Eat Your Friend, Too

1: I must have run into like ten people today who I did not expect to. It was awesome until I was so focused on what I was doing that I accidentally snobbed someone.
2: I feel a lot more socially proactive now that I have something to show off. This also results in a lot of "that's nice, I'm going over here now." I will learn I'm sure.
3: I'm scared that "these murders are making me thirsty" is about to become our own little "you're tearing me apart, Lisa".
4: I nearly forgot that I was supposed to do bread until like, 9:30.
5: The discount warehouse was so cramped and confused that I couldn't even tell where the register queue was supposed to be.
6: I think this Santa suit doubles as a bathrobe, maybe.
7: 7AM START? STAY UP ALL NIGHT.
8: It's actually more comfortable to sit at the computer on my knees than on my chair. Better for my height and my back. Not so good for my knees.

Trailing

I hope you like strange movies about friends and murders. Being on the Youtubes makes me tempted to start running a video segment on the blog, but of course as you can see I've done a right good job of keeping up the blogging over the last month or two. By which I mean I haven't. At all. Sorry about that.

I'm now finished with University, though. This makes me happy.

1: Dan and I worked out that we're musical specialists. He's good at writing percussion tracks and generating riffs out of nowhere. I'm better with pre-existing material - creating variations on existing motifs, adding harmonies, and figuring out exactly what's out of place. Having worked that out, we're making a much better team.
2: The cat! Oh lord, that warbling, strangled cat. She'd prowl around the house all night trying to serenade an audience in the darkness that didn't exist, and when that failed, she'd find a hand to rub at. Then she'd stare at you, butt in the air, with wide, round eyes that had the faintest glaze in them, and roll over.
3: I caught myself this morning trying to decide whether to wear jeans or shorts. The meteorologists and Melbournites are not surprised.
4: "Wish" and "Expect". I don't know what the similarity's supposed to be, because I think of them as opposites.
5: They ask me what's similar between the words, and then look at me funny when I engage etymologies rather than the concepts that the words are meant to label. They asked me about the words.
6: I wanted to try out that bass line I wrote. I was halfway there when I realised that my bass is out of tune, and I don't have a tuner. Then I realised I have a tuning fork. Then I remembered that I don't even know where C is meant to be.
7: Registering an Australian Business Number (ABN) only costs $85.
8: "You don't poke around down there." "WOMEN DO IT!" Oh, Seinfeld. There is a reason I do not watch you. 

So Much Shock and Terror

Mystery #1: What is "Birdemic: Shock and Terror?"

Answer: The most badly made "professional" movie I have ever seen.

Mystery #2: Why did I take a screen shot of that?

Answer: Because watching that movie all the way through is a major accomplishment.

Mystery #3: Why on earth did I feel compelled to share it with all of you?

Answer: Because everything about this movie's existence is a mystery to me. In other words, it fits the title of this blog to the letter, even if it isn't exactly in the usual spirit of the thing. The rest of the mysteries below remain unsolved.

#4: Why on earth did the writer/director of "Birdemic: Shock and Terror" decide to make a movie that calls for tons of CGI exploding eagles when he only had a budget of $10,000?

#5: Do all the actors feel the same as the lead female, who recommended at the premiere that audiences should have alcohol while watching it?

#6: If so, how did they get roped into this project?

#7: Who looked at the final product and thought it was a final product?

#8: Is there a rule that movies have to be at least 90 minutes? If not, why is there an uncut scene in which the protagonist drives along for several minutes, stops at a gas station, refuels his car, and then resumes driving all the way to his destination without anything of consequence happening?

#9: What fraction of run-time would be left if the establishing shots were only as long as they needed to be to establish whatever they're establishing? If scenes with action and dialogue actually ended after all the action was finished, rather than going on for at least another few seconds?

#10: Why do I still love this movie anyway?

Unintentional Advertising or Use of Copyrighted Material?

If you're wondering why the eyeless person is stylistically different in appearance than everyone else, it's because that's the way my lovely friend Liesl (who does, in fact, have eyes) drew herself in her comic diary. I decided to keep her consistent so she'd be recognizable as the same person in both our comics.

And yes, that line is actually in the Gaston song. Well, the reprise, to be exact. I really love Disney movies sometimes. Seriously, it's worth having the subtitles on so you can catch lines like "Forty frenchman can't be wrong!" in the kill-the-beast song, or Coggsworth's comment about something in the castle being "minimalist rococo," which makes no sense, as rococo is pretty much the opposite of minimalist. Fun stuff you don't catch when you're a kid.

Psyche

1: His name was Ben, and he was a psychologist. He asked what had prompted me to make the call (my cousin). He asked what my social and uni life/s were like (good mostly, some minor difficulties I guess?). He asked what drugs I do (caffeine and alcohol) and how much (2-4 daily, 1-4 weekly, respectively). He asked if I get along with my parents and my brother (fairly well). He approved of the reason I'd called (better self-understanding). Then he said they'd call me again in a couple of weeks to make an appointment (okay). Sigh, waiting lists.
2: "I think, to be a good actor, you kind of need to have some kind of mental problem --"
3: I reached into my pocket and found at least two grocery receipts (folded), a scrunched flyer for Short Flicks, and a piece of lined paper that I felt sure would be some kind of note. I opened it up fold by fold, expecting to find pen marks with each prise. Turned out it was just the strip of paper I had left over after Scenes From A Hat.
4: Two little boys were charging around Aisle 6 while Munaf and I were working the freezer. Their mum kept nagging them to “stop playing before something – “ snap. There goes a jar of cream, all over the floor. “I didn’t mean it!” said one of the boys. “Doesn’t matter,” said their mum. “I told you to stop playing!”
5: One of the bread delivery guys was late. Dom ripped into him.
6: A weedy old man on the tram hunches over his mobile phone; his voice sounds grainy, disembodied, as though he’s on the opposite end. He was hidden behind another old guy with his back to me until a few moments ago, so it really did sound like his voice was coming from nowhere.
7: It was warm yesterday and this morning, so I came to work without a jumper or jacket. And then it started raining. Spring rain. Light, warm, grey rain that makes the city smell of dust, exhaust, and pollen, and makes it hard to tell whether the surface of your skin is hot or cold.
8: A microphone evangelist, right by the Bourke St. tram stop. Male, late 20’s-early 30’s, short hair, tousled and spiky, standing in the rain. He spoke as though directly to God; “ -- and miracles! Seeing that happen! Ha, ha ha! It’s so awesome to know You, Jesus Christ my savior!” Seconds later he swooped on the tram queue, who’d all clustered together under the shelter to avoid the rain, and started asking the stragglers if anybody had a slipped disc? Or lower-back pain? “cause I wanna pray for you, God’s telling me someone’s got problems down here –“ He pointed to the small of his back.

Short Sunday

1: On the 96 – as I waited outside, for the 86 – there was a couple standing by the door, laughing over an iPhone. The guy looked like he was in his early 30’s, the woman maybe ten years younger.
2: The guy directing the traffic between the trams and the replacement buses boomed about it being his last night.
3: For once, I had my arse handed to me on Brawl. Two things I need to re-learn -- the first is to warm up with characters I'm actually good at. The second is how to play anything other than one-on-one. You just can't juggle 4P chaos, and I'm too used to juggling a single, bewildered opponent. Sometimes two.
4: Strange that it happened so soon after that memories post -- my ex from first year (two thousand and seven!) showed up on my Facebook "Suggested Friends" list. It's an odd kind of jolt.
5: It's not often I submit a whole pile of ideas to Scenes From A Hat. Well I submitted a whole pile of ideas. Maybe one of them was good.

Hi, I'm A Mac!

Alex just released this today. Turned out a lot better than I expected. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQnO6NyH8fI&feature=share

1: I managed to clean one shelf – one – on aisle one before Ron realized we were understaffed (by one), and I was needed at the register. Register 7, that is.
2: I’d just shoved in the last bag of ice when I got a security call from liquor – someone had done a runner with a slab of Slate. I hurried outside to see if I could spot him; it was still light, but there were too many people around, and nothing stood out. Miraj, Bilal, Ron and I fanned out through the back streets where Shane said he’d gone, “threatening to kill himself if we followed him”. We got two blocks away before we realized nobody here knew what the guy looked like.
3: I’m not surprised that Riordan put a sword through the archdemon’s wing. It’s exactly what I expected to happen. Sweet cutscene, though; the level of exertion shocked me, and at least they explained why I’m able to fight a dragon groundside, rather than doing the usual RPG thing --
4:  Glenn was both shocked and dismayed that I was still up at 1am. Like he could talk, though.
5: My netbook has told me twice, whilst I’ve been writing this, that it detects wireless networks. I’m on the tram.
6: I’m trying to work out the pattern on the seats. Green background, coloration split between near-black (brown) and two nearly identical shades of yellow. It’s patterned with lines constructed of dots – perfectly circular – and dark lines that look like the turning of a pen at the edge of a letter.
7: Dan looked like – well, Dan, I guess.
8: We walked right past Ajisen Ramen twice before we realized where we were. A sprightly homeless guy asked us for change one way, and gave us an offended, wounded even – hurt look when we couldn’t help him. Then he did the same thing again on our way back.

Insanity

Today's comic features two of my human housemates, Mike and Garrit. (I know a lot of people named Mike, including two Mikes who hung out in the same group here at my college for years without either of them acquiring a different nickname, plus another guy in my graphic novels class who was assigned to collaborate with me on my latest comic, plus my parents' next-door neighbor, and my roommate's father, and my pseudo-cousin's boyfriend, and another handful of Mikes who went to my high school, and (last but certainly not least) the Mike Gorrie we all know and love. In fact, there's even a sports show called "Mike & Mike" because it's literally got two guys with the same name as its only commentators! And I haven't even mentioned all the fictional Mikes yet. Seriously, you'd think at least some of these Michaels would take pity on us and use "Chael" as their nickname or something.)

Anyway, none of that is relevant to the comic.

...And Mike, please don't start calling yourself "Chael." Yes, that goes for all 10 million of you, but Gorrie especially.

Without further ado, onto what I actually came for:

In case you were curious, "The Insanity Workout" is actually the name this workout program chose for itself. Gotta respect them for at least being honest. Any program that has to remind you to keep breathing is pretty hard-core.

Behind You

The past is a strange thing.

It's nearly a year since Leslie and I got together, and as of yesterday, a year since the night that (narratively!) really started it. We watched the first episode of Torchwood: Children of Earth in my room with Emma and Kasey -- who left, bored, after the first half-hour. Less than a minute before the first childrens' chorus of 'We are coming.'  I'm pretty sure it started less than ten seconds after Emma closed the door.

Five minutes later, we'd watched three episodes, sat up giggling at each other a bit, checked the time, and read, "3:30am". A lot happened in five minutes.

A year before that, I was in Paris, spending my days at the Zigzag Cafe and drafting scenes for my novel while dad visited the Tower, the Arc, and the art galleries. I managed to do some of my most important development work in that time; at home, I was distracted. At Zigzag, on pen and paper, I was churning it out for hours on end without trouble, shotting une cafe every half hour or so, and -- freshly single -- asking myself if I'd ever work up the courage to chat up the waitress. (I didn't - I did manage a two-minute conversation about some American tourists who'd just passed through, though; "C'est pas que je ne parle pas l'anglais," she said, "Mais, quelquefois ils parlent trop vite" -- "C'est la meme pour moi, en francais!" I'd laughed; "Mais, contre leurs accents -- c'est plus facile pour moi, peut-etre --" We trailed off, and it was back to the awkward "'lu!" each day.) I returned to Australia just in time for Jen's birthday.

In 2006, I'd just come out of an intense (toxic?) relationship that'd only lasted a month, with only a little of my pride left, my friendships and my Year 12 studies in disrepair, and about to leave high school behind forever. I remember repairing things with Jen at Galactic Circus, somehow -- too late for me to catch up on our French study group stuff, though. I'm pretty sure it was at about this time that I took down the Deadjournal I'd been maintaining since September 2003. I archived it on the portable hard drive I took everywhere with me -- that hard drive has since been lost.

In 2002 -- October 17th, I think? -- two weeks before a move at the start of November, I first brought the Bluehawk mantle to SoaH City and fashioned it as a character. Based on -- well, it's what one does in those places. It started with sprite comics, and then I came up with a story I thought I could only do justice to in a different medium: the Stormeye Saga was born (its title hasn't changed since 2003, though nearly everything else has). I was still whining about being rejected by a girl four months before, and little snot that I was, I thought that meant I could empathize with people older than me who were digging deeper trenches into hell. I'm sure you were stupid too, when you were 14.

And that's -- as far back as I recall, really. That's weird to think of. That I barely recall anything before Year 8 (2002). Well, I barely recall anything in terms of chronology, anyway. I'm sure it'd come to me if I really thought about it.

Now to remember today.

1: We met up in Sam's room to organize Emma's (belated) birthday present. And wrapped it in a dozen rolls of sticky tape. By the time Emma cut it open, the layer of interwoven tape was thicker than cardboard.
2: Kristin and I spent about fifteen minutes waiting outside the noodle shop before our orders finally came through. They were doing the best they could -- but it was freakishly crowded, for a Wednesday. We'd walked in thinking there were two or three people ahead of us. Turned out there were about a dozen who'd gone off to play a game of Street Fighter or to buy a drink; kill ten minutes, then come back.
3: Jenny appeared out of nowhere to ask if I knew where Fez's room at Chisholm was. The answer was no, I didn't -- well, I did, but only vaguely. She'd gotten a message from Nate, earlier, that someone had to collect the keyboard -- Kristin reckoned she hadn't realized he sends those en masse.
4: We knocked on the door to Fez's floor. Waited. Heard a door close further in -- then a thud, more movement. We knocked again, the door burst open -- Fez, fezless, holding his keyboard, looking at us in surprise. He pushed the door open, and we heard a loud snap -- part of the keyboard had gotten caught on the door handle and gotten prised open.
5: We're doing a song (in choir) from Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. A couple of the others are excited about doing a song from Final Fantasy VII. I pointed out the "Advent Children" part and scoffed, "glorified fanfic". Pretty sure I lost approval points.
6: I went to the shops and tried to remember what it was I'd come for; bought cereal, milk, juice, honey -- remembered after I got home that I'd been meaning to buy a powerboard for days.

The Following Broadcast

On Sunday I finished production for two separate films.

Isidore: The Film Of A Thousand Deaths has been giving us all hell for a while. Leslie and I signed up for it about a month before production started, and soon after, we lost most of the original cast to the rehearsal schedule for Student Theatre & Film's Northcote Town Hall season. We were forced to merge two roles, gender-swap another, use the director as an actor and the cast as crew. We miraculously got it almost finished within the winter holidays, and it's taken us two months to sweep up the dregs. Now it's done.

The Radio, (no website), written, directed and produced by yours truly, was the other one. I'd made up call sheets a few days before. I'd run two weeks' worth of casting calls, completely overturned the front end of the house for it, spent two days attempting to undo the damage, and then still had to organize seven+ people, plus equipment, for Sunday.

It turned out well, considering its troubled beginnings in the casting room. I just want to say I'm really happy with the people I managed to rope in. I'm just so glad.

1: I'd already eaten three eggs, a whole onion and a slice of pizza. Then Christoph and Alejandra made cheese fondue, adding sour cream and pepper to the mix. We ate it with sliced baguette and a few bits of sliced banana. It's left a creamy taste on my tongue, which just makes me feel fuller. Also, apples and pears? I thought they were potatoes.
2: I was disappointed with the confrontation between Harrowmont and Bhelen. Considering the history between the Aeducan kids you'd think they'd have made that moment a bigger deal. Bhelen's sheer idiocy in that moment cheapened it further. Maybe I'll rewrite it in fanfiction, if I can find the time.
3: I had to track down Dom to get her to sign a release form for The Radio (my bad; should've made sure that happened before we started shooting). We set up to meet in front of the library -- when I arrived it was the most crowded part of the Agora. I looked around for about two minutes before I realized she was right in front of me. And then I still wasn't organised, so we were a few minutes late to class.
4: We (Team Taoism) ate McDonalds' ice-cream and talked about the weird feminist metaphors of Wonder Woman. If Wonder Woman is feminism, then is feminism's weakness "getting tied up by men" (ie into relationships)? Or is it a more radical statement about gender oppression? (Maybe more applicable back in the day than now --?)
5: I couldn't remember his real name, so I addressed him as Crackman.

The Footballs

Grand Final night. I've been talking for a while now about how much it bugs me when people ask me about football. I don't mind at all if people say to me something like, "are you going to the football," or, "do you follow footy?" -- I might even tolerate "do you follow a team?". These questions are totally normal conversational material and make no prior presumptions.

But those are never the questions that people ask.

"Who's gonna win tonight?" they ask me, their eyes alight, shining, glazed. "Who are you barracking for?"

"Which team do you go for?" say others. "What sport do you follow" is the best I can hope for sometimes. At least when they say that I know they don't assume everybody loves football, ever.

Or better yet, they start talking about the plays as though I were watching. Because of course I was watching the game, right? Who doesn't? So I smile and nod and wait for them either to go away or let me get a word in edgewise.Which is usually "yeah, okay, but --" and then they carry on as though I agree with them.

Also, Grand Final Night is stay the hell out of public places night. Grand Final Night means bogans driving around screaming "GO THE CATS" and throwing bottles out their windows. It means parades of drunken yobs singing team anthems and dropping the c-bomb twice for every other noun. Even if you manage to avoid that -- it's just an aggressive atmosphere all around. It's in the very air.

1: The dairy delivery came in just before 11. I saw it coming, rushed to the back fridge to make room - Dom spotted me on the way, and said, "make sure there's enough space, okay?" -- "d'uh", I thought. Guided the palette jack in. The driver heads back to the truck, I start making way for the freezer load (it's usually a palette of dairy and a palette of freezer in the one delivery). He brings the palette in while I'm cursing about a palette of two dozen giant pumpkins that I have to move -- and he heads for the fridge again.
"Oh, right." Two palettes of dairy. "Well now we have to get the first one back out so that we can --"
2: Two palettes of dairy. I should have made a complaint.
3: There was a yellow spray on the toilet seat, and no paper. I knew where I wasn't sitting down.
4: I didn't have to wait to hear the news on Twitter or Facebook. The environs themselves told me when the Grand Final was over. It sounded like a riot. Or like in disaster movies, when the first crowd of extras realizes they're about to die.
5: A young couple giggled behind me while I was cleaning shelves. I don't think they were laughing at me, but by the chided looks on their faces I think they thought I thought they were laughing at me.

Internalise

It's been a big couple of weeks. Written three essays (two of them small ones), run four casting calls and just about completed production (as writer, director, producer and art director) of a short film. And that's just the Uni stuff. Needless to say having so many projects on the go means a few things get put on the boiler 'till I manage to move down the priority list.

That said, merci beaucoup to the lovely Leslie for getting on board as co-conspirator (<3), bringing us a comic every week or so until the posting schedule* catches up with our buffer. Make her welcome! Yes, both of you! Seeing as it was a book on her shelf that led to this project's conception in the first place.

*Posting schedule? What posting schedule?

1: A small cardboard cylinder. A little blue box, tabbed in the bottom corner with the words "post-shave balm". A scrunch of 3PLY paper, and a single cotton-bud, stained on one end with earwax.
2: Everything looks black, there, there's too much glare in the background - "is there a better spot I can stand?" he asks, and I curse to myself when I can't find a better answer than "no". It's the darkest spot in the house, but it's also the only one that makes sense.
3: This manuscript here uses only the first three systems. The first two are in 5/4, scrawled in pen, with a couple of short runs of chords in opposed motion, with the lyrics, "[scribble] - [scribble] - something, come out for breakfast [two bars of scribbling] I WANT TO DO A THIIIIIING". The third bar, instead of notation, has only the words "POWER CHORD".
4: I had another one somewhere that was written, "F#%$ YOU MICHAEL (repeat ad nauseum until...) (repeat ad nauseum)". It had no actual music on it.
5: It was good weather, so we put the big plywood table outside, and then left the set as it was for the following day (Tuesday). It rained. The table got soaked. But when I brought it inside, it didn't seem to have taken any damage.
6: Mum was scared to comment on my photos because she wasn't sure whether I'd be cool with that.
7: I think the postman might have overfilled our postbox. With catalogues. I wish we had a fireplace.
8: I bought two radios - exactly the same - lest the first one get smashed. It was supposed to smash. Turns out Logitech make their stuff sturdy.
9: He worked out that it was meant to be King Arthur, but the moustachioed sun on the tabard confused the hell out of him.
10: I'm sure I confused them when on the one hand, I said that I tend to write fairly dark drama-ish stuff, and thirty minutes later said I had more experience performing with light-hearted material.

The Imposter

1: Someone who would be lying if they said, "Hi, I'm Mike Gorrie!" is posting this. You get to guess who.

2: Last night, some drunken students on their way back from a party decided the side of our house looked like a pretty awesome thing to pass out leaning against. When the police showed up, one of the students assured the cops that they were "unaged" drinkers, whatever that means.

3: I very nearly stepped on a dying sparrow on my way to class. I thought it was dead until its beak moved. :-(

4: Still on my way to class, I passed a girl with curly, reddish-brown hair who was heading the opposite direction. On my way back from class, I passed a woman who could have been her doppelganger, only 15 years older. Both smiled at me--an "I'm genuinely cheerful" smile, rather than your standard "I'm acknowledging your existence because it would be more awkward to pretend not to see you" smile.

5: On my way to class the next day, I was crossing the street--at a proper crosswalk--and an old man in a white car kept creeping up farther and farther, as if to run me over if I didn't move faster. It didn't faze him that the car waiting right behind him was a police car.

6. A lot of things seem to happen to me on my way to class.

7: You're apparently still reading, despite not knowing who I am or why you should care if a little old man wants to run me over. As such, I'm going to be nice and give you a hint: the human being in the short comic above is me. Also, I may or may not own the book on creative writing that spawned the idea for this blog.

Mike thought the "comic diary" I had to create for my Graphic Novels class (a series of simple four-panel comics based on something that happened to me each day) was rather similar to the spirit of this blog, so I have been granted permission to deface it with some of my ramblings and doodles. :-)

Encore!

1: The new Blogger UI wanted me to know that A: It is very important, I could lose all of my information at any time if my account were to be hacked and I'd better have a backup plan in place to hijack it back -- B: It has charts! Colourful ones! They're white and blue! C: Where the "new entry" button used to be is now a "create a brand new blog" button. Actually I don't think it wanted me to know C, it wanted me to find out the hard way.
2: This time a year ago, I had a deep concern for Kasey's alcohol-related antics, for blind six-legged hive-minded bugs whose geographical standing happened to be micrometres above heated concrete, and for a sample I had collected of somebody snoring.
3: Emma passed me an unmarked envelope. I was expecting one marked "CENTRELINK". I opened it, and what I found inside was a notice of rejection. Confused, I called them straight away, expecting that somehow my lease information hadn't gone through. After waiting half an hour, turned out what they didn't have was my bank details and we can put that through right now, if you like -- dude, what!? Centrelink isn't supposed to be helpful!
4: Who was that call for --? Oh, "not me", cool. Wait, who was that call for --...this happens basically every time I do anything at work that involves noise.
5: The tram conductor felt the need to announce every single stop in a sing-song voice. Maybe I would have liked him better as a person than as a disembodied chant.
6: I'm better at Philosophy on Facebook than in real life.
7: Damn, forgot to charge my iPod again.
8: Apparently I've been a member of Actors' Equity for ten whole years now. Gold card!
9: Poor Munaf was tucked all the way in the back corner of the stage where nobody could see him. Where was that drumming coming from? Oh, right, the drumkit.
10: Pretty sure I was the only one shouting "encore!", but they listened, obeyed, and nobody complained.

Eventually

1: They wanted me to stay back an hour, without overtime, because we were understaffed thus making the day exponentially more stressful already.
2: Exercise and practise feel good. No, seriously. I don't feel inclined to sit around on Facebook anymore. I still don't feel inclined to do homework either, though...
3: I learned yesterday that some authors (particularly for franchise novels) don't get months or years to write novels - they get weeks. Boy does that change my perspective. And my future job description.
4: Sure, we ate late, but Alicia makes one killer stir-fry. Couldn't tell between the red onion and the red cabbage, and the meat sure went quick, but I'm looking forward to claiming those leftovers.
5: The jugs were either poorly designed, or they were designed to deliberately cause people to spill beer. I have an idea how that might work, as a business prerogative; maybe if they want the whole pub to smell like beer? Do they want it to be everywhere and to have to clean it all the time? Stranger things do happen.
6: Kenny always stares at me. As soon as I'm in the room, he is watching me, alert, head tilted, to the dismissal of every other thing in the room that wants his attention. He never approaches to within a metre, either. Sometimes he'll give a quiet, defensive woof and dart away.
7: There is political dispute within La Trobe Stalkerspace, about itself. A "fake" Stalkerspace run by an authoritarian is somehow a threat to the administrators of the "original", who ban people for expressing displeasure about their lack of action against trolls -- am I seeing analogies to world history, here?
8: Iggy's pink whiskers were a little bit brighter than white, but only while she was outside.

Did I Just

1: Jim Schembri. Oh lord, Jim Schembri. All at once a deliberate belligerent and yet sort-of respectable reviewer; he complains that the rebooted Batman franchise (Christopher Nolan, 2005, 2008) doesn't fit the action genre and then sings all kinds of praises for Deathly Hallows Part II. And then in April 2011 he goes all Scott Adams and tells his fans they're idiots. You don't need a time machine to view google cache.
2: I write in spurts, inter-dispersed with Facebook and denialism and telling people about the amazing half-of-an-essay I just wrote. Then I get coffee.
3: Two minutes on the tram and I was already sweating. I wasn't even wearing second layers. It was hot today, and the tram was hotter.
4: I ran into CJ and Tassie within five seconds of each other on my way to the bus. HUGS ALL ROUND, it's hot today right? Okay gotta go
5: I got my essay finished with an hour to spare. It felt good. The home stretch was like thinking you're only halfway through a marathon and suddenly realising you've got ten metres to go - what to do with all that paced energy now?
6: I ID'd a group of three guys who looked like either high school or college. They were all 91's and 92's; a short delay later I realised, "yes, they are over 18." I turned to Kal afterward; "it's the 93's turning 18 this year, isn't it-!?" - sadly, yes.
7: Some guy near the front of the audience started singing - loudly - at around the midpoint of each song. He was skilled, but a little off. We weren't sure whether it was supposed to happen until Munaf's expression turned to a puzzled frown. Then we knew the guy was making it up on the spot.
8: A random, playing guitar. A djembe, left unoccupied. An opportunity too good to miss. Music is born. We played four songs and swapped contact details later. He says he's no relation to some old friends of mine, despite sharing the name.
9: Distant, suddenly. Preoccupied, maybe. I hope I didn't cause offence.
10: I've been in a good mood all day today, which is odd, because I feel as though I've been in a funk for a couple of weeks prior to getting sick. I feel positivity.
11: "Splendiferous, thanks! You?" he said. All I could say is, "...Um, good, thanks. I do like that word though." I tried to make up for lost ground by telling him that I hope his day continues to be splendiferous.

Ten Decibels Louder

1: My driving instructor chooses a different way to alert me to her arrival each and every time. The first time it was by phone. The second, she came to the door. This time she beeped as she made a pass.
2: We stopped at the servo on the highway. From the fuelling area I could just see inside to an pudgy old man standing behind the counter, his belly facing the register, his eyes lifelessly scanning the cars outside. He was so still that, had he worn camouflage, he'd have been disguised perfectly.
3: Sometime after the three-point turn I noticed that the wind was blowing. I was sure the window had been closed. I'm also quite sure it was closed later. I wasn't aware of it either opening or closing at any time.
4: Some of Kasey's quotesheet was from last year, which confused my sense of chronology. The exchange recorded between CJ and Tassie was much funnier that way.
5: I told my hairdresser to cut it by about half, maybe a bit less; I still wanted some curls in it. I'm pretty sure she misunderstood and took off a lot more than half. Now I look exactly like a taller, lankier version of my brother.
6: I had two productive chance encounters in the space of fifteen minutes. Ah, the Agora.
7: I wasn't paid in time to pay for my haircut. I had just enough on me to cover it, and then I had to wait to get paid just to get home.
8: CRUEL BRAWL IS CRUEL.
9: Statistically, my Halo-skills seem to be improved by about 1.5x when I get vocal about it and start -- well, I suppose exclaiming, "hey DJ[tenlettergibberish], I got you a present -- IT WAS DEATH" counts as trash-talking. I'm not sure which direction the causal chain goes in.
10: We pulled off the nine-minute Nightfall on the practise run. Or rather, Miles pulled off the nine-minute Nightfall --

Enter Fiercely

1: The ABC is - as I type this - running a story about weekend penalty rates. On the side of abolishment. "We can't hire as many staff," they say, "and that hurts the very people it's meant to help --"
2: I'd rather write a prescribed essay than a "free choice". Now I have too many options.
3: The first pair of critiques, the one on an adaptation of Jane Austen's Persuasion, was easy to differentiate between. The one made constant use of words like wonderful and brilliant and witty and loathsome, which, when you read them, tell you nothing at all. The second - not brilliant, but passable - actually added oh I don't know maybe two specific examples.
4: It was The Big Sleep (1946). Half of the people who were there at the start of the screening were no longer there by the end.
5: On my way from the street to the Agora, I got stuck behind a group of four people discussing - quite loudly - whether Robespierre's historical reputation as the "perfect"/"corrupted" revolutionary was deserved or oh my God I'm famous and misunderstood
6: At the supermarket, there were two girls (staff members) behind registers, opposite one another, talking to each other as though killing time between customers. Their registers were closed and blocked off with trolleys.
7: The ladies at the Centrelink office didn't ask for my CAN this time. Then they told me to sit in the "second waiting area; red chair". It took me all of ten seconds to spot the red chairs. Why did this not happen last time? What changed? Oh god they're going to say they never saw my tenancy form, aren't they --
8: Twice, today, I've been called 'Mark'. This happens sometimes.
9: I don't know how old the younger sister was supposed to be, but I'm pretty sure she was a twelve-year-old being played by a twenty-something. It confused the hell out of me until I realised, "oh yeah, older people play younger characters in 1946".
10: Bake 'n' Bean had a queue of about ten and only two staff in the shop.

Ad Nauseum

I went to work, fell sick, came home, played Dragon Age. I've gotten to Ostagaar three times and only just now settled on a character I'm happy with for a first run through.

1: The character whose journey begins because he loses everything. They have a particular appeal to me when they're done well. Extra points if there's something to go back for but much later. "Voldemort killed my parents" does not fall into this category. I'm sure Freud would have much to say about this peculiar taste.
2: "Cans? I'm sure I heard him say stubbies..." Oh well, time to carry the slab right to the back of the store and then carry another one to the front and then get back to --
3: I told Iggy, "stop whining for five minutes and then I'll let you in, k?" - that was at three twenty-five. She got right up to three twenty-nine before I heard her whimper at me. Sorry, Iggy. Your test mark? Unsatisfactory.
4: It occurred to me when I looked in the mirror that the soreness in the back of my mouth, the sniffles, the nausea and constant need to swallow my own spit pointed to only one thing that gives me that combination. I knew the answer before I opened my mouth to look.
5: After having played two of Dragon Age's origin stories, I've picked out a few patterns between them. One; two 'safe' areas where the NPC's and everyone your character knows mill about. These also contain a bunch of items and regalia to get you started. Two; two separate adventuring sequences wherein you have a few combat experiences, including at least one boss (which may be a leader class enemy and a large rallied group, rather than a monster). Three; a "best friend" from whom you get separated at the end of the origin story. Four; at least one sideplot that's used to exercise your character's personality (dialogue options), rather than combat prowess, Five; an intrigue that forces your character out of his/her comfort zone and into a situation that will affect everybody around him/her, Six; a twist at the resolution of this intrigue. Seven; Duncan (the leader of the Grey Wardens) always appears before you once, at minimum, as a simple (or near to) 'chance meeting'. Eight; well, of course, Duncan recruits you, don't he?
I'll see if these same patterns are consistent in the other origin stories. And whether I can spot others.
6: I walked past the manager's wife in the middle of saying...something inconsequential to me I guess, I can't remember what it was. Two minutes later, I came back the other way, and she used the same words again, in the same conversation. Did -- did -- they change something in the Matrix!?

Buyer's Ambivalence

1: The bus along Grimshaw street said it was going to Northland. It was going in the opposite direction.
2: The guy at the counter in Centrelink suddenly ran away in the middle of looking at my ID. Then he stopped, turned, raised a hand folded in undulated light-brown flesh, and said, "Toilet!" -- before continuing across the room.
3: "Is your boss a raging nympho?" What the hell is this shit? Cinema? I disagree.
4: I looked at the timetable for my bus. Oh look, that's right now-- um, two seconds ago. Bye, bus.
5: The ticket machine flashed, in bright red letters, CLOSED.
6: His name was Whazoo or something. He wore the GUNGNIR helmet in a pungent clash of pink and blue.
7: I forget how many people know each other at Uni. My philosophy classmates somehow know both Fez and Kristin, seperately, who know myself and each other -- anyway, small world?
8: Home & Away looks like it's only gotten worse since I stopped watching it.
9: The other day I was bugging my parents about a missing power cord that I thought I'd left at their house, and then I found it on the study floor. Yesterday I was bugging them about my birth certificate because I was sure I'd left it at their house intending to get it copied and certified at the post office. Turns out that, too, was in my study.
10: Facebook conversation, as follows.

 "Ryan! Lord Bimble sir!"
"Sup, nigga."

Slow News Day

Been a while. Had three assignments last week and now I'm behind in everything else. Just gonna do everything I can think of since.

1: Because I'm tall and have dark, curly hair, my film classmates decided that I, too, am an "Adrian". I don't have the paunch, glasses, ocker accent or impressive credentials, though.
2: I still don't understand how a house can be designed so that you have to walk through a refrigerator to escape the basement. I guess I'll find out in February (if not sooner)?
3: People are always surprised when drunks can still spell fine on a phone. Sometimes it's attributed to spell-checkers and auto-text, but I have another hypothesis; maybe, of all things, one's ability to text coherently is one of the later things to go? This at least seems true whenever I do it, because I don't use spell-checkers.
4: I did actually use spell-checker for the hyphens in the previous point. Quiet, you.
5: The lady at Subway was talking about how she "aims to please", and still managed to wear a bored frown the whole time we were in there.
6: My "rewritten" essay got a whole 3% margin of difference. Upward, of course. You'd hate to go downward...
7: Bin spoke in class about Chinese rationale. Bin spoke! His accent was thick, his command of English halting, but he got enough through to be interesting.
8: I told Giles that I thought the Tao Te Ching sounded "as vague as possible", which to me meant "as meaningless as possible", and then laughed at myself mid-sentence as I realised how - while that's useless for communication or ethics, per se - the "reflection" it creates is a different kind of teaching. Just like water -- the ironies involved in this epiphany were not lost on me.
9: The puppy keeps trying to find step-ups to the guinea pig enclosure. The guinea pig was given away two days ago to an enthralled little boy called Billy.
10: There was a crash on the freeway. Seven cars banked up, stopped, as they towed the wrung metal aside.

To Open Door

1: A girl in my Screen Crit class has a bag patterned in shoes, arrows and the text 'travel' all clumped together in alternating blocks of pink and brown. I tried to figure out how the arrows fit into it while the cognitive resources used on 'listening' rested.
2: There's a quiet Asian guy in my Taoism tute called 'Bin'. He wears glasses and dark/muted colours. I'm pretty sure he never twitched or shuffled or shifted for the entire class.
Bin. It must've sucked in school, but it's kind of a cool name.
3: As Kristen and I went to get the Publicity bag for the stall, an alarm went off in HU3. I locked confused eyes with some students in the lower classrooms (we were on the upper walkway by ELT). By the time we reached the door, a throng poured out of the stairwell and the door had jammed. It righted itself and slid open, then promptly locked us out until the next batch of evacuatees arrived.
4: We went around the building. As we passed the other side, a small crew of security - or technicians, maybe - rushed to the door; I overheard the words, "someone in the female bathroom". Five minutes later we were told the alarm mechanism had malfunctioned.
5: The phrase 'would that I could' seems to've been misunderstood at least twice today.
6: The guinea pig has been trying to wear his towels like a hat, or maybe a blanket or - whatever he's doing, he's not very good at it.
7: The guy in the Liquor Department at Safeway was serving two groups ahead of me. Two sets of two guys. The second pair were legit, but the first two were the same kids I'd seen on the tram. They could not have been eighteen. I saw them again on my way out, making out like ferals (with their 15-year-old ladies and their five dollar wine).
8: The same Liquor guy started talking about a Clubs & Bars agency - for gigs or something - when I mentioned my work for Clubs & Societies (by which I meant choir). I corrected him and he kept gushing anyway.
9: The girl at the self-serve registers told me straight that she was only checking my bags "for the cameras"; "I don't give a shit, personally", she said, smiling.
10: Arc Words; creepy as hell.

You Slice It

1: Miles splash-killed a guy who was already being assassinated, and got booted from the game for it. It was all downhill from there.
2: On the Sunday night shift, I was brought in to clean produce. Never done it before, and nobody wanted to teach me. The guy supposed to teach me lacked the confidence. The guy who knows it all wouldn't give me the time of day; when I told him I was keen, he gave me that half-grunt half-sigh that can only be expressed in the word "ugh".
3: I 'overheard' a conversation earlier about the difficulty of getting a job with little to no experience; they settled on selling learning capacity and work ethic.
4: On my way by the Carlton Gardens, something jilted the silence - a possum scurried along, its path parallel with mine. I halted; it hopped closer and rummaged in the topsoil. I crept closer, up the step, and got within a metre of it, crouched down. It looked this way and that; not blind! Its ears perked up for a passing jogger; not deaf! I sprang up, worried that it mightn't fuss if I reached out to touch it. It took only three short bounds away and listened; by that, I was more phased than he.
5: A gathering just outside the museum. Those of you who know the Melbourne Museum would know that out the front is no place to gather; it is roughly an acre of cold, bare concrete surrounded by angular grey architecture and conscious spot-lighting in that style we Melbournians 'love'. Yet on a Sunday night, there they were, twenty of them, all in dark clothing featuring chains and band names and bright hair. They were smiling and laughing amongst themselves.
6: A male classmate name-dropped an academic source that "should have been used" in the essay under discussion. In the next essay we looked at, the same source was used. The author also alluded to being female.
7: One essay was written "from a feminist perspective", where the only feminist analysis made was to condemn the chauvinist characters in the text.
8: I shuffled my way to the first free chair, opened my thermos, and coffee came out. All over my leg.
9: I like my vegetables lightly steamed. My housemates like them rendered paste by the force of heat.
10: The zucchini on our porch wasn't a retaliation.

Of Scenery

1: As I stepped off the tram, I spotted something blue nestled in the traffic barrier. A monster can, shoved into the nook between metal boxes like a sapling into soil.
2: He wore glasses, and strings of brown hair floated around his face. I pretended not to be trying to copy from his statement of authorship; I couldn't remember my subject code.
3: That moment of dread when you realize you have less money than you thought. The clerk looks at you blankly, and asks, "want to try again?", and even though you both know that it won't do any good, you say yes. Any way out of that silence, any way to stall and come up with a next move.
4: The same line, every time; you go under a pseudonym, so someone addresses you by your real name, and then says, "or is it...[PSEUDONYM]??" Then they look at you like you're supposed to laugh.
5: An entire shelf of ice in the fridge -
a perfect square, covering the top side from left to halfway, and the top down to 1/3. They could have moved everything to the coolroom and turned the fridge off. They chose to chip away at it with a mallet to try to save the receipt embedded an inch in.
6: An old couple and a friend spent the tram ride debating about politics and sport; how one of them didn't know what a kid meant by "barack", at first; "if only they spent as much time talking about politics and issues as they did about sports and home renovations!" I wished I'd joined the conversation.
7: Most of the shampoos and conditioners are paired next to each other. Just occasionally you'll find one three shelves down from its mate, as though consigned to the doghouse.
8: There is a man with curly hair and two very small daughters who trolleys behind him - or sometimes carries on his shoulder - a small dog with pink, dyed fur. Usually it stares around anxiously. This time it barked at me twice; two hiccups ten seconds apart.
9: The clock-on machine always rejects my finger at least once. Nobody else has issues.
10: We found that a 6-3 is about even with the 7-4.

Period Piece

1: The tape was black, with a scarlet flip. It brooded merrily in the hand.
2: Jam congealed in the corner of the jar as I tilted it. The knife barely fit, and as I tried to scoop out the purple blob, it burst like a blood-blister, spilling further into its glass hideaway and leaving me with thin, pulpy shreds.
3: Kirchner's hand was ringed with tiny pen marks; the ruins of tallies and Roman numerals just a flea's length below the bases of his fingers.
4: French Toast really is just the eggs and the bread. The cheap stuff is sub-par; you can feel it congeal your gut with its cost-cutting. Get the right bread and nothing can compare.
5: The Spaniard had a lot to say and to show; she was eager for her ideas to be on display, her eyes and teeth colgate white, her hands waving. The other girl had little to say and much to take in; her hair was carefully straightened and fringed, her dark cheeks carefully blushed. So much care in her appearance, and yet in two subjects I've never seen her smile. It was a relief to take control of the editing suite.
6: Iggy tried to trip me up for pats, and then started looking at me expectantly when I made a sandwich. She didn't go away until I'd finished eating it.
7: Twice, now, I've run into The Woz at that awful curry shop on the corner, just this week.
8: Two of the blondes made it clear they don't want to be directors - "too stressful". Wise move if that's their perogative; glad to know there's less competition.
9: A plastic 1.25l, one of my old coffee jars and a bottle of Jack & Coke all fell off the top of the recycling pile, with their lids on.
10: Somehow, I manage to be irritated at people who insist, they must post a reply to this joke that they don't get. Then I see somebody post a joke that I don't get, and I think, how dare they post in-jokes publicly! As though to declare, "you never gonna get this, you never gonna get this! La-la-laaa", and I say to myself, "Right! I'm posting a response!"

Reliability

1: It's been a while. I'm here on a whim.
2: I spend all day sitting at a computer screen trying to figure out how to write a 700 word essay again. Like back in high school. Then I whip out the notebook - in front of the pre-choir hangout, no less, curious onlookers they were - and bam, I've got at least 250 down in half an hour.
3: The Tao got one thing right - being vague can be an amazing way to appear wise. Be like the river, and take advantage of the lowest common denominator. Works every time. You'll also notice that you're saying nothing a lot.
4: Two people stared at me repeatedly during rehearsal. Both were new. I think I'd offended one of them, I might know when went wrong, but I don't know what - he asked me if I have trouble reading music. I answered at length.
5: Naruto is moving too quickly from "twist" to twist. Mental note; if you're going to string revelations together, make sure they each tie together threads that the audience already knows exist. Otherwise well done on the Itachi thing, Kishi - it looks to me like it was clearly planned out, but for all that it was not very well executed.
6: The prospective housemate hasn't called for a second date. Let's not wait by the phone.
7: ReinventTheWheel is trending on twitter.
8: One, two, three, they flounder when they're stressed. One makes rash decisions at the crucial moment, and it's going to make Sunday difficult, at best. Me, I get snippy and demanding; I don't like it, but it gets things done.
9: Psyguy tweets about his tumblr just three times too many. Per day.
10: "69 photos of you and Leslie". Max Cave decided he likes where that's going, and I'm pretty sure that works on at least three levels.

Den Of Thieves

It's been one of those weekends.

1: Having lunch any later than 12:30 on a workday drives me half-blind. I stop seeing. I can hear their voice, but there aren't any words. Just droning and chatter, incomprehensible, demanding the right reply.
2: Five minutes before my lunch break, whilst I'm serving in liquor, a bloke plonks a single VB stubby on the bench, with an intent, dead stare. I spot the strap of his pack. "Can I take a quick squizz in your bag?" I ask. "What!?" he replies, a little miffed - thinking he might've misunderstood the word "squizz", I rephrased. "Are you fucking joking!?" he says. Somehow I didn't freak out when he started yelling at me for "accusing him of stealing". I was hungry, and when I'm hungry I don't give a rat's what you think. I repeated the "conditions of entry into the store" at least three times, deflecting his accusation that I was accusing him of stealing. I think he was alarmed by the fact that I was neither stepping down, nor calling security, nor giving him a fight. "All right, fine! Have a look, happy now!" I looked. All he had was a pair of jeans. "Thank you very much!" I said, and put him through. He left, insisting that I'd singled him out. Whatever.
3: The Urban Burger guys saw my uniform and waved. Or maybe they do that to everybody?
4: The folks from Errol's say hi even when they're not working. This is why I get my coffee there.
5: There's an old man who gets a massive trolley of groceries every Saturday. He used to ask about Jake, every single time. Why was that? Why did he stop?
6: The bar staff at Rose don't just make sweet cocktails, they put on a show while they do it. The bottles perform acrobatic rituals in their hands and their shaking and pouring is mechanically precise.
7: When I arrived home, there was nobody here. Emma's door hung open. Satisfied that nobody was home, I played the XBox for a bit, then went to bed, and returned to find that Emma's door was firmly closed.
8: A girl talking on the phone strode off the tram, and the door slammed shut. It took me at least five seconds to realise that this strange, new atmosphere was called "silence". It was so sudden, so complete, that I thought the only person left in the world had just been shot.
9: He smiled, a little forced, as he said, "It's good to see you! Really good to see you." I was so taken aback that I forgot to reply.
10: There was actually a human to serve me at Safeway. You know, like, those things that aren't robots?

Zombies Ate My...

I wagged blogging yesterday due to being ridiculously busy all day and ridiculously tired by evening. This will happen from time to time. If I don't update between 6pm and 12am, I am probably not updating that day! Just thought you ought to know!

1: There were four male zombies. Two of them looked exactly the same to me - hair, mannerisms, all; young-looking, light-haired faces and the same emo-inspired fringe and sweep. The other two (myself and the black guy) both had dreadlocks, mine a wig.
2: The make-up artist who did me was the spitting image of Erin W., formerly from college.
3: The crew are more likely to recognise me and stop for a chat than the cast are.
4: The blond guy - I don't know his name - bumped his head on the shed door twice, in front of us all. I laughed because this happens to me. All the time.
5: One of the other extras wouldn't stop telling stories. About that one time he was five minutes late and they freaked out on him, about that one time they forgot to tell the extras that they were free to come grab some food...his experiences have not been so pleasant for him, then?
6: If you would like to see shamelessly wide eyes and a lot of people quickly looking away the moment you turn toward them, wear zombie makeup on public transport.
7: I got hounded by the Lost Dog's Home again. She asked if I'd been to a zombie parade. I told her I'd been acting in a "short film". It seemed simpler.
8: The poor old lady was invisible until she started grunting at me. She couldn't say "please let me through"; she could only mutter as she got off at the following stop. It made me sad.
9: There were two pink dudes in the same match on Rumble Pit. Both of them pink and purple. One of them left the party three games sooner than the other.
10: A Canadian on Rumble Pit this afternoon thought that an Australian was British. Canadian whined and complained all morning about how that grenade was "miles away" and about the "cowardly f***in' faggots" who use power weapons. The Aussie replied; "I thought you were going to take me down? I thought I was British and that I was going to get shat all over? Oh, you died again...so, you're Canadian, eh?"
11: Two women - in their 40's, I'm guessing - went to buy their groceries in two transactions. At the end of the second, I was distracted - something had gone wrong with the receipt printer on Raj's register, and in the ten seconds it took me to work out what he was asking, the ladies took their groceries and vanished without paying. I hoped they'd realize and come back before nine. They didn't.
12: Today I sat down on the tram with my headphones on. Five minutes later, a guy falls on me and whacks my head against the window frame. That thing is a square of solid metal. "Sorry, sorry", he says, and gets off at the next stop, leaving me with a sore head and a boggle-eyed gaze burned into my memory. Twenty minutes later, a pudgy hipster chick does the exact same thing.
13: There was a cat playing sentinel down the back alleys I take home. It took notice of me when I stopped, to the side of it, and stared for a couple of seconds. It kept watching me as I moved on.


Strangely, I don't have any work stories today. I figure twice six is nearly breaking even for two days; that'll have to do it for now. Anyway; if you know where I was on Thursday, don't mention it by name in the comments section. I'd prefer it not to show up in searches. Bye!

The Opposite Of A Hangover

I’m writing this on a tram, because I won’t have time when I get home; I’ll have about four hours to sleep before I need to get up and play a zombie. I’m a good method-actor, see.

1: In one of the cubicles at Uni, just outside the library, there is a permanent-marker drawing of a stick figure in a bunny costume, looking sadly down at his belly.
2: At the front of my cinema studies class – which is utterly packed, by the way – there is not one sign-language interpreter, but two; a cheerful young Eastern (Indian?) fellow and a squat old lady with red cheeks and glasses. They take turns every ten minutes or so.
3: Our dryer works, and yet nothing actually comes out any drier. Clearly it in fact doesn’t work, you say, but it displays every other symptom of perfect functionality. It doesn’t do what I want it to, sure, but it tries hard to earn its keep? Maybe it slacks off when I leave the room.
4:  She appears. We lock eyes. I don’t bother killing my grin; I was wearing it already, and it’s not worth it. She veers behind a wall and vanishes.
5: Choir practice. We spent the first fifteen minutes on breathing techniques, and then they want us to learn our parts, snippet by snippet, by bashing through them repeatedly. Unorthodox.
6: There is a kid in the choir called Guillaume. He tried to explain it almost exactly the same way as I wrote it. It was too much already, but I didn’t get the chance to ask.
7: That smell; that godforsaken smell. Did someone soil their pants? Does that weird old lady from my work wear the same perfume? I was trying to sing.
8: Silent films simultaneously draw me in and push me away with the coupling of piano music.
9: The Cheat’s redemption was the moment she realized she needed her husband. I chose my words carefully, and the lecturer thought I was taking the movie at face-value. I think she was taking my words at face-value; I never said I agree that it's a redeeming moment.
10: The blatant sexism and racism of 1910’s cinema is surprisingly in-character. Sometimes. 

It's Tuesday

Yeah, that's right. Tuesday, mother-flippers. Which means...I dunno. Right now it means I'm sitting at a computer. So, some mysteries of the day!

1: My tutorial room for today, SS 237, is well hidden in plain sight, off of a corridor that's otherwise empty save for posters, toilets, and cleaning cupboards. It's next door to the male toilets. There are no other classrooms in that corridor.
2: On the way to my lecture this morning, I passed through a crowd of about thirty people with downs who'd just come out of a class. I keep seeing these groups around, but I didn't know they were segregated. Please tell me they're not segregated?
3: I kept falling asleep in my lecture because I hadn't had a coffee yet. Best part was, there was an entire segment about how we still absorb information while we're unconscious. Guess what I was successfully putting into practise!
4: The previous tute had been a debate about legalising child porn. I guess it is a Freud unit.
5: The bookshop never has the books that I want to buy.
6: If Freud's little brain-trinity (unconscious, ego, superego) has been debunked by more "accurate" theories, what is the current theory?
7: Safeway keeps its rival breads in an aisle, and its own bread in a separate area near the fruit & veg. Clever?
8: The guy in Officeworks was the most unenthusiastic customer service worker I have met in my entire life. Least he was polite.
9: There are three people in my Philosophy class that I have seen and/or met before. All from different classes. I don't know where. Maybe the redhead was from Japanese last year? And I think the guy with the curly hair might've been in War & Peace.
10: I'm scared that this play might come off as sexist to some people. It's meant to satire sexism, but it might be coming out the other side? We'll find out as we go.

f1|2s7 p05t!!!111

It's an odd time to start up a blog, in the middle of March and two - nearly three! - weeks into the semester. The game I'm playing is pretty simple. Every day or two I try to remember five to ten "mysteries" that have come up throughout the day. Maybe I'll talk about them. Maybe I'll talk about something else that's happened in my day or happens to be on my mind. I don't know! We're going to find out together!

Here goes.

7/3/11
1: Two days ago, my housemates and I noticed two Asian girls walking across the road in front of us at the traffic lights, and Christoph made a note that they "wear these short skirts, but they are so shy".
2: Today I saw one of these same Asian girls - in the same flannelette overshirt! - at least five times around campus before the late afternoon. Sure, I see people around, but five times?
3: This afternoon, Google Chrome started flashing big red warning pages every time a security certificate tried to load. Google dot com. Mail dot google dot com. Documents dot google dot com. Each and every time, "oh noes, internet unhygiene!" Is Google developing body issues?
4: The metaphor about books.
5: Could a sniper sneak up on a ninja? You know, like, with a bullet.
6: Windows Live don't want me to reinstall Messenger on my PC. I deleted it to reinstall it, and the installer refuses to put it back. I tried uninstalling it properly; no dice. Oh well, their loss.
7: The dog wasn't snarling at me today. I mean, like, before I tried to give him food. This is incredible.
8: I play less than half as good right after having been spawn-killed. The fault is mine; I allow the frustration to set in.
9: My ENG/SOC lecturers let the class scramble to the front of ELT 5 to claim tutorials from sheets of paper. First-in, best-dressed! Aside from being a cruddy way to do it, were they trying to demonstrate the absurdity of a Godless society? Were they just being lazy and hoping the intelligent ones would make that up? Neither would be inconsistent.
10: It took me about an hour to get this far.

Maybe I'll post more tomorrow! I don't know! I'm a cat!