New Site Under Development

I guess it’s time for an explanation. For a while, I wanted more from the website. More images, more media, more content. Unfortunately, I’ve been neglecting the site a bit anyway from gaining something of a social life, and several changes to work that I have yet to document.

Either way, despite the ease of the blogger account, it would not give me the extra bits and pieces that I wanted for the site. So I have begun development on a new site, to make the screaming wall what it really should be.

The new site, with some new content should be up soon. I can’t nail a date at this point, but I’ll make a post here when it goes live. So either check back here or keep pressing F5 at thescreamingwall.com until the page changes.

Thanks

Jack

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Update for July

Well it’s been a month since my last update and I needed to explain some things as for the lack of updates and what was happening in the background.

I have been looking for a new job, since the joy was completely sucked out by a series of vampires management hired to boost morale. Unfortunately, these so-called children of the night have fed of my colleagues, and me, to continue their own damned, undead existence. There have been some difficulties in removing the parasites from their jobs as they managed to keep the HR department in their constant thrall with the promise of immortality and eternal beauty.

I may be transferred within the company away from the vampires, but there is no promise of this. I was told that cultists keep management in fear of more impending economic and financial doom. This has resulted in several rounds of redundancies and wicker men being built. The cultists claim that such sacrifices will be a greater benefit to the company. I do not believe this to be true.

So as a side thing, I needed a distraction and right now I have a photographer that pursues me like a bloodhound for website work. It’s modest stuff, but it gives me extra cash. And I need it. I was hit hard on the maintenance side of things, with equipment giving up the very spirits that I spent enslaving to work for me. I saw ghosts leave my laptop battery and something I cannot name rapidly aged the power supply. It cost me some good livestock to replenish these items, because the shaman wouldn’t just accept mushrooms, or precious beads.

Likewise, I needed some new eyes. And this was difficult at best. Especially, after hunting down the right person who had the same colour (off-grey) and then the delicate operation of removing them. I could never find the right tool. Ice cream scoop – too big, melon baller – too small. I just could not win.

I also got really bored, lonely and sad.

So to distract me overcome my issues, I decided to take on other projects, where hopefully I meet new people and create something others may enjoy. If we are all lucky, updates will be posted in due course.

Lastly, I am still writing Magpie, in case anyone was hanging out for it. I want to finish this story right, so I am going to complete it, edit and arrange it in the right order and then post it on a weekly basis. Hopefully. I’ll ask a magic 8-Ball about this while incanting the right words to check my course.

Thanks for keeping a silent vigil however, the few of you there are left.

Aeaeae,

Jack

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The Burlesque Hour

I found The Burlesque Hour by chance, breezing through the local street press. I was looking for things to do at the Fringe festival. Of course, I haven’t been yet, because the universe plots against me going.

Anyway, I’m at the Street Theatre. The night has shifted down to being cool as an open fridge. The oven-heat of summer has gone. I finally feel I have energy again. I roll up my sleeves to take it all in. I feel brilliant. The Street Theatre sits on the edges of one of this city’s universities. New buildings have sprung up, absorbing vital car parks. Some of the construction is nearly completed, new cafes, restaurants and convenience stores are stocked and shelves stacked, setting up for trade. The evening light filters through the skeletal steel and concrete of unfinished buildings. I walk under street lights made of two-dimensional coloured shapes. In the distance I can hear the sound of drums and symbols, people practicing for a parade involving a Chinois Dragon. Bang, tisch, bang, tisch, bang, tisch, tisch, bang, bang, bang.

Inside the foyer of the theatre are people hanging around the bar, huddled and cuddling glasses of pinot noir, bottles of semillion and the occasional beer. I go over to the booth, and the girl behind the anti-theft glass asks me what I want to see (Answer: The Burlesque Hour), my name (Answer: Anonymous) and where I heard about the show (Answer: Some local street press – she seemed a little perplexed about this one). I hand over my bread and take my ticket. Then I wait. The people around me are theatre-goers. Or at least one half of them should be. The thing I find about people who like the theatre and the stage, normal move in packs. But sometimes, and I’m seeing a lot of this tonight, they also come as couples. And you can see that some of the pairs, that one partner was obligated to go. However, I am alone.

Eventually, the bell rings, tolling for us to enter. Inside, the stage is with a runway that descends into the front row. Tables and chair are arranged around the runway, giving people with drinks and booze an opportunity to continue watching the show. The curtains are red and crème. Red Chinois lanterns hang all around, like angry, or possibly horny spirits. The sign, advertising the title of the show, is set with bulbs in a heart shape, looping in a flashing cycle. Ushers direct the drinkers to their runway-view seats. I sit a couple of rows up, wondering how this will play out.

Now seeing as there is one more day that this show will air, I don’t want to spoil any surprises. However you should expect a trapeze performance, dancing, singing, blood, balloons, milk, numerous underpants, strawberries, a two hundred pound female gorilla, and some nudity. You should seek to sit as close to the stage as possible. And wear your most expensive, stain-vulnerable clothes. You want to look your best after all.

That all said, it was slightly different in terms of what I was expecting for burlesque. I was thinking more classical style of burlesque. Something along the lines of the Velvet Hammer, or a show that followed the vaudeville in the days before colour film and when Orson Wells was scaring people with Martians. By the time the show ended, I found myself leaving the theatre with a spring in my step, breathing in the cold night air. Goodbye Summer.

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Storm Clouds

The clouds hang above me, dark and rippled. It rained a little earlier and only just. The thunder doesn’t boom, it gurgles, like the distorted sound of a sink emptying.

I can relate. I feel empty after today. It’s like the noose is tightening. I don’t know anything at this point. I’m without the dark blue liquid wisdom of the Magic 8-Ball. My desk is now only covered in work-related garbage and Japanese language books. I need to get out. Sometimes I think that going back to my parents might be a viable option. I know, overall, it has the appearance of failure, that I couldn’t make it on my own. But right now – it feels like a consolation prize. If it does get that bad, that I have to cross the Antipodes back to where I come from, then I will burn every possible bridge I can here. I’ve wasted a lot of opportunities, but no way am I going to miss pissing off potentially thousands of people in one go. It may be criminal, but it feels like a crime to let that one go.

The rain is coming down in waves, like it’s trying to reach that brass ring, but comes up short. The thunder occasionally rips across and grabs hold of the sky, and my attention. But the thunder is just a follow-up for some mediocre rain. I want it to storm. I want sheets of constant rain and hale hurled from the heavens. I want nothing to be safe from this storm. I want to see cars overturned, streets flooded and every smartass huddled in corners praying it would all stop. I want be scared and terrified. It’s better to feel something than nothing. Better dying terrified and alone, than just alone. Never doubt the wisdom of a softer world.

I hate summer. I enjoy the daylight hours, but I feel that 6 am to 9 pm is beyond the joke. I never sleep well in this season. Too many dreams about parasites and crazy dead people trying to teach me how to cook. The heat I get used to, but it’s everyone’s sunny dispositions that really get to me. I feel like punching them. Just crowning them right in their smug faces. Winter I excel. The hate in my heart keeps me warm.

Finally it decides to rain. Starting in spurts and then with the wind blowing, water is coming in from all directions. Thunder now tears across the sky, lightning flashes like small atomic blasts in the darkening clouds. Suddenly everything electric is out in a flash, lights, fridge and television. All dead and gone. Nothing left to do but wait out the storm. I sit back, pour myself another glass of Ringbolt and stare a the black screen of the television. My shades on, even in this twilight, the future can be bright. I invite the destruction of everything. And why not? You wait a lifetime, only to watch your own life to fall apart and not see possibly the final chapter of the human race. Think of the countless generations that waited for a day like this. Just to say: “This is It. About Fucking Time.” Screw heaven. That can wait. Damn Hell. This is the moment I’ve been waiting for. This is thousands of years of cultural indoctrination, piles of guilt and sin and condemnation. This is pollution and populace and past times. We screwed up this world, and everyone from the hypocritical preachers to blasphemous scientists are saying we have screwed with this world and we are going to pay the terrible price. But I ask when? The bill never arrives. They give a due date. You watch the mailbox. Nothing. Yet. Right now this is the perfect for me. Alone. Sitting in the dark. Getting drunk. It’s dark now and my shades are still on. I wonder if these will be on my face when the future turns to a giant dark wave of pyroclastic ash? Hmmm. The thunder is gone. The only lights available are the minute flashes of lightning from the clouds as they disappear across the skyline.

With the storm gone and darkness settling in, I decide to lie back on the couch and take a nap. No power means no thing to do but sleep like my ancestors. And that is exactly when the electricity bring everything back to life. Lights flash. Noises beep and buzz loudly, announcing their rebirth. If there is no rest for the wicked, then I am certainly one of them. Time to get back to work.

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My Hiatus

Okay so now I’m a hypocrite. For a long time, I said to people that I wouldn’t do it. But in this terrible and stressful period that has been Xmas and New Years, I’ve become weak. Very Weak. Old habits are the hardest to kill. There’s a woman at my work and she’s trying desperately to quit smoking, but occasionally, I’ll catch her. She’s had one or two. Stress Management. That’s what it’s for. Everyone has a crutch. You need one now and then to Get Through, because that is where the Way Out lies. So I fall back into old habits. And sometimes, get a new one. And this is a problem for me. Especially if I want my life to go somewhere. If I want to go overseas. I need to be saving money here. Not that I have spent any yet, because the first hit, the sample, the test taste, that initiation is always free. At least for the moment. Wait until you get the bill when you order a month’s supply. Then you’ll wonder how or why you got into this rut.

I knew a girl once that became hooked on heroin. Problem was that she couldn’t bear to inject herself. So she got her boyfriend to do it. So when the dragon needed chasing, there was this faithful smackhead ready to pump her full of drugs. I can now relate somehow to this situation, but only because someone was kind enough to pay my way into this thing he is in as well. I mean heroin is terrible and even knowing someone who is on it is devastating. You can’t do anything, except watch them get thinner and thinner until they become a methadone-addled puppet, with a one-track mind.

However, this is the 21st Century, and some people have come to realise that they don’t need to snort a powder, or inject some base into their veins. They don’t even need to smoke from an old modified coke bottle or huff from a plastic bag. Those people, the same that claim they are pure, are addicted to the adrenaline running through their veins. Their source, their pusher is within their own bodies. And a hit is never far from home. A workout at the gym, the sweat- and blood-stained floor of the boxing ring, the click of a mouse button, and in some lonely fringe, the power button of a vacuum cleaner.

In some darkened Internet café, or in basements and bedrooms of the terminally lonely, there are thousands, millions of people who reach out into virtual worlds. Ersatz Human Contact through a screen. Just type the address and you’re there. They spend their days, playing games, running from one end to another of fantasy worlds. They create and build and collaborate. They kill and steal and screw each other. They work and play and die, again and again in this place. They live their lives elsewhere. But if they could be anywhere, would they choose to be there?

Like the others above them, they will find everything around them perishing. The purist addictions will demand attention. They have a life of their own. It’s a thing that needs to feed. You may not see track marks trailing up your friends’ limbs, or the blood running from their noses. But you might see their shakes, those terrible little delirium tremens. Then they’ll be gone. They will drop whatever they are doing and fix themselves up. And then you’ll see the difference. The addictions of this terrible new age are invisible Not until you’re actually there in the grip of chasing the new kind of dragon made of LCD tones and false futuristic marvel, do you see your life changed. For better or worse, it’s up to you.

But one fine day, you will wake in that filthy hovel you once called your castle. You’ll walk among the debris of rotting clothes and furniture. Everything is unfamiliar. You’ve crash-landed onto the alien landscape that is now your life. Welcome back. Because this is where you belong. Your stupid mistakes, your decision or not, have brought to this point in space and time. As you trip over empty cardboard boxes that may have once contained food, consider how many rodents and insect have fucked each other in them. Take a long look at the soda bottles filled with sour-looking yellow liquid, knowing that you never remember buying that much Passito. Look around at the place where once kept a nesting instinct at the empty places your once had furniture, now trashed or sold while in the thrall of your habit. You’ll go into the bathroom and find it hijacked by Lovecraftian horrors. Slime and grime and creeping things that have made it worse than any Scottish public toilet. You’ll wipe the mirror only to see human wreckage. And like some burnout modern-day Ozymandias and look upon your ruinous work and despair. Take in a deep breath. Hold it. Your addiction has left that stench. That is the smell of “you’re lucky to be alive”.

Now’s a good time to quit.

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No Company to keep but my own

Long nights, considering the choices I have made. When your only company are roaches, porn stars and the four walls, you eventually snap from the opium-haze and begin to reflect. You stare into a black mirror. Torn is the past. Familiarity breeds contempt. I destroy things, its part of my nature. That’s why I go to great lengths to take care of the things that I have. But all of my care and attention can mean nothing. And in the end, there’s nothing but shattered headlight plastic, paint chips, twisted metal and blinking hazard lights. You should never drive away from accidents, but I did. And now I guess some people hate me. I need to keep running. It’s in my blood now. I had to lock away the nesting instinct. I cannot stay in one place any more. I need to be elsewhere. To see things. Do things. And be somebody else. I have spent too long asleep, dreaming of a future that doesn’t come. Drifting nowhere.

My manager has quit his job, making him the 5th person to run the Help Desk. The Desk of Doom rolls on. This is the same manager that announced three people on the Desk that they no longer had a position. And they all left. Now that he’s gone, another guy has replaced him. Micromanagement seems to be his thing. He gets down with the floor with the need to guide and steer the ship at every possible opportunity. I’m not sure whether this is a good thing yet. I haven’t talked to him. I seem to be invisible sometimes. Am I haunting the place that I work? Am I too busy? Sometimes I’m not sure, only because all of the new people we took on ask me questions about every minute or so. It’s hard to maintain a train of thought.

Hot summer days are setting in, turning everything, everywhere, into saunas. Photos and posters peel from the walls. Insects seem to be everywhere. Cool and clear summer nights are the only respite. I have never been a fan of this season. You can only get naked in order to cool down. Beyond that you either need a fan, air conditioning or scantily clad slaves with large fans made of the finest peacock feathers. I grew with distaste for the beach, only because it was pretty much the only place my parents would take my brother and I on holidays. In the end, I hated the whole affair. The sand, the sun and the surf. The family arguments, the long endless drives past white concrete condos, the bitter silences that we shared. Each member of my family does his or her own thing. It’s how they worked it out and how I was raised. So in the end, we get selfish and do our own thing. We spend time together, but only really when it matters. We work well, after a fashion, because we have our space.

Sometimes, I’m happier when I am alone. When I’m around people too often, I just begin to hate them. Or at least the parts that annoy me. I can only take most people in small doses, if at all. That doesn’t mean I am incapable of love, which I feel for a small select group.

However, every night I am reminded that I sleep in an empty bed. And that ultimately, my only company is myself. I’m not sure if I should ever consider a relationship and even bother to try. Would someone understand me? Or would my touch destroy them? I don’t know. I guess right now the only certainty is that I am merely passing through your lives. To some I will just be a footnote. Others may keep me as a chapter. But I know no one has me as the whole book. Not Yet. And that’s the only wisdom I can scrounge from the macadam, looking into stunned and shocked faces as I jump back in my car speeding off to the sound of sirens.

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Madam Guillotine's Scream

The cunning is gone. The Committee has decided to do away with the unnecessary rabble, thin the numbers and spook the herd into submission. Everyone is silent as Madame Guillotine’s blade drops from it’s poise, screaming as it rides the rail to the stock. Another head rolls, another place nullified by bureaucracy.
Three of my friends are victims of Madame Guillotine. Right now my body is in the Phoenix, a bar that more of an ancient hole in the wall, in the heart of the city. This is a good place to take shelter from the ash outside. My mind is somewhere else. I’m trying to calculate what will happen tomorrow. And it doesn’t seem to get better no matter how I try to form it in my skull.

Tomorrow we will be down, four, maybe five people depending on the drinking happening in this place. The people, who lost their heads at work, are about to party in commiseration. Misery loves company and right now there is a lot of love to go around. They will attempt to drown their worries and wash them away in rivers of beer, tequila, vodka, gin, more beer and more tequila. They will all talk about how much shit is going around and agree with each other.

These people were selected on the basis that their performance was down, yet somehow these are the people that would appear to be the “troublemakers” of the help desk. Those that may cause the most problems from management’s perspective, who were the loudest and who appeared to lack the confidence to continue. They were written off. Cast aside.

The problem here is that these people are among those with the tribal knowledge of the technicalities and background of the system and it’s many, many mysteries. Normally this would be passed down to the next generation through word of mouth and apprenticeship. They had experience. Now delicate balance is tilted and everything will be tested by the fire below. Only three, maybe four will be on the desk have any clue on what is going on. Between these people they will have to reign in about 30 – 40 people that will need constant assistance. And these people must service two agencies, one that consists of roughly 30,000 clients and another with 7,000. Each of these people has at one of either a laptop, desktop workstation or sometimes both. There are several system environments with around 200 applications. Just so you have a picture of what a few others and I have to face tomorrow.

They have cut one team in half, leaving one person to process what is hard for two people to do. Another team will be left with one person for two, maybe three weeks. Normally, four people have trouble keeping up. Only one team leader is left to manage these people and keep an eye on them. By removing people, they have only compounded issues. It feels like the ship is sinking.

It’s finally decided to rain, it’s relaxing sound coming from behind the Six Organs of Admittance piped through my headphones, like lo-fi natural white noise. It’s time to reflect on the changes that we face. Soon I will be looking for new work. My hands are over-full, holding up the sky. And my fellow titans will agree. This place looks more and more like the Tartarus. I would rather be paid less and have less responsibility and less stress. If someone offered me a ticket to another country, I would take it without a moment’s hesitation. I would be on that jet as humanly possible, in the pursuit of pleasure, adventure and something better. I would be out.

I return to the office the next and everything is quiet, not just at the help desk, but in other sections of the building. The Committees reach is long and deep and Madam Guillotine is very hungry. Across the board, more positions are turned redundant. From the highest level to the low. The Terror knows no difference between them.

I feel gutted. My will to continue has evaporated. I no longer want to be a part of this. Only weeks ago I was excited at a new role and the potential to leave a legacy, to make a difference, albeit a small one. But now that is gone. There is only a void. I’m tired. And I know they’ll make me do the work I spent long enough in and fought hard to get out.

Time to shake the 8-Ball again. I ask it my question. It’s reply:

REPLY HAZY
TRY AGAIN

I shake it again, give me an answer:

CANNOT
PREDICT
NOW

You bastard. Fuck this. Fuck you 8-Ball. Fuck you Ra. I’m looking for a new job.

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The Magic 8-Ball and Madame Guillotine

I once asked a Magic 8-Ball™ whether I should shoot up the whole office. It’s reply:

ASK
AGAIN
LATER

The 8-Ball is wise beyond it’s years and manufacture. Now was not the right time. No-one was in the office. It was late, and everybody but a few spare souls left grinding out the late shift.



Terrible news comes to the Human Wreckage of the Helpdesk. A merger means redundancies across the board as position are written off as irrelevant. People are being headhunted by the corporate versions of the vicious Dayak tribes of Borneo. This could not come at a worse time. With a work load that would make Atlas blush, it’s been a wonder why we all haven’t found better jobs, something more towards our calling. The threat of losing work may mean the end of the Desk of Doom. Is this ironic. No. Like Ouroboros, it folds back to doom itself. It will live again, albeit at another cube if necessary.

The Basement is a bar that lies, sunken and low, underneath a sports store and next to a Chinese Restaurant that is mostly empty. Here at the bar, half the lights are gone from the hanging fixtures. An old cobweb hangs from the recent Halloween. I’m sure it won’t be until march next year, before someone has the wherewithal to bring it down. The only patrons here are regulars and fixtures. It’s Tuesday and the pool tables are free. It is a vicious night that won’t rain or clear. Clouds hanging overhead like the redundancy. Like Madam Guillotine, locked in her pose, ready for that razor-sharp blow: Quick, painless and entertainment for those not in her stock.

Plots of Revenge are brewed as quickly as they are discarded. The gnashing of teeth, the slugging of drinks down the hatch to wash away the bitter aftertaste. The quiet brooding. That is the nature of the Help Desk. It is a cruel one. We receive flack on both sides: from customers that only hear us as some disembodied, alien voice, and management, who only see the numbers at the end of the day.

These are times that I remember of the time I was fired from the Fire Rescues Service. That was a job with stress, with lives literally on the phone line. I had trouble sleeping then. But no more now. The only time I don’t sleep, is when I cannot wait to face what happens on the next day. Sometimes, I’m tempted just to stay awake. to exercise, jog, lift waits and get the adrenals running. It’s more potent than caffeine and cheaper than speed. I want to one day see the sun rise on the day of greatness. I want to see it roll, majestically over the horizon and light this miserable world. Then, while drunk on my own excitement, stand in this brand new world and say, “Fuck You Ra.”

I swore I would never bring my work home. But I broke that promise a couple of days ago. Then again, it was writing and as Doctor Thompson once said that writing was better than any drug that he had encountered. I am an addict to this. This is like running through the opium fields of Shambhala. You lock yourself in for the ride and let it take you there. It’s the purest therapy for me.

If the barely budding blossom of the documentation job dries up, I want to fall into something where writing, how I want to write, is not only allowed, but grossly encouraged. “Fuck Yeah,” someone behind me yells. I think they’re talking about something else. There’s no way they can read my inner monologue (or can they?).

Some cunning is required here. I need to tap that wellspring again and slide through the cracks like a snake. I need to be a blur like a fox. And I need to claim my territory like a bear. Absolute pure cunning dug from the centre of my mind. If you can’t get that, sink some spare cash into a Magic 8-Ball™ and let the random chance of the Quantum Universe be your guide.

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City in Exile

Thursday
Our adventure begins in the VIP Lounge of some southern airport. While Phile and I are engaged in our electronic devices, an ageing consultant makes his observations known about the changing technological world and how we are slowly imprisoning ourselves in cells of 3G gadgets. And like, I don’t know who maybe Prospero, he has found himself trapped by his own admissions. He does have some kind of gilded cage, with a home-away-from-home on some island that he can work outside of the workplace.

Lucky Bastard. Phile and I are between interconnecting flights from the Glowing Octopus and the City of Exiles, isolated and alone across a vast desert. We are knocking back various drinks, Pure Blonde Beers, Heineken, assorted wines that are served around the local region, or selected by the airlines prestigious purchasing team. The VIP lounge is interesting. It took a while to get used to the marble toilets, the gold and silver fountain and the sound of a gong before announcements for the flights. The peacocks roaming the lounge were overkill though. Our flight is delayed allowing us another “one for the road” and then maybe one more.

The flight was relatively uneventful. Most flights I’m always reminded of those scenes from Fight Club. The airline safety brochure, the way the plane banks and shakes from turbulence, the expectation that when I look out of the window and see the wing peel away or the engine just jettison itself from the craft. Sometimes, I think that this flight will be my last, but this only happens whenever I am a passenger. And it’s much more serious in aircraft. On land the most you will ever be doing (legally) is around 120. Planes can easily do triple that and nearly a mile up in the sky. One thing goes wrong and that’s it, a 1 in a 1,000,000 chance of survival. Knowing my luck, it’s more likely going to be the shrewd business man who needs enlightenment, or the child that has done nothing but cry all through the flight, that will survive such a tragedy. Though realistically, I’m more likely to die in a car accident, or something else involved with four wheels. And maybe fireball-laced explosions.

We land in Exile and I immediately find a familiarity with it. The setting sun and, something undefinable in the air that makes it feel like Brisbane. Maybe it’s the rolling hills, or the old deco homes. This entire state was built on the wealth of iron. And this is seen everywhere in the deep red and ruddy bricks.

Our shuttle bus from the airport churns through the streets at a blinding pace. Here the Masonic Lodges are blue, and the oldest parts of the city are decorated with the Black Swan, the name of the river that courses through this distant metropolis. There are relics of old buildings where the façade only stands, like from a rejected Hollywood set piece. Other parts feel like Sydney (Leviathan) shipped here brick-by-brick. Maybe this is just nostalgia, the various trips and travel I have made to other cities in my short life.

Our first stay is at Miss Maud’s, a Swedish-style hotel, restaurant and, as I discovered, bakery. For the relatively reasonable price we paid, Phile and I were treated to excellent lodgings and food. I was so filled with seafood, roast beef and apple crumble I thought I might burst.

After a brief trip to the Belgian Beer Café, I returned to the Hotel to lie down, expecting one of the creatures from Aliens to explode from my stomach. Mind you, I felt conflicted. I was uncomfortable, but that food was really tasty.

Friday
I woke up to an alarm clock that just would not quit. Though I did keep just hitting the snooze button and not find a more permanent way of stopping the alarm. Unsure about how I might react to the dinner before, I dropped by the Miss Maud bakery, picked up a couple of croissants, a coffee and a bottle of water. Then I went for a breakfast walk. I went south towards the river, past the Supreme Court and through parks towards the shore of the river. The roads are busy with the morning rush. Cyclists and joggers, swerve to avoid each other and me. Crazy people stare, fixated at the oddest things like blades of grass or discarded plastic bags. Finishing my breakfast I survey the area of the river where this race will be fought out, on the opposite bank, the stadium has already been prepared. I walk the entire length of the temporary landing/take-off area. There are individual mini-hangars for each team that is competing.

I return to the hotel and meet up with Phile while he is enjoying a plate of bacon and eggs. I joined him, not realising that with the room that we booked, we also received a free breakfast, along with the free dinner we had last night. Phile told me about one other person in the restaurant who seemed to have some difficulty choosing food from the smorgasbord. He would look at the selection of fried eggs, all arranged neatly in rows. He would see an egg, and then use the spatula to pick it up. Just as he was about to take the egg for himself he would see another egg and then go to pick that. Each time he would pause for what seemed to be an age as if deeply considered his approach to the mechanics of manipulating the food onto his plate. Now repeat this process three to five times and then again when he went to get pancakes, bacon, hash browns, juice, toast or even additives to go with any of these foods. I dread how long it takes for that guy to go through a morning routine. People would have to dress him, otherwise, how else would he possibly get ready for work as living doorstop.

Did that sound a little cruel? Well I guess that’s what happens when I’m low on sugar and I’m hankering for pancakes.

Then Phile and I went our separate ways. I went to explore some of the shops that happened to be closed during morning walk. First on the list was a record store called Dada Records. The entry part was all T-shirts and vinyl reocrds. Then I went downstairs. There was a huge collection of CDs, especially hard to find releases like from Venetian Snares. I was blown away by this fact. If you happen to be visiting in Exile, drop by this store, you will not be disappointed. I wandered through streets to the State Art Gallery, bought a bracelet from an Italian backpacker, and ate a chicken bento while I watched the grand finals of another race occurring in this city, as local high schools competed for the fastest solar powered car. I checked out another record store called Next Level and then returned to my new hotel, which finally had a room ready for me.

The Criterion Hotel that lies in the heart of the city had a huge selection of mixed reviews that left me with zero expectations on how the whole place would be like. The building is decorated inside and out in an old style art deco. The rooms themselves are minimal, but are clean. The sheets don’t have weird stains and the room doesn’t smell funky and there is hot water in the bathroom and this water is not a dark brown. So far so good. There is no minibar, but this is great, because I don’t need the temptation for a fifteen-dollar packet of peanuts that contains around six salted stale chickpeas.

Phile and I went to the Northbridge area of the city, looking for a place to eat and this apparently was a prime district for restaurants and getting some descent eats. After much wandering, checking out the various places, we decided to eat at a place called The Greek. It was a pretty straightforward restaurant, simple, good Greek Cuisine. Though the seating arrangement inside was admirable, Phile and I could not resist sitting outside in the cool, clear evening to enjoy grilled snapper and Corfu lamb shanks. I didn’t taste the snapper, but the lamb shanks were perfect, with the meat falling away from the bone and practically dissolving in my mouth. It was sublime.

Phile and I then went hunting for a place that served up a nice Long Island Iced Tea. Unfortunately mine was not to be had as a collection of hired security apes prevented me from entering Tiger Lil’s on account of my shoes. I didn’t get it either. I really do hope those that fate spins the wheel of unusual deaths for them.

Moving on. I went home and relaxed and returned to write. I passed out somewhere at this point.

Saturday
The Qualifying rounds of the race day began. I am beginning to wonder why I am here. There is a race on, but last night was Halloween and this weekend is covers that Days of the Dead. This is the official opening (or is it close) of the harvest, the beginnings of the long sleep through winter. The dread of Christmas time, and considering the current “economic climate change”, this season will be a very frugal one. In a couple of days, the new President, be he a junior senator or ageing war veteran. All of this was considered on my way down to the pits. They were temporarily open to the public, allowing every man-jack and his dog to see the planes and their pilots up close and maybe get some autographs. Getting autographs has always been kind of a sticky subject with me. I only place myself in their shoes, random yahoos off the street asking to sign something that will end up being bid on eBay. I can’t do that to them.

I spend most of the day wandering around the city. In the distance, I can hear the roar of engines. Speeding, buzzing and roaring over the river. I look for stores and places that I saw were closed during the previous night. Empire Toys, Quality Comics, Joynt Venture, all fine stores but have simply become a blur in my memory. I need to get something to eat and then make it back to the Phil’s hotel in order to see the Qualifying round of the race. One by one, the pilots took off from the runway, entered into a holding pattern on the other side of the race. Before running the gauntlet of oversized traffic cones, they perform two loops to display themselves to the crowd and then at full throttle, at 400kmph, they catapult themselves through the first gate, shooting and churning through the chicanes and then performing something like a half Cuban eight, pushing up to 12G, coming back down through a level gate and then having to knife through the three remaining gates, the last two involving another high-G 270° turn then back through the start gate again for one more lap. Each plane repeats this course, again and again attempting to push themselves and their craft to their limits. There are twelve entrants in this race with only one being declared the winner.

Now there were some problems that I will address right now about covering this race. Firstly, the hotel room, as booked by Phile, was not as expected at the Crowne Plaza. Granted when the room was booked it was under the expectation that it was the highest room available at the time. Maybe all that was available at the time was at the first floor. Maybe there was a large collection of accurate psychics who knew when the race would be exactly on and booked all of the other rooms in advance. So this resulted in another problem, not being able to cover the entire race live in any sense. Not being able to watch the race from a hotel balcony with wi-fi and all of the other cutting-edge technology at my fingertips has left me to cover it in a more conventional way. After watching a couple of the pilots first qualifying rounds from the pool deck, we decided to go down to the river edge to see if it was a better vista. It was easier to watch the race. It was but it was like watching the race in two dimensions. Shortly afterwards, we were back at the hotel watching what was left of the qualifying rounds for the day. It was at this point of the day that we learned that Hannes Arch had enough points to be world champion and winner of the World Series, even if he were to lose the current race.

Phile and I ended up rounding up our day at a Jaw Kaiten Sushi bar that was All-You-Can-Eat. There was a 45-minute time limit to this. However, the first thing I ate had a suspicious texture and taste and I wasn’t quite sure from this point if I might survive the night. The fact that nobody else had pick the same kind of sushi only reinforced my paranoia about whether my meal would give me a rough night or bad morning. Neither of which really happened.

Sunday
The finals were on. After some wandering around in the city, it was time to meet Phile at our secret location, perched 39 levels above the City in Exile, with a near-perfect view of the entire race. From there we watched the finals for the race. There the pilots all tried to out-time each other again. Running the same laps, pulling G’s and pushing themselves and their flying machines to their limits.

At the end of the day, Hannes Arch had won the series, but only came third in the race. The day belonged to Paul Bonhomme and Nigel Lamb who got first and second respectively. Even without listening to the radio, the moment Bonhomme knew the result, you could see the joy in his flying as he performed stunts high in the blue.

Looking back, this is one of the things you look for as a spectator for an event like this. Stunts. The other thing is for the plane to have a collision with one of the many pylon gates that the planes push themselves through. The pylons are made out of material that basically destroys itself when any part of the plane comes into contact with it. Instantly the entire pylon deflates. When the plane finishes it laps, repair crews scurry out to the damages pylon and within a minute and a half, they have replaced the damaged section of the pylon and it’s reinflated ready for another flyer. The reasons behind this are simple, fast reinflation, means the race only has a short delay and more importantly, the pilots don’t have to refuel.

While one pilot is running his laps through the circuit, two others fly around in holding patterns over the city. These light aircraft burn around 80 litres of fuel in an hour. And they only carry 50 litres. So time is of the essence to keep this race running. There is only a small team of maintenance guys who flood the barge to reinflate the pylon. However, there is another boat and two guys on jet skis that are all dressed in day-glo yellow jackets. I figure they are just security.

Last night in Perth, we eat at the Sorrento Restaurant, ordering a fettuccine with chicken. Phile orders oysters and margharita pizza. The oysters weren’t on the pizza. That’s sick. The meal was good, but not totally memorable. Normal Italian cuisine.

Monday

The foul stench of a Kuwaiti livestock transport drifts through the town of Freo. The coastal breeze brings in this smell while the boat waits in port to be loaded with sheep destined to be slaughtered in the Middle East. The Red Bull Race is over and so as the last leg of our journey, Phile and I have decided to stay at Rosy O’Grady’s, an Irish Pub that is fairly close to the centre of Freo, giving us relatively easy access throughout the town and it’s tourist traps.

We took a tour of the Freo Gaol, built by the convicts themselves in the 1850’s, the place served as a way of storing society’s monsters until it was closed in the 70’s or 80’s. It was interesting to see a prison that has served well for more than a century, but I understand why they closed it down. The entire sructure is crumbling and ageing. There are new prisons of steel reinforced concrete, razor wire and panopticons.

I’m not sure what to make of Freo. It’s a port town, and I imagine it has own mix of characters, but right now I’m not sure it doesn’t have it’s own share of pirates and castaways. Parts of this town seem that way. Like the livestock ship, there is a smell of desperation in the air. That some people cannot get away even though freedom is a breath and a hasty decision away by boarding some container freighter and disappearing from these shores. Sounds tempting even to me.

Despite this, there were some surprises here. There was a record store that supplied only old vinyl. It was a refreshing twist to see everything in 12-inch format. The New Edition bookstore, a beautifully laid-out independent bookstore, I would have felt guilty not buying something there. So I ended up with the Little Red Writing Book.

We end up going to the Esplanade, there, seafood restaurants cling to the water’s edge, like large shellfish. They all try to push their own gimmick, to lure unsuspecting prey – customers. The Kailis restaurant offers the “Ultimate Seafood Experience.” However, what you will find inside is a market café where you can buy fresh seafood, or something that was deep-fried. I felt a little cheated by the sign, when I learned it was also self-service. It looked like a fast-food restaurant or just a larger version of every other seafood place I have seen on the coasts in my life. That and the cannibalistic lobsters had me a little worried. There they were on the tank, the hollow abdomen shell lay at the bottom of the tank. It’s eye sockets empty. The tail was being fought over by two other lobsters as the clung and clumsily tugged at it while trying to scrap the meat from the chitin. Joe’s Fish Shack offered a wide variety of seafood, but had an interior of some American chain restaurant, where all manner of knick-knacks and memorabilia crowded the walls. I don’t trust a place that spells the fact they serve drinks, as a “Bah”. It’s not cute, or funny.

Our choice became the Mussel Bar. This place was shaped like two pyramids glued together by their bases, with windows that hung over the window, allowing a full view of the waters of the Esplanade. The place was a little dark, maybe because it had been threatening to rain all day. I had ordered a duck confit with chicken breast stuffed with Swiss cheese and spinach. Phile ordered mussels in white wine with braised onions. A short time passed and our food arrived. The duck confit was great the fat rendered into the duck meat for perfect flavour. Phil received his mussels, in a white bowl as big as a toilet. He really enjoyed the meal, licking and supping the juices of the wine sauce from each emptied shell.

We returned to the hotel we were staying at to play a game of Hive. The Hotel was a place called Rosie O’Grady’s and we ended up with rooms that were huge, except for the bathroom. You could have shot porn here with ample space to spare. The meals weren’t half bad either.

Tuesday

Our final day. I spent some time wondering around the town, seeing the shipwreck museum and taking photos of graffiti. Last days are tense exercises for me. I spend the entire time mentally preparing myself for the whole trip back and the prospect that I will need to return to my job. At the end of the day, Phile and I spend our last moments at the Little Creatures Brewery Bar, taking in the final sites. We went to a trivia night at our hotel (coming fifth in the end) and then spending a little time at the Sail and Anchor for a game of Hive, only ending in a draw.

Wednesday
Our flight is early, with the shuttle bus slowly churning us through the streets in the midst of the morning gridlock. Traffic easily bottlenecks in Perth and large construction jobs that seem to be everywhere in this city, do not make things easier.

We hit the airport running as our flight is about to leave and then it’s five hours of single-serving meals and in-flight movies to get to Melbourne. The movie in particular was WALL-E. I didn’t listen to most of it, only deciding I was bored enough to plug my headphones in near the end. Most of the dialog consisted of two characters EVE and WALL-E saying the following lines in conversations

EVE: WALL-E!

WALL-E: EVE!

Repeat this a thousand times until I feel I should just blow my brains out.

We – finally – landed in Melbourne. While waiting in the same decked-out VIP lounge we learnt that Barack Obama had become the newly elected president of the United States. I was impressed, though I could not hear his entire victory speech over the howling of the peacocks.

Soon enough we hopped aboard another plane that soon landed in the Glowing Octopus. A taxi speeding us home, the driver gave us news about the calamities of the race that occurred only days before. Mostly involving the price of beer and the line to take a piss.

Arriving back home, I learned the best news a weary traveller can learn upon arrival: I didn’t get robbed. This time.

Looking back, getting away was probably the best thing to happen in quite some time. The City of Exiles, though strange, was inviting. Freo began to grow on me. Some day I look forward to returning. To see the sun set across the ocean, to watch a storm swell on the Indian and to smell the Desperation of the Port again.

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My Work

I have finished Echoes, and am currently working on a new project. So right now this site will be used to track the progress of this new project and to talk about other things namely small stories about things that I have encountered in my life. Which isn’t much, I haven’t lived a very exciting life. Well, not exciting by my standards. Maybe other people, who get out less than I do and spend their moments reading this as opposed to say, playing a MMORPG or surfing for porn. Maybe you collect stamps and you stumbled across a site that referenced me.

So lets start with the jobs I have done since it since the law stated that I work and no longer be a parasite to the state.

One time I worked at a drycleaners. My sole purpose at being at the drycleaners was watch the shop on a Saturday and hand over garments that people were picking up or dropping off. It was easy. Ludicriously easy. I would do a good deal of drawing to pass the time. This job was pretty cool. But also weird. I was the tallest person there. The thing is dry-cleaning places have a series of rails for running the clothes along to keep everything mobile. Unfortunately, everything is quite low and for some strange reason all of these people shorter than me (I’m about 5’9”) were hired. They breeze throughout the entire building without a care. However, I have to duck. Otherwise I would hit anything hanging from the rails, including the rails themselves. It was weird to feel tall, considering the late bloomer that I am.

For the better part of a month I attempted to work for a media production company. It was a small one, mostly devoted to the local business and surrounding farmers. It’s principle customers were a series of cattle sales companies, who wanted everything from videotape of bulls, to brochures, websites, and Flash-based interactive catalogues. I wanted to sign on as a Flash-developer, because that’s what I heard they needed. However, they assigned me to build this database, to be used for tracking employee times.

Now having come out of university, with some software development experience (this I use very loosely) they assumed I could develop a functioning piece of software for cheap. They were wrong. I sat around part-time for a month (I was working a retail job as well) trying to build this database. However, assistance was minimal and eventually I walked out, gaining more hours at the store I was actually employed at. By my calculations, they owed me four hundred lucre. I was never paid.

I worked in a super market for several years through high school and mostly university. It was mind-numbing work. I didn’t advance very far, because I was still under the Malaise of Being Educated. And while I know how truly disgusting a supermarket is in the backroom, I can still stomach shopping there. This happened to be my first job, only because my parents, despite the fact they said they loved me, stopped giving me money solely for this reason. If you do possess a mind that goes a mile a minute and slips into a world of it’s own. Do not get this job, because you’ll get plenty of time to think. Think about how you came to be here. And think about how you may escape.

After getting fired from an Emergency Communication Centre job, I worked at two electronics retail stores. It started as something to get me through Christmas and because I was such an “earnest worker” it carried on for another two years. In this time, I learned the fun of the stock take and that I could be a wrangler of people. That it’s hilarious when the acting manager rocks up to work with a hangover after waking in his car from the previous night festivities. That you can get a front seat to the Managers Life and the terrible soap-opera style downward spiral that it became. And you with the carefully placed words to Area Managers you can help get a certain manager fired and return to work within two months.

I worked at an Emergency Communication Centre for the Fire Department. It was intense work, you had to sit poised ready for the red phone to ring. This didn’t always happen, so you may have spent hours drawing, writing, what have you. But when It Did Ring, you had to be ready. You had to approach it with an Apocalyptic Zen. Sometimes it would just be smoke, other times it would be a chemical spill. Most of the time it was a car accident, or a smoking power pole. Sometimes the person on the other end would be calm and collected, others would be screaming down the line panicking that everything that was their world was going up in smoke. I could pretty much do it all. I could turn out (yes that was the term for dispatching) the vehicles, I knew all of the vehicle code names, the radio protocol, the highways, the stations, the procedures and SOPs for almost every known incident. But they fired me. I boned an oral exam on the support procedures. Things like whom a member of the public could talk to about smoke alarms or complaints. After that, and some office politics, I found myself without a job and with a looming depression.

Although I was screwed, the work didn’t really suit me. The rotating roster didn’t allow you to become familiar with anyone and this also facilitated others to take advantage of the staff. You would work 4 days, two 10 hour day shifts, two 14 hour night shifts and then four days off, but you were practically a zombie for one and a half of those days anyway. Though I enjoyed parts of it. It was no help to my social life.

The sweetest job I ever received was delivery job that a pharmacy offered me. All I had to do was send packaged drugs to the elderly. These people couldn’t make it to the store, I sent them their weekly meds. They gave me a car that I almost had several accidents in. Most of the people were friendly, only because you were one of a handful of people that decided to drop by and pay them some attention. The best part was the ability to crank up the radio and cruise around town. I learnt more about my hometown and where things were in that two months than I had in previous years. If I ever end up in a position where I live very comfortably without working, then I would happily take up this job again.

I am currently working at an IT Help Desk, which in turn works for a large collection of public servants scattered all across the Antipodes. Their muck ranges from simple problems such as not being able to open a file, or lost passwords, to servers being down and or a web-based application decides to refuse to work. Usually when this happens, hundreds of clients call us about the problem just to let us know that it’s not working. It’s up to us to tell them that a) we already know about the problem (from the 50 previous calls), b) there’s nothing that we can do until second level support manage to fix it and lastly, c) despite this, to have a nice day.

Not everyone appreciates the ‘nice day’ part. My particular role is one part quality control and 30 parts of babysitter of Adults. The people that make up the Help Desk is a bit like a pirate crew. Not like the Disney franchise, but a collection of criminals, misfits, outcasts, lost souls, the psychologically unsound and the manically depressed. We all work like drudges, with somewhat nebulous support and training, with a system that should have been upgraded around two years ago. While I make this sound negative, most of these people are really fun to get along with and I consider them good friends.

I managed to get this job through several phone calls from a contract employment agency, which seemed to like what I had to offer. One phone interview later, I found myself packing my bag and saying goodbye to everything that was my life in the Old Town and then driving down to the Glowing Octopus.

At the end of the day, you don’t know what you will be doing next. Because next week anything can happen. An opportunity that’s too good to miss. Too many bridges burnt or too many too far away. Your company may be bought up by ruthless competitors, or find itself engaged in Chapter Eleven proceedings. Or you might strike big and all of that work, all of the drudgery, ass-kissing, late nights and early morning would pay off. But most of it is just pure unadulterated cunning that will see you through.

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My Dreams

I feel that this is a good time to tell you about my dreams. I don’t know why this is a good time so I’m just going to put that out there and let you ponder it.

I have very simple dreams. Now these aren’t dreams about world peace, or reducing global warming. I’ll leave that to politicians in desperate need for a vote and pop stars who could literally buy slaves. My dreams are selfish. They only serve me.

I want to one day live in a huge apartment tower, right at the top. At nights, I would lean at the balcony rail and watch the world below go about its business. Occasionally, you might stare up at me, puzzled while I scream out, “Behold My Glorious Naked Form!”

I want to one day produce porn. This would be extremely cool, because I could gain the oxymoronic label of “virgin pornographer”. Yeah. This brings me to my next dream…

…to do it. With a woman. A pretty one with a good head and was born a girl. None of this, “but I’m a woman now.” Crap. No. I don’t care how much it cost you and how good it looks. I won’t hit that. You’ll have to pay me. If I happen to fulfil this dream before the above one, it would be no problem for me not being able to take that label, because it would be Mission Accomplished.

One day to meet my secret heroes as an equal (of sorts).

To build an extensive library of books, but I’ll be honest here, I probably will never read most of them. I only ever bought books for their pictures so it may be largely erotic photography. Still an extensive library of erotic photography is impressive.

I would like a job where I would give an idea to a room full of anxious people. After delivering my proposal, there would be a stunned silence and one would finally pipe up, saying, “That is…fucked up.” Then they would go do it, after writing my pay cheque.

I would like a crazy Vegas-style wedding. If I could afford it, I would rent a giant pink neon crucifix and hire an Elvis impersonator as the minister, either Black or Asian. And flowers - lots and lots of flowers. A classic Casio electric piano stuck on Organ setting. It would be pretty non-formal affair as you can imagine.

My funeral would be an awesome affair. It would involve a float shaped like a Viking long boat, a rock concert and my remains being destroyed by a mixture of half-explosives and half-fireworks. And the wake would have to be a barbeque of some description. Maybe open-fire spit roast.

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The List

With my break from work almost over, it's time to reflect on something I did before leaving. And that was lending my car to a friend from work to drive it around so it didn't just sit in a car port looking abandoned.

Fearing that my car would be used recklessly, I made a list of things that the person in question could not use, or perform in my car. Hopefully, I covered most things.


So here it is.

1. Do not crash my car.
2. Do not attempt to perform any handbrake turns in my car, but not because I think it’s seriously dangerous. I just don’t think my car has great “drift value”.
3. If something breaks down on my car, please tell me and get it fixed. We can come to an arrangement over how it gets paid.
4. Please do not speed in my car, run red lights, or in the event of doing the former two, engage in a high speed chase with the police.
5. If you are going to use my car to dispose of evidence, please use adequate plastic sheeting, the boot is notoriously difficult to clean.
6. Do not crash my car.
7. Don’t forget to keep the car filled with petrol. It’s just embarrassing when you run out.
   After several years of being in the sun, the LCD screen on the CD Player has become a blank orange screen. The radio has been set to Triple J but this is not a preset. You may want to create a mix cd that you know the tracks intimately. Also the CD player tends to skip when you hit an ant, but not a pothole.
8. The Air Conditioning is a bit funny. A couple of years ago, the fan settings 1, 2 and 3 stopped working, the highest setting still does. It’s funny because I only ever really used 3 and 4, so if you want to stay warm, you’ll stay pretty toasty.
9. Do not crash my car.
10. The suspension is still good in my car. This is NOT an excuse to have sex in it.
11. Please do not transport illegal or dangerous items in my car, please see rule #5.
12. Clean any stains that you leave in my car. I will not believe it is “nail polish”.
13. In the event you are involved in an actual car accident. Please consider your well being first. I will organise my insurance people to sort something out.

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Chaos Worshipping Shit Eaters!

This is a moment I have been waiting for. Since October, I have sacrificed the scant personal time I possess to study my course at university. This has not been an easy thing. After all, since moving to the Glowing Octopus, I still studied through correspondence with the Uni at the Old Town. Doing this has been a terror, quietly studying in solitude, hoping that my hours of dedication paid off. That my gambling with grades would finally show fortune. I finished an assignment that was 60+ pages long and took away nearly every one of my conscious hours.

It robbed me of my life. Not a big part, but enough to feel diminished. Then straight after the tentative posting of the assignment, it was straight into study for the exam. At this point I’m already drained. I push on. I study at work as after hours its gets quiet and there are less distractions where I live. I would come into work on the weekends, just to use the good parts of every Sunday to study. I was becoming a zombie, there was nothing else in my life but study, which at first tasted like ashes, but as you might know, if it’s the only thing you have, you get used to it. Then came the exam, the most stressful experience of my life, so far. I’m glad I didn’t throw up.

I did all I could, while my hand decided to lock up into some malformed claw. The pain I learned to ignore, but I’m sure it was creeping up my arm. I eventually got the shakes near the end. It was so bad that I could barely write. I finished all that I could and then left.

Then I waited.

My problem was that after so much study, and stress, and study, and work, I had trouble relaxing. I still hung back after actually finishing, even though I had nothing else to do. I still came in on a Sunday, because I got into a terrible habit. I practically brainwashed myself. I even felt depressed over the fact that I had nothing to occupy my time. This is what this course has done to me. I’m getting over it, but its slow.

The ultimate problem behind all of this for me, is this is the eleventh hour. This is the last course for my degree. This is also the last chance to get the degree. Apparently, I burned a bridge with the university and now I’m only a student with them as a kind of technicality. I’m a guy who managed to get back in because I stumbled through a loophole with the system and it worked brilliantly.

For two weeks, I waited with baited breath. I have almost become physically ill from the very idea of what my result might be. All I need is a pass, but the Universe and I have often come to loggerheads about what I need and what I get, so there you go. Prior to the result being released, I felt sick to my core, like weird alien parasites eating my small intestine. That hollowing drop and cold, sick feeling in your Manipura Chakra, that undeniable dread. Just the thought of visiting the site give me this.

The time of the results being released, and for me, the moment of truth, the reckoning comes. I log into the university’s website. And the result is displayed with a goldenrod background:

NR

My results were not released. I rang the university to get some answers, after being directed around their switchboard, I talked to a Sheryl. She politely explained to me that the results were not released, as the course leader, had left the university before finalising the course.

I only had stunned silence, but Sheryl continued. She explained that the while all the exams had been marked, they were not finalised and while the course leader was probably on some boat with Moroccan boys, the marks would be finalised by another and would be released later.

And although this time is soon, I am now unsure how I will survive my weekend. I had pent myself up so much that even failing looks like a good prospect, because at least I’ll know, no more waiting, no more trying to keep myself distracted with pointless tasks and being busy with nothing. I would be able to move on.

So to you jackass, time-eating, life-wasting, duty-balking, course leader: you are a chaos-worshipping shiteater.

Addendum: A very tense week later, the university released my results. I got a distinction for the course and would (finally) graduate. Thanks, "Anonymous" I forgot to include that part.

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Lessons Learnt for 2007

Last year I sent around a list of things that I had learnt. I’m not sure if people found it funny or not. Anyway, in continuing my tradition of writing about things that have happened to me over the year, the list is back for another round. And it’s been quite year. And if you know me well enough, you’ll understand why and what has happened

Whenever you move from one place to another take more time than a week. While this conjures a strange respect in others, you will find yourself missing a great deal of items and thinking, “Man I could really go for some Lone Wolf and Cub…No, wait I left that back at home.”

Never move just for the job. That, I think was my only real mistake this year. I should have said something like, “I thought Canberra might be nice and I knew a few people down here…” At least this way people won’t think that you’re some kind of crazy guy.

When riding on the bus, do not talk to anyone and make eye contact. Fatal consequences only follow this, meaning, one way or another you will not ride the bus again, except only in the most extreme circumstances.

On the occasion that you are nice to someone, make sure it’s not the crazy lady that looks like Queen Mary out of Elizabeth. Otherwise she will take an unnatural liking to you and attempt to steal your seed, blood or other vital fluids and she will have very grabby hands.

When you attempt to prevent said crazy lady to touching you, make sure that you are armed with something heavy. A university text book usually does the trick, but you may have to improvise.

When your boss asks to work overtime, forcing you to drive a car and therefore avoiding the crazy, grabby, bus lady. Thank your good fortune.

There are never enough car parks in this world.

I found that Venetian Snares is the scariest and, yet, strangely intriguing electronic music I have encountered so far.

When hunting for a place to live, the most interesting and I found had the keywords, “Brokeback Mountain Situation”. I didn’t respond to this ad, I just thought it was funny. And scary. Very scary.

Also, you don’t always get the first place you wanted, or the seventh, even the one that was expensive, but it had so many features, man it would have been worth it, like the place that had a spa, gymnasium and parking all in a secure block, and the girl was visually impaired, meaning she had a massive projector screen.

But when you move into a new flat make sure it doesn’t have rising damp.

GE Creditline’s Employees, collectively, are soulless vultures who circle above you waiting for you to drop so they can feed on the corpse of your earnings. Though, individually, I’m sure they are very nice people.

Auctions are fun, but when you buy a desk, also buy a chair. Prearrange how exactly you’re going to transport your desk-sans-chair. And probably think how it’s going to fit in your room, because the flatmates won’t let you have it in the living room. Yeah, that’s all important.

If “Buffalo Bill” had YouTube, he would be Chris Crocker.

I didn’t think that Maynard James Keenan could get any lamer, but man, I was so wrong.

What do I dread more than a system design assignment, a dental checkup and an extra workload combined? That’s right Sandworms of Dune by Kevin J Anderson and Brian Herbert. But only because Dan Brown didn’t release anything this year.

Robert Anton Wilson died near the start year and it made me a very sad Panda.

That's about all, I won't think of anything new until the new year.

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