tales from an ordinary world

1999-11-01

It's a Funny Old World^TM - the weekend of work that I'd been sorta dreading went by so smoothly I couldn't believe it - not only did it pretty much all just seem to work, but I got much more done on Saturday than I expected, which meant Sunday was just a case of coming in and sitting around our office fixing up bits and pieces from there.

Since tomorrow's a public holiday (one of the few we have left, and for a horse race of all things), tonight was spent catching up with the old high school crowd I still keep in touch with, at a place called "Growlers", which was quite a pleasant experience - one of those places loaded with random...well...objects (hey, we even had a mirrorball hanging above the table). Some of us trooped down to the Builders Arms afterwards for a few more healing ales, and so by the time I got home, it was most definitely time to sleep. My plans were temporarily foiled though, by a nice package that'd arrived - having sent a map of Melbourne to a friend, she reciprocated by sending me a map of Boston. Maps most definitely rock my world...

1999-11-02

"Soon I discovered that this rock thing was true. Jerry Lee Lewis was the Devil. Jesus was an architect previous to his career as a prophet. I found myself in love with the world, and there was only one thing left to do - was ding-a-ding-dang my dang-a-long-ling-long..."
Ministry, Jesus Built My Hotrod.

Since it was a day off, I was going to pop down to monash for a few drinks with some friends but after last night I figured I should Be Good today, or I'd be way too tired tomorrow...So after sleeping in all morning I wandered out towards St Kilda beach again, had a rather late brunch, and stared at the water for ages. It was a good afternoon I didn't even spend any money apart from lunch and a coffee. I'm relaxed. And happy. Slightly bored too, but never mind.

1999-11-05

I bought another bottle of Cointreau to help me relax in the evening, as one does, and it came with another little bottle of Midori surgically attached to the neck. Maybe I'll save them for when the Nuclear Holocaust finally hits (I spent much of my time in the early 80's worrying about it, just like everyone else), and try to convince someone that it's water. "No, really..."

Oh, and I finally grabbed an old Talking Heads CD, True Stories, which was also a film - the best bit's at the end, where David Byrne stands there saying something like "whenever I go into a new town I notice random things, like the shape of the clouds, the colour of white paper, and stuff", in that odd manner of his. People like David Byrne and Laurie Anderson, in their own little ways, made me feel like there was some kind of future for the human race...

Even more bizarrely, though - according to Mr Taxman, I've finished paying off my HECS. I'm caught between relief and wondering whether this is yet another sign that I should start acting like an adult. Or something.

1999-11-06

"Daddy daddy it was just like you said
now that the living outnumber the dead."
Laurie Anderson

Well, I went and voted in the sorriest excuse for a referendum the country's ever seen. They couldn't ask a simple yes/no question, it had to be "no" or "yes with conditions", the scumbags. But at least I could find somewhere to vote this time :)

The new Mouse On Mars CD's got this way cool red gibbon thing on the cover. Well, I think it's a gibbon. It's got a black face, so that rules out Orang Utans, I suppose.

My shopping's been remarkably restrained lately, and when I think about it I'm not really sure why I'm still saving up all this money that I'm not sure what to do with. Of course, the more money I save up, the more temptation there is to just go and spend it on spurious items like TV tuner cards for my computer - this from the person who hardly ever watches TV. I figured it might be fun in some kind of arty way. Honest. So anyway, I've got some money. A little more than I've managed to save before, but not enough to say, go put on a house or anything. Even so, do I want to do that ? I feel like I should, but I also feel that I haven't really found The Place Where I Want To Live just yet, and of course there's always that lurking fantasy of just running away from it all and starting a new life pulling beers in some remote town or other...

1999-11-08

In amongst the tumult of my working day, I wandered off towards Southgate to meet up with an old net friend. The last time I'd seen her was when we'd done just the same thing about 3 or 4 years ago, and in its own little way it was a repeat performance. I mean sure, we eschewed the food court for the Blue Train (yeah yeah yeah), but all the same...it was calm. This was a Good Thing.

In what seemed a repeat performance of all the other random old friends I've caught up with lately, this friend also indicated a...dissatisfaction with working in the IT industry in general. "There's probably something else I could be doing...but I don't know what". Now, where have I heard that old chestnut before, I wonder ?

Red hair now. Fudge brand "Red Corvette". It's a bit pinker than I expected, but that's fine. It even goes with those sunglasses, in a way.

1999-11-09

> What kinda work are you doing anyway?

Unix sysadmin stuff, a bit of network maintenance, stuff like that.

Or you mean today ?  Just reading up on some weird solaris shite,
fixing a few scripts to do with syncing stuff from our version control
system between the two machines, upgrading the mailing list software,
providing Fatherly Guidance(tm) to our trainee sysadmin dude (not that
he needs much, really), listening to people whinge about the lack of
oxygen in the office, listening to an old stone roses CD on the
headphones, and trying to take a photo of myself with red hair with
droo's digital camera and giving up until after work.

(well, you asked...)

Hey, screw the Olympics, it turns out we just had the Scrabble Championships. The pen is mightier than the pole vault, after all.

Could've been better, but never mind.

On the way home, the tram stopped for a while at Elsternwick, and since it was sunny but not uncomfortably warm, I got out and walked home. It seemed there'd been an accident near the station where, going by some gesturing one guy made to another nearby, someone tried to turn across the busy road with the sun in their eyes...

...which reminds me of something I read once in Christos Tsiolkas' book Loaded where the narrator suggests a conspiracy in Melbourne by the rich people who mostly live on the east side of Melbourne - those on the west side have to drive to work and back with the sun in their eyes each way...

1999-11-12

I got off the tram this morning and I could feel something big up in the sky, watching me. I turned arouund and there were two hot-air balloons, one of them with one of the city of Melbourne logos on it, which looks unfortunately like two fingers turned up at you.

Now, I remember as a child, this same gesture was something you did in order to, well, offend someone. Somewhere along the line it got optimized into, simply, The Finger. One rather than two. How did this happen ? Why didn't I pay more attention ? It's one of those random philosophical questions like when a friend asked me if I could remember what year it might have been that shop mannequins suddenly sprouted nipples. Somewhere along the line, apparently, it just happened. Unfortunately, I couldn't really claim to have noticed this phenomenon...

My mind's lying on a couch somewhere, with some twangy Pavement song or other on repeat, while it tries to relax...

All this at 8 in the morning, too.

1999-11-13

So having nothing better to do on a friday night, I tag along to a pub with a friend, to see a band a friend of his plays in. "What's the name of the band ?" "Oh. Er. I can't remember, actually." Turns out the band in question is one called First World. Coincidentally, a guy I work with said to me a month or two back "hey, I've got a friend who likes lots of weird music like you. He's in a band and stuff." "What's his name ?" "Paul Tan" "Oh, I've heard of him..." "I'll get him to burn you a CD of some of his stuff" "Yeah, that'd be cool." And he did.

So yeah. Back in the middle part of this decade, I used to pay a bit more attention to the local electronic scene, mostly by virtue of having joined a mailing list (called "Vivisect", presumably after one of the more popular Skinny Puppy CDs. They had a 'zine too...), etc. etc. and listening to one or two radio shows about that kinda stuff. Somehow or other I got in touch with one guy who'd done a few things, and he sent me a tape of his stuff, which was cool. He then said "there's this local compilation coming out soon, I can get you a copy if you send me the cash, etc." This Paul Tan dude had been one of the people organizing this very compilation (and various other things at the time). So there you go.

It's odd when I think about it - That kind of music has been a fairly big part of my life, and yet there's nothing to show for it around this website. I need to do a better job of explaining myself.

I got depressed looking at some of the oddly cool sites mentioned in Shift. They were all mostly done using Flash, which of course I object to from my browser-standard-compliance-and-accessibility-nazi point of view, but they still look good. I can never really get started with art, music, whatever - there are always too many conflicting thoughts in my head about what I should or could be doing. It's hard to shut them all off and just listen to one of the voices...

1999-11-14

Can't sleep past 7am. Start the trek to Glen Waverley after 8 - the streets are deserted, save for the odd car or two. At Kooyong station I notice the train I'm waiting for, the 8:49, is only the second train of the day. It really has been a while since I was up this early on a Sunday.

Gin & Lime by the river - how else should one spend a Sunday afternoon ? I'm not sure what it is I like about this place called the "Transit Lounge" - the music's generally pretty crappy (yet another place that constantly plays that Delerium track that suddenly got "discovered" by commercial radio a year or two after its release. Bah.), it's right near the casino and so on, but somehow, if I'm wandering around the city and it's fairly sunny, I find myself strangely drawn to go and sit there and watch the people go by near the river.

So I sit, and ponder the battlefield of my skin - I'm still cursed with acne (or something) around my arms and shoulders. It'd probably be better if I could just leave it alone, but when you're in the shower, or wherever, well, it's just too hard. Once upon a time I tried those antibiotic things that everybody ends up trying, but to no avail - I remember another guy telling me how when he was on them, he felt like his skin was being stretched ? Something like that. Meanwhile, I felt nothing at all.

There seemed to be some sort of holiday exhibition thing across the road at Jeff's Shed - heaps of people were walking past with carrybags mentioning some holiday destination or other - China, Ireland, and so on. A mother and her teenage daughter, with arms of shopping bags, sat down nearby for a coffee and talked about some round-the-world trip they were planning.

Thought for the day - Is it possible to change the way you sneeze ? Everyone seems to have their own unique way of sneezing, which can often seem at odds with the rest of your personality. Can it be engineered in the same way ? How ? (and why ?)

1999-11-15

I want to write a song that embodies that Monday lunchtime feeling of solitude when you walk out into the park and sit facing away from the buildings, so all you can see is grass and trees and cracked pathways. Your head feels full of cotton wool and everybody else seems a mile away even though you think you could reach out and touch them. But it's hard when you've got other songs stuck in your head...

I'm sure there's a story behind this (above), but I just don't know what it is.

1999-11-16

I had a mild attack of The Fear this afternoon. I think it's gone now. I turned up The Wedding Present (the deliciously loud and moody Seamonsters) while going for a short wander after work, and it seemed to help for a while.

Perhaps I've been neglecting myself in some way. I feel a need for certain things but I can also feel how I'm fooling myself again - thinking that by having these certain things in my life, all will be magically well. I should know better than this by now. Well, I do. But...

...but there has to be some sort of middle ground that I've been - as yet - unable to find. I have sufficient faith that it's possible to achieve such a thing. But I've no idea how to get to it. Or where to start, even - especially now, when I feel so terminally distant from everybody, and so tiredly cynical about many of the things I once embraced with an almost insane passion.

I find it hard to comprehend the luck that has carried me through this life - I've managed to get away with far more than I think I might have deserved. I should be less paranoid, but at times like this it's all too easy to be looking out for one huge payback.

Like every other time, though, this feeling will pass. Of this I am sure. Deep within my paranoid fears, I know things can and will be better some day. And in general, the last few weeks have been good.

1999-11-20

It's been 4 or 5 days, but for various reasons I just haven't had anything to say (or time to write it). But fear not. All is well. In fact, Everything Is Nice this weekend.

1999-11-21

Boots. Big ones. Costing obscene amounts of money, but I had to have them. And at least I agonzied over them for a few days while all my friends kept saying "look, just go and buy them, will you ?". Photo coming soon, when my friend's digital camera returns...

Happy birthday Steven. Just like last year, we all trooped down to the Napier in Fitzroy, and enjoyed a quiet afternoon of chatting, drinking and even a bit of pool. Eventually though, a pool shark showed up. He was great to watch (even though we were embarrassingly crap in comparison) - the poise, the concentration, the skill, etc.

I'm still adjusting to the new contact lenses I got on Friday - they're disposables, but you can leave them in for a month at a time, which means I get to experience waking up in the night and being able to read the clock. It's funny how your mind plays tricks on you though - waking up and having to tell yourself that yes, you've left your contacts in but no, your eyes aren't sore...It's a shame I couldn't get coloured contacts this time around, but I'll survive.

1999-11-23

I got a lift into work with Droo this morning, and he mentioned about holidays, and how you feel differently about them as you get older. I guess he's right, although holidays don't seem to have gotten any better for me so far - I always feel as if I don't (can't ?) relax enough..."When I was much younger, my idea of a holiday was going and camping out in a tent at Lorne...nowadays, I've got enough money to get out of the country, which helps a bit..."

The Coles Supermarket in Balaclava has been undergoing renovations for a month or so now. They're still not finished, but I must say I rather enjoy the slight chaos - the occasional really narrow aisles that only let one person hurry down without turning around, the dire warning signs saying "don't go past here", and the seemingly random arrangment of products. The lighting's a bit hit and miss too, so you end up with a wonderfully post-apocalyptic feel.

It's a fairly low-energy week. Good things are happening, but I wish I had the energy to make the most of it.

Mmmm. The simple pleasure of a bath. How could I have forgotten about this for so long ?

1999-11-24

Wandering around Chapel St with a friend, we ended up seeing Run Lola Run, which was still showing. I'm jealous, because Lola's bright red hair looked way better than my red-fading-to-pink...But never mind. The film itself was quite fun, too.

I'm still adjusting to leaving these contact lenses in all the time. It's sort-of good that they make my eyes tired if I sit in front of the computer at home for too long, although that means I have to find something else to do at home. Most of my book-reading I tend to do elsewhere - at cafés or on public transport - somehow I can never quite be bothered reading much at home, and besides, there's often some friend or other to talk to on the net. I need to wean myself. The TV doesn't interest me much - videos always seem like too much effort to just sit down and watch, without doing anything else for 2 hours...I'm too restless for that. At least if you're in a cinema there's nothing else to do but watch the screen, but at home there's too much distraction and temptation. My attention span is truly appalling these days...

1999-11-27

Back to the optometrist, this time at 10:30am. Ugh. I tried to have breakfast down the road in Chapel St, but it arrived just as I was about to run off towards the optometrist. People just aren't supposed to be in a hurry on the weekend. I know this to be a biological fact. Especially in the mornings, of all times. As such, the wonderful corn-bread toast was lost on me as I wolfed it down, determined to try and at least eat some of it before I tried not to be late for my appointment.

I poked my head in a few random clothes shops, looked at a few t-shirts and resisted the temptation to buy one of those t-shirts that says "Porn Star" (well, this one said "Porn*"). Everybody tells me I look like a porn star, so I figured I didn't need a t-shirt proclaiming it. Not for $40, anyway. Later on, though, I did buy a t-shirt saying "00" in big digitally numbers, with "game over" underneath. And I lashed out on a Wedding Present singles/b-sides compilation. Yes, you too can hear Mr Gedge belt out It's not unusual, although it's not one of the better tracks on the disc...

Having spent enough money to feel guilty, I decided to head towards home by train, so I could kill time by walking home from Malvern station. You can tell that something's wrong in Disneyland when you walk past the "Hard Rock Cafe" (sic.) and they're playing Kate Bush...

I'd hoped to be able to stand up in the gazebo in the park for a while, to watch the world go by and such, but a wedding couple + photographer beat me to it. I gave them a wide berth and went to stare at the geese for a while. Nearby, a little girl saw me, and could only just seem to manage to tug her mother's arm and say "Look !".

Another entry for "Great Ads in Australian TV history" - the Cash Converters "13" ad...I guess I oughta start some sort of list. Other entries would include the Ford 1-tonne ute ad where the guy Out In The Country goes to cut his birthday cake. "Make a wish, dear," says his wife. From the heavens drops a Ford 1-tonne ute. "You couldn't have wished for anything better, mate," says his mate. Then (the punchline) the back of the ute's suddenly filled with a mile-high (or so it seems) stack of slabs of Victoria Bitter (that's beer, for the uninitiated).

My new friend and I sat on a rock down the end of St Kilda pier, and just talked for an hour or so. A very enjoyable moment in time, looking at the stars, the city lights, talking about random life stuff, and so on. I hope we'll do it again sometime...

1999-11-29

"he said 'i'd hate to be you
when the big day comes
the look on your face
will be priceless'."
Luna.

It's definitely been a time of enjoying Simple Pleasures - walking around, by myself, or with a friend (especially one particular new friend...), lying on the grass, sitting by the water...not doing anything in particular apart from trying to relax and just enjoying the company of a friend. I don't remember the last time I was this relaxed on a Monday...