updaaaaaaaaaaate

ok, so am home now.

my route home: kyoto-osaka-brisbane(three hour stop)-sydney(four hour stop)-melbourne. there are many things in life more exciting than my flight home, clearly.

i almost brought home a cute korean girl in my suitcase, but decided it's easier to go to korea in february and visit here there, so i've booked my tickets as of today.

photos are on facebook, kind of. if you want to check them out, let me know! i am lazy.

hey

guess the highlight of my trip to japan so far, given the three following choices.



a) the ten hour plane flight and delay due to security concerns at melbourne airport

b) the six hours spent having my soul destroyed by the most painful tattoo ever in osaka

c) the guy with a t-shirt that read `new kids on my cock' in shin-osaka station



actually, it's completely awesome. facebook is down otherwise i`d post photos there. yes, i have been converted.

i'm off

so long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye!



i'll be back in two weeks, you won't even notice!

ahhhhhhhh

oh man, what a week.

but the most exciting news to report was that i won two tickets - via myspazz - to see bloc party play to an audience of 160 people at the abc studios in ripponlea. it was amazing - i think they've got to be one of the most impressive sounding (live) bands i've ever heard.

this is what you get for mistaking a phone camera for a real camera:









look out for me dancing retardedly on jtv soon.

hey there, sugar

so, that's about the last time i decide to go overseas on a whim. my passport had expired, i couldn't find my trusty backpack... blah. that said, while i'm chilling in osaka in thirty degree heat with a beer in my hand, i may indeed feel slightly better about the whole thing.

who am i kidding? i'm still very much in the 'wooooo, japan!' phase. speaking of which, WOOOOOOOOO, JAPAN!

*ahem*

also, i've made a new friend! old highschool buddy of housemate who moved down a little while ago from cairns. he's a laugh, enjoys a beer, and we've sorted out a bridge road pub crawl encompassing thirteen venues for the first weekend of august. this and the fact that the new tegan and sara cd is out on the 6th is making me a very happy dude. and does anyone else think the spoon album is one of the best things they've heard in '07? i mean seriously. it makes me dance, in the pants.

my 'ultimate work crush' has returned. she is literally the perfect girl. i cannot fault her. i don't know what it is - i mean, objectively i can say there are cuter girls, and smarter girls, and funnier girls... but when i'm in her company, these thoughts go out the window. she has a boyfriend who, i'm guessing, is annoyingly great. fucker. but she stayed back an hour at work tonight just to chat to me, so i can always hope. i mean, not really, i'm not that much of a retard. but still. you know.

domo!

wow. because work was driving me up the wall today, i called up a friend and booked us both flights to osaka midway through august.

that's right, i'm going to japan for two weeks!

to celebrate a few of us went out to matsuya in fairfield to get some awesome japanese eats. i murdered a plate of tempura and drank more than my share of sake. it's like i'm in training. also looking forward to getting more ink in osaka at three tides tattoo, and in tokyo at inkrat.

yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!



also, i'm changing fonts. bit easier on the eyes for all you oldies, eh?

*poke*

i'm not dead.

although, transitioning from night shifts to day shifts initially makes me feel as though i'd rather be dead. but that's not quite the same thing.

had a job interview for a public service position this week and was offered the position, which was nice. i've got the coming week to think about it. i was mostly looking at other things because of the insecurities of the upcoming merger/purchase thing, but being offered the only position i actually applied for has given me a little more confidence about my employability and now i'm in no rush to switch.

so, in summary:

job offer
was sleepy
read blood meridian, finally
met lots of cute day girls at work
bought way too many t-shirts.

and that's about all.

roadtrip

tomorrow i am headed home, not being from melbourne orriginally, because my grandmother is in hospital with some kind of scary heart thing, and i'm a little worried. at the same time, there is nothing i detest in life more than returning to the middle-sized town in north east victoria where i was born and schooled.

this is pretty odd, because i'm the first person to say how kick-ass my childhood/schoolness was. for eighteen years a had a ball. you might have seen a small hand-printed sign on your way into the city limits that read 'fun towne. population: me'

but somehow, returning there now creeps me the hell out. i can't escape the sensation that i'm a tourist somewhere that should feel like home, but doesn't. my disfunction is all over the place, too. for example, when i see a new shop opened or an old one absent, i get like one of those old men who can't deal with change. other times i feel as though the place is dying. sometimes i can't breathe.

seriously, what's up with that?

fifty posts!

like john cusack says in my favorite movie, it's not what you're like, it's what you like. i am going to try and let you get to know me a little better by giving you a bunch of top 5 lists as to me.

movies:
#1: high fidelity
#2: four weddings and a funeral
#3: over the top
#4: eternal sunshine of the spotless mind
#5: grosse point blank

books:
#1: snow falling on cedars, by david gutterson
#2: all the pretty horses, by cormac mccarthy
#3: the stand, by stephen king
#4: a tale of two cities, by charles dickens
#5: great expectations, by charles dickens

bands:
#1: tegan & sara
#2: belle & sebastian
#3: at the drive-in
#4: the arcade fire
#5: broken social scene

things to do:
#1: wandering around markets while drinking good coffee
#2: kissing
#3: drinking cocktails on the beach
#4: reading
#5: browsing bookshops

places:
#1: manila
#2: mooroopna, pre 2003
#3: port fairy
#4: on a plane, headed home
#5: melbourne


that's all for now.

real conversations, real lives

conversations from work i may have taken part in...

PART ONE





guy 1: hey, know how i know you're gay?




guy 2: how?




guy 1: i saw you having sex with a dude. ZING!




guy 2: that's because you were the dude.




guy 1: your mum is a dude.




---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------




guy (noticing girls leopard-print stillettos): nice stripper shoes.




girl: these aren't stripper shoes! stripper shoes have, like, a six inch plastic heel, and they're...




guy: hey hey, hold up. sorry i'm not a big expert in stripper-shoeology, like you are.




girl (distressed): but i'm not an expert in stripper shoeology!




guy: i never really look at their shoes anyhow...




(silence in office)

domestic duties

this morning i have been concerning myself with issues of house. mainly, lots of things i should do around the place but tend to, er... not. i'm just about to grab my g&t (at 11am! i know...) and wander around the place picking up all the crap i have a habit of leaving everywhere before, maybe, cleaning the shower. mine is a life to envy!

i'm also looking at houses! soon the lease is up and i'm moving back to where my heart is, which is westgarth, but house-wise it might end up being more of a clifton hill/fitzroy north type thing.

i've also been flirting with a very cute audio-typist from work, mainly via e-mail. can't think of anything else exciting to write, time to clean...

why does every girl i date

end up like this?

lolcatz

gay hotel?

discovered this while listening to jon faine this morning. originally the premise seemed to be that a hotel in collingwood had, via vtac, obtained an exemtion from the equal oppertunity legislation meaning they would be able to deny entry to heterosexuals.

i have to say, my immediate reaction was one of 'hey hey hey, hold on a second. i thought it was all about equality'. then, afterwards, i kind of felt bad for thinking that, really having no experience in being a member of a minority in the community in any way, shape or form. middle class, dude-shaped & white. i mean seriously.

but when the stated objective is to prevent insults and abuse being directed at its mainly gay patrons, i wonder why that kind of behavior can't be directly delt with rather than excluding someone based on their sexual persuasion. i've got several gay male friends, and i'd like to think if they were all like 'omg dude, lets go rock it up at the peel hotel', i'd be able to come along with them and enjoy their company in a venue of their choice.

to be honest, i feel vaguely uncomfortable about having any strong opinions regarding this. i'm kind of not sure why, either.

up late update

our large healh-care concern is on track to be purchased by another healthcare concern. AND they've already got a whole lab full of people who do exactly what we do.

some people are rightfully concerned.

on the other hand, i am simply craving some kind of pay-out. oh my god, please please please show me the money. i was planning on tripping overseas in the next six months, and that kind of windfall could seriously help the travel fund, although my exclamation of 'fricken sweet!' at the news we might all be losing our jobs was most likely inappropriate. sadly, though, in a quick auditing process, it seems like my department in particular is a hell of a lot more efficient than our opposite number in the other company, meaning it's more likely i'll still be stuck managing keyboard monkeys (it's like herding cats) and it's some other lucky bastard who'll be scoring the cash. gah.

in this environment of uncertainty and fear, i'm really really really looking forward to the big work cocktail party saturday night at the aquarium. a bunch of people facing unemployment plus an open bar? solid gold. it also means i get a chance to use The Amazing Multi-Purpose Suit (tm). it was given to my by an indian mystic who i met during my travels in the far east, who said:

'my son, as long as you are possessing this magical suit, you'll never have need for any other. it will fulfill all your suit-related needs, in this life, and the next.'

alternately, it could be that i only own one suit. luckily i wear it so rarely that people have forgotten i was wearing the exact same thing at whichever prior suit-wearing event i was wearing it at. this is me checking it still fits. hoooray!





clearly when considering what occupations the future has in store for me, high on my list are that of undertaker, mob hit-man & johnny cash.

hmm...

saw the science of sleep tonight at the westgarth cinema. i'm completely happy to admit that i find films that attempt to articulate the complexity and chaos of love utterly wonderful, no matter what form they take. when they, in doing so, employ the talents of the beautiful charlotte gainsbourg, i am doubly blessed. is she the most beautiful woman alive? i think the answer is certainly maybe.




le sigh


i was somewhat inspired by the warm fuzzy-ness i was left with after the movie to be a little odd, in hopefully a nice way. for the last month or two, as i drive home from work, there is a window which i pass that happens to be constantly lit as i pass it, which at the odd hours i work is a little mysterious. all you can really glimpse in the few seconds a drive-by offers is a desk, lamp and top of a head. so, i came home (past the lit window), and wrote a note. it went something like:

dear mysterious window person,

every night as i drive home from work your window is inexplicably ablaze. what is it you're doing there? perhaps you're writing what will one day be known as a great work of fiction. perhaps you studying to be a doctor who will cure disease. maybe you can't sleep. whatever it is that keeps your window lit so regularly at such odd hours, i hope that your dilligence and hard work pay off.

and then i went and stuck it in their postbox. because i knew if i left it i'd end up being lame and not drop it off at all.



also: this may or not be forever etched onto my body. i'll give you a hint: it so is.

sleeplessness, retail therapy & relationship disfunction

i'm not sure if i've ever mentioned the fact that i have some serious difficulty sleeping. for the last few years, getting to sleep and staying in said sleepy state for more than three or four hours has been a bit of a chore. it happens in patches - i'll have a few good weeks, followed by a few 'oh my god just let it stop hand me a knife etc etc' weeks. for all of you who get good sleep, appreciate it, because if i could i would sneak into your house with a large-bore syringe and harvest liquid sleep directly from your brain.

anyway, last night was pretty bad. you don't realise how many hours are in a day till you're awake for every single one of them. at around 7am i left the house and went produce shopping (a fucking pain on a public holliday) and cooked a big, greasy breakfast for both housemate and myself. then, feeling ill due to no sleep, took the path of last resort and doped myself up with some valium. my doctor prescribed to me a very long time ago, but i feel very uncomfortable taking it. after getting an amazing three hours of zonked, druggy-ass snoozing, i awoke and decided to go shopping. i like buying stuff, and i needed real coffee.

my anzac day swag:



both of these will be a lot of fun to watch. christopher walken on wires? dancing postboxes? i'm totally there.



the best bald lawyer ever. one of my favorite tv shows (first season only, the rest sucked ass) and i haven't seen it since it originally screened on tv. over a thousand minutes of awesome.



note the gold zipper. these things are very important.



don't let oprah scare you away. or the fact that matt damon turned one of his great books into a wholy shitty film.



also, the girl who was my girlfriend? i just stopped answered the phone when she called. she got a little stalker-ish and kept phoning into work, but i think she has finally come to realise that when it comes to commitment, i am deranged. i did, however, get my watch battery changed by a totally cute jeweller. i got her phone number.








the cycle continues!

what the?

it's not often you find your blog (which no one reads anyhow... right?) mentioned in an article in the age. i mean sure, i wasn't actually read, but mentioned none the less. this is kind of surreal.

the girl mentioned a few posts ago has decided she is now my girlfriend and that i am her boyfriend. hmm. she is extremely cute and kind of offsets my more darker traits by being rediculously upbeat and positive. similarly, as i am messy, disorganised, hairy and godless, she is scarily tidy, organised, not the least bit hairy and attends church.

what the hell have i gotten myself into?

anyhow, i'll give it a go. if she can put up with my fickle nature and the fact that i never answer calls on my mobile from withheld numbers (something she's having some serious issues with, i kid not) then we should be ok. that said, i'm a terrible boyfriend, and proud of it.

also, i think i'm having some kind of quarter life crisis. i have no idea what i want to do and feel purposeless and vacant. i keep having the most terrible dreams detailing things i did, years ago, that were most likely the wrong things to do. i'm also trying to get in touch with a mysterious figure from my past to apologise, but she's not returning my calls. how exiciting!*

tomorrow night is dinner at my mothers to meet her new bloke. he's jewish, pays cash for lexuses (lexii?), owns some kind of biometrics company and seems very kind. my mother is loud, irreligious, a full time nurse & one of the warmest people you've ever met. i think she's worried that i won't like him, but since he seems to make her happy i'm sold already. although parents can be thick, sometimes.






*yet, to be honest, extremely depressing.

MCC Relationship Register

reading richards blog led me to discover the proposal by the melbourne city council to establish a Relationship Declaration Register. spear-headed by deputy mayor gary singer, this is the closest we have come to any official recognition of same-sex relationships. YAY.

that said, it's not same-sex specific. i'm concerned at one of the statistics conservative fear-mongers like salt shakers are using to discredit such a plan. that is, that in other areas where this type of system is used, very few couples actually use it. ok, so - if you're in a relationship of any orientation: guy girl, girl girl, guy guy, guy plant etc - then think about supporting this measure when it comes to fruition and registering your relationship!

a few glasses of wine, a nice meal, and a quick trip to the town hall to register your love with this wonderful city of melbourne? sounds hot.

i would love nothing more than to see the relationship register get huge numbers upon implimentation. i know i'm going to be e-mailing like crazy. and if anyone wants to come with me and put up some posters or anything, that would also be quite rad.

edit: APRIL 2!

a new story about new love

so, i work in a clerk-ish, typish, call-center-ish type place, health-care style. normally i act in a managerial role, but sometimes i pick up some extra call center shifts. for the cash, yo.*

so a few weeks ago i was doing just that when i got a call from a patient after some results. she didn't sound very old - and, it turns out, she wasn't - but what she did sound like was cute. and fun. so we talked for about half an hour, because i'm bad at my job, and afterwards i decided to be completely unethical and text her, having gotten her mobile number from our computer records.

terrible, no?

luckily, she didn't think so, and we texted back and forth for a few days. then we got into the terrible habit of making four-hour phone-calls to one another really early in the morning. which was fun, if not a little tiring.

finally she asked me to come to a party of a friend of hers on saturday night. seeing as i worked till eleven, it was a bit of a rush, but i got there. we met properly for the first time - and i met her friends, who were delightful - and we stayed up till 4am talking about nothing at all, before making out for quite some time.



did i tell you she's a gymnast? AND a nurse?

i'm in a gooooood mood today. hooooooooooooooooooooooooray!





*pimpin' aint easy, etc

if you want to spot my, try rubys in belgrave on the 8th of march. why?

because.

what i've been doing other than blogging

so i've been a little busy. one small part of this business was due to the fact that when i enrolled at uni i accidently ended up with two subjects i'd already completed during my first incarnation at latrobe. i can see it now:


2002: 'oh hey, those subjects look rad!'


2007: 'oh hey, those subjects look rad!'


and varying my enrolment prior to the first week of school was somehow an event which clearly had never happened before in the history of universities anywhere, and therefore the admin staff were quite baffled as to how it should be done. eventually, after a few days of phone conversations, someone pressed some buttons on a computer and it was fixed. who knew it would be so simple?


other than that, i decided to return to my fighting fit state of my younger years. i used to swim every day before school/work, and hit the gym every afternoon. now finding a pool is a pain in the ass, so i have adjusted my routine to the following:


one hour of cardio (bike, treadmill). half an our of super-intensive cardio (usually bike or boxing), and an hour of weight training at home every second day.

i don't think i'll be done in time for mr universe 2007, but check back in 2008...

i'm one of those guys

who really likes belle & sebastian.









just so you know.

zing!

i'm reverting to my slack blogging ways. intially it was a little upsetting, going from almost a post a day to a post a week (if that!), but i've decided just to embrace it. there are those whose lives allow them the luxury of such an oft-updated web-journal. mine in not one of them.


on thursday i enrolled at uni. in great latrobe fashion, the whole thing took almost three hours. that was from turning up, seminaring, the mysterious 'validation', data-entry, running the gauntlet of clubs and societies, student card getting and then running the fuck away. i love latrobe, mostly, although VSU put my favorite little hippy cafe out of business.*



wholefoods, rest in peace. i will forever remember your cheap curries, free-trade coffee and too-hippy-to-be-true staff. in my barefoot and long-haired days, i counted myself in your number. how sad. fucking howard.

BUT ANYWAY

also to report was the houseparty to end all houseparties. last weekend we made tentative plans for some wild bbq action at a friends place in malvern. through mass coincidence each of us ended up texting almost every single person we'd ever met, and eventually the house was so full i could hardly force my way from lounge to kitchen to get a fresh beer. luckily, all it took was the admission that i was quite prepared to go all hopoate on peoples arses (yes, exactly.) to make sure a small corridor was cleared between me and the fridge.







*photo stolen from ruth

mmm...

so, i have nothing at all against vegans and vegetarians. i have a silly number of friends who are this way inclined, and i respect their dietary choices completely. now that we've got that out of the way...


my friend simon once went veg for a girl. sure, he didn't admit to it at the time, but we all knew it. i once asked her, with my most serious face on, whether or not she ever worried her canine teeth would rot and fall out due to lack of use. she didn't laugh. eventually the whole thing crashed and burnt, but his vegetarianism remained (mostly because he didn't want to admit his female motivation to us). i teased him relentlessly about it, and after a little over a year managed to bring him back to the world of the carnivore. now, together, we roam the land attempting to undo the good work of herbivores everywhere by eating as much meat as we can.

so now we make up for lost time. and in doing so, i have rediscovered my love for the burger! oh man, how i love it's multi-layered treasuretrove of flavours. it's ease of eating. it's constant companion the 'side of chips'. is there anything better than a burger that isn't a hot, sex-loving female? i think not. that's why i've started a new blog! melbourneburgerblog.blogspot.com will contain burger reviews from around town. hopefully updated once weekly, i'll also post guest reviews, so if you have a burger you wish to share with the world, let me know! burgers must, however, contain meat.

ouch.

after discussing my ideas and a a fun-filled week of exchanging sketches and opinions on said sketches via e-mail, my tattooist inked that absolute shit out of my arm. in a good way.





notice the bruising at the bottom right. yep. ow.

busy week

talk about fun-filled & action packed. there has been much frivolity this week, mostly because i think we're all trying to escape the scaryness that is 2007. i mean seriously, it's going to be 2010 in like no time. wtf is that about? am slightly concerned, although there is still time for my extremely likely death scenarios from last post to occur in the meantime. fingers crossed!


the ex has been attempting drunk reconcilliations, meaning she'll be out somewhere and start sending me drunken texts about how we really should get back together. sadly, this has occured several times when i have also been similarly drunk - in which state i'm basically powerless against attractive girls who like me - and therefore there have been several awkward textual conversations (and a little kissing, but forgive me, i'm but a boy). i have no idea what's supposed to be happening here at all.


tuesday equals tattoo number three, having waiting about two years between now and the last. was sitting on an idea for a while and have finally decided to take the plunge. it is getting drawn as we speak and i will document it via camera phone for your blogging enjoyment. i really love the though of being a tattoo'd 80 year old guy and trying to explain to various grand-children what the hell it all means, and that grand-dad isn't really a crazy old ruin, and perhaps even co-opting them into assiting my escape from the home my children will surely put me in at first oppertunity.

2007

i don't think i ever though i'd make it to 2007. visions of death while contesting a world motocross championship, shot by terrorists while performing vital intelligence duties behind enemy lines, exhastion after too much super-model sex... none of these most possible of possibilities really saw me making it any further than 2005, at best. but here i am.


m: defier of odds.



anyhow, i think it's customary to bring in the new year with some resolutions. here are mine:


* find cute, funny girls, then kiss them.

* more more more live music

* pass all my uni subjects.

* hand in all assignments earlier than the day they are due

* drink more tea & less coffee

* sing in public more often. perhaps even dance.



i think that's about it. take care in 2007 all.