17T06:43:00.001+11:00

2008-09-12T00:20:00.000+10:00

Breaking it Down

2008-09-01T22:45:00.002+10:00

So tomorrow Cat starts work. He's got a job telling people what they did wrong and how to fix it. Because that's what he does. Tomorrow I also start my job. His odyssey is related here. Here comes mine.

See on Friday I'm sitting around wondering what to do next. That happens a lot when you've got a list of rejections with more entries than your phone book. I was asking myself questions like 'what's wrong with what I'm doing' and 'what's wrong with these people that they can't see what they're missing out on'. Then I get a call.

Actually that's all a lie. I was lying in bed at eleven in the morning thinking about going back to sleep. The cat wants fed so I get up and feed her, have a shower, turn on the computer and there's an email from one of the agencies saying they can't get through to me, could I please call them. So I did. Half awake I'm talking to some woman who says my phone's been off and they have a 'job opportunity' for me. We worked out they had my old number from the last time I applied there some three years ago, but they have my most recent resume so I dunno what's going on there. Whatever. She asks me if I want to come in for an interview in an hour. The job's in Mulgrave, a little out of my way, but what the fuck, I need a job. Sure. I run back upstairs, shave, chuck on my suit and I'm there within the incredibly bloody short notice they've given me.

When I get there I get a tonne of forms shoved on me that need to be filled out with information I wasn't told to bring. Superannuation, tax, banking, that sort of stuff. Huff. I work it out with the receptionist and she gives me some envelope to send all the shit back.

So I sit around dehydrated from getting on the piss the night before and drinking two red bulls in preparation, drinking water and nicking off to the toilet to piss every five minutes because that's what happens when you do that to yourself. Other people show up, they fill out the forms, but then the recruiters come out and tell us we're waiting for someone else and she's on St Kilda road and shouldn't be long. Half an hour later this mystery person's made her way to down stairs. Ten minutes after that she shows up and starts talking about how she doesn't have long, she has a wedding.

Great whatever. First thing we do is a 'group exercise'. We're given a theoretical 'task' and we have to decide how to do that 'task'. A little note on the bottom of the sheet tells us 'there is no wrong answer' so I decide it's to test our team work and take over. No pissfarting around, we get the 'task' done with five minutes to go and everyone pretty much did what I told them. Everyone in the room, including the bloody recruiters and the manager of the call centre I seemed destined for did what I said and listened when I spoke.

Then we had the phone test. I fucked that up. I did the first part okay, helped the happy person out, but when the angry person called up I choked and stuttered and laughed nervously. Oh well.

Then the interview came and I just went to pieces. I'm shocking at interviews. That's the lesson of the past month: interviews suck and I suck at them. I could tell the manager wanted to help me, giving me hints on the right thing to say and leading me through a couple of the answers, but the recruiter just wasn't happy. You'd think I'd be good at talking about myself, about giving myself sound good, but I'm not. They asked me if I'd be happier working in South Melbourne or Mulgrave, and I said South Melbourne, but Mulgrave's fine too and they sorta looked at each other like they were Marge's sisters after Marge told them something Homer had done wrong, you know?

Another question was 'Why do you want to work at the ANZ?' Since I'd had absolutely no prep time I had no idea to answer this. I thought about saying 'hell you asked me here, you answer that', but mumbled something about it sounds good and it's a job. Oh well.

But on the strength of the group exercise I thought I was in. I'd made a damned good impression there and thought it'd stick. I was told to wait by the phone until at least seven, because they still assumed it was my fault they couldn't get through earlier, and sent off feeling confident.

Then the phone didn't ring. Then the depression set in and I spent the next few days whimpering and rewriting my resume. Sunday and today were spent doing yet more job applications, something that was becoming a Monday habit.

Then the phone did ring. Tonight. Asking if I could be at South Melbourne tomorrow morning at eight for training. Someone hadn't shown up for today's session and they needed me to be there. I was 'next in line' apparently. I'm betting I was the final person on the list. Figures they'd leave someone as reliable and hard working as me until last. But I don't fucking care. One word recruiters throw around a lot is 'opportunity'. Everything to them is an opportunity like they're the ones doing us the favours. But this really is one, a real goddamn opportunity.

2008-08-15T02:37:00.000+10:00

Still awake? Why? Bed! Yay!

MANY JOHNS

2008-08-15T00:52:00.003+10:00

2008-08-12T00:21:00.002+10:00

So today I made soup and the worst scones ever. The soup was great. I've got three containers of it sitting in the freezer for whenever I want to revisit its greatness. And the scones are sitting in the bin. I think I put too much butter in them. And too much baking soda. I'm pretty sure scones aren't supposed to be yellow. And they aren't supposed to taste like baking soda. Or maybe that's just me.
I'm still unemployed. Hence the soup-and-scones-shenanigans. I can never be bothered cooking when I'm working. I got mail today telling me my payment of awesomeness would be a week early, so I'm officially 'unemployed' from Wednesday. Time to get my arse into gear.
Meanwhile I'm reading Spares by Michael Marshall Smith. I'd read Only Forward on the recommendation of TEH CAT and it really impressed me. The way it totally changes halfway through threw me and drew me in at the same time. So I'm reading Spares. And it's grossing me the hell out.
The basic concept is a world in the 'not so far future' where people grow themselves clones for replacement body parts. The clones are kept in small farms where they're herded about without stimulus or any real care until they're needed for harvesting. And then along comes Jack and he decides he's going to treat the clones under his care as if they were human. And when people act with dignity is where the trouble always starts.
So yeah, good book so far. But I'm probably just going to sleep. Tomorrow is day of job hunts. Woo.

Etched in words across the sun

2008-08-04T21:35:00.001+10:00

Tomorrow I'm gunna take care of two things. I need my glasses and a job interview suit. My suit is gunna be the brownest suit ever. Take that you conformist crust-fuckers.

2008-08-03T19:46:00.001+10:00

2008-08-03T19:42:00.000+10:00

I've gone from sad to angry to depressed and now I'm just tired. What an exhausting week. I'm gunna go sleep now and I'll get up some time.

2008-08-03T00:57:00.001+10:00

Enough feeling sorry for myself! This is how we roll from now on:

2008-08-03T00:39:00.000+10:00

Sitting up late drinking beer and watching Bill Hicks videos. Again.

2008-08-02T02:09:00.002+10:00

I'll never again have to ask someone if they want whipped cream on a drink with skim milk in it.
No more will I tell people that our small drink is called the tall and yes that's dumb but that's Americans for you.
I'll never have to burn the fuck out of the milk just because some idiot's scorched their tastebuds out with cigarettes.
I'll never have to explain that the sugars are on the other side of the room.
There'll be no more customers asking for 'iced coffee'. What a load of shit that is. 'Iced coffee' means different things depending on where you live. I can't fucking tell that by looking at you.
I'll never have to work with anyone who's learning which drinks come with whipped cream. I'll never have to deal with them asking me if a drink has it just because I'm always asking them.
I won't have to deal with fuckwits that think asking for 'a coffee' is funny.
I won't have to deal with people who take five minutes to decide they really want a latte. Or maybe a cappucino. And do you have skim milk? Oh I'll just have a hot chocolate. Can I have marshmallows in it?
NO MORE VENTI SOY EXTRA HOT NO WATER CHAI LATTES. Seriously. It's just sugar and fat and caffeine. It's not better for you than a mocha. Fuck off and die.
No more precious parents with their precious spawn squealing in the store.
No more pretty girls mumbling because they don't want to raise their voices.
No more emails about 'things unnamed people did wrong in Starbucks somewhere unspecified' that are clearly about shit I did.
No more football days.
No more Saturdays when the training centre upstairs is open and we get people treating us like McDonalds.
No more people treating us like McDonalds.
No more people acting like some component of their drink, be it foam, water or ice, is us trying to rip them off.
I think I'm done.
Oh wait. No more training fucken idiots who I'm better than to take positions that are superior to mine, even though they're gonna get fucken fired in six months when everyone's laid off.
No more fuckwits in management having brilliant ideas to make me dance harder.
Okay now I'm really done.

I ain't allowed

2008-08-02T02:07:00.000+10:00

2008-08-02T02:00:00.002+10:00

One thing I'm not gunna miss about work is the early hours. Another thing I'm not gunna miss is the illness. There's always seemed to be this sickness around our store that's just lurking around waiting for your immune system to be weakened before it leaps and takes you out for two weeks. Of course there was never anyone to cover for you so you had to show up and do your shifts anyway, sick in a hospitality job. Which is fucking illegal and fucking sucks. Fucking Starbucks.

2008-07-31T01:35:00.002+10:00

Also, the thing I've seen in news over and over about how Melbournians are experienced coffee drinkers who can see through Starbucks and prefer a higher quality cup of coffee: YOU"RE ALL FUCKEN IDIOTS. HOW THE FUCK CAN YOU EVEN TASTE THE COFFEE WHEN YOU HAVE IT THAT BITTER AND THAT HOT?! It's like saying 'I like chilli' then sticking a blowtorch on your tongue. Fucken morons.

And how we danced

2008-07-31T00:47:00.004+10:00

Okay. Here's a song. Listen to it. I got things to say and this is the music they go to.

See, I had a job. I hated the fucken thing but I loved it at the same time. The things I did, the things I could do, there was no one better than me. I loved that. I loved that everyone I worked with I either trained them or trained the person who trained them. I know they don't all love me and think I'm awesome, but the fuckers all respect me and they did what I told them, not because I was their boss but because they knew that when I told them to do something it was the best thing to do.

I worked at the same store for just under three years. I outlasted everything. I prided myself on my ability to take anything. Any shitty job I was asked to do, I did. Anything difficult I at least gave it a try, at most succeeded better than anyone could hope.

But it's not the job I'm fucked off about. I'm fucken awesome. I know what I'm doing. Two weeks from now I'll have someone else paying me. I'm not worried about that at all. Anyone who passes over my resume is losing one hell of an opportunity.

What's got me is that something I worked at for three years is gunna get torn down on Sunday and have its guts kicked out. When I landed at Starbucks I was desperate. They gave me a job, told me because I worked hard I'd go far, promoted me and taught me. They gave me a place and I made as much as I could of it. I didn't do every goddamn thing I was told, I'm not an idiot, but I did as much as I could. And now I'm a rain dog again.

This morning I went for my break and started going through my usual routine of checking figures and communications. I found we'd done a forty-eight cup half hour. That's a drink made every forty seconds? We'd had three people on, which is less than the standard amount for that volume, and it'd felt like nothing. The time'd just flowed smoothly, even with telling customers this was our last week. When I saw that, thought through how this would be the last time I'd ever see something like this, how I'd gone through so much to get to that point, I couldn't help it. I spent the next half hour in the back room and in the toilet wiping the tears off my face.

I'm not completely innocent. I've wanted to leave for as long as I've had the job. But I was getting to the point that once I'd moved on I'd always come back to my store and if I didn't see my people I'd see people trained by the people I'd trained. I'd get my drink, my double short latte, in my beaten up little store, and know that the person making it had been influenced by me. And now that's never gunna happen.

I've lost skin, sanity and sleep over this job. And now I've been told none of it matters. I've worked my guts out, and there was never any point to it. On Sunday we're going in and we'll tear it all down, pack it up and move on as if all I ever did was sit here typing. I'm a rain dog now. And how we danced...

2008-07-26T02:27:00.001+10:00

2008-07-26T02:21:00.000+10:00

You know it's time to go to bed when: you're sitting up watching videos of 'Hey' by the pixies over and over. Then it's definitely time to go to bed.

2008-07-23T09:34:00.002+10:00

So uh, Matt Fraction's landed some movie deals. Good for him. But I wonder how they're gunna turn Casanova into a film. Everything that's good about it would probably be destroyed by putting it on film and dumbing down the free-flowing narrative. If they prove me wrong I'll be pretty damned happy, but it's not likely.

2008-07-23T09:28:00.001+10:00

Being able to read webcomics makes the bitter pall of Portland easier to bear.

2008-07-23T08:43:00.002+10:00

Here I am, blogging from Portland. Woo. It took a while to get all this set up because I'm basically a loud mouthed twit who doesn't actually know what he's doing, but now it's morning and I can see clearly enough to realise when I change my parents' password at their ISP I gotta change it on the modem as well. Seriously, that's why you never call support as your first option. Especially when you've had a beer or two.

2008-07-19T10:03:00.006+10:00

I saw the Dark Knight the other day with Een. I only knew a little about it going in, the obvious things, but I hadn't really seen much about it, just because I live in my own danged world and not much gets in. I was aware there was a lot of hype surrounding it.

Hype's one of those things we're used to now. Between the Wachowski brothers and George Lucas everyone's a bit deadened towards it, distrustful of the million dollar marketing campaigns. But here, in the Dark Knight, is a movie that is everything it's been said to be. Heath Ledger's Joker is going to define the character in the comics for at least the next decade. The story is getting some criticism for being overly long with too many segues and false endings, but I think everything that's there is needed. Without the last half hour the Harvey Dent arc would have been meaningless. Without the trip to Hong Kong there would have been layers missing from the Joker's motives. It all fits together.

And I loved the dialogue. There's some bits that are flat, particularly where Alfred talks about how such and such needs this and that, that sounded out of place in a movie that holds so little back. But this is the first time I can remember seeing real irony in a 'big budget summer blockbuster'.

So yeah, to repeat what absolutely every danged sensible person who's seen it is saying right now, the Dark Knight is fucken awesome and go see it.

2008-07-19T09:58:00.001+10:00

Sweet mother of Christ it's cold out there. I thought the sun rising would have removed the chill but I ended up walking along with my arms bunched up around me, swearing about just how fucking cold it is out there. And Smoke wants to go out there. She's crazy!

2008-07-16T22:47:00.001+10:00

So the new Hellboy movie doesn't come out here until the end of August. How stupid is that? It's funny in a way. One of the things that deflated me over the first one was the six month delay on it being released in Australia. And then the go and do something similar on the sequel. Seriously, what year is it? Are they moving the prints here by boat? Do these people actually want to make money?

Wolf Parade - Bang Your Drum

2008-07-14T22:22:00.001+10:00

2008-07-12T03:50:00.003+10:00

I dunno what the hell's up with me. I think I got two hours sleep last night? Less? I worked a five hour shift and I'm still awake. And I feel sorta tired but not wrecked. I could stay up longer if I felt like it. But I don't so I'm going to bed soon. Dance dance dance.

2008-07-11T05:40:00.001+10:00

Gah. New keyboard time. Smoke spilled a drink all over the old one and thus I've stolen the one that's been sitting next to the case in the lounge for three years. This is why I can't have good things.

2008-07-06T04:07:00.002+10:00

Oh gosh. I'm sitting up sipping a mug of warm milk while Smoke circles about and I'm reading early Hellboy reviews. Everyone seems to like it, which makes me happy. But what makes me happier is reading that it opens with Bruttenholm reading young Hellboy a story. I'm glad they've gotten a young Hellboy in the movie, he's damned cute. But Bruttenholm is played by John Hurt, who also starred as the title role in that series from the eighties that I loved so much, The Storyteller.

2008-07-05T03:17:00.001+10:00

trolling the fucken news

2008-07-05T02:18:00.002+10:00

Now I really can't be arsed finding a quote or anything, you know, evidence, but it turns out it's possible The Corby's late Dad was a sex offender. I mean drug dealer. You can't defame the dead, fuck off. This is a guy who went on television to claim his daughter, without any possible doubt, was innocent. One of the first lessons of language is that it's used to lie. I can say I'm the god of cake, but is it true? Not yet, anyway. Why is this news instead of whatever Rudd's got jammed up his arse at the moment?
Speaking or Rudd's arse, carbon trading is suddenly news again. Petrol prices, carbon trading. Tell you what. Lets reduce the speed limit by ten kilometres throughout Australia. Every place there's a speed limit, knock ten off it. Right there, we've made a massive contribution to carbon reduction. We've also reduced petrol demand and therefore petrol prices. Let's put our money where our fucking mouths are and stop expecting our mommies and our politicians to fix everything and make it better.
How is Sarkozy's presence bad when the atheletes are already committed to 'spitting on human rights'? And just how many generations does it take to atone for French colonialism?
And just what is cheating at sport, anyway? Sure, they can ban a shirt that helps you adjust your swing at actual competition, but how do you seperate between people who've had the training advantage of a teaching shirt and those that haven't?
Oil is more expensive. Que sera, sera. Seriously. What the fuck happened to make Mad Max the 'most likely to succeed' in the post-apocalyptic year book?

2008-07-03T03:09:00.000+10:00

If I was opening the store I'd be getting up about now. Turns out I'm just going to bed. You wish you were this awesome.

Tax time

2008-07-03T03:02:00.002+10:00

Oh yeah. I'm getting five and half thousand dollars back on my tax. And I'm gonna spend it all on comics. I've got a comics shelf now. I took my mantle-piece, took everything off it, turned a mortar-and-pestle into one bookend and a guitar amp into another bookend and suddenly my comics collection isn't just a wincing reminder of my inability to save, but a damn fine looking feature to my room.

the shadow boys are breaking all the laws

2008-07-03T00:38:00.002+10:00

So I'm reading Light by M John Harrison at the moment. There's a lot of authors I read and I think they're great. There's a smaller group, a few with such a grip on the language they can make it dance grimly, that I wish I could emulate. Peter Goldsworthy is one of them, so's China Miéville. And there's Michael John Harrison. He's knows exactly what the reader wants to know about each time, place and scene and ekes the details carefully without a hint of exposition. It's a difficult but rewarding read. Then Tom Waits appears. In an earlier book by the author, Signs of Life, the main character loved the Tom Waits album Rain Dogs. So when a few Waits references turned up in this book I wasn't surprised but intrigued. For a start a race of supposed aliens are called 'Shadow Boys'. They live inside circuitry, any kind, claiming to be able to run of valves at one point, taking to the world in specially grown bodies they abuse and discard once the day's over. There's three stories in the book. That of Kearney, a haunted, serial killing physicist; that of Ed Chianese, a junky in the future on the run for who knows why; and Seria Mau Genlicher, the pilot of a ship that can bend physics through mathematics. And each story is bleak as hell. The name of the novel, Light, has to be irony. There's been at least two handfuls of murders by the main characters, a race of aliens that can't do anything but ape humankind, and a spirit or delusion that follows Kearney in the form of a horse's skull, echoing Harrison's earlier Viriconim works. At one point Kearney's ex-wife gleefully remarks they're in a Tom Waits song when smoke's pouring from underground. In Ed Chianese's drug dream he notices his enemy's shot sixteen shells from a thirty-ought-six and should be out of bullets soon. Kearney listens to the radio and 'Downtown Train' comes on and he thinks of how much he hates that damned song. I dunno if there's any point to it all, but it does make an interesting texture.

The Death of a Troll

2008-07-02T23:14:00.003+10:00

So I'm not trolling the news anymore. That started out with me reading the news and bitching to Cat about things I'd read. I decided, what the hell, I could be writing this on my blog and there you go. And then some kids got neglected and I tried to write about the obvious hypocrisy of politicians using that to gain popularity. And I felt like shit doing that. Here I was talking about crap I really have no idea about with groundless, assumed authority. And it wasn't crap like the Olympics or petrol prices, but children being put through as bad a situation as kids can go through. I decided that I couldn't in good conscience do that I had no place trolling the news and so ain't gonna happen anymore. I dunno what I'm gunna write about instead. I'm sure I'll find something.

California Dreamer + Animal in Your Care

2008-06-29T00:40:00.002+10:00

2008-06-27T02:22:00.000+10:00

Hmm. I seem to have lost my mobile phone. It's gotta be somewhere in here. I'd call it but I don't know its number, and I leave it on silent.

Yes, I'm procrastinating making my bed

2008-06-27T01:42:00.006+10:00

Monsters. I've been thinking a lot about monsters lately, probably spurred on by things Een's said recently. A lot of modern takes on monster stories add in a social level to the monsterous existence, an obvious example being the vampires in the Anne Rice books. Not only only do the vampires have a society to prey on, but their own in group to fight with and seek refuge of a sort within.

The most extreme examples are of course in the roleplaying games set in the World of Darkness, where it does make sense for 'monsters' to be social, seeing as how the game is supposed to be a social experience. But the idea has done over and over. I can't really be bothered enumerating more examples because anyone who cares knows what I'm talking about.

The problem with this it seems to contradict my idea of what a 'monster' is. Grendel only had his mother. Frankstein's Monster only had his even more monsterous creator. But I suppose if you want to look at it that way then the monster was Frankenstein and all he had was his creation. But that's babbling and I've got a bed to make.

So yeah, I can see why it's done, but I'd like to see more modern examples of where it isn't. Stuff like Dog Soldiers, where the werewolves are werewolves, and not people dressed up in dog skins.

2008-06-27T01:30:00.001+10:00

2008-06-27T01:12:00.003+10:00

Sitting up late reading about carnivorous and protocarnivorous plants and resisting putting my bedding back together. I should put some music on now and go do that. Not too loud though because it's late.

2008-06-25T23:50:00.002+10:00

So Primo Ministerio Rudd thinks the 'Bloody Hell' tourism campaign was a 'rolled gold disaster'. Without bothering to figure out what the hell that means, I'm betting that if we'd had a tourism campaign featuring two beautiful people having sex on a beach with fireworks in the background and a big slogan saying 'COME TO AUSTRALIA, YOU'LL GET FUCKED' we'd show the same tourism losses. Sometimes no matter how much money you throw at marketing, if the targeted consumers can't afford the product you're not gunna get a favourable result. Besides, if the fucken idiots can't abide the words 'bloody hell', we don't want the cunts here anyway!
Car prices are going up. Something that's always mystified me is the amount of new cars on the road. Surely people have better things to spend money on. I'll admit it does make me giggle when a truck of crushed cars goes by when I'm on the tram. It makes me wonder just who'll buy these flat cars, and what kind of obstacles require the thinnest transport possible
Speaking of cars, the places in Victoria where road funding is of the most import are receiving the least. If the contract holders for public transport in Melbourne think it's expensive and difficult to run a service here, imagine trying to extend that to the 19,000 kilometres of spiderweb that covers the rest of the state.
In a shocking display of clear thinking, the Melbourne City Council has withdrawn its support for a tunnel linking the eastern and western suburbs. While I'd like to think it's the start of the end for the road link, they've probably been successfully lobbied by someone wanting to build a glittering new bridge instead, taller than all the buildings in the city, spanning the business district and finally giving Melbourne an icon of its own.

2008-06-24T23:13:00.002+10:00

Rio Tinto has gotten itself an 85% increase in the price of iron ore being shipped to Chinese steel mills. That's fucking ridiculous. At what point did they say 'we're not getting enough for our product' and at what point will they say 'That last increase wasn't enough'? I mean I don't understand the iron market obviously but someone's arse has got to be bitten by this. Why do I have the feeling it'll be everyone who doesn't own parts of iron mines?
I know it has some historical significance, but can we drop the term 'fuzzy wuzzy angel'? Their recognition is important, but how about their goddamn dignity? Isn't the word 'veteran' good enough?
Some guy wants polygamy legalised in Australia because of something to do with some book and some god or something or other. Good luck with that. Honestly though if you're crazy enough to want to get married to more than one person go for your bloody life. Make sure that everyone you meet, the first thing you tell them is how many wives you have just so they know how crazy a motherfucker you are.
Not only were the comments of a McCain adviser inappropriate, but now if an attack does occur McCain is gonna have to put up with so much conspiracy bullshit it's gunna make it seem like he's already in government.

2008-06-24T00:27:00.003+10:00

So the US Department of the Interior lists Polar Bears as a 'Vulnerable Species'. Then the Fisheries and Wildlife Service turns around and gives seven oil companies permits to 'disturb' populations of bears and walruses in Alaska. I dunno, seems like they're going the wrong way about this. Polar bears and walruses are essentially oil, really. They're made of the same stuff that constitutes oil, just in giant toothy packages. The oil companies should investigate the possibility of using these animals as a fuel source. Because fuel is the most important thing in the world.
It's interesting the range of views given in this piece on graffiti being considered for heritage protection. I agree with the guy who says it contradicts the spirit of this sort of art, and I think the guy who says this represents society's decline is funny as hell and should become a professional comedian.
I guess the ban on lasers isn't working. We'll have to initiate a nationwide campaign of total information awareness, introduce new laws that allow police to search people without provocation or legitimate suspicion, to combat this scourge on our society.
And a report into the Northern Territory Indigenous Intervention has found the best way to defeat poverty is with jobs and health care. There you go.

Please bury me with it

2008-06-24T00:20:00.002+10:00

2008-06-23T01:56:00.003+10:00

The Corby wasn't set up by baggage handlers, in fact the whole thing was made up by her lawyer after he heard some random speculation on TripleJ. Which makes me wonder at the effects of ubiquitous blogging.
Okay. The Opposition has stated that when the Energy Minister, Martin Ferguson, meets with the 'energy powers' in Saudi Arabia at an emergency meeting he'll be unlikely to achieve much. The statement then went on to beat the unliving shit out a dead horse, mumbling something about the petrol excise. But honestly, I'm sure the Coalition is more interested in appearing lively than reducing any tax dollars they might inherit.
I guess when you're largely symbolic, then symbolic gestures mean everything. The Anglican Church in BRISBANE has voted to automatically defrock priests found fucking children. They've voted to expel priests found guilty of sex offenses by earthly courts. The judgment of God isn't enough, we've got to remove the terrestrial powers of these people in BRISBANE. Why don't we stop misleading people ABOUT THE FUCKING AFTERLIFE WHILE WE'RE AT IT?! Stand up, say 'Fuck... we made it all up' and end the spiritual abuse of generations. Of course, that would cost MONEY. OATES SMASH. RAAAAAAAR.
Rar rar rar, more bullshit about petrol prices, there's an independent senator unhappy with FuelWatch and he's going to vote against it once he gains his senate seat in July. Great. If FuelWatch gets stymied one of the major media outlets should take up its mantle and do the goddamn thing themselves. It's easy money for a newspaper.
Australian troops are no longer in Iraq, prompting the Iraqi peoples to wonder where all the people with bad English accents went. Note this is only combat involvement, which means we'll still be involved in training and infrastructure, so probably there's some poor Iraqi somewhere being told to 'move the bloody pipe or the bloody shitter's gunna fuck ya street'. Or something like that, I dunno, I make all this shit up.
Okay this is pretty awesome. The Scottish city of Dundee is going to start paying people to stop smoking. It's going to attract cheats, fair enough. But honestly, twenty five bucks a week is a lot less than it costs the public health service to treat smoking related illness. And people fucking stink less. And they're less obnoxious about their right to stink in public. Good job, Dundee.

The Wizard Knight

2008-06-22T19:16:00.004+10:00

The Gene Wolfe book is really enjoyable. I love 'fairy tale logic', where the protagonist succeeds by knowing exactly when to be polite and humble, when to be bold, when to lie and when to tell the truth. This is full of that kind of stuff, especially in the beginning when Able is telling everyone he's a knight.

Like everything Gene Wolfe has written, there's layers of cleverness to puzzle through, which is funny because the setting is a divided world, similar to Yggdrasil. He's done his usual tricks: unusual words as clues, having the story related by a narrator that may be lying and has memory problems, stories within stories and revelations about plot twists hundreds of pages before they occur.

The stories within stories is probably my favourite of his devices. It was really effective in Peace and the Book of the New Sun, but he's used it sparingly here. At one point Sir Able of the High Heart, sometimes called 'The Green Knight' loses a duel and tells the winner about how he once challenged a knight to decapitate him and lost that as well. The other knight says it's a preposterous story, but since it's Able we can't be sure. What I do know is it's ripped straight from a Middle English romance called 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'. What's cool is the story both illustrates what's happening and alludes to one of the purposes of the book: the romance has been translated JRR Tolkien.

There's a little too much pondering the metaphysics of the created universe, especially when Able is trying to explain why he's done something, or why he can't do something. That's getting on my nerves a little. But apart from that absolutely loving this.

Kissing the Beehive

2008-06-22T19:15:00.001+10:00

Cough cough

2008-06-18T03:15:00.003+10:00

cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough coff coff coff.

Wolves

2008-06-17T22:30:00.003+10:00

Today is an awesome day of awesome wolves. I got outta bed at around midday, which is usual, and found one of the books I'd ordered had arrived. I'm done with Iain Banks for now and I've decided to get one of Gene Wolfe's new books. All of the stuff I've read by him is at least 20 years old, so felt I needed to read something more recent by him. I've read four chapters so far and Wizard Knight is proving better than the Book of the New Sun. I read it on the way to work and on the way home and I'm excited to go read some more once I'm done with this. Secondly the new Wolf Parade album is finally out and I'm listening to it right now. After the eighteen month wait I'm willing to give it a few listens before declaring a verdict, but goddamn I have a new Wolf Parade CD. There doesn't seem to be an 'I'll Believe in Anything' but honestly I wasn't expecting one. I'm sure I'll locate a favourite song once I've listened a few times.

2008-06-17T03:12:00.001+10:00

2008-06-16T22:08:00.003+10:00

This is fish in a bucket, but why does it seem like Bush's last major act in office will be ensuring conflict with Iran? If Obama does win a war with Iran would make it very difficult to gain a second term, and it wouldn't be the first time a Republican president had used Iran as political tool.
Today the Federal Opposition declared the Government's 'Work Standards' will increase business costs in a statement prepared long before the work standards were released. The Government replied 'No they won't' to which the Opposition declared 'Yes they will'.
So private schools get two billions dollars a year more government funding than public schools. That can't be right. I must be reading that wrong. If it's true that's absolutely fucking bonkers.
Measures that will cause an ease in the cost of housing will cause an escalation in the cost of housing.

2008-06-16T20:17:00.004+10:00

So at work today we rolled out the prize centrepiece of our new promotion: free syrup and extra shot Monday. Anyone who ordered their coffee with syrup or an extra shot of espresso got it free. It's like that every Monday until the end of next month (I think?) We've got signs up everywhere, there's internal emails flying about predicting a huge upsurge of business and crap from our district manager wanting precise numbers on how it was going. I dunno why she wanted that. She has no way of affecting the customer reaction to the promotion because NO ONE FUCKING CARED. Thassright, no one gave half a toss. Every fucking customer that came in I'm all 'oh and today we've got free blah blah blah' and they would just stop for a few seconds while they absorbed and discarded the information and ordered what they always have.

The problem has its roots in the 'do you want fries with that' attitude of fast food joints. Customers are so used to hearing shit like that they are completely uninfluenced by it. Sure when people started doing it, it showed success, but the idea is saturated now. We're supposed to 'suggest' a food item and a customiser to every single drink we sell and the only people who go for it are hicks just in from Bumfuck, Western Victoria. So when they hear us offer free shit they automatically think 'oh these fuckers are just trying to sell me something I don't want' and say no. Which is fair enough. When people try that crap on me at McDonalds or whatever I usually shout 'JUST GIVE ME WHAT I FUCKING ASKED FOR' and start throwing straws at them.

2008-06-14T20:14:00.002+10:00

A study has found that no one behaves normally in 'cyberspace'. 'Cyberspace'. That's the space where 'cybersex' happens. No one outside the media or academia has used the prefix 'cyber' to apply to anything else in at least five years. Also typing 'cyber' more than a few times in a paragraph makes it look ridiculous. Cyber cyber cyber. Syba. The team told New Scientist that it hopes their findings will 'inspire better models of online behavior' and 'improve network security'. What they forgot to mention was the major application of the data modeling: attracting fatarsed advertising dollars.
The G8's worried oil prices may stunt growth, meanwhile back at home the Reserve Bank is happy oil prices are stunting growth. For a while OPEC and oil speculators will be the bad guys.
A dude in Sydney lost 217 cannabis plants and his freedom when he didn't invest in enough Glade and incense.
Apparently the scent of coffee alone can help to get you up and moving. It does this by activating genes that otherwise might be slacking off and not performing their needed functions properly. The team hopes to identify the specific molecules that trigger the gene expression so they can be duplicated suggest 'pumping them into factories to help revive tired workers who can't sip coffee while operating machinery'. The next project for the team will be to discover genes that allow human beings to be curious and imaginative. They estimate a serious improvement in factory efficiency once these are removed from the worker castes.

2008-06-12T20:16:00.002+10:00

Been to sick to care about the news lately so I haven't been caring about the news. Maybe something later tonight. What I've mainly been up to is reading Iain Banks and playing S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Which I'll just call 'Stalker' because the full name is dumb to write.

The Iain Banks book is called Use of Weapons and it's the last of his Culture books I've yet to read. I've really got no idea what's going on in this one, but that's usually how it goes in his stuff. He loves him his macguffins.

And I've been playing Stalker. It's really fucken hard. There was a point where I was swearing and vowing to never play again, but I picked it up again and it's been kind of rewarding. It's not strictly a 'post apocalyptic' game, since the rest of the world is carrying on regardless outside Chernobyl's zone of alienation. But this is really how I would like to see Fallout 3 done, not like the hokey-jokey nonsense Bethesda seems to be lining up for the series.

The setting is really bleak. Most people you meet are vicious fortune hunters, the people you fight are there to kill for sport or gain. A lot of the monsters were once human but now something else. There's one group of mutants called 'snorks'. They crawl along the ground on their hands and feet, snuffling at the ground with the hoses from the respirators that didn't save them from their fate.

The game was made in Ukraine and to save money they haven't translated everything, which makes sense, and increases the feeling of alienation when you wander into a camp of fellow stalkers and one of them turns to you and starts muttering in Russian. I'm really enjoying playing it.

And that's that

2008-06-07T19:20:00.000+10:00

This message is being sent to confirm that all credit card information has been removed from the World of Warcraft account illabrat, effectively cancelling its recurring subscription as of June 6, 2008 4:54 PM UTC. The account will not bill or renew any further unless new payment information (credit card or game card) is manually entered in.

Guess what I want

2008-06-07T03:25:00.002+10:00

I want them thin and crispy with sugar sprinkled on top and lemon juiced squeezed over them.

2008-06-07T03:20:00.002+10:00

So I'm at home alone. Cat's in 'Laide and Nik's not working so he's staying with Joli. So it's just me and Smokey. Thing is lately I've been sleeping with earplugs in because little princess loves to run around and complain and scratch at doors after I'm in bed. But now since I'm on my own I'm feeling a little anxious about putting them in. Not for any sensible reason: any situation that'd be bad with them in now would turn out exactly the same if the other guys were here. I wish the part of my brain that was smart was the same part of my brain that was sensible.

2008-06-06T21:45:00.006+10:00

So of course Bill Henson's not a pornographer, not obscene. The photo the police seized has been deemed 'mild', which is fair enough. It's not like the guy's Mapplethorpe. If anything, this whole situation should be viewed as a piece of unintentional performance art, questioning our society's obsession with the body, sexuality and 'the other'. Which in far more interesting than anything Henson seems able to come up with.
This week Kevin Rudd unveiled his plan for replacing our diminishing workforce with labour imported from Indonesia. I mean, his plan does include all of the Asia-Pacific region, but he's probably just shooting for the high mark in the hope of hitting somewhere lower. Okay, that's cynical even for me. But the idea does remind me a lot of 1984, with the world divided into three competing blocs. If he does somehow, miraculously, succeed I would love to afterwards interview John Howard and ask him to compare his legacy with that of his successor. 'So your proudest moment is introducing the GST. Rudd managed to unite a third of the world and plunged us into unending war. How does that make you feel?'
I'm not a millionaire. I suspect you actually have to enter these things to win them.
This is a bit weird: a guy in St Kilda got anaesthetised then mugged. Just hope this doesn't turn into a serial thing. It does remind me a little of a guy back in Portland, though. Claimed he got attacked in an alley on Julia Street by two guys, fended them off but they got away with all his money. The local paper praised his courage and he claimed to have found strength in his love of the character Batman. The local paper also printed his restatement of the facts and that he'd lost the money gambling. Not saying that's the case this time, Occam's razor isn't always accurate.
Clinton II claims she's not looking to be Obamaman's running mate. I'm not really sure the Democratic Party is ballsy or crazy enough to be running with both a woman and a black man on the ticket. Her advice has probably been something about not wanting to alienate too many people. Which is crazy but that's politics. I bet she bows out with a strong endorsement for the Obamaman, then he gets someone white, male and inoffensive as his vice presidential candidate.

2008-06-04T16:30:00.002+10:00

Five joints of pot a day gives you brain damage. I'm guessing the reason this has gone unnoticed for so long is that no one who smokes that much actually cares, and no one who knows them can actually tell.
It's finally over. The Obamaman will be fighting the Bomberman to be king of the world. Mark it in your calendars for November. In case you, you know, forget and no one tells you between now and then.
So Australia won't let aid money sent overseas be used for abortions. Of course this should change. I don't get why people would think procedures like this are performed out of frivolity. How can we expect to be represented by people who hold weird, selfish ideas like that?
I want to be mad about the cost of World Youth Day, I really do. It's a religious festival that's costing tax money. At the same time it's tourism and promotion for Sydney, benefits that are long lasting and can't really be measured. It would have been nice if the famously rich Catholic Church footed a bit more of the bill, though.

2008-06-04T14:30:00.004+10:00

I'm working on a novel about multidimensional unicellular entities that come to earth and assume it has been completely exploited by colonies of 'flat' single-cell creatures that communicate with each other using chemical signals. It'll be a horror movie told from the perspective of the entities as they try to fight off the attempts of the locals to consume them and use them to create more monster-cells. I haven't thought of a name yet.

2008-06-04T11:02:00.003+10:00

It's not a work day, ante meridian, and I'm up and active. What the fuck? I have things to do, but not this badly. I made some coffee, ate some food, but I really just want to go back to bed. Yawn yawn yawn.