Intercranial ranting

I caught a light sneeze (thanks Tori) and got a pay rise, which is good. I actually had a sick day the other day—you know the kind where you are paid to not go to work? Phenomenal; I can't quite get my head around it.

Speaking of heads—internal dialogue; does anyone else get overwhelmed by this? I walk around the city and there is a constant stream of intercranial ranting:

Stop eating that pie you fat cunt! Nice haircut you emo pansy. Oh, for fuck's sake, don't just stop and talk in the middle of the footpath—move off to the side you tourist bastards. I wonder how long he takes to apply his make-up in the morning. Fuck, I hate Courtney Love. Oh, look, that chick is hot! Shit, so's she! Fuck off, I don't want your flyer—that's why my hands are in my pockets. No, buddy! Don't fucking try and proselytise at me, motherfucker. Don't these people have jobs? How the fuck does that kid afford a new Mercedes? Lucky, rich, daddy's little ... Oh, come on people, it's just a little red light—you can see there's nothing coming. Wow, that skirt must be drafty.

And, I never realised when I was a cigarette smoker, how much people hate you. If I am anything to go by, people hate cigarette smokers a lot. (That’s a funny statement—I’m not sure it’s possible to hate something a little …)

The daily struggle

It's so cold today, my eyeballs have frozen in their sockets and I have to turn my head to track the cursor across the screen. The sun rose at about 6:30, thought 'fuck it, I can't be bothered providing warmth today' and went back to bed. Half an hour later my alarm poked me in the ear and said, 'get up, it's tomorrow'. I opened my eyes--when they instantly froze--and lurched out of bed. Due to my poorly functioning frozen eyes, I completely missed the saber tooth snow kangaroo that was in the kitchen, and ended up walking straight into it. We battled to the death--well one of us did anyway--and I walked into the bathroom and chipped the ice away from the taps. I was assisted in this by my body's spasmodic shaking--my frozen fingers provided a firm grip on the chisel.

The shower was scalding hot, burning my head, but by the time it reached my feet it had frozen into little blades of ice, which buried themselves in my feet; my feet resembled little blue ice porcupines. I called the left one 'spiky'. I'm still thinking of a name for the right.

With this on my mind, I got dressed in the blink of an eye. Unfortunately, because my eyes were frozen, this took quite some time.

And then I wrote this post.

You see, this is just an example of my daily struggle to get ready for work. Shit like this happens all the time. Sometimes the saber tooth snow kangaroo wins and I can't make it to the computer until I have been resurrected.

Bus etiquette

I catch the bus to work because I work in a big, shiny building in the city. Driving would take longer and parking would cost $25 bucks a day. I’ve never been a big fan of busses—overseas, I’d always catch taxis—but I’m learning to deal with it. There are some things about busses, however, that make me grind my teeth.

People, generally.

Particularly those motherfuckers that sit in the aisle seat so as to dissuade anyone from sitting next to them. Some of them even put their bags on the seat. Well, fuck you arseholes. Every other seat is taken, some little old lady is trying to keep her feet among the masses (which in this case are not yet teeming), but your bag needs a seat all to itself.

Sorry, did I accidentally elbow you in the head as I walked past? That wouldn’t have happened if you were sitting next to the window. You selfish prick!

Put the disc to death

Many moons ago, a Chinese friend was giving myself and a friend a lift to a party in his Honda Prelude. It had a 'fully sick' sound system, and my Chinese friend--inevitably--had shocking taste in music. We were just heading down the road and had stopped at the lights outside our local pub while Andy fiddled with his CD player. He found the track he was after and cranked it up. It's raining men started belting out.

'Andy!' I screamed at him over the deafening bass. 'Turn this shit off! Change tracks--for God's sake, do something!'

'What?' he asked and turned the music down two decibels. Now it was only at 128dB.

People I knew were starting to look out the windows of the bar. I slunk down in my seat.

'Andy, dude--change tracks!' said Jim from the front.

'Andy, are you listening to the fucking lyrics?' I said.

He sat there for a minute, then a look of comprehension washed across his face like the shadow of a cloud rushing over a mountain.

'Oh, shit. Shit, man! Shit!'

The lights changed and he peeled off--in front of a car he should have given way to--the music came to an abrupt halt and the CD went flying out the window, glinting rainbows in the sun before it bounced once, twice, then mercifully a benevolent semi-trailer ground it into tiny bits of plastic gayness.

Have you ever ... #1

... Come home from work positively relishing the chance to sit down and relax, poison of choice in a bottle ready to go, decided that it was far too much effort to use your hands to take off your shoes, and decided that a far better option is to use one foot to remove the shoe from the other foot.

You've done this before and there were casualties, but this time you're confident that everything will work out alright...

Bang! Crash! fuck!

Everything comes falling apart when on your first attempt your foot slips and you slam your left foot into your right shin. The shining blue light between your eyes momentarily disables the part of your brain that controls balance, and you fling your bottle of booze at a wall as you lunge for something to prevent you falling.

The angular desk-type object you grab at leaps aside and laughs at you. You sit in a mangled heap on the floor, vowing to never again attempt taking off your shoes without the assistance of a trained professional.

x=y

I've noticed a distinct correlation between how cold it is in the morning and how pissed off I feel when I wake up.

Fuck, I'm pissed off today.

Brrrrrrr ...

It's only funny if people get it

I was in a bar the other day--no really--with two friends of different demographical backgrounds. We were talking to this young sexy chick and for some reason the topic of conversation was vegetarianism; the blonde asked naively, 'what do you call a vegetarian who eats chicken?'

'I know this one!' I thought. Quick as a flash my lips were moving and the words tumbled out:

'A hypocrite!'

No-one got it.

'Isn't it a vegan?' She said.

Oh, for fuck's sake...

Spasmodic morning

I just grabbed the mouse to centre the cursor on the typing field here but the damn thing wouldn't work. Then I realised It wasn't the mouse but my mobile phone in my hand.

I am not a morning person. Whatever the fuck that means. Particularly in winter. I'm alright once I'm up and dressed, it's just the spasmodic shaking caused by extremely frigid conditions in the interim period that I hate. I fucking hate it.

Really, I do.

In the news:

West Australian Pom's bid to sell life falters when bidders turn out to be full of shit

Singapore bans game because of one little Alien-human lesbian sex scene

Not in my backyard--well actually, yes

Bye bye Bill--who do we blame now?

Hungover again

It's with a strange sense of deja vu that I sit down, hungover, to write some crap for this blog. I had to look up the spelling of deja vu—I think I must have killed the brain cell that knew how to spell it. Could not give a shit about the diacritical marks.

Sorry, where was I?

That’s right, hungover.

I have a new job; it’s a pretty shiny one. Had a bit of a celebrate last night—it seemed like a good idea at the time. Went to a bar that was also new and shiny. Big bastard bouncers at the door, dressed in black. Spunky girls walking around with silver trays holding overpriced bar snacks, sorry, tapas. (Has anyone else noticed how trendy nearly every-fucking-place has become? It seems every menu contains the words ‘rocket’, ‘aioli’, ‘pesto’ and fucking ‘jus’. Got any chips?) The toilets looked like they were hewn out of giant block of marble, the taps were motion sensitive—more technology in those bastards than the Voyager space probe. There was a sexy singer who made every song sound like Ani DiFranco, or so I thought; Stu thought she sounded like Shania Twain, which completely fucking ruined it for me. Flat-screen TVs lined the walls. They all seemed to be tuned in to a video hits show from the early 90s. The waitress came and enquired about our food—oh, yeah, it’s good, can we have some more aioli please?

After about 600 beers, we thought we’d better call it a night. I flagged down a taxi, told the driver where I lived, then the bastard went to drive straight past the first right that led directly to where I wanted to go.

‘Oi!’ I said.

He tried the same trick at the next junction.

So, I had to laboriously direct him. He slowed down for orange lights he completely could have made, and the meter ticked on. Initially, I contemplated the usual taxi banter, ‘How’s your night been?’ that kind of shit. Thing is, he didn’t seem like the jovial type, and I really didn’t give a shit about how his night had been. So I sat there, only speaking to direct him, waiting to see if he would initiate conversation. He didn’t.

As we turned into my street, the meter was on $14.80. ‘This will do,’ I said, thinking we’ll just round it up to 15 bucks. He cruised forward until the meter clicked over $15.10. Then he stopped and counted out $4.90 in change.

What a dick.

So, this has been the first exercise in trying to make myself write again. I do it all day at work, but it’s not very creative and I can’t use the word ‘fuck’. I’m also going to try and edit and gradually re-release some of the funnier stuff that used to be on here. We’ll see how it goes.

Seven degrees of masturbation

I would like to apologise.

Yesterday, I used the phrase ‘back in black’, however, upon reflection I realised that at the time I was dressed nearly entirely in blue.

I wouldn’t want to be caught out saying black was blue now, would I?

It’s seven degrees at the moment—or at least that’s what the little widget on my desktop tells me. Freakin’ cold in anyone’s cliché. Stripped off to jump in the shower this morning and I was shaking like an epileptic leaf in an earthquake. The kind of cold that makes your shoulder blades try to burst out your throat.

This is meant to be a sub-tropical climate!

Records have been broken all over the state (predominately BROS albums, with a few Rick Astley ones for good measure). Sorry, what I mean is that throughout Queensland weather stations have been recording the coldest temperatures on record.

It sure makes it hard to get out of bed in the morning—if it wasn’t for a catastrophic build-up of bladder pressure I probably wouldn’t get out of bed at all.

For those of you from cold climates let me qualify my bitching about the cold: most houses in Queensland—including mine—don’t have heating. It doesn’t usually get cold enough to justify the expense of installation, so when I say it’s seven degrees, it’s seven degrees in the house.

Fucking fridge-like! I had to chase a mammoth out of the bathroom this morning.

Well, I’m off to work now to stare intently at a different computer screen for seven hours.

Birthday

It was my birthday the other day. Apparently. I didn't know this at the time, I always thought that my birthday was in late February just like it has been every year since I was born. Apparently I was wrong.

I was in a restaurant that I frequent often with two friends, Won and Ryan. The woman who runs the restaurant is very friendly and always chats away with us, supplying free extras and even bags of ice that she stuffs down the back of your shirt when you least expect it. My friend Won is from Seoul and for some unknown reason decides to tell her it is my birthday.

She gets very excited even though I do my best to deny it, she literally runs off out the door and down the street. I call Won a bastard and a few other names while Ryan pisses himself laughing, as we watch the ajumma go hurtling back the other way past the restaurant.

Three minutes later she comes huffing and puffing her way back, red-faced and proudly clutching a box of 'choco-pies' (a revolting marshmallow biscuit) and a bottle of Korean champagne.

Oh shit.

For those of you who are unaware of the traditional Korean birthday cheap shitty, sugary, sparkling wine celebratory method, read on.

This lovely lady proceeds to make a cake out of the choco-pies by stacking them on top of each other and inserting 27 matches to use as candles. Everyone sings 'Seng il chuka hamneeda' and I brace myself for the inevitable. The ajumma shakes up the bottle of wine and tries to force the cork out to no avail. I offer to do it for her, sensing an opportunity to turn the tables on my bastard friends, but she is on to me, and is having none of it.

A man in his 40s at the next table offers his services, stands up with the wine, shakes it some more then carefully asks whose birthday it is... Again, I try to fend it off saying it is actually Ryan's birthday, but no one will believe me. I try again, claiming my clothes are new... He pops the cork and sprays the horrible sugar-water all over me, as I try to wrench the bottle away in order to get Won and Ryan. They, however, have done acrobatic maneuvers out the door to avoid getting wet and are so laughing so hard they can't stand up straight.

I then have to go and drink soju with the guys at the next table as they toast my birthday, leaving me suitably hammered when we finally leave. Won and Ryan are still laughing as we walk down the street, my clothes sticking to my skin and reeking of stale wine that smells like sour grapes shat out of a leprous cat.

Heat

It is so fucking hot here. The air is trying to suffocate me. It squeezes the will to live right out of my skin. You could cut the air with a knife then use it to butter your bread. Heat on toast.

I have to wear long pants to work. My underwear gets so fucking hot you could cook things in it. One of my students spontaneously combusted right in front of me today. I think he was trying to avoid being called upon to read next.

I get home around 9:10. My shoebo… I mean ‘house’ has been percolating all day, absorbing the heat through the walls, then retaining it in my still-trying-to-dry clothes. I open the door and humid beer-scented air goes straight for my throat like a very determined rubber snake. I gag and tear off my shirt as I head to open the window, then peel off my socks, hit the button for the fan, and step into the bathroom where the floor is still wet from the shower I had nine hours earlier. I have another shower then burn the clothes I was wearing before.

I crank the fan to maximum warp and fix it two feet away, pointed directly at the chair in front of the computer. I sit on the chair earring a pair of shorts and drink cold beer in large gulps so as to stop the evil heat from corrupting the chill.

Soju Vortex

It is simply impossible to stop drinking in Korea.

I know the owners of two bars in Kangneung. Both are within walking distance of my house. Both will give me credit if I have no money. I went out for dinner last night and woke up sometime late morning wondering what the fuck actually happened. The chopping board, cream cheese and condiments were sitting on my table, so I obviously had a late-night feast of which I have absolutely no recollection. Luckily there was no sandwich in my bed, such as the time I fell asleep while eating (actually possible) and woke up with the fucking thing all through my sheets.

Last night during dinner, my friend Alec made the mistake of throwing a lighter to a Korean opposite us rather then getting up and handing it to him. The Korean guy had to come over and teach Alec the correct technique, to a confused Alec who didn't understand a word the man was saying. After me explaining what the man meant, and Alec accepting full responsibility for his appalling act, the man sat down and invited his friend to our table. He asked us if we liked soju. I said a little, so he ordered three bottles of beer and two bottles of soju. He explained to us that as we were in Korea we had to drink soju. He also said the more we drink the more we will smile, and the more we smile, the happier we will be. In order to properly appreciate Korea we needed to be drunk.

See, alcohol is the secret of happiness.

He also explained that as he was older then us, it was morally illegal to not accept his relentless refilling and commands of ‘one shot!’ Eventually we extracted ourselves while walking was still an option, and bailed down the street before they could follow us.

We stopped in at my friends bar, Bumpin, and as it was dead quiet. Alec went home while I stayed and was plied with free tequila. I enquired as to the current state of my bar tab, expressed amazement that it was still not too bad, and left with the intention of going home.

To go home I have to walk past my other friends bar, Yazz. Well ‘have to’ is perhaps a little strong as I could have taken a more direct route home... Anyway, I get there and it’s closed, very surprising, but I know where they will be, so I head around the corner to a place I know they favour. Of course they are there, I am welcomed with open arms, they laugh and say things like ‘Hah! You always know where to find us!’, and then the bastards make me drink soju. I remember leaving the table, I don't remember going outside and I certainly don't remember walking home, making a sandwich, setting my alarm and getting into bed. The amazing thing is I woke up and I wasn't fully clothed, wearing my shoes on top of the doona sleeping with the light on in a pile of mashed sandwich.

And this was Monday night.

Problem is this seems to happen nearly every night. I start work at 2:00 so it’s entirely possible to binge and purge in time for class. I never intend this to happen but one thing always fucking leads to another, and the next thing you know I'm washing sandwich out of my hair, inhaling coffee, and applying eye drops to my brain.

Total strangers are always inviting me to drink at their table. I don't know if they can see a certain look in my eyes, or maybe I have an invisible sign over my head that says ‘pisshead’ that only other pissheads can see. And, 95 percent of Korean men drink absurd amounts of alcohol all the fucking time, late into the night, and when the sun comes up they go to a bathhouse to sleep on a plank of wood for one or two hours before getting up and going to work, where they perform neurosurgery or design missiles for 10 hours straight.

Then they start all over again.

I am trapped in a vortex I cannot escape from...

I'm sorry, I can't do that Dave...

Everybody has one. I decided I need one.

A blog that is.

Prepare to be enveloped in my fried-pig-eating, bamboo-wine-drinking, hungover-with-children-beating-you-in-40-degree-heat world of pain and obscurity.

As soon as I sober up...