Phobia

I'm going to the the-a-tre on Thursday night. I love theatre, I just wish there wasn't so many pretentious theatre-goers. People swanning around with champagne and wearing capes. Capes.

I'm going to see a play called Phobia. I won tickets. I've been winning a lot of tickets lately, but only to movies that don't show here. There's only like two cinemas in Sydney that are playing these movies, and fucked if I'm driving three hours to go see a movie. I rarely go to the cinema down the road.

So, I have to wonder, if I've been winning lots of tickets lately, does that mean I might win something if I buy a ticket? Like, a lottery ticket? One can only dream.

could it be a cult?

My boy is interstate right now, doing one of those motivational, we'll-help-you-find-direction-in-your-life-and-improve-your-self-esteem courses. He enrolled nearly two months ago and since then he has received a phonecall at least once a week from "the Leeeeader" (yes, you have to say it like that) to congratulate him on his enrolment.

We have been joking about it a lot, saying it's some sort of cult disguised as a course. These people are really happy. I mean really. You can hear the smiles in their voices and have to wonder what they use to prevent their faces from cracking. I don't think it's normal to be that happy all the time. It would be great if people could be that way, but if you didn't feel bad sometimes, how would you know when you're happy? (I think I read that or saw it in a movie recently.)

So, he called me last night during a break and said a lot of things that surprised me. Like, he's going to be more open with me instead of bottling up his feelings. And he knows he has to make things happen instead of waiting for them to happen. All good stuff. And I wonder what they have been saying to him (or giving him) to make him talk this way. Sounds pretty good to me, but I'm still suspicious.

You have to be suspicious of drastic changes in a person that literally occur overnight. You would be too if you knew how stubborn he can be.

This is freaky.

some song

Ever fallen in love with a song? One that has to played again and again and you never tire of it. One that has a single beat, or chord, or lyric that makes your heart stop for just a second too long.

If that song was a person, you would never let them go.

You know exactly what I’m talking about.

You would marry that song-person if you could. And you would dance until the soles of your feet wore away to the bone. And you would sing until your vocal chords melted into your stomach.

I think I heard that song the other day.

I’m going out to buy new shoes and butter menthols.

Just in case I hear it again.

If you build it, they will come

Bullshit

Maybe I’m impatient. Maybe I lack self-promotion abilities. Maybe it’s a crappy idea. I thought it was a good one.

I wanted to achieve global (blogger) participation.

Educate and entertain the masses.

I love group projects. Coming up with ideas and working with friends and strangers to see it come to fruition. Fighting over titles and glue sticks. Working non-stop until the pizza arrives.

All it takes is response.

your responses

But just like in school, the group project falls on a select few to manage, and the slackers lurk in the shadows, and wait till the right moment to step forward and bask in the glory. Take all the credit. This seems to happen to me a lot. Even now.

But you know what? This is no school project. I’m not being graded. Neither are you. This was a whim, a dare, a response to a response to a comment I made once.

I don’t care if it happens or not.

But it could’ve been fun.

the hunt is over

Househunting is a stressful experience. The photos in the ad look great, but you show up and the place is a dive. Or the house is great, but the rental price tag isn't. Or the agents are pigs. Or everything is perfect, but someone else beats you to it.

Not this time.

I found the perfect house, for the perfect price, with the perfect agents. And I got it first. I dropped off the application form this afternoon, and they were ringing me to tell me I could have the place before I even made it back home.

Woohoo!

Is it wrong to be this excited about renting? I feel like I'm five years old and just caught a peek of my first bike, and aren't allowed to ride it till Xmas day. But this place is awesome. And if you lived where I live now, and then saw this house, you'd be excited too.

[Today was the best day to take a sickie.]

commuting is bad for the soul

throwing the gauntlet down

imagine if we got every lesson from every blog and compiled it into a book. a fucking tome to existence. imagine if we could do that.

It may be occupational hazard, but I think you’re on to something here Meg. And running my mouth off somehow always creates more work for myself. But Bobby, if you tender such a challenge, who am I to decline?

Here’s the thing. The logistics of it are a little hazy, but lets run with it anyway. Post the link to your favourite blog-lesson here. But you can’t post your own. Then we vote on the ones we like best. Then, I’ll arrange them all into a book (because that’s what I do).

The rest... is up to you.

Essential additions for the workplace vocabulary

[I try to resist the temptation to post this kind of stuff... but I'm sure some of you can relate.]

BLAMESTORMING: Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

SEAGULL MANAGER: A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps all over everything, and then leaves.

ASSMOSIS: The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing the boss' butt rather than working hard.

SALMON DAY: The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die in the end.

CUBE FARM: An office filled with cubicles.

PRAIRIE DOGGING: When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to see what's going on.

MOUSE POTATO: The on-line, wired generation's answer to the couch potato.

SITCOMs: Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids.

STRESS PUPPY: A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiny.

SWIPEOUT: An ATM or credit card that has been rendered useless because the magnetic strip is worn away from extensive use. [I suffer from this extensively]

IRRITAINMENT: Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying but you find yourself unable to stop watching them. The Anna Nichol show or Big Brother are prime examples.

PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE: The fine art of whacking the heck out of an electronic device to get it to work again.

ADMINISPHERE: The rarefied organisational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve.

GENERICA: Features of the North American landscape that are exactly the same no matter where one is, such as fast food joints, strip malls, subdivisions.

OHNOSECOND: That minuscule fraction of time in which you realise that you've just made a BIG mistake.

WOOFYS: Well Off Older Folks.

CROP DUSTING: Surreptitious flatulence while passing thru a cube farm, or any other public place, then enjoying the sounds of dismay and disgust (this often leads to PRAIRIE DOGGING).

And lest we forget:

ANAL GLAUCOMA: Used as an excuse for not showing up for work. Translation "I just couldn't see my ass coming in to work today."

where there's smoke...

This week there's been a lot of backburning going on. We're only a few weeks from the start of winter - though it certainly doesn't feel like it (no complaints here) and we haven't had rain it what feels like forever, but it's a strange sight nonetheless. Especially on dusk where the glow from the flames is almost entrancing. But it's playing havok with the peak-hour traffic. Everyone has to slow down and look. One could be forgiven for thinking Canberrans had never seen fire before.

Heh.

how embarrassment

embarrassment is…
getting really drunk and trying to create a whirlwind in your living room by running around in circles, and then falling over and wrapping yourself around a house plant.

awkward embarrassment is…
being asked how you got the bruises on your knees and carpet burn on your elbows and wondering if you should tell the truth or let people think you’re some kind of deviant.

actually, it’s only embarrassing when asked by your parents.

eleven

I have to wonder what happened to courtesy. To being humble when asking a favour. To giving advance warning. To saying pleeeeaaaaase...

Instead,
people drop their hat and say "jump" simultaneously, and I don’t know which to do first: pick up the hat or ask "how high?".

Instead,
people expect a stay-home-work-late on a Saturday night response to their demands. A "I’ve known about this all week but I’m only telling you now and I want it done yesterday" demand.

Instead,
I’m going to smile sweetly while telling you to do it yourself I’m getting drunk tonight and you should have though about that earlier.

I don’t get paid enough to deal with this shit.

talent

Our buddy Crackdale over there has been holding out on us. Everyone should check out what he's been up to, if you haven't already.

Go.

R.P.O. part 3

In case you were still wondering... the guy's not getting fired. Not that I wanted him to be. But it was fun pretending I had that kind of influence.

And we're never going back there again.

So there.

jukebox

You think you know what someone likes, or what they don't like, and then, one day they surprise you.