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?
Monday 14 March 2011
Friday 11 March 2011
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!
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!
Wednesday 9 March 2011
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.
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.
Tuesday 8 March 2011
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.
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!
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!
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