Mundane day-to-day stuff

The Google spiders, that is. Most blogs add a “nofollow” tag to URLs in comments, but not this blog! That means that if you leave a comment here, search engines will send trained spiders to follow you home. Just like the critter shown above. Gorgeous.

More spider pics available at Big Hairy Spiders.

Spectacularly.

Congratulations to the winner of Best Of Blogs Funniest Blog, Out Of Character, and the runner up, Whoopee.

Would you be prepared to express an opinion that you don’t necessarily believe in, in order to gain brownie points from others?

If so, go here.

Where else but a supermarket would it take 20 minutes to buy one item? First you have to search for it in a bewildering array of aisles and products. Then once you have found it, prepare to wait in line behind someone doing a month’s shopping for a family of eight. (Or, if it’s the express lane, a family of eight buying five items each.)

I was at home one weekday morning when I realised I was out of deodorant, so off to the supermarket I went. (It helped that I didn’t have to work that day.) One thing about supermarkets on a weekday morning is that all of the shoppers are either young mothers or very old women. No men of any age, apart from me. It makes sense really. I would go to the supermarket at a time when everyone there is like me if I could. Which would mean, in my case, young men who hate supermarkets. We would be like a community; a community based on hate, united by our hatred of supermarkets; which is somewhat freaky if you think about it, so don’t.

I found the deodorant and bought a few other items as well, so as not to have to do a return trip. (Hate makes you buy more, apparently.) I then lined up at an “8 Items Or Less” counter behind two 90-year-old women who had one or two items each.

Or so I thought. The first one was carrying two items, but when she got to the counter, she reached into her bag and pulled out seven or eight other items. The woman behind her helped her handle the items. Isn’t that nice, I thought.

Then it was the second woman’s turn. She had been carrying one item; chocolate biscuits. She put the biscuits on the counter, and than she started pulling items out of her bag! She had a dozen extra items in there.

So there I was, trying to choose the quickest checkout queue, lured into the line I chose under false pretences by two ancient item-smuggling women.

Have you been duped by item smugglers? Let’s make a law that all supermarket items must be visible until after you have bought them. Join with me on a campaign to rid the world of this time-wasting menace today!

(The following is my best recollection of the speech I made at the 21st of my twin brothers Ben and Peter a week ago. Their 21st was very cool, I have to say, and given that they are the youngest in the family, it was also the last 21st; the end of an era.)

Hi everyone. I think that some of you have been getting the wrong idea of what it was like to grow up in our family. It has been different to what most of you think; for example, there was more violence. I’m going to give you some examples of this violence; examples that help illustrate how Peter and Ben became the people they are today.

First, Ben, just like in real life. Ben used to get really angry quite often, particularly when he was playing games on the computer. For example, he might have been playing PacMan and the ghost would get him, and he’d get really angry; and the thing is, it was never his fault. It was always the keyboard got stuck, or the mouse didn’t work properly, or the computer would freeze; it was never the case that Ben made a mistake, it was always the computer.

When Ben got angry, he would hit the computer or hit the desk, and make a really loud noise; then we would say “Ben, you’re not supposed to take your anger out on the computer”. So, in order to make less noise and not attract anyone’s attention, Ben – I only found out about this recently – would hit himself instead of the computer.

So he would get annoyed with the computer, but instead of hitting the computer he would hit himself. Isn’t it eerily appropriate that he became an art student?

Next, Peter. I have a scar on my left wrist – can you see that (demonstrates scar to nearby girl, but she can’t see it) – well it’s there. The scar exists and Peter was involved. This happened about nine years ago now. I was on the computer – so again the computer is involved – and the computer was near the door to the kitchen and Peter was opening and closing the door repeatedly. I found that annoying so I decided to put a stop to it. Now, the door has a wooden frame and glass in the middle, and because I am an exceptionally smart person, I thought – well, I didn’t think, really – I thought I would reach out with my arm and stop him by pushing against the glass rather than the wooden frame – and I fell right through the door.

So I fell through the door, and my left wrist got cut open, there was blood all over the floor, mixed with glass, and the glass was red from the blood, and there was bits of arm flesh mixed with the blood, and I said “Call an ambulance!” and I was taken to hospital.

That was the first time Peter got to cut someone open, and he was so inspired by this, that he decided to become a doctor, and that’s why Peter is a medical student.

However, despite all these things, despite Ben hitting himself and Peter cutting me open – I still (looks at them) love you. So yeah. Happy 21st birthday.

I’m moving house. You will recall that I moved in to my present abode last September and had a Communism-themed housewarming in October. Incidentally, that housewarming post is one of the most-viewed posts on this blog, with a small but steady stream of people viewing it via search engines, and I have now updated it with the invitation my brother made for the occasion, with hammer and sickle and everything.

I haven’t found a place to move to yet. If you live in Melbourne and would like me to move in with you, leave a comment below describing your house and where it is. Of course, having said that, I need to qualify that statement, to prevent a flood of comments large enough to crash the WordPress servers.

Be it known that I wish not to live with psychopaths, or in apartments (but units and townhouses are OK), and particularly not in psychopath-filled apartments. Be it also known that I like polished floorboards rather than carpets, heating rather than not, no pets rather than pets (I am allergic to anything with fur).

The question then arises: Which suburb? Introducing the five word suburb review:

Suburbs That I Would Like To Live In:
Balaclava (excellent coffee, station, work nearby),
Bentleigh (okay coffee, Zone 1 station),
Cheltenham (good coffee, location near friends),
Mordialloc (not too far out – just)

Suburbs That I Could Live In If I Absolutely Had To:
Edithvale (near the beach, at least),
Keysborough (coffee wasteland, far from work),
Springvale (cheap groceries, just generally cheap)

Awful Suburbs That Need More Than Five Words To Describe Their Awfulness:
Doveton (cheap, too far out, no coffee),
Narre Warren (may as well live in Mordor, endless drive to work, no drinkable coffee for miles, plus everyone there smells funny),
Carrum Downs (I lived there for three months. Can someone wipe that from my memory please?)

In other words, if you share an unheated carpeted apartment in Narre Warren with a psychotic cat, I do not want to live with you.

BREAKING NEWS: On his phone, my friend Tim has a drawing of dinosaurs on roller skates eating ice cream.

3.50am – Alarm goes off. Peel self off bed.
3.55am - Shower, etc.
4.20am – Get in car and drive off.
4.30am – Marvel at getting three consecutive red lights at this time of the morning.
4.45am – Park downstairs.
4.50am – Waltz into the office, greet everyone, all of whom are half dead from being there since 11pm. Gotta love shiftwork.
4.55am – Confirm that nothing is happening. This takes all of 6 seconds.
5.00am – Read email.
5.01am – Delete email.
5.05am – Go on Internet. Check blog. Any comments? Nope. Check stats.
5.10am – Wander into break room and get coffee. I am rather fond of coffee.
5.15am – Coffee in hand, open Google feed reader, noone’s posted anything. Come ON, people!
5.20am – Check The Age website. Australians winning at cricket, apparently.
5.30am – What to do now? Hmm ..
5.40am – Go chat to a coworker for a bit.
5.50am – Check blog again. Noone is reading blog.
6.00am – Check feed reader. Nothing.
6.05am – Scratch self.
6.10am – Bit quiet, so check blog again. Evidently few people read blogs at 6am in the morning. Not my blog, anyway. Who would have thought?
6.20am – Stretch legs.
6.30am – Notice that the senior has refilled the fridge without my assistance. Why? I could have helped, you know.
6.40am – Tell off coworker for playing cards instead of working.
6.50am – WORK TO DO! Milk has arrived. Bring it in.
6.55am – Night shift people leave, day shift people replace them.
7.00am – WORK TO DO! Make phone call.
7.10am – Coworker farts. Twice. Is this acceptable workplace conduct? (Answer: Yes.)
7.20am – Noone reading blog. Maybe I should have breakfast.

…

11.10am – Would you believe it, noone reads blogs at this time of the morning either.
11.20am – WORK TO DO! Check the fax machine. No faxes.
11.30am – Ponder my options. Will I have another cup of coffee? Why, yes. Yes I will.
11.40am – Shift finishes soon. Start to think of what I will do after work.
11.50am – WORK TO DO! 10 minutes before the end of my shift, receive 2 hours of data entry work.
12.00pm – Replacement arrives. Gratefully accepts the 2 hours of work I have been unable to complete during my shift.
12.10pm – Sayonara everyone. Say my goodbyes, then to the lifts and out the door I go.

I moved house three months ago, but I have only just discovered a leak in the ceiling, since it has barely rained here in Melbourne for the last three months.

The other night was when I discovered my roof had a leak in the dining room. At first, it was one drip every two seconds, then it was one drip every second. I put a bucket under it (which I had only bought a week prior). Having done that, I called the real estate agent and left a message on their voicemail to tell them about the leak. Their office is closed over the Christmas break, but they do have numbers of tradespeople to call in case of urgent repairs. I didn’t think this counted as urgent, so I didn’t pursue this option.

Then the leak got worse. It was now a constant stream. I started to become alarmed. If this continued, I would have to call a tradesperson, because potentially the house could flood every time I go to work. But do I really want to be calling a tradesperson, at 10.30pm on Christmas Eve? I’d rather not.

Then I noticed something else; a second leak, near the window. I grabbed a second bucket. (I only own two, both purchased the week before.) By this stage, the first leak had filled over a quarter of its bucket in an hour. Thank goodness I bought two buckets recently, I thought.

Shortly after this, the leaks died down. I didn’t end up calling a tradesperson. On Christmas Day, when I was at work, it rained again, but the bucket I had ready didn’t collect much water. The second leak didn’t let through any water at all.

The leaks aren’t so bad if I am around to deal with them. But during the next month, I will be going to Sydney for a week. Since I live by myself, the leaks shall have to be fixed by then.

My family are in Sydney, but I’m stuck here.

I won’t be working the whole day, though; I will probably finish at midday.

I still need to get four Christmas presents as well. The shops close at 6pm and I finish work today at 4pm. Will I get all the shopping done by then? Probably not, but it hardly matters since I won’t have a chance to actually give the presents until January.

In the years before I moved out of home, I was told by various well-meaning friends “Don’t move out of home. Put if off as long as possible.” Because once you’re out of home, you have to pay rent, cook your own food, wash your own clothes and whatever else. I almost expected, when it came time to move out, to live a life of ceaseless bill-paying and domestic drudgery.

I’ve been living out of home for almost two years now and I love it. I don’t understand the attitude of my friends. (Maybe its because they had to leave home much earlier than I did.) None of those domestic chores takes that long. One friend complains about how long it takes him to do the laundry. It takes me, what, 15 minutes a week? Cooking is easy, and only has to be done a couple of times a week, if you cook enough for leftovers. My complaining friend rarely cooks, so I said to him, “You want to give up your freedom to save yourself 30 minutes of work a week?” I was incredulous.

I have a good relationship with my parents and all, but I looooove the freedom.