I’ll Be a Ghost
May 1, 2000
Yes, I’m sure Sega’s latest videogame console will follow the MINDBLOWING SUCCESS of all their previous consoles. Then again, even Nintendo has been known to have their hits and misses - does anyone remember the Virtual Boy? It was a shoulder-mounted headset that had rather shite black-and-white vision you squinted at through a set of bizarre goggles. It should have been called the Epilepsy Boy, perhaps.
*****
In Melbourne it appears there’s been a recent outbreak of Legionnaire’s Disease - the outbreak was traced to the new Melbourne Aquarium. The Aquarium had an investigation done, and bizarrely claimed that the outbreak was God’s fault. I’m thinking of putting this to use in day-to-day situations.
Me: (crashes into expensive car)
Yuppie: (opens car door and storms over to me) What the hell were you doing! You went straight through that red light!
Me: Whoops. Guess that was God’s fault.
*****
I find people attempting to use broken objects an endless source of amusement. I especially love it when they apply the jackhammer theory - that if they keep trying to use it, it will eventually work. It’s most commonly seen in banks when people try to those pens attached to strings. In busier banks, there can sometimes be a line to use the pens and write out a deposit or withdrawl slip, but there’ll be a couple of pens that nobody is using because they’re out of ink. Of course, there’ll be some person who completely ignores the fact people are lining up and they’ll storm straight over to the broken pen and try to make it work.
I saw a guy trying to use the public phone on the corner of the street I live in. It doesn’t take a genius to realise that it’s broken. I mean, the little text display was smashed in, it’s been kicked in at the bottom and has a huge dent, and a big chunk of the handpiece is missing. But no! This particular guy wanted to make the phone work.
*****
I went for a walk on Sunday. It was such a beautiful day and it seemed a shame not to do anything and just stay indoors so I went for a walk around. I went in the late afternoon so the sun was quite bright as it set.
In fact, it was very bright. So bright that I could hardly see where I was going. I almost trampled two small children. After a while some large buildings blocked out the sun (thank the Lord for light industrial areas).
It reminds me of the time my family and I went to Phillip Island for a holiday when I was a kid. I think I was going through some sort of phase with wearing caps, because I wore them everywhere. It got to the point where my hair would get abnormally greasy because I had a cap on my head most of the day.
I used to wear my cap everywhere, but because I was trying to be ‘cool’ I pulled the cap down as far as it would go. I couldn’t see where I was going most of the time and people used to yell at me as I stumbled randomly, blindly down the street.
Actually, my memories of Phillip Island aren’t too good. I remember as one of the high points, visiting some sort of animal farm and getting bitten (badly) by a llama. Actually, llamas and I don’t get along that well. When I went on my three week student exchange to Japan, a llama ate half of my Rail Pass.
So I continued on my journey, but the family I almost knocked over were quite nice about the whole thing. In fact they started laughing, so I guess nobody was upset.
I passed a Hungry Jacks store which had a sign out the front that I’m sure was supposed to read ‘Enter at Rear’, but someone had stolen the A so it read ‘Enter a Rear’. This was most amusing to two teenage passing boys (who then turned around and started laughing at me instead of the sign). I suppose teenagers can always find some sort of impediment in anyone to laugh at.
I returned home after my little trek, past the Roundabout of Chaos. Every neighbourhood has a roundabout of nightmare proportions. It’s the roundabout where you can get stuck at for up to five minutes. It’s as if you’re on teams - everyone’s competing to try and get their road flowing into the roundabout, rather than sit idly by and watch the other roads zoom around it.
Anyhow, as I crossed over the road near the Roundabout of Chaos, the kind of guy who looked like he’d be a big Limp Bizkit fan leaned out the passenger side window of an old Corolla and yelled out ‘Faggot!’ at me, then gave a rather evil laugh. I would have yelled back ‘Breeder!’ at him, but that’s the only heterophobic taunt I know. I would’ve been out of ammo straight away.
I arrived home and as I walked past Adam he started pissing himself. I realised that a lot of people had been laughing at me that afternoon, and Adam was almost in tears. I realised something must be wrong. All he could do, in the midst of his laughter, was point to the back of my pants. I went into the bathroom, turned around, and what I saw was this:
Yes. A big rip in my jeans. My ‘One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish’ boxer shorts had been on public display for the better part of the afternoon. No wonder people were laughing at me. These were the only jeans I had, too. Oh well.
*****
Ms. J, my old workmate, sent me an email on the weekend! This made me real happy, it was great to hear from her. Well, most of the email was her bitching about how she was forced to work on a Saturday, but besides that everything sounds like it’s going great for her. It was sad to hear that The Rock (another old workmate of mine) had been dumped by her boyfriend of 5 years - they were one of the most stable couples we knew. But Ms. J tells me she’s now gone for a job as a travel consultant, so maybe I’ll be able to milk cheap plane trips back home to Melbourne out of her now and then. She also told me what she and her boyfriend did over the Easter break:
For Easter we went to South Australia and got pissed at all the Vineyards. The first night we bought a bottle of your favourite - Old Jim - and didnt get out of the spa until we drank it!!! You could imagine the quality of the conversation!
Well, if you knew Ms. J, you could imagine the quality of the conversation would be very amusing indeed. She turns into a sort of self-taught Dr Feelgood when she’s drunk.
*****
It appears that Wezza, the dickhead who lives downstairs from us, has had his window smashed in. It looks like someone has tried to break into his house but it’s more likely one of his little enemies has tried to bash him. Every weekend I can hear someone or other trying to break into his place, yelling at him that they’re going to smash him.
*****
My parents have got the internet connected, and I’m now playing tech support to mum. My mum says even the Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Internet book isn’t making sense to her, so she was wondering if there’s something lower than a complete idiot. She told me that my sister got really sick today and was throwing up. Apparently when my parents drove into Geelong with my sister, she got bored and alternated between focusing her eyes on very close objects and focusing her eyes on very far objects. She started doing this really quick and made herself sick. Yes, it shows she’s my sister doesn’t it?
It might be time to come out to my oldies soon. It’d sure save buying a bed to ‘pretend’ I’m sleeping in it when they visit here on holidays in 6 weeks time. The easiest way to tell them would be over email but that’s just a big copout. I can’t tell my mum or dad like that. They’ll be ok with it, I’m pretty sure of that, but it’s just a matter of me getting my guts up to do it.
*****
The Logies (Australia’s TV awards) were on last night. I rather liked the touching, somber sequence of pictures of Australian actors and actresses who’d passed away during the year - which was immediately followed by an advertisment for the ‘mayhem, madness and laughs of Australia’s Funniest Home Videos!’
Also, Adam was watching 21 Jump Street last night. First I find out he likes Michael Jackson, and then this…? Sheesh.
*****
I keep grinding my teeth at night, according to Adam, so I’ve done some research. It appears I suffer from bruxism - habitual grinding of the teeth during the night. I consistently wake up with bad headaches which is a symptom of bruxism. Apparently it doesn’t help if you drink lots of alcohol… I guess the slab we bought on the weekend isn’t helping any. I’ve told Adam to wake me up every time I start doing it, but wakes me in the worst way possible (violent shove accompanied by ‘Ya grinding ya teeth’).
*****
I got a call from both of my Job Goddesses today (I’m registered with two temp agencies). One of the Job Goddesses provides consistent but average work, whereas the other Job Goddess provides me with brilliant jobs but only every now and then. I like the previous Job Goddess best. In fact, she’s the Job Demigoddess. I’m working for a software company over the next 4 days so it should be interesting (they provide free breakfast! woohoo!)
This of course meant I had to do some ironing today. I only do ironing when absolutely necessary, because of the fact that our iron is a Non Ironing Iron ™. It took me over half an hour to iron my shirt - at that point I cracked the shits because it still was creased all over. I’m going to re-attack it tomorrow morning in a half-woken state.
*****
Adam, myself, MJ and her girlfriend are going to see the UK comedian Eddie Izzard tomorrow. I’ve never seen him in action but apparently he was the nightclub owner in the movie Studio 54, but I could have that wrong. I’ve read his bio which includes the statement ‘I like to stick babies on spikes’ so he sounds like he’s up my alley.
*****
Last night I heard screams of terror and cries of delight for hours on end from the unit across the hall from us. I didn’t have any idea what was going on but according to Adam they’ve just got a new pet rabbit.
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Adam and I have the “I’ll Be A Ghost” conversation almost every day now. It usually goes something like this:
Adam: I’m going to have a sandwich.
Me: Can you make me one?
Adam: Ah… no! Get your own.
Me: You’re bad.
Adam: I know.
Me: You’re going to hell.
Adam: No I’m not. You might be, but I’m not.
Me: Where are you going to go then? You’re certainly not going to get into heaven.
Adam: I’m going to be a ghost.
Me: I see. And what are you going to do as a ghost?
Adam: Ghosty things.
Me: You’d get lonely.
Adam: I could talk to other ghosts.
Me: Well, maybe I’ll be a ghost too.
Adam: You can’t be a ghost.
Me: Why?
Adam: You don’t have the build for it.
Me: Oh really? So who decides who gets to be a ghost and who doesn’t?
Adam: The ghost people.
Me: I see. Well, I might die before you and get the ghost people to not let you become a ghost.
Adam: Nah. I’ve already arranged.
Me: Well, you be a ghost then. I’ll just sit in hell all by myself.
Adam: I will. I’ll have a great time scaring people and being a ghost.
Me: So be a ghost.
Adam: I will be a ghost. Just watch.
Me: You can’t see ghosts. How can I watch you?
Adam: I’ll be a ghost.
*****
I saw something interesting at a shopping centre near here today: A McDonalds employee eating a Quarter Pounder. I don’t think it’s quite right for Maccas staff to consume the spawn they create, is it? I always thought once you’d worked at McDonalds you never ate it again after witnessing the McProcess.
I’ve been thinking about my job options again. Perhaps I could be a bus driver. I say this simply because of those signs on the back of buses, that instruct you to give way to it when it’s pulling out of the curb. I’d just pull out into headlong traffic and when people crashed into me, I’d just tell them it was their own fault - they should’ve given way.
I mentioned yesterday the Beastie Boys make their living entirely from yelling. I’m trying to think of other jobs besides rapping, where the only skills you need are to yell. Perhaps I could be an announcements person over the P.A. of a shopping centre:
Me: (over P.A.) COULD THE OWNER OF THE GREEN MAGNA LICENCE PLATE RFJ-582 PLEASE RETURN TO THEIR VEHICLE RIGHT NOW GODDAMMIT!
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