Re-re wind, the crowd say bo selecta! This stupid lyric has been in my head and after listening to it constantly for the past week (thanks Adam) I still don’t know what it means. And neither does he. It’s starting to get strangely catchy. I’ll be walking down the street and suddenly start rapping ‘AND THE CROWD SAY BO SELECTA!’ Does anyone know what ‘the crowd say bo selecta’ means? Does anyone know why this song is popular at all?! Email me, and let me know. And say bo selecta!

On Saturday nights Adam transforms into Bouncer Adam. He’s a bouncer at a pub in Sydney on Saturdays. This means at 3am every Sunday morning he comes home smelling like a cocktail of beer, cigaretes and sweat. The smell of a motel room.

I’ve been writing about Wez in my journal lately, the deadhead who lives downstairs from me and Adam. Well, I finally saw him the other day! The thing about Wez, is that he gives Adam (and anyone else he doesn’t know) absolutely dirty looks when he walks past him. I could see Wez sussing me out from his windows, then he opened his door as I walked past, gave me the filthiest glare, then returned back into his cave to listen to Eye of the Tiger by Survivor. (Bogan anthem!)

Wez is far older than what I thought he’d look like, too. He’s an odd one, that’s for sure. I’ll have to keep my eye on him.

I realised that I’m picking up one of my dad’s most irritating habits. When my dad gets tired, he’ll just sit there and sigh with every single breath. Every time he exhales he’ll just go ‘Ohhhhhh’ like he’s incredibly out of breath. I’ve been doing this quite a bit lately, except when I do it, it doesn’t sound like I’m out of breath. It sounds like I’m being intimate with someone - which is precisely the reason I’m trying to stop doing it.

I start my job tomorrow, so it’s time for me to stop drinking anything with caffeine in the evenings. I tend to not be able to get to sleep when I’ve had things like Dr Pepper or cofee to drink. Adam reckons he’s the master of sleeping - he can just get into bed and shut his eyes and he’s asleep. However, the other night he really took his time getting asleep. I asked him what happened to his theory, and he said I don’t understand the “comfort zone”.

Apparently he has to roll around in bed and find his comfortable position before he can sleep (his comfort zone). I think this is a piece of crap because he wasn’t moving at all when he couldn’t get to sleep. But sometimes the comfort zone can be dangerous.

Last night Adam went to bed before I did, and I stumbled into the bedroom a few hours later, which was in pitch blackness. I assumed that Adam would be sleeping on the same side of the bed he normally sleeps in, so I jumped straight in and almost sat on his head by mistake. He’d changed his comfort zone, you see. He was in the middle of the bed. I will admit the middle of the bed is a good comfort zone - the bed sort of bends inwards towards the middle, so it’s nice and comfy there.

We’ve discovered that the source of the little flying bugs we’re seeing around the flat are being caused by the months-old potatoes in the cupboard. These potatoes have been there months before I even knew Adam - we just like to pretend that they’re not really there because we don’t want to have to smell/touch them to throw them out. It’s getting to the point where we might have to go in and have an assassin attack, though. I don’t really feel confident doing something like this without the assistance of a beekeeper’s outfit, personally, but we’ll have to do it soon.

Adam’s mate (who I’ll call Torana on here) came round to visit us the other day. He’s a pretty cool guy (he’s got better taste in music than Adam, anyway. The crowd say bo selectaaaaaargh!) I’m not sure how we got onto the subject, but we were talking about fire/police/ambulance sirens. I’ve got a feeling that all three sirens are the same nowadays, aren’t they? Or is two of them that are the same… hmm. As Torana pointed out, it’s a bit stupid when people go ‘Oh, listen… a fire engine!’ when it’s just a police car. (Petty theft is nowhere near as exciting as a bushfire!)

Torana returned again later on that night to see if we wanted to go to the pub. He was only in the flat for less than two minutes. When he found out me and Adam didn’t feel like going, he lifted his leg, gave birth to a fart that had potential to stain the walls, then nicked off. This guy has class.

So yeah, I start my job tomorrow. I’m supposed to be able to wear tshirt and jeans, but I don’t want to turn up tomorrow in those sort of clothes and then have someone tell me I’m supposed to be wearing a shirt or something. So I’m trying to dress in some sort of halfway-style, except the problem is, the only halfway shirt I have is really, really short. Oh well. Hopefully I’ll be able to regress to my metal tshirts and jeans by Thursday.

One of my most feared and hated body parts is the adam’s apple. It just freaks me out. I realised today, I’ve been subconsciously shaving around my adam’s apple for the past few weeks. There was all these horrible fine, long hairs on it this morning. Lucky I noticed that or the people at my new job would think Victorians were growing some new strange growth to compliment goatees.

Every day when Adam goes to work, I swap the chairs in front of our computers. He’s got this really comfy grey ergonomic chair with a nice footrest and good back support. I have a blue “ergonomic” (ha!) chair with a backrest that’s at a 45 degree angle and makes mysterious CRACK! noises every time I move. I’ve started using a pillow to support my back but even that isn’t fantastic. It’s a put-it-yourself-together chair I think, but looks like the kind of thing Ikea would pass through their bowels rather than sell.

I noticed Cottees Cordial are currently holding a promotion to win money. Apparently if you’re the lucky winner, you win $10,000, but you also have a bonus chance to win a million bucks. You have to write a letter and three numbers on the back of your entry, and if your letter and three numbers matches theirs, then you win the extra million.

I’m no mathemetician, but I know the chances of being drawn out as the winner - and then getting the same letter and 3 numbers as Cottees are very, very slim. According to my calcuations, you’ve got a one in 26,000 chance of winning the million (and you have to get drawn as the winner first on top of that). Cottees: Manufacturers of fruit drinks and totally misleading bastards.

Have you seen the transportation group Fox (or Linfox)’s trucks? On the back of their trucks it says in giant writing ‘YOU ARE NOW PASSING ANOTHER FOX TRUCK’. Do they assume all their drivers are slow and bumbling?

I don’t really mind slow drivers as long as I’m on a multi-lane road, so I can pass them. The only kind of driver who really irritates me is the cruiser-braker. I usually start braking when the person in front of me does, but when people cruise to a stop and brake only at the last minute, I usually have to slam my foot on the breaks. Er, this is probably a really bad way to drive.

In the shopping centre near here, there’s a 10 kilometer per hour speed limit. Now come on. Who seriously is going to drive that slow? Everyone usually drives 20kph, 30kph at the very minimum. If I was a policeman, I’d get people for speeding fines in the 10kph zone.

Me: Do you know how fast you were going back there?
Driver who’s been pulled over: Where?
Me: Just over there.
Driver who’s been pulled over: What? Two metres behind us?
Me: Yes. Just there.
Driver who’s been pulled over: Oh, I don’t know.
Me: 14 kilometers per hour. 4 kilometers over the speed limit.
Driver who’s been pulled over: You have GOT to be joki-
Me: YOU’RE NICKED, SUNSHINE!

I bought this shower gel stuff at the supermarket, and it comes with one of those little furry rag things you use with them to clean yourself. Like a sponge kinda thing. On the pack I got, it’s called a Cleansing Puff, however I saw other brands calling it a Body Puff. Come on. A body puff? That sounds like a kinky sexual act.

Adam: (reading out the lyrics to my Filter album) “I hate it when you preach your case, it makes me want to stick my fist through your face”? What kind of lyrics are these?
Me: What do you mean?
Adam: When will you learn that violence is not the answer?

Bear in mind - this was coming from a guy who’s a martial arts expert.

At least by moving to New South Wales I’m further away from the stupid Victorian country town Echuca. For examples on why this is the worst town in Australia, visit their websit- actually, no, don’t. I don’t want to give them the pleasure of a hit. Anyway, I’m sure there must be a New South Wales equivalent of Echuca - do any NSW locals know of any totally shithouse towns in this state?

I’m also going to have to check out the Sydney casino, Star City soon. I’ve been told by locals that Crown in Melbourne is better. Actually, when I used to work in Melbourne, I noticed something about Crown Casino. Every night, they shine coloured lights on the hotel tower - a different colour each night. I’m wondering if there are some secret code things going on here. Maybe Crown is run by communists! (Hang on. Crown are owned by the same people who own Channel Nine… it all makes sense now!) Crown Casino: World of Entertainment or fascist army base?

Given the success of the Popstars TV show, where 5 girls were picked from hundreds to become a McPop Band, maybe Triple J’s Unearthed competition should change their rules. They could just select the 5 most mediocre performers, then get them to sing a song with three power chords that has words in it like foreskin, drugs, bitch, and nookie. It’ll be a guaranteed hit! (Just look at The Tennants’ “You Shit Me To Tears”!) And if it’s not… well… er… the crowd say bo selecta!

Actually you’d almost be lead to believe that’s how the Unearthed contest is operating today - look at Killing Heidi, they were an Unearthed band. On the latest issue of Rolling Stone there’s a Killing Heidi CD. They do a cover of Silverchair’s “Tomorrow” on it - it sounds basically the same except for a few lyric changes:

Silverchair version: ‘Won’t you come with me, to a place in a little town…’
Killing Heidi version: ‘Won’t you come with me, woo yeah, to a place in a little town babe yeah woo yeah…’

You get the idea.

I’m worried Community Radio Steve will track me down soon. I left him in Geelong but he mentioned that he wanted to move back to Sydney before I left. I made the mistake of giving him my phone number before I left. Actually I was remembering something funny that happened to me with Community Radio Steve today…

When I was in Year 10 or 11 or something, I used to host a show on community radio in Geelong, and Steve’s show was right before mine. On one particular day, he interviewed the band Crow (I think they were from WA). They did a decidely mediocre accoustic on-air performance, and they were playing a gig in Geelong that night. Community Radio Steve was ecstatic about this band but he gets excited over things like purple milk crates. Anyway, straight after he interviewed Crow, they all had some beers in the foyer of the radio station (where you can see all the studios).

That night, Jebediah were launching their first album Slightly Odway in Geelong (it was good seeing them live in the days before they got really big). Seeing as I really loved Jebediah then, I said something at the start of the show like ‘Drop everything. Change all your plans. The best band in Australia at the moment, Jebediah, are playing at the Wooly tonight, so don’t go ANYWHERE else tonight except to see Jebediah. Don’t go see some half arse crap indie band plinking out shithouse songs, go see Jebediah!’ Then I played one of their songs.

I then looked up to see the singer of Crow abusing the hell out of me through the studio window. I realised that Crow’s gig was on that same night. Community Radio Steve was trying to calm them all down and I swear their singer wanted to deck me. But look who was the more successful band… he he he. In fact I think Crow broke up.

Adam’s old flatmate left lots of porno mags in the bathroom. Straight porn, not gay stuff. I was looking through them purely for the humour value - if you’re not attracted to girlie bits these magazines actually are so bad they border on the ridiculous. You can see them in their true light without being distracted by ‘titties’.

In fact, when Adam and I were looking for jobs in the employment section of the newspaper on the weekend, we saw Picture magazine was offering a graphic design job (heading: Shoot For The Stars!). The ad was pretty funny - the application procedure read ‘1. Go down to the newsagent and buy our mag. 2. Have a read through it. 3. Write to us with your resume’.

Picture magazine is just plain funny. My favourite regular feature is ‘Me and My Boobs’ for the name alone. It makes a woman’s breasts sound like a completely independent entity. It also sounds like the name of a Broadway musical. There you go, Andrew Lloyd Webber! Sunset Boobevarde, here we come…

And the crowd say boob selecta! (OH GOD, WHEN WILL THIS SONG GET OUT OF MY HEAD…)

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