Ahh…the weekend is here once more. Having suffered from the flu all week and dealing with a household tragedy, I am all but wasted. I need a good laughand received it via Virulent Memes. Cat-Scan. Very good.
A blog written in Brisbane, Australia predominantly dealing with Australian culture, news, politics and sport.
Monthly Archive for June, 2001
For every 99 good people there is one complete wanker. Last night at 9.30pm one of those wankers carved a permanent scar in this household. My housemate was out walking her dog, as she does every night about that time. A car came speeding around a corner, through a give way sign, fish-tailing down the road, wheels screeching, V8 engine roaring. Needless to say her dog was startled, slipped the leash and bolted…staight under the wheels of the offending vehicle. It didn’t try to avoid a collision with a 4kg Maltese Terrier, in fact it accelerated even after the impact.
I wish all the misery in this world to the driver of that car.
This house was Zed’s. He ate when we ate. He went where we went and protected his domain with the jealousy that only a 20 centimetre high dog can possess. When your housemate returns from her walk bellowing at the front door carrying a bloodied and limp creature, what do you do? I must admit that my eyes bawled for the first time in what must be 7 years. It is the first unexpected loss of an animal friend I have had in 27 years. Which is what makes the experience even worse. Coming home from work today I wasn’t welcomed with a playful growl, neither was I woken this morning up by a lick on the face when Zed decided that my alarm clock had been sounding for 5 minutes too long.
Nothing hurts more than a pet dying. Human relatives and friends dying unexpectedly causes less grief than the passing of a faithful, playful canine/feline companion. (to me anyway) I wonder why?
After having spent exactly $6800 on my Mastercard over the last three years (mostly on Bills, Computer shit, and HECS fees) I decided to redeem my Reward Points. You see my lovely bank gives me one point for each dollar I spent on credit. What do you think I got?
A $50 VOUCHER TO SPEND AT MYER!
You’d think they’d be more generous with their offerings, huh, we can’t expect much for nuthin’ I ‘spose. I ended up buying two CD’s from David Jones’ pitiful music depatment. After weeding my way past the huge TOP 40 section I managed to find the new Weezer album and the Indigo Girls’ compilation, Retrospective.
I had a girlfriend once who got me onto the Indigo Girls. I thought they were OK until I saw them at the Queensland Performing Arts Complex sometime in 1995. From then on I thought they were stupendous. They were fantastic musicians to see live. They have a big ‘lesbian icon’ status surrounding them which sometimes scares me away from artists. Not because I’m a homophobe or anything, I just get very suspicous of bands that aim at a very particular market. The Indigo Girls never did that I must admit. Their music, although a bit ‘Adult Orientated’ for my tastes, inspires as well as being dreamy and calming. Just what I need as I dive head first into my late twenties.
Ahh…my Sunday could not be better. Last night my football team won, although they weren’t spectacular in doing so. Then I had a very relaxing evening of tequila consumption at ‘The Cherry Bar‘. Ate the worm too. Will never perform that stunt again. Irk!!
Arrived home at around 3.30am and ended up making that dreaded semi-drunken mistake…that’s right…the expensive overseas phone call. It was worth the money though. Every last cent.
Sorry, no more to add today. I have a hangover of a particularly nasty variety – but never fear, I have a cure at hand. More beer.
There’s a court case being launched against EXXON. What wonderful corporate citizens they are! Have a read of the article linked above. The sooner companies like that are put in their place, the better off we will all be.
Thanks to Hamilton from quirkified for adding me to his link list. As mentioned yesterday, I’m a fan of his blog. His daily musings are entertaining to say the least.
What a bastard of a day. I stayed up until 2am last night watching Australia thrash England in the cricket. I must say that London looked at it’s sunny best on the TV. Usually I listen to the radio commentary instead of the dumb-asses that insist on talking utter shit on tele. Besides, the BBC commentators are particularly funny in that typically dry English fashion. Whilst the commentators were discussing the recent ground ‘invasions’ by Pakistani supporters, one piped up "I wonder if we are going to see a crowd invasion this afternoon?" The reply came from a colleague with tounge firmly planted in cheek,"I think the only invasion to occur today will be at the nearest tube station."
Anyway…after only 3 hours sleep I had to get up early to get a lift to the office with the boss. He borrowed my company vehicle overnight. Of course I slept in. Upon waking at the sounding of the horn I managed to whack on some clothing and brush my teeth in 2 minutes. Must be some sort of world record broken there I am sure!
What else? Umm…I suppose we must say goodbye to John Lee Hooker. He died at 80. Tomorrow morning I might set the mini-system to wake me up with some grand old Hooker tunes.
Anyone want some Monty Python action figures. This is a scream. Here you can buy action figures of the main characters of Monty Python’s ‘Holy Grail’ film. I WANT I WANT I WANT. I think the price is a little excessive though. (via Slashdot)
Today is the shortest day of the year. It only gets brighter from now on. I find it amazing how people cope with different lengths of daylight hours in different parts of the world. Being a very ‘outdoors’ kind of person, I love longer days. Melbourne suits me because in summer it doesn’t get dark until after 9pm. Having lived in London, where it gets dark at 10-10.30pm, I found it incredible.
The pick of the crop as far as I’m concerned is Norway/Sweden. Two months into my travels in May 1996 I landed myself in Trondheim, Norway. It was a very student oriented town. On the first night after a long train journey from Ostersund, Sweden, I was in total awe that it was still light at 11.30 in the evening. Albeit an eerie twilight…suggesting that I should still be out exploring my new surroundings, kicking a football or sitting in a beer-garden behind a Norweigen bar. The streets were however, empty.
I got back to the backpackers hostel at 3am on my first day in Trondheim and the sun was beginning to rise once more. I could not sleep…I was confused. Was it the alcohol induced state I was in or was it the fact that birds were chirping and fluttering about in the early morning light? Probably a mixture of the two.
Add an extra 14 months and move the story to the far north of Scotland and things were only more confusing. One of the finest camping grounds in the world treated me to 21 hour days. I know that locals keep to their timetables in such long daylight hours….but an Aussie backpacker just CANNOT. If there’s light, there’s something to be achieved, explored or observed. Give me a few years in a summer of 21 hours and no doubt I would descend into a routine. Go to bed at 11pm in broad daylight and get up at 7am in brilliant sunshine. No problem.
I just can’t seem to adjust to different hours of daylight. If it is light I am up and about. If it is dark I stay inside, whether at home or in a dingy drinking establishment. In winter I can’t seem to get out of bed until first light (7.30am) whereas in summer it’s the same (5.20am). Hmmm! I must be an extremely photo-sensitive being. Jet lag lays me down for two weeks easily. I know no-one who is like this. Tell me. How do you cope with extended daylight hours?
Change of subject…
Industrial relations. Today I spoke to a man. A forty-five year old man. A man who washes dishes for a living at a large multi-national hotel. Namely the Grand Hyatt Hotel, Melbourne, Australia. He was pissed off, not having had his 30 minute lunchbreak. I told him to just take it, to tell his supervisor to eat shit, after all we all must have a break – some time to ourselves. He just laughed at me saying “I’m a casual employee mate. I earn $11.76 an hour. If I kick up a ‘stink’, I have my hours reduced”. To me, in 2001, a company paying a wage that is unliveable is criminal.
Let’s have an underclass to wash our dishes, clean our toilets and sweep our footpaths. Fuck ‘em, if they can’t educate themselves they deserve to eat crappy food and live in cheap, sub-standard accomodation.
As far as I have learnt, if we ingore the needs of one person, we end up paying the price of that ignorance five times over.
Yet another change of subject…
Have come accross another blog. quirkified. Give it a few weeks to get used to. It’s an interesting read.
The competency of upper management, whether it be in business or in sport has to be questioned when stories like this pop up. C’mon, this is a bit hard to believe…pregnant women have been barred from playing netball. While we are at it lets stop them from driving cars, washing the dishes, walking up stairs, FUCKIT, let’s just make women that are pregnant stay inside all day incase the poor little foetus gets damaged. Decision makers are growing more senile by the minute.
To combat this senility problem, I am all for this brilliant idea. An academic in Sydney has suggested that our leaders should be subjected to a test to check for signs of mental instability. Good idea if you ask me (sorry no links available for this story yet).
An article about dog farts in my daily paper. Now I’ve seen everything.
A fat tax. Now there’s a good idea.
It’s raining, it’s cold, it’s winter. There’s an Elvis movie and ‘The Dam Busters’ on television. Everyone I know has gone away for the weekend so………I’m going to sleep in the bath for a while (when the water gets cool I’ll wake up – I hope), try and finish the book I’m reading, vacuum my room in my favourite 7 year old undies and play Sim City 3000 on the computer. Now that’s freedom.
Interesting article in The Age today about the relevance of George Orwell’s work. The article is an extract from a booktitled Orwell and Politics by Timothy Garton Ash. (Note to The Age – I had to link to an article in The Guardian, Australian news sites are absolutely fucking hopeless)
Then there’s the other side of the story.
I really hope I don’t get fired from my job or have some sort of injury that keeps me bedridden from Monday to Friday. The thought of watching daytime television sickens…
Chinese spam. Hmm. What’s with that? I’m in trouble now. What would they want to sell me anyway? Every second product on the shelf in Australia is Chinese anyway.
On the subject of China….I have a corner shop some 200 metres from my inner Melbourne residence, owned by a man named ‘Paul’. He’s from Beijing and has been in Australia for 15 years. He is the most pleasant person I have ever met, ever. I have rented the terrace house I live in for 15 months now and have gone to his store everyday since moving in. He knows my habits back to front. He knows I buy the paper every single day, he can see me look to the cigarette cabinet and before I even ask for Port Royal rolling tobacco, it is on the counter in front of me. He is alert to the fact that on Friday mornings I am always hungover – thus he has one, and only one Classic Vanilla Malt flavoured milk carton delivered that morning. It is kept aside for me.
He knows that I study hard. Every day he asks how I am going and once he even told me – ‘You study hard, eat good, you do well in life and get good job and wife’. Poetic. I can only wish. This man sits behind the counter from 6am until 9pm (10pm in summer). Occasionally his wife or children hold the fort, which I quite look forward to, because his twenty-something y.o daughter is gorgeous. Anyway…I spoke to a few locals yesterday whilst out walking the dog (walking myself really) and they said the same things about him.
I lived opposite a corner store in London from early 1996 until early 1998. It was in Roundwood Road, Willesden and the proprietor was exactly the same sort of man as Paul. When I visited London for three weeks not long ago, I popped in to say hello. Good old ‘Raj’ wasn’t surprised to see me even though I had not been there for 3 years. He pulled The Guardian out from behind the counter and reached for a packet of Marlboro almost as if I had never left his custom. I just took his offerings and paid accordingly. He said it was good to see me again and wished me well. ‘Safe Journey’, he yelled, as I trod away,’Send me a postcard of Australia’. I must do that tomorrow.
What is it that drives the ‘Corner Shop man’?
Every few weeks a newspaper article hits me, head on. It could get me angry, make me laugh or launch me into deep thought. This rarely happens because our daily papers are written for people with reading levels of age twelve. Danny Katz had an article in todays Age. It dealt with Victoria’s new Racial and Religious Tolerance Bill. Some people are shirty about it infringing free speech. Well, Katz’ piece will test whether humour/satire based on religion and race is now out of bounds. Good read.
If your anything like me, you like your music. You like it loud occasionally and you like it sounding crisp, clear and..well..perfect. There is one man on this planet who has taken things a little too far. Yes, I do love my music to sound good…but even if I had the $$$ I don’t think I’d go this far. Give me a mid-price component system and a couple of good speakers with long cables for summer BBQ’s, and I’m a content man.
So, I hear Bigpond users have been inconvenienced again today. Am I alone in noticing infrastructure slowly falling apart? Power shortages in SA and VIC. Gas plants blowing up and a national telco who can’t get their shit together. Onward and upward chaps…or is that backwards?
Good article about that death the other day. (via Barbelith)
Found a good webcam of Melbourne. Click on the ‘»′ up on the top right for a panoramic view. (beware of the shitty pop ups)
What the frick! (via rozziland.com).
Misreading signs on streetscapes is a habit of mine. Partly through lack of sleep, partly due to my incredibly short attention span. Imagine my surprise when driving down Victoria Street in Richmond/Abbotsford when I saw a sign advertising Marital Aid Lessons every Friday nite. I must point out that Victoria street has a very large East Asian community with fantastic food inside every second doorway. I double checked and to my relief the sign read Martial Art (shouldn’t there be an s in there) Lessons every Friday night. For a moment I was considering taking a lesson or two, but since I’m not married I guess I have no need for martial arts.
At 1130 this morning I was having an early lunch at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Melbourne (Now don’t start calling me a ‘hoity toit’, I do some contracting for them and was eating in the staff cafeteria). This fellow named Michael, a chef, approached me and asked, “Did the see the piecost that somebody left behind at the bell desk?” I replied with the obvious. “What’s a piecost?” “$2.50,” said Mike.
Sorry, it’s bad and most probably a very old joke. I had never heard it before and when I tried it on someone else they just frowned at me and said, “You watch too much SBS“. Apparantly the above joke was told on That’s my Bush. I wanted to watch that series but I’m rarely at home on Saturday nights and am usually to wobbly / jolly / pissed / drunk to set the video when I leave the house at 8pm or so.
Another great site I have stumbled upon via several other blogs that I enjoy reading is Barbelith. Read about Situationism…..in a nutshell. Interesting!