(Sung to the chorus of ‘Poison’)
Don’t you treat me bad! Don’t you make me sad!
We only know how to sing this one song!
We might make you mad, but we’re a flash in the pan!
Just hold your breath, soon it will be over…

BAH! They made it to number one. Who’s responsible for buying this tripe?

I keep seeing ads on TV for the Action Man dolls. What amuses me is that although there are many different kinds of Action Man, on the ad they use the same bad guy in every scenario. Action Man Jungle Warrior - vs Badarse Punk In Ripped Singlet With Pink Mohawk! Action Man Scuba Diver - vs Badarse Punk In Ripped Singlet With Pink Mohawk! Action Man Policeman - vs Badarse Punk In Ripped Singlet With Pink Mohawk!

Actually, at Wonderland (a theme park in Sydney) they’ve got an Action Man live action show at the moment. I really want to go back to Wonderland, I haven’t been there since I was a kid. Except this time I want to go drunk.

Can you imagine how much fun it would be going to a theme park drunk? The Action Man show would even be mildly realistic! Personally, I want to ride the Space Probe drunk. That would be my definition of fun. (I don’t think Adam wants to go drunk though).

There’s a garden supplies store near here having a big sale, and out the front they have a sign that reads ‘Pot Madness 25% off!’ However, in the western suburbs of Sydney, pot madness usually has a far different meaning…

Have you noticed how many new phone companies are opening up lately? I can’t even go to a major train station anymore without someone trying to sign me up to a phone company with a name like AAUUPTSmartOneChatNetTel Pacific.

And speaking of OneTel, my beloved ‘Dude’ (the corporate logo character of OneTel) has DISAPPEARED from OneTel’s new ad campaign. We used to have a cute little cartoon dude, now what do we have? Some weird ads with people flying around in the air that looks like it was shot on a handycam. We don’t even find out WHY these people are flying around! I think the OneTel marketing staff are making advertisements based on their own personal ‘pot madness’ experiences.

Another new phone company is Dingo Blue. This company has a rather unique feature on it’s website - the facility to chat live over the net with a Dingo Blue customer service consultant. Of course, I had to try it out and make up a story to pretend I was actually interested in Dingo Blue’s products.

Gavin (Dingo Blue customer service guy): Welcome to Dingo Blue webchat, how can we help?
Me: Hi, I just wanted to find out how your rates compare to OneTel’s normal dialup services.
Gavin: I’m not at liberty to compare since I don’t know their charges
Me: Ah, I see. I (rather stupidly) signed up with them because I thought they had a cute corporate logo… what kind of rates does Dingo Blue offer STD? (Dingo Blue’s little dog silhoutte logo is far cuter than OneTel’s logo anyway)
Gavin: The charges are outlaid on our website
Me: I mean, what are OneTel smoking, anyway? Have you seen those new ads of theirs?
Gavin: I can only assist you with Dingo Blue related questions
Me: Well, this is related, isn’t it? Vaguely?
Gavin: Do you have any questions about Dingo Blue?
Me: What’s the little dog’s name, the one in your logo?
Gavin: You will need to direct that question to our marketing department, the contact details are outlaid on the website
Me: Okay, er… you’ve been helpful..ish.
Gavin: Thankyou for using Dingo Blue webchat

Adam’s been going a bit silly with ICQ lately. He decided the other night to search for people using ICQ that had the same first name and surname as him. Strangely enough, he found another Adam in Sydney who has the same surname as him, and is aged 24 - which is only one year off Adam’s age (23). We’re not sure if he’s gay, but still, it’s a bit of a coincidence. We call the other Adam ‘the twin’. Although on Saturday night…

Me: (calling out from other room) Are you on the net?
Adam: Yeah.
Me: (walks in to have a look) Who’s on ICQ?
Adam: My boyfriend.
Me: (looks at ICQ) What? You’re calling the other Adam your BOYFRIEND instead of your twin now?
Adam: (giggles insanely)
Me: (walks into bathroom and turns tap on) Hear this? I’m WASHING MY HANDS OF YOU!

So it’s almost Easter. I bet I get a job right before Easter, so then I won’t even have to work. Heh! I’d really like to go away somewhere for Easter but I don’t think money allows it - we’re trying to move closer in to the city and have to save up for it. Actually, even if we just spent the night in a hotel or something, that’d be nice.

Actually, in February or March or something, Adam and I spent the night in a really great hotel. It was a fantastic night, we got upgraded from a stock standard room to one of the best rooms in the joint - all without the aid of sexual favours! It had a fantastic view, right across Sydney Harbour. When I got up in the morning, I stood at the window for a good ten to fifteen minutes just admiring the view.

Then when we exited the hotel, I looked up at the room we were staying in from the sidewalk. I realised you could see straight into the room from where I was standing - I’d assumed the windows would be tinted or something. This wouldn’t have been a problem except for the fact that I had been admiring the view when I was completely naked.

Torana rang us at 3am on Sunday morning. He leaves the funniest phone messages, they go on for minutes and minutes but that’s usually because he’s drunk. His rambling stories and explanations are usually interjected with “Hang on. Hello? Fuck, what’s that? HELLO?” and all sorts of other random phrases. According to the message he left at 3am, he got a new camera at the pub off some guy for only two beers. Not bad. Unless Torana was that drunk he’d bought a broken one by mistake.

Torana is kind of good looking, but I shouldn’t really think of him in that way. He’s in the Friendship Zone. I don’t know about other gay guys, but I tend to put my good mates in the Friendship Zone. If someone is in the Friendship Zone then you don’t look at them in a sexual way. Torana is usually in the Friendship Zone but sometimes when he sits down wearing very short shorts he starts to move out of the Zone. Which is bad! Very bad. He has to stay in the Zone.

In my last entry I was talking about how I went and got my hair cut at Just Cuts. I had a look at the back of the receipt today…

What’s this? If I don’t like the cut I got, they will re-cut my hair to my satisfaction? I’d like to see that.

Me: Hello. I don’t like the haircut you gave me. Please re-cut it to my satisfaction.
Highly strung Just Cuts woman: What would you like done?
Me: Fix it back the way it was before.
Highly strung Just Cuts woman: But you got your head shaved!
Me: I said I’m not happy with the cut you gave me! It’s not to my satisfaction and I’ve changed my mind. Put it back how it was.

Sunday is Shopping Day. At the supermarket where Adam and I do our shopping, most of the front of the store is taken up by checkouts, but then there’s little mini-aisles of crap products. Products that deserve to have a mini-aisle all to themselves, so they’re exiled away from other normal products. I wouldn’t be seen dead venturing into the Paper Plates mini-aisle or the Canary Seed mini-aisle.

Adam’s favourite aisle is the one up the very end - the one we go through with the shopping trolley last. Yes, it’s the aisle with the chemical smells - the detergents and grime cleaners. This aisle makes us laugh, and not because we find it humorous, either.

Sunday is also Clean Up This Fucking Mess God I Hate Fucking Messes day. (That’s what Adam calls it). So we wash, clean, vacuum, then Adam provides the finishing touch by marching through the place spraying Glen 20 everywhere (including at my groin. Those oh-ha-ha-you-pissed-yourself-jokes stopped being funny in primary school). I was curious to find out what Glen 20 is supposed to smell like.

Me: What is that supposed to smell like?
Adam: (looks on can) It says ‘Country Scent’.
Me: It smells like tangerines.
Adam: It’s COUNTRY SCENT! (waves fist)

I did some research. Tangerines originated from Italy, so maybe it’s the scent of the Italian countryside.

I’m really enjoying the weather of Sydney, it’s so much warmer than living in Torquay. I mean, I expected it to be warmer, but not this much warmer. It’s beautiful. In fact, last year I was reading about a mental condition that I can’t remember the name of, that relates to depression and weather. Basically, you tend to get depressed in cold weather. I think it’s not 100% accepted by the medical community but generally recognised. I honestly think this is something I suffer from, all joking aside. I’ve always been down in the winter months, and cold weather usually makes me groan. The good weather up here in Sydney though, it’s just making me happy. I go outside, feel the sun on my skin and feel great!

However, silly as it sounds, one place I really want to visit is Antarctica. At my last job, when the phones quietened down and we had nothing to do, I used to read the online journal Ingrid On Ice. It’s hosted at the ABC’s site, and is the story of Ingrid, a doctor who decided she wanted some change in her life, and went along to one of the Australian Antarctic Expedition bases for a year. It’s such an inspiring read, it really makes me want to go to Antarctica after reading it. However, if I’m right about having a condition that gets me depressed in cold weather, I’d probably top myself if I moved to Antarctica.

I was reading in a friend’s journal today how the smell of a shaving lotion brought back memories of her time in Japan. I too strongly associate smells with places.

The one smell that I’ve associated Sydney with since I was a kid, is the smell of the trains here. It’s a biting ozone-y kind of smell, but this smell is Sydney. I guess it comes from when I used to holiday here with my family as a child - we’d catch the train everywhere and I used to love it.

Last year I visited Sydney for the first time in at least 5 or 6 years. I caught the train up here, and as soon as I got off the train and smelt the suburban Sydney trains, a whole load of intense memories came flooding back. I guess going around sniffing train emissions isn’t the healthiest thing to do, but it’s something that brings back memories.

Actually, it’s interesting Joanna mentioned that a certain smell reminded her of Japan, because I was in Japan on a three week student exchange program about five years ago, and there’s one smell that always brings back flooding memories of my trip there. It’s the smell of Rexona Sport Roll-On Deodrant. No, not the smell of sushi. Not the smell of fresh noodles. No - something totally different and not Japanese at all. The smell of something that stops you sweating like a pig.

After the debacle that was my data entry job, I’m going for an interview with another recruitment agency today. Yes, it’s a different one this time. I’m going to just get a temp position, because hopefully Duckboy will be able to get me a job where he works soon, but he tells me it may be a month or two until he can.

I don’t like being unemployed. Sitting around is fun for a day or so, but I don’t like doing nothing. When I was living in Torquay, before I got my last job I was almost considering doing some volunteer work just for something to do. Something I was seriously considering was becoming a volunteer firefighter (don’t laugh!) I wanted to do it for the same reason I almost took that job as a postman a few weeks ago - I reckon it’d be an eye-opener, and it’s something I’ve never done. And girls would be all ‘Ooh, a firefighter!’ I’d pull heaps of chicks! Except, er, I’m gay.

Although bearing in mind that I’ve decided I’ll only take jobs that involve creativity from now on, firefighting could be a bad career move. Not much room for creativity there.

Firefighting chief: Hurry! Get around to the back of the building and start hosing it down - the foundation could collapse!
Me: Hang on - look at all the pretty swirly patterns I’m making with the hose!

I noticed a set of scales outside a newsagent on Friday, with the label ‘For your correct weight insert 20 cents here’. Surely they’d make more money if they had a label that said ‘For your decidedly innacurate but ego-pleasing weight, insert 20 cents here’.

As I walked down the street past this newsagent, I noticed someone waving at me from across the road. I looked around - was there anyone else this girl could be waving to? No, it was me. I couldn’t figure out who it could be because I don’t really know many people in Sydney.

So I crossed the road, and said g’day to this strange girl. AND SHE WAS FROM FUCKING GREENPEACE. I was accosted by Greenpeace in the city just the other week! Bloody hell. GREENPEACE ALWAYS MANAGE TO SINGLE ME OUT IN A LARGE CROWD AND HARRASS THE HELL OUT OF ME. I’ve already ranted in the past why I hate Greenpeace (primarily, they waste my time), so I wasn’t impressed to find out she was trying to make me join Greenpeace on the false pretence of pretending to know me.

Greenpeace woman: Hi!
Me: (not knowing who this woman is) Howdy.
Greenpeace woman: You look like a nice responsible man.
Me: Err…
Greenpeace woman: I’m from Greenpeace!
Me: (cursing under breath)
Greenpeace woman: Do you know what we’re doing at the moment?
Me: (desperately hoping that she’s about to tell me that all members of Greenpeace have decided to take showers) No, I don’t.
Greenpeace woman: We’re saving whales.
Me: (thinking that Greenpeace have never done THAT before) Oh, right.
Greenpeace woman: Only 5% of whales are left now.
Me: (wondering five percent of WHAT?) Um…
Greenpeace woman: So would you like to join up with us or come to a meeting or sign this petition or…
Me: Oh, look - a fluffy little dog! Hee hee hee! (runs away while she’s distracted)

And then some other Greenpeace guy followed me halfway up the street when I returned to the same area later on in the day! He kept following me for ages, jabbering on until I made a decision. From now on, if any member of Greenpeace confronts me in the street, I’m going to be upfront, as I was to this Greenpeace guy:

Me: I do not believe in Greenpeace. Kindly piss off.

Unfortunately, this only encouraged him more. Greenpeace just love protesting against things, and this guy was now protesting against my attitude towards him. Maybe I’ll need to start carrying a knife around or something. It’s the only way to get rid of these people.

There’s a woman who lives in the block of units opposite me and Adam, who is fondly known to us as Boob Woman. She is frequently seen walking around topless. Adam often sees her when he gets up for work, and I’ve spotted her once or twice in the middle of the night as I sneak out to the fridge for something to drink.

Actually, I’ve just realised. When I sneak out in the middle of the night to get a drink, I’m usually naked. Boob Woman probably refers to me as Dick Man to all her friends.

Speaking of people who live around us, Wez sadly hasn’t turned into a goth as I predicted. He’s back to his usual bogan self. I honestly don’t know how someone can listen to ‘Load’ by Metallica that many times. I’ve also spotted his skinhead friend as well, sitting on the couch on the balcony of Wez’s unit. Adam said once he went to work early one morning at 5am, and Skinhead was lying on the couch outside asleep, wearing tracksuit pants and very little else.

Also, this evening, as I returned from the service station near here, when I started walking upstairs I heard an explosion of Spanish. I don’t know what the hell Wez is up to half the time (especially considering the fact that the only Spanish I know is from what the cute little dog says on those Taco Bell ads - ‘Yo Quero Taco Bell!’ or something). I honestly can’t even figure out if Wez has a job or not, he doesn’t seem to go out anywhere during the day. I reckon he might be a dealer.

This is a coaster from the pub near here:

What I find funny, is that intoxicated, disorderly, violent, quarrelsome, drug possessing, and underage people are exactly the kind of people this pub attracts.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 17th, 2000 at 8:07 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.