The Street of the Lifted Tom

Lazy Tom

2006-09-26T21:35:00.000+10:00

Hello people who read this, mostly family I think, I can't be bothered posting this journal in two places, so please read it here:

http://theliftedtom.livejournal.com/

Huzzuh!

The Drawer

2006-09-19T16:04:00.000+10:00

It was in China. I first saw it as it ran along the battlements of the ancient castle I stood outside of. A centipede-like dragon, its hundreds of legs all moving in perfect coordination, and at great speed. Its green-scaled multi-sectioned body flowed down the stone wall and it turned towards me. A dark stranger standing calmly on a nearby boulder told me to run, but I was already on my way. I clambered down a rocky valley towards the forests, but fell. My legs and arms tensed up. I couldn't move them. They were as stone. Unable to stop myself, I tumbled forwards to the rocky valley floor.

Later, I knew I was drugged. Fiends and demons showed themselves. People moved and said disturbing things, then in a flash they were back where they were. In the brief moments of clarity from my delirium I screamed that I had been drugged, that I'm hallucinating. The people in the room didn't listen. I think they were the ones who drugged me. I was still unable to move. I lay on my bed, but it was not in my house. A strange room. All my possessions lay scattered about this place, hastily and clumsily put here. The dark stranger was there. He was still calm, but was not offering warnings this time. Where was my drawer? That was all I wanted to know. The bottom drawer of my bedside table! He could take anything I owned - but not that drawer! It was full of my most precious memories from the last few years. I knew then, that if he stole that drawer, he'd be stealing my memories. I'd forget it all. Worse. Those things would never have happened. In my anger I managed to raise one arm. The drawer! I flung it out and grasped a glass jar. My drawer! I smashed it on the bedhead and pushed myself towards the dark stranger. I wanted my memories.

So, I dreamt this last night. I rarely have nightmares. This was one, though.

Hero

2006-09-14T23:50:00.000+10:00

In order to procrastinate from an essay tonight I have applied Joseph Campbell's theories of the mono-myth to my desk, my chair, my bed and my wardrobe. I came back from the kitchen with a cup of tea only a few minutes ago, ready to get hard to academic work, when I found a large Ocelot-Man standing on the threshold to my room. "Do not continue!" he boomed. I brushed him aside using the magic tea-bag I was presented with by a wizened old stooge who lent in through the window to offer me said gift, and I entered my room only to realise I had to overcome trial after trial in order to reach my computer. I brushed these aside easily at first - but the trials kept getting harder, and I kept getting tireder. In the end I had to woo a goddess, resist a succubus, atone with a father-figure in the shape of a pouch of pipe-tobacco, witness a sacred marriage between two demigods who live under my bed, discover the ultimate boon; the holding life, the sustaining substance, a part of me, liquid immortality, the ultimate source of everything. This I had to steal from an actual god, and run like hell to my desk. Now I have freedom to live. Or at least complete this Ozlit essay. I'm getting there.

Journey

2006-09-11T01:26:00.000+10:00

I get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning - and fall straight through the window, as that side of the bed is now pushed up against the wall. So, covered in cracked plaster and shattered glass, I remove the rectangular window frame which is no longer framing a window, but is now framing my head, and thus making it art in some people's books, probably only people who have taken photos of my head and sort of glued them into some sort of portfolio, and I don't think anybody has done that, and I go to where all who walk my path go in the end; to the kitchen to fix myself a cup of tea. So, after the cup of tea is working properly, I drink it and journey out into the world. And where hordes of small birds chase one large bird until all the small birds get tired and give up except the small bird in the lead who doesn't realise that the rest of the small birds are no longer behind him backing him up until the big bird notices this first and they both stop and then its to late for the small bird who straightens the big bird's plumage and dusts down his wing and says he's sorry for that whole chasing him crack and then flies for his life, it's there I flirt with death, famine, and the girl from the coffee shop.

So how a hungry, hungry hippopotamus learns to make a secret pact with the three other hippopotamuses in his pen, and when the time is right, turn against the tyrannical humans in a horrendous feeding orgy of blood, flesh and small coloured pellets, I learn to fear being a regular anywhere, for the simple fact I hate all regulars at my work at the casino, even the nice ones, because even by being there they're making me do more work that I would have had to do otherwise, and I hate them for that. Hospitality probably just isn't my thing.

Jackpot Quick-Pick does a wonderful feed for only $5.50.

Ropeburn

2006-09-05T01:29:00.000+10:00

Like a backstabbing pirate who turned against his democratically elected captain, I'm hung by my feet from the ship's keel with my head beating against the harsh waves, the wooden hull of the ship, and the occasional smart-alek dolphin. In other news, readings for the subject of Life Writing have the ability to put me straight to sleep, even if they are actually quite interesting. Wait a minute, perhaps it's the 1am-ness that's putting me to sleep. In even other news, while cleaning the house today I pulled back an old rug in the entrance hall only to find the floor underneath not entirely level. On closer inspection of the dust-free square of wood, I found a small trap door, and then found an elderly and wise demon sitting below when I descended into his gloomy, ancient abode.

"Don't eat KFC on a date," said the demon.

I nodded, and was keen to hear more, but the demon merely evaporated into a swirl of tiny sparkly things, which spiraled around me, looped, and poured themselves into a goblet. I drank this goblet, and was very, very pleased to discover the demon tasted just like cloudy apple juice.

Goodnight.

2006-08-25T01:54:00.000+10:00

After three and a half years, me and Janie have broken up. There was no anger, just understanding and longing. She's moving out next week. We have been going out since we were nineteen, and I've spent almost every day with her since then. I'm okay, and I think she's okay.

2006-08-18T13:20:00.000+10:00

Ha! In my cold-and-flu dream last night I dreamt I was explaining a cool dream to somebody else. The levels!

Whatist

2006-08-15T22:53:00.000+10:00

I have lots of reading to do, but I can't really complain like that is actual work, right? Like, when people are behind on their uni work, it's often that they have neglected to study the Whatsit Ganglia, or the Theories of Whatsitivity, or the finer points of Whatsit Vs. Whatsit, or frequently exhibited Whatsit behaviour, and so on.

I have to read a couple of good books, hooray!

In other news, I'm having a crack at only working two days a week and being poor. This will require things like bringing home-made sandwiches into uni, making coffee at home before I leave, doing my drinking at home or other people's places as opposed to venues, and things like that. I reckon just that simple stuff would save lots of money. Also, with all my nights now available, I don't feel like I'm missing out on EVERYTHING, therefore I can happily let myself miss out on a bunch of stuff. How's that for irony, eh?

Vox Barbara was fun, even if the drinks were expensive at Bar Soma. At least they gave it to you in a quality thick glass. And there was like, nobody at the bar, and I ordered a scotch and dry, and the tall spiky-haired bar guy was like, flipping ice crushers over the back of his hand, and spinning the scotch bottle behind his back all nonchalant, and I looked around, and there was still nobody watching this but me, and I sort of sniggered, and he didn't seem to think it was weird at all, so I figured maybe this is just how he makes drinks, like when he wakes up in the morning and gets a glass of water he can't help himself except throw the glass in the air, spin around, clap his hands, and catch it again.

Come With Us Now On a Journey Through Time and Space

2006-08-08T22:53:00.000+10:00

Well it's been a while since the lifted Tom has left any clues as to where he's been lifted to or what he's been doing there. I just looked at my last entry and it was about my uni results. Slack... And now when it comes down to it, I can't actually remember what it is I have been doing for the last month or so.

However! My phone does. And luckily, I've been doing some documenting of a sort. We'll run with that angle anyway - it'll play. So, join my Samsung phone, who I like to call Sam, as of this moment at least, anyway join Sam and I on a journey through the past month of The Lifted Tom.

We'll start with Janie. I live with her, so much of the past month I'm sure involved her in some way. She made a lovely Dahl curry last night from Ben Spencer's beautiful three-page recipe. What a wonderful recipe. It involved anecdotes and decent advice for life in general. Janie's wonderful too.

I was actually playing Halflife 2 a lot, and it was a really great game. I'm sure it still is. I just got distracted. And the irritating thing is, as any gaming geek will know, you must NEVER abandon a game when you're at an advanced stage! Your fingers loose all their muscle memory, and when you come back to it you'll press the wrong button and throw a grenade when you really wanted to activate your gravity gun at a crucial point! Argh!

This is a blurry picture of Clare Julia's "Splendour Up Your Arse" party, for people who couldn't make it to Splendour in the Grass. I walked there after finishing work on the Saturday night (the day-time weekend shifts are going awesomely, also) after catching a train to Taringa from the city, and sort of blindly walking in vaguely the right direction as I figured it from a map I saw three nights previously. There was something wonderfully nostalgic about that walk, because it reminded me of when I was 18 or something and living at my parents place and getting public transport to strange parties in strange places. There was this air of the unknown and expectation on the walk.

This is me at that party being a bit of a jerk.

During the past month, every now and then, I’ve been hanging out, just sort of sitting in the spice rack.

There was a Red Night at my place. It was the first one of the semester, and it was great because lots of people turned up. I'm not sure if we had a brazier or a brassiere. Probably both, actually, although, I am friends with a lot of hippies. At any rate, the photo is of one of them. The fiery things, not a hippie. Imagine if it was a hippie? It'd be like the firey vengeful hippie of ultimate doom. Alright!

Sometimes I sit in the car at Jane's work waiting to give her a lift home. I'm not actually in an American style car that has the driver's side on the left. The photo is mirrored for some reason. Or I'm actually an American and I have some sort of Twilight Zone issue where I can only see reality when it's reproduced through electronic images? It's probably just mirrored.

This is me lying on the steps at Z Block at uni listening to a reader at the audition readings for the next Vox Barbara night. Wow, look at that gummy shit to the left of my head. It's lucky I didn't lie in that! Vox Barbara is a student-run writer's club that's very exciting at the moment. We had John Birmingham come to our last official night and the next one will have other cool people too. I just found out I got through to the next one with my sonnet about ants. Hooray!

This is Clare Julia's going away night, I'm pretty sure. This photo pretty much visualises the state of my mind that night. It was a great time laced with the sorrow of the departing Clare Julia, but with an extra topping of joyousness at the thought of her wonderful adventures to come.

This is Clare and me. Bye Clare Julia!

And this is me later that night, about 3am, getting my hair cut in the kitchen. I'm bald again! It usually happens soon after I have to actually attend to my hair in some way before going to work. Like, as soon as I have to make an effort to make it presentable, it has to go. That jerkish mo-hawk thing was only temporary, as Jane likes to turn shaving heads into some sort of game. Hey, see that gigantic wine glass in the background? That's there because we're friends with giants.

Now... as to the future... I'm writing it as you read!

2006-07-10T17:51:00.000+10:00

Uni results, from best to worst:

Creative Writing - Digital Media: 7
Creative Writing - The Novel: 6
Creative Non-Fiction: 6
Persuasive Writing: 4

I'm pretty happy, as I got my first 7. My GPA however, remains on 5.75, but that's alright, since if I keep it there or higher it should be enough to get into honours, if that's what I choose to do. Which it might be. Either that or go to UQ and do a whole 'nother degree in history. I'm secretly disappointed that I didn't get a 7 in Novel, because I'm a bit of a wank. I'd like to get my chapter back and peruse the comments.

Well I woke up yesterday afternoon at 1pm to the sound of Nuk returning my borrowed bass amp. So I got dressed, got in his car, and 45 minutes after I woke up I was drinking beer at Nuk's Sunday afternoon drinks in the Valley in celebration of his birthday. It was a tight fit amongst the tables in the RG beer garden, so in order for me and One-Ball-Al to get to our seats, which were wedged between the table in front and pot-plants behind, we actually had to push the table forwards, sit down, and pull it back over our legs, at which point we would stretch our arms out in front of us and proclaim loudly that we were "In for the afternoon".

And in for the afternoon we were, and evening, and at night we were having Coronas at the Pancake Manor, and when everybody else went home I did the invisible-slalom to the Vic where there was a casino staff party. At the door the security guard asked me if I had been drinking, and since I figured "no" would be an all-too obvious lie, I said I'd had a few drinks at the RG. "How many?" he asked. I waved my hand through the air like a Queen dismissing her page and said, "Not many?".
He let me in, which is the kind of advantage to having an aura of utter harmlessness.

I managed to get through the night without doing anything particularly stupid, even with all the free drinks that seem to appear in your hands at work functions. I remember seeing a cute girl behind the bar at the Vic who used to work at the Club Conrad bar at the Casino. I slurred something about escaping "Gamblor" and his "neon claws", made some hand gestures, which overbalanced myself to the point of stumbling, and she gave me my two free bourbons and smiled dismissively.

So, there being some pretty cool new-ish staff there, I had a fairly alright time, but ended up getting a little bored with the crowd at about 2am, and I left into the street and called the Manboy. He thanked me for calling him, because he had previously been sitting in his parked car, asleep with his head against the wheel, outside somewhere not his house. It was convenient for me, because he kicked it into action and gave me a lift home, via the bakery where I bought a curry pie.

And this morning I wake up with a horrible hangover, and have a huge craving for an Indian veggie curry, but nowhere is open for Monday lunch. So that's what I'm going to eat for dinner. What is good is that my back is not in massive, or any, pain anymore, which it was pretty much all last week. Went to the physio a bunch of times, and could hardly move. I think it was a mixture of a spine-twisting job and 23 years of bad posture, which I plan to fix to some extent. My expensive office chair is now in the upright position.

2006-07-09T04:59:00.000+10:00

I have just worked the last Friday and Saturday nights I will (most likely) ever have to work at the casino. And it feels terrific. After being able to go out on a Friday night at a whim, my favourite thing will be rediscovering mornings. I've been waking up in the afternoon for over three years now. In preparation, I've organised to have The Australian delivered daily to my door. I will sit on the veranda in the crisp morning air, the bird-chatter softly punctuated with the sneaker-feet of joggers, my fresh perculated coffee lazily steaming on one chair arm, the paper spread out before me, and my feet wedged against the railing. It will be great. Then I'll go to uni, and who knows? Perhaps I'll buy a delicous slice.

The night time will be mine again!

Also, Deadwood = super awesome series

2006-06-29T13:56:00.000+10:00

I didn't fail persuasive writing! Hurruh! (I was close though). I'm guess I'm just not very persuasive. Either that or I didn't leave any time for the 50% major assignment. Probably a bit of both. I await other marks with more optimism...

In other news, I'm seeing Pirates of the Caribbean 2 on wednesday! Arr! Most awaited movie this year.

P.S. I love words like "awaited" and "ashamed", because they are so Shakesperean sounding. A-Waited... Maybe you could say "This sandwich is ahungered!". And other such examples.

ATTENTION!!!

2006-06-22T01:17:00.000+10:00

As of the week starting July 10th:

TOM CAN COME OUT ON FRIDAY AND SATURDAY NIGHTS!!!

NO LONGER WILL PEOPLE SAY "NAH, TOM CAN'T COME, HE'S WORKING!"

NO LONGER!!!

NO LONGER!!!

NO LONGER!!!

TOM HAS HIS LIFE BACK AFTER THREE YEARS!!!

TOM CAN COME OUT ON FRIDAY AND SATURDAY NIGHTS!!!

Morning Will Brake

2006-06-21T04:14:00.000+10:00

Some happenings occured today.

It began with my job interview at the Dendy. It went really well, and they pretty much inferred that I was going to be given a few trial shifts in a month or so. However, even if I do get the job, I'm not going to take it.

This is because the Casino has offered me my dream part-time shift. It's Saturday and Sunday, 12pm-8pm. Hooooray! This way, right, I get to have the whole week off for uni if I need it, and ALSO (that's a big ALSO) get to go out on Friday and Saturday nights! I'll have all of them free! Every single one! For the first time in 3 years!

And, with the casino wages, I'll still be Captain McMoneyBags compared to the other work-around-uni jobs available. Dendy is $18/h casual, while Casino is $21/h part time, along with annual leave and sick leave.

The Dendy would have been great, but I would have got paid less, and had to work friday and saturday nights anyway. The casino is easy to handle just on the weekends during the day. And for the rest of my uni career, I'll have enough funds to see me through. Huzzuh. I am too lucky.

And I'll have my mornings back. I used to be a morning person three years ago. I'll become one again.

Things I don't like hearing

2006-06-16T01:20:00.000+10:00

"That's a good name for a band"

"Someone should put that in a movie"

"What sort of stuff do you write?"

"You wouldn't read about it"

Actually, I remember now I wanted to put "You wouldn't read about it" in my non-fic piece about the casino. It's so stupid, and people always say it while gambling. They'll lose a bet in a totally mundane way, but because they thought they were going to win, they will say "You wouldn't read about it". I always just imagine picking up the courier mail and seeing a headline: "Man loses ten dollars with an eighteen against dealer's six". It would be ironic if I wrote about it in my non-fic though, becase then people would be reading about it. Ironic? Or dumb.

I hand in my last assignment for the semester tomorrow. And no exams, huzzuh!

The Greatest Show on Earth!

2006-06-15T17:35:00.000+10:00

My takings today from the Lifeline Bookfest (Along with a canvas bag, which says: "The Lifeline Bookfest: Greatest Show on Earth", in a totally sincere way, which I think is hilarious, for too many reasons)

Dave Eggers - You Shall Know Our Velocity
Salman Rushdie - The Moor's Last Sigh
George Meredith - An Essay on Comedy, and Henri Bergson - Laughter
Daniel Defoe - Robinson Crusoe
David Malouf - Johnno
Mark Twain - The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Tom Robbins - Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas
Agatha Christie - Murder on the Orient Express
Umberto Eco - Foucault's Pendulum
Clive James - Unreliable Memoirs, Falling Towards England, May Week was in June
Gore Vidal - The Smithsonian Institution

2006-06-14T02:02:00.000+10:00

"For just as the figments of a dream derive from the life energy of one dreamer, representing only fluid splittings and complications of that single force, so do all the forms of all the worlds, whether terrestrial or divine, reflect the universal force of a single inscrutable mystery: the power that constructs the atom and controls the orbits of the stars." - Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh... That sentence has made my week. month. year.

Percolawesome

2006-06-11T05:57:00.000+10:00

Wow, the network between mine and Janie's computer stuffed up again, this time telling me that the "Network Cable is Unplugged", when it was obviously plugged in. So, with a quick bit of research, and even though again the MTU sizes were too big, and her computer experienced a "CMOS checksum error" when I started it up again, I knew exactly what to do from last time, with the help of my blog entry from then.

I don't fear technology, but it stresses me out of my skull when something isn't working, because I remember back to my Dick Smith create-your-own-intercom electronics kits of my nerdy adolescence (as opposed to my nerdy early twenties), and remember that when something wasn't working, it could have been a bad solder somewhere, or the wrong sort of resister somewhere, or ANY NUMBER OF A MILLION THINGS. Which is why I get stressed.

The coffee percolator I bought a week ago pretty much saved the last (and major) assignments of this semester. I owe it everything.

My 2000 word Non-Fic piece

2006-06-05T18:20:00.000+10:00

SO TREASURY
By Tom Guerney

Once a name was attached to their face they transformed from just another punter into real people with real feelings, and it became harder to ignore them. There were exceptions, of course; my floor manager once showed me a player’s card with the name Les Bian, and I laughed at that. There were also regulars like Sima, the ageing Chinese lady. Every day she prowled the roulette tables, clutching a handful of two-dollar-fifty chips, and about every ten minutes she would place a bet. It would lose, of course, but she would have a laugh, and smile at strangers with dead eyes. Gamblers like her were the unfortunate exception, but everyone else I could easily forget. When they were nameless, I could watch them objectively, and comfortably.
I looked up from my table to scan the Friday night crowd, and saw a girl. This wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, because when you’re a croupier there’s two things to look at; the problem gamblers at your table – introverted, sunken eyed and bitter – or the random girls drifting across the floor. So there was this girl, pretty in an innocent sort of way, walking towards me with a group of friends. They passed by the big wheel, where hordes of white jocks with beers in hand pumped their fists in the air and yelled “Carn’ Spinna!”. They walked under the fake palm trees, which despite their being surrounded by concrete, having cameras and lights bolted into them, and being on the second level of the building, people still had to ask if they were real. Then, three stories below the twinkling bulbs of the star-simulating ceiling of the Conrad Treasury Casino main gaming floor, they came to sit at my blackjack table. A middle aged man who was there already, all thinning hair and wobbling jowls, gave them an uneasy glance. Under his breath he blamed them in advance for screwing up his run, which he didn’t have, but according to him would have had if these inexperienced youngsters didn’t start playing.
“What do we do?” the girl asked.
A male in her group placed a ten dollar note into a vacant box on the table as if he did it all the time. He didn’t do it all the time, and I knew this because seasoned gamblers don’t put the money neatly in the box, they throw it at me like it’s already lost. I changed the money for chips, handed them over, and he placed a ten dollar bet. The girl watched all this with wide eyes, delighted with the ritual.
“No more bets,” I said, and dealt the cards.
Her friend was dealt twenty, and the middle aged gambler was dealt a blackjack, so I paid his hundred dollar bet with another hundred and fifty.
“Oh my god!” the girl said. “That’s awesome!”
The man shook his head. “That’s not a win,” he mumbled, his eyes not leaving the table. “I could have got it last hand when I had twice as much on.”
I busted, and the table won. The girl, amazed, dug into her handbag for ten dollars and placed a bet for herself. I dealt the cards and she won her first hand, then her second and third. When her ten dollars became a hundred she left the table, hysterical, to drink with her friends.
When I saw her the next week her friends weren’t with her anymore. She sat at the same table, and I watched her this time from roulette across the room. She won a few hands, but then lost a few more. She smiled, stood up, and walked briskly from the floor.
The week after she wasn’t smiling. If she tapped for a card and busted, she would slam her chips on table, declare it unlucky and move to the next. When she lost again, she threw her hands in the air and complained that all she needed was just one win, and was that too much to ask? When she won, she complained louder that she should have bet more money. The next night she was still wearing the same clothes. When newcomers came and sat at her table and she would roll her eyes.
“You’d better not stuff this up,” she’d mumble.
I was desensitised to this sort of thing after only a few weeks as dealer. The chips meant everything to the players, but to me they were just small circles of plastic. I dealt to punters in the VIP room who could lose sixty thousand dollars on a single bet without flinching, but to most people losing just one thousand dollars was much more then they could afford.
I watched a marriage disintegrate once. It all happened on a few tables in my rotation, over about six hours. The couple came down to the gaming floor after dinner; red faced and cheerful from a few glasses of wine. The husband, a mousey little man with glasses, said they only came in twice a year. He cashed in for a hundred dollars of chips, handed half to his wife, and, grinning, they each dropped a ten dollar bet onto the table. I dealt a few hands, which they won. They laughed and clapped, and when their one hundred became four hundred it was time for my break.
A couple of hours later I came back to the same table. Most of the money I gave them had been lost, and the wife was absent, but the husband was still gambling in earnest. His face was a little redder, yet his excitement drained. The wife soon returned to the table with two rum and cokes, and she gave one to the husband, telling him she was off to play the pokies until he was ready to go
As soon as she was gone, the husband started betting fifty dollars instead of ten, mumbling about chasing his losses, which nevertheless continued for two out of every three hands. Whenever he ran out of chips, and just when I thought he was finished, he pulled another hundred dollars from his wallet.
It had taken hold of him.
For some it’s the fantasy of the high life, for some it’s the thrill of the gamble. For this man it was a blind, drunken desire to win back what he’d lost, to dig himself back out. Like most, he only went deeper. His wife returned, tired and bored, and told him she was ready to leave right then.
“Just one more hand,” the husband said. So after ten more hands the wife was sitting a short distance away at a closed table, and every time he reached for his wallet she would march back to him with a new ultimatum.
“Stop now or I’m going home.”
“Stop now or I’m leaving.”
“I’m leaving,” she said, and left.
The husband didn’t stir. When his wallet was empty, he reached into a bag at his waist and pulled out a manila envelope, and from this he took a hundred dollar note. As often as I saw it, cash stored in envelopes was always slightly mysterious, and no less so for this man. He kept pulling notes out of this thing, one after the other, and when two or three thousand dollars was lost, the envelope was empty. He stood up, and searched his jeans pockets, pulling out keys, dockets, and finally a scrunched up ten dollar note, which he threw on the table. Loose change always meant they were finished.
And he lost it. Unlike recreational gamblers who loose a ten dollar bet and curse loudly at the cards, problem gamblers who lose their life get up from the table without a word. They straighten their shirt and stumble slowly away. I watched the husband walk into a hallway and take out his phone. He dialled, redialled, redialled again, then put it away. He straightened his shirt, and stumbled slowly towards the door.
Soon after I landed the job my dealer training school was called in to talk with the upper management about how we were going. The meeting included refreshment training of the responsible gambling policies by the responsible gambling officer. She explained that whenever we reported problem gamblers to a pit manager it was duly noted and passed on to her. A few of my fellow dealers told her they had made dozens of comments. She said she hadn’t received one. The training manager became defensive, and stumbled over a few excuses why the comments would not have been forwarded on, but she never touched on the real reason, which was nobody cared. She didn’t care. The pit managers didn’t care. I was new then, but soon I didn’t care either. When somebody busted in blackjack and I took their money, the world was falling down around them, while I was considering what to do on my next break. The punter saw a week of wages plucked quickly away, and I thought, should I use my fifteen minutes to go to the bathroom, then have time for a coffee? Or should I have something to eat? Then when my break came the gamblers were cleared from my memory. There were only a few, the regulars who put in longer hours then I did, who were harder to forget.
Sima sat at my roulette table, pushed a ten dollar note towards me, and asked for it in two-dollar-fifty chips. She smiled at me, but with eyes that stared through everything. In return, I gave her the same smile I gave everybody; a tight lipped mouth pulled up at the corners, which expressed mild warmth, while every other part of me expressed either apathy, boredom, or contempt. If someone standing behind the table so much as brushed by her to place a bet, Sima would flinch like she’d been hit with an electric shock and rub her arm vigorously where she was touched, then stare at the floor manager like the culprit should be immediately thrown out. The floor manager would ignore her.
I spun the ball, and she placed one chip on the layout. When she lost, she excitedly explained to me how silly she was, because she was going to place the chip on the winning number, but then moved it somewhere else. She did the same thing every spin, and always thought the story of how she almost won would be interesting to me. I couldn’t understand how it was interesting even to her, because after all, she had been coming to the casino every day for years before I worked there. Inevitably, she lost her small collection of chips, and then travelled between the tables, laughing and leaning on men’s arms. Most of them just ignored her, and a few became annoyed.
“Can you do something about this one?” a man asked me, with Sima at his elbow, her hand tugging at his sleave. Eventually, she found a man drunk and desperate enough and led him out to the car park where she gave him a blow job for ten dollars. She brought the money back to me, and I changed it for some more two-dollar-fifty chips. The dealers from the next shift filed onto the floor. Those chips might have lasted her another twenty minutes, if she was lucky. A dealer came and stood by my table, and I turned my palms upwards, spreading my fingers to show the cameras I wasn’t taking anything with me, and stepped away.

Hello...

2006-06-05T18:13:00.000+10:00

Hello people who read this blog, mostly family. If you're wondering if I'm a friendless loser because nobody comments on my blog, it's because they're all on this site:

http://theliftedtom.livejournal.com/

There you go.

Final...

2006-06-05T18:11:00.000+10:00

After talking to many people, I've changed my mind again. It's youth and children's writing. THAT'S FINAL!

Huzzuh!

2006-06-04T04:51:00.000+10:00

Wow. I was enrolled in Youth and Children's Writing next semester, but then changed to Corporate Writing and Editing because I became suddenly nervous about getting an actual job at the end of this whole thing. But then I remembered I'm not doing the course to get a job, I'm doing to the course to learn how to write well, and my whole mission statement from the beginning was basically put everything possible into being an artist, and don't let pesky things like having enough money to eat get in the way. However, just then when I went to change back to Youth and Children's writing, I saw that you have to do a 2,500 word research paper into some part of writing theory, and there's an exam worth 30% on things learnt from the course. How fucked is that? Like there's ever going to be a time in anybody's life when they are caught out of reach from their library of reference books and suddenly, urgently need to know some youth and children's writing theory, and that there's so much chance of this happening that every writing student needs to commit it all to memory. Whereas Corporate Writing and Editing, the thing that sounds so foreboding and stressful, is just a whole bunch of small, easily digestible assignments. Also, the whole subject is about the structure of sentences, and about proper use of language, stuff I'm actually interested in. So I'm sticking with it. Huzzuh!

2006-05-28T05:02:00.000+10:00

One of the things I'm most looking forward to about the mid-year uni break is being able to finish all the books I'm half-or-more of the way through. That way I can start fresh with new books, without these unifinished ones always lurking there on my bedside table with makeshift bookmarks.

I'm off to sleep now. I reckon I'll wake up in six hours and finish Philip Roth's Plot Against America before Sunday afternoon. Because I have to, for uni.

The Universe

2006-05-27T05:13:00.000+10:00

The universe, in its most pure form, is in state or order. Not chaos, as some people would have you think, but order. Parallel, Symmetrical, Order. I know this because, after one and a half years, my car stereo has started working again. It's bliss. And I KNEW IT WOULD HAPPEN EVENTUALLY, if I just left it alone. Like everything. Don't touch it, and after a really long time, it'll start working. That's probably really bad advice, but when you're really lazy, it can be good advice, or at least good for the time being. Maybe don't try my theory out with things like relationships. You know, if I just ignore my girlfriend for a few months then we'll be fine. Or bushfires. I don't think bushfires will go away if you ignore them. Actually, don't use my theory on anything except car stereos, and even then you should get it fixed if you don't want to spend a year and a half singing to yourself and making stupid noises for entertainment while driving.

Sometimes I come home from work at 4am, and I rinse some washing I put on before I left, then hang it out. I hope the neighbours see me sometimes, because then I would be that crazy guy next door who hangs out his washing in the middle of the night, when all ordinary people are sleeping. I think I'd like that.

2006-05-20T04:59:00.000+10:00

Minesweeper

2006-05-19T04:19:00.000+10:00

I'm sure, a long time ago, I've completed minesweeper on expert level. I must have. Recently, however, I've only ever come close. It gets to this time when you just have to guess, and no expert minesweeper should be guessing. Ha. It should be made into a computer game-movie adaptation. It could break the habit of them all being utter crap, like Tomb Raider and Doom and god knows what other rubbish. (except of course for Mario Brothers, the first game-movie adaptation. After I watched it I was obsessed with designing and creating high-jumping shoes from the movie. They were so cool). I think minesweeper could be a great movie. Well, obviously it wouldn't, it'd be terrible, but the idea is alright, isn't it? No? Okay, I'm gonna have another go at expert...

So where are we in the food chain now?

2006-05-18T03:15:00.001+10:00

I'm having a great time reading, because of a new reading technique Theresa taught which is: FUCKING READ. Those weren't her words. Pretty much, imagine me holding a book five inches from my face with tensed forearms, my chin stuck out, and my eyes freakishly wide open, with my eyesballs bouncing back and forth. This is how I read now, and have since been avoided on public transport. Even during peak hour. This is also due to the dramatic soundtrack I sing to myself, to accompany what's happening in the novel. During an action scene it's like: "DUM-DADA-DUMDUMDUM, DUM-DADA-DUMDUMDUM", then it goes to a peaceful scene, and it's like "diddle-eeee, diddle-oooo, diddle-eeee-oooo-eeee-aaah".

Everything's good, everything's great. Havin' a good time. All that. Forcing myself to stay awake because I'm probably working tomorrow night, and when I'm at work and very tired, and tend to do and say more stupid stuff than normal, and feel bad about it later. It's annoying how I tell myself I don't care about my job, but when I'm there I get all defensive if I think somebody might think I'm not going it particularly well.

Ah, to sleep.

Clack--Clack-Clacking

2006-05-05T02:34:00.000+10:00

I have a new phone. The best parts about it are that it flips open, I can make it wake me up in the morning with a crescendo of dramatic classical music, and it now has "Don't Panic", written in large, friendly letters on the cover.

My novel is going well. Okay, chapter one is going well. I've also come to some resolve about my stress-filled prose issues. I need a point of attack. People always go on about a "voice", but I don't really understand it that way. I need an angle. I need to actually role-play as someone, as a writer, to get this "voice". Like, when I'm writing, I need to think, if I was this sort of person, how would I tell this story? And then it seems to go much smoother, and more consistent.

That may seem rambling and dumb, but it's very exciting for me. Also, when people ask you, "What can writing courses teach you? You can't teach writing!" Well, yes it can. It taught me this, arseholes. I don't know who these fictional people are or why they are attacking me like this, but it's late, and I can't consider such questions.

I saw singing comedian Tim Minchin tonight, and he was great. Made me really want to learn to sing better and to play the piano. Although, most good musicians make me want to learn whatever it is they're playing. It could be the spoons, if they do it well, it would make me want to go right to the top draw start clack-clack-clacking for myself. This doesn't make Tim Minchin any less good though. He was great.

Out.

Alpaca Spare Pair of Undies

2006-04-20T00:44:00.000+10:00

Okay, back from Sydney/Woolongong. I had a top-notch time. Here are some things that happened:

- Saw "Rudgier Meets Mr Salmon" in the "Best of the Rest" screenings on a big-screen at a Greater Union cinema in Bondi.

- Hung out in Newtown, Sydney, where you can get a top-notch Thai meal at lunchtime for $4.50. This is probably because in Newtown there are about 50 Thai restaurants amongst seven blocks of shops. There is some competition.

- Stayed at Sister Eve (my sister, not a nun) and her boyfriend Adam's place in Woolongong (is that how you spell it? It's how I say it...), and ate much good food and went to the beach and ate Easter eggs and talked about stuff.

- Saw some art in Sydney, went to the Australia Museum (which is surprisingly much more boring and worse than the Brisbane Museum), and saw a great installment about Vikings in the Sydney Maritime Museum.

- Drank beer, ate food, and drank coffee with Janie in many different places and times.

Top-notch.

However, it seems like there was some fun stuff happening here I missed out on. This is annoying, because I miss out on so much shit from working Friday and Saturday nights anyway, so it's annoying missing out on stuff on the holidays. I hate missing stuff. Because of this, I'll probably end up catching up with everybody individually as I normally do. Huzzah!?

"A monkey is an animal that wears silly vests" - Jane York

2006-04-09T21:11:00.000+10:00

I want to live in a world where all monkeys wear silly vests.

Soy Yogurt = Good

2006-04-08T13:29:00.000+10:00

I've always believed that nobody is more intelligent then anybody else, and that when somebody is smart in say, astrophysics, somebody else is smart in say, keeping workplace morale. Or handling a speedboat, stuff like that.

That said, I've met some fucking stupid people recently. Some guy handed me a chip at a roulette table last night, and because it was a busy table and he couldn't reach, he asked me to put it on thirteen black. But he pronounced it "Thur Teen Black", like, he hit every syllable equally with this dumb deadbrained drawl. And he stared at me with these dead eyes. I couldn't imagine this guy handling a speedboat. Maybe he was just drunk.

And this was after I'd been upstairs in Club for six hours being sarcastically polite to people and giving them time to do what they want and stuff, and then being sent downstairs into the noisy pit of drunken fuckwadedness that is the main floor on a Friday night. It takes time get out of the habit of being courteous, which is annoying. But, soon enough, I'm yelling at customers like the scum they are, and it's all good.

On a different topic, I want to be at a barbecue in a park one day, and be making a few jokes and puns that go down really well. At this point, I will take a bread roll, drop it on the ground, stand on it, and announce that "I'm on a roll".

I think that'd be great.

This is one plan, and a good one I think.

2006-04-07T04:26:00.000+10:00

It's really hard to update your blog when you haven't for ages, cause you go to do it, and think... man... I've done so much stuff, what do I write? And the you give up, don't write anything, make yourself some avocado and sliced tomato on an English muffin with cracked pepper and fresh lemon juice, and watch various directors commentaries.

But really, what have I done? Right now, I can't think of anything.

I had "Read Club" at my house on Tuesday, where lots of people come over with selected favourite readings under five minutes and read them aloud to each other. It's got romantic lighting and everything, and lots of boozing and smoking and its all very bohemian, as far as I know what bohemian means. "Read Club" was originally a place holder name that we liked because of its supreme dorkiness and "Fight Club" related jokes, but it has unfortunately stuck. It sounds bit cooler if you pronounce "read" as in the past tense, as in "Moby Dick? I read it yesterday!".

What else... what else...

I observed the zombie walk for the whole walk. It was fantastic. Really, really amazing and hilarious. 300-400 zombies Braaaainsing through inner Brisbane. My favourite bit was when I was tackled to the ground by a gang of zombies, and as they were dragging me down, I was shouting "This is a holy place! This is a holy place!" Then screaming at the top of my lungs. Then a helpful zombie picked up my sunglasses and handed them to me.

Um um um...

Going to Sydney for a bit next week. See sister, and "Rudiger Meets Mr Salmon" on the big screen in the tropfest "Best of the Rest" screenings, and plenty of other Sydney things.

Geez...

Uni is really totally busyfying this semester. So much to freaking do. I have decided I don't want to be an academic any more, because it would mean writing a billion academic essays, and I hate academic essays. I still want to do post-graduate studies in creative writing, and work as a tutor and stuff... but nothing with masses amounts of academic essays... oooh nooo....

I do really want to make money by writing Mills and Boon romance fiction/Star Wars novels/Any other terrible thing I can use to make some cash under a pseudonym. People make plenty of money by writing these shitty things full-time. This is one plan, and a good one I think.

Okay, tired now, sleeping.

GOOOOODNIGHT!

Summer is not good times. The good times start now.

2006-03-26T04:29:00.000+10:00

Today, at work, I'm sitting in a booth in the staff cafeteria. Geoff the floor manager is about to sit down on a nearby couch when he notices what's on my plate in front of me.
"Hey Tom," he says, "What's that shit? Is it bread or cake?"
"It's banana bread," I say. "Cakey bread. It's Awesome. Put some butter on it."
Geoff makes a face like he's intrigued, but he'll have to think about it for a few more hours before deciding whether or not to eat some banana bread.

This was hilarious to me because it felt like a commercial gone wrong. Just the whole "What's that shit?", and "Put some butter on it" bits.

Today I thought I'd better get some uni work done, so I got all the details of every assessment for every subject and put them in chronological order in a word document, printed it out and stuck it to my notice board. This was enough uni work for the day so I ate some curry while watching Joss Whedon's commentary on "Serenity". For tomorrow's uni work, I might get the list and colour code it.

Call Me "Highpockets"

2006-03-19T16:38:00.000+10:00

My favourite bit of Raymond Chandler's "The Big Sleep":

She spoke to the croupier with a cool, insolent, ill-tempered drawl.
'What kind of a cheap outfit is this, I'd like to know. Get busy and spin that wheel, highpockets. I want one more play and I'm playing table stakes. You take it away fast enough I've noticed, but when it comes to dishing it out you start to whine.'
The croupier smiled a cold polite smile that had looked at thousands of boors and millions of fools. His tall dark disinterested manner was flawless.

Choppity chop chop

2006-03-18T17:38:00.000+10:00

I spent the whole day gardening. It's really satisfying and relaxing.

...probably because it's the opposite of what I spend the rest of my time doing, being that it's physical, outdoors and doesn't require much thinking. I hope that it's not just a novelty and I continue enjoying it. Wouldn't that be fun... a writer/gardener...

It won't last.

You-Knee

2006-03-18T05:28:00.000+10:00

I'm having a really fantastic time at uni so far. Second year seems to involve much more work much more early on than first, and there has already been times, in the first three weeks, where I've had to go home instead of going to the bar because there's been work to do. But it's all been great, and there's been plenty of drinking none the less. I've got four awesome lecturers this semester; Nike Bourke, Craig Bolland, Glen Thomas and Kristina Olsen, who are all really passionate about their teaching.

The creative writing faculty held a pizza and fizzy drink socialising whatsit get together the other day, and they screened Rudiger Meets Mr Salmon to appropriate amounts of laughter.

I'm going to see what happens if I grow my hair longer, and if I can stop it from going super-afro. There's got to be a few straightening techniques out there.

GOODNIGHT!

Worky Work Work

2006-03-05T06:16:00.000+10:00

They don't speak English anyway.

Work has been really easy like this recently. I've been put up in Club Conrad and the VIP room every day I've worked for the last few weeks. Sitting around with self-important rich people is much cruiser then battling the hordes of self-important drunk fuck-wits on the main floor.

Had some big bets yesterday with some international dudes betting about $10,000 to $50,000 a hand. I was changing up $100,000 plaques, which are like big rectangular chips, every few minutes.

There were a bunch of people betting, but all the money belonged to this one dude sitting in the middle and they were all his bitches. It's funny how these rich people always have these followers who do their bidding.

Uni started again, and some other stuff happened, which I'll talk about soon. Hooray!

Hiss Hiss Hiss Water Water Water

2006-02-22T00:43:00.000+10:00

Argh! There is this hissing right, like there's a tap on somewhere. We don't have many taps in this house, and they're all off. I think it might be coming from the hot water system, but by the looks of it everything there is normal too. I can't get round the front of it, however, because it involves a journey needing sunlight, because of the massive amounts of spiders and the big dog next door that goes nuts when you wave a torch around. Nothing's leaking anywhere though. It's really, really annoying. It might just be the hot water system being normal, but I don't think I've heard it before. Annoying.

The End.

P.S. I have been researching the number 7. It's very interesting, for many reasons.

Rain, Rain, Come Over Here

2006-02-18T13:33:00.000+10:00

"Firefly", Joss Whedon's latest show after Buffy and Angel that got cancelled before it could complete the whole first season but had such massive DVD sales and fan base that universal decided to make a movie out of it called "Serenity", is really goram good. I say this after buying the almost-complete first season on DVD and watching them all in a couple of days... good times. Am now quite sad that there's no more, because the characters were set up for so much. Hopefully there will be more movies now.

It seems they are making a new series of "Monkey Magic" in Japan. The new monkey will have bleached blonde hair.

Thank bottom autumn is almost here. I can't stand summer. I don't like the beach, cause of the salt and the sand, and I don't give a toss about... uh... other stuff you can do it the sun and heat. I want to move into a northern English country town where it does nothing but drizzle away under miserable weather. I think I could be really happy there.

Tom.

On the Back of a Giant Squid

2006-02-16T04:45:00.000+10:00

Yar! I got a hold of "Captain Blood", the 1930's Errol Flynn pirate movie, and it was crap! How? It's a pirate movie, it's called "Captain Blood", and it's got Errol Flynn, it should be great. But Errol spent the whole movie grinning like a smug dick, and hardly sword fighting at all. There was no discernible antagonist, it just involved Flynn becoming a slave at the beginning, then winning stupid battle after stupid battle until he was a free man again. Movies don't work like that, the protagonists are supposed to LOSE battle after battle until shit can't get any worse, then win the one that really counts.

Also, this brings me onto another rant - I think the best way (well, for me I guess, but anyway) to tell a story is to get the cool stuff first and work from there. I'll explain...

How not to write a pirate movie, is you think of some lovely three-dimensional characters, with conflicting emotional dramas, their goals and desires, relationships, themes even - and then figure out some great piratey adventure scenes to fit them.

No! You start with the great piratey adventure scenes! You say to yourself, I want to see a chick fight off two sea-zombies on the back of a giant squid! THEN you sort out the characters... you think, okay, why does this girl know how to sword fight so damn well, perhaps her dad ran a sword fighting academy, etc, etc (one of my pet hates is when girls in adventure movies know how to suddenly sword fight for no particular reason, usually at the climax).

Where was I? I don't know, preaching about story telling when I'm still learning myself. I guess it's just a way to get my own thoughts on it sorted, and anybody who read this has had to suffer that. Haha!

Tom.

Curly the Cowboy Gives Good Advice

2006-02-11T04:39:00.000+10:00

You know, I think some of the best words of advice in any Hollywood movie are in City Slickers:

Curly: You know what the secret of life is?
Mitch: No, what?
(Curly raises his index finger)
Curly: This.
Mitch: Your finger?
Curly: One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and everything else don't mean shit.
Mitch: That's great, but what's the one thing?
Curly: That's what you've got to figure out.

I think it's true. Really.

I'll take on the world...

2006-02-10T16:34:00.000+10:00

If you look at the front page of the City North News this week you'll see a massive photo of the Manboy and I, with a headline calling us Tropfest finalists, which is of course amusing because we didn't actually get in.

So, I called up the City North News newsroom and had a few words to them about accuracy in journalism and a few other things and as a result, have a look at next week's front page when it comes out, and there will be a massive photo of just me, in the process of tying a double windsor.

The first paragraph is true, the second isn't.

Tom.

In-Tray of Death

2006-02-09T02:16:00.000+10:00

I'm much more prepared for this year of uni than I was last year. Our house has been lived in for a while. I have a desk with a laptop and a fast internet connection and a printer and a notice-board hanging on the wall behind it and an in-tray and a pen holder and a bankers lamp.

I really don't like the in-tray, actually. I'm looking at it right now. The point of it was, right, to be this place where all my imporant files and information gets put so I could give them immediate attention... later. And later never comes, because the moment it's in the in-tray it's out of my mind and I never think about it ever again. I'm terrified of what I'll find in there when I finally look through it. "Dear Tom, please sign this form and send it to the above address by March 2004 if you want to live".

Notfest

2006-02-08T04:52:00.000+10:00

"Rudiger" didn't make the Tropfest finals, unfortunately. I think it will still be screened sometime though, in "The Best of the Rest" screenings. It's alright, it was a pretty huge achievement to get it shortlisted I reckon. On to the next film. It's a good one - it has eight or nine drunk vikings in it, and explosions.

And the one after that has aliens killing Julius Ceaser.

And the one after that hs a time travel paradox.

I'm going film-writing crazy, hooray!

The lips have gotta touch the toe

2006-02-05T05:00:00.000+10:00

Ever heard of the Sourtoe Club?...

Established in 1973, the Sourtoe Cocktail has become a Dawson City tradition. The original rules were that the toe must be placed in a beer glass full of champagne, and that the toe must touch the drinker's lips during the consumtion of the alcohol before he or she can claim to be a true Sourtoer. The rules have changed in the past twenty-seven years. The Sourtoe can be had with any drink now (even ones that aren't alcoholic), but one rule remains the same. The drinker's lips must touch the toe. " You can drink it fast, you can drink it slow-- But the lips have gotta touch the toe."

The Sourtoes are actual human toes that have been dehydrated and preserved in salt. Swallowing one is not suggested.

So today I finished this week's script, and went to work, where I had a suprisingly fun time. This is relative of course, fun means fun compared to work normally, which is not really fun.

I am really looking forwards to uni starting again, and that makes me a big geek, doesn't it? So much socialiing and boozing... and learning things.

Later.

Tom = 1 Internet = 0

2006-02-03T04:38:00.000+10:00

So my day-long battle with Janie's computer is at an end... I finally, successfully, got both our computers networked on the same internet connection. Look, people, I'm a big geek when it comes to playing computer games and all that, I know what an intelligence score of 18 signifies when you're playing a D&D game, but I don't know what the fuck a "CMOS checksum error" is when you start up your girlfriend's outdated computer after replacing the network card at four o'clock in the afternoon and the whole thing begins...

It beeps, and you swear, then you change some things, then it doesn't even turn on, then you swear even more, then you change some more things and it turns on now but it's still madly beeping, and then Janie says there was three hours work on an article on the hard drive in the computer that she desperately needs but is currently locked inside its metallic magnetic brain because all it wants to do is beep and make you swear.

So in a race against time you take the hard drive out and jump in your car and fight through peak hour traffic to your parents house where you insert the hard drive into a computer that works and save the much needed file and email it to your grateful girlfriend.

Then, in a bit of a break, you talk to your mum about film, music, the approaching dark age and the nature of the universe for a few hours then go home, where the computer still says "CMOS checksum error" but in a surge of inspiration you go into the BIOS settings and mash blindly at the keyboard then click "Save Settings", restart the computer and cheer boisterously as your old desktop background of Westly fighting Inigo Montaya from The Princess Bride comes up on your screen, indicating the computer is working - but the internet still isn't and so I'm pretty much back where I started.

For an intermission in my personal computer war, the Manboy and his German backpacker friend comes over and since it's her last night in Brisbane Janie comes up with the fine idea of just going around to all our friends houses and saying hello, you know, to get a good idea of how ordinary Brisbanites spend an ordinary Thursday evening.

So we go to Dan Scan's house, and standing around talking he mentions he's going to a house auction in Gibb street, Kelvin Grove, and we mention that our friend Krystal lives on Gibb street, then we go to Strommie's house in Milton and Teresa is there and she says that she had to scale down the side of Krystal's back deck one time, and Strommie is very surprised that Larry Emdur is now hosting Wheel of Fortune, but aren't we all.

So we go to Krystal's house to pick up my trumpet and her house has a "for auction" sign outside and it's like holy crap this is the one that Dan Scan said he wanted to look at. Then we deliver the trumpet to Tor's house and she was very happy to receive a trumpet because she can send back the crappy one she hires.

I just want my trumpet to be played regularly. Not by me.

Returning home, we bid farewell to the German, then I walk into the study at midnight, low noon, and come to a stop, facing Janie's computer, my hand hovering over my proverbial gun holster. And I DRAW! ... for the next four hours... sitting at my computer researching on the net about internet connection sharing and slow clients and what the fuck is an "MTU" setting? and "If you change the registry your computer could cause a nuclear reaction capable of destroying the planet" and I've got some "NICS" but no scratches and "ping" doesn't mean one half of a game of table tennis.

In the end, all I needed to do was to install "DRTCP" on the client computer and set the MTU at 1250 because packet sizes were too big, which is pretty obvious if you think about it.

Tomorrow, I'm getting interviewed by quest newspapers about "Rudiger Meets Mr Salmon" making the Tropfest shortlist, and having my photo taken for the story. It will be fun, but I did work experience at quest newspapers, and if they knew you'd learnt how to tie a double windsor they'd call you up and ask to take a photo of you.

Nevertheless, I'd better get some sleep. Goodnight.

Dance Magic Dance

2006-01-31T19:33:00.000+10:00

So "Rudiger Meets Mr Salmon" is shortlisted for Tropfest 2006. This makes me very happy, since its the first film I've made since high-school. There are 60 shortlisted films, and 16 finalists will be chosen from them, which gives us a bit better then a 1 in 4 chance of making the finals. And if we do make the finals, then our film will be shown on a massive screen to heaps of people in Sydney, which would be very cool. Imagine that, hearing hundreds people laughing at two men's hat's flying off in surprise. It would be unreal.

Also, I'm very hungover. Was at Ronnie's welcome back to Brisbane party last night, and drank much wine and scotch. Good times were had.

I'm currently putting a lot of work into recording music, and it's turning out to be quite difficult. The original idea was to record songs and put them together in a way that would be completely above my skill level to do live, but I keep thinking, hey... maybe I could do this live... then try to change the songs a bit... then listen to them... then realise I'd be crap live... then get disillusioned about the whole thing. I'll get there though.

Also, I must get to work on Last Pirate Ep2...

And have written another short film script called "The Bolungarvik Space Program" about drunken vikings trying to get to the moon. Apparently, I'm going to be writing another script every week. I have a few ideas stored up, at least.

2006-01-27T03:25:00.000+10:00

I don't really want to do anything new. I just want to do the traditional things properly. Properly.

Rudiger Meets Mr Salmon

2006-01-17T05:18:00.000+10:00

Some friends and I filmed a short film on the weekend. It's called "Rudiger Meets Mr Salmon", and, I'm not too modest to say, it's genius.

Here's a still:

It's being sent off to a bunch of festivals. We're having a screening somewhere sometime anyway. I'm going to bed. Goodnight.

Choices

2006-01-10T00:30:00.000+10:00

I choose to not own a car, because, if it turns out that there is never anybody around to bum lifts off, then I must be living in a society that does not need cars, I would not need a car anyway.

I choose to not wear a watch, because, if there is never anybody around to ask for the time, then I will be living in a society that does not need knowledge of the precise time, and I would not need a watch anyway.

This is all well and good until I mysteriously wake up alone in a desert.

Holidays Overview Part Two - Woodford

2006-01-06T11:51:00.000+10:00

Really really hot... We all drank a lot of cider.

We De-cider-ed to drink lots of cider.

We were like, get it in-cider ya.

Sometimes, we even got a cider and another one on the cider it.

We even met an Inuit. We told him a joke, but Inuit already.

We bought him a cider, and he was like, what do I do with this? where does it go? And we were like, Inuit goes mate.

We didn't meet an Inuit, it was totally the wrong climate.

I bought a wooden flute called a K'ena.

We saw lots of good music. That1guy was t'riffic.

We jammed at the campsite.

I ate a chermoula spaghetti everyday. Suzanna from Spaghetti Junction started giving me discounts and extra helpings of chermoula.

I became an Arab.

I drank sweet hot chai, and slept in the chai tent.

Good times.

Oh, hey, it's my birthday!

Holidays Overview Part One - Christmas

2006-01-03T08:53:00.000+10:00

Alll riiight...

Went up to my parents house in the mountains, near the glass-house mountains, but not actually on the glass house mountains.

There we celebrated Christmas with eating, drinking, and the giving of gifts. I gave my family framed original works of arts, by me, along with a small poem, all of which I will reproduce now.

For my sister Anna:

The Magic Snake,
And the Tragic Rake,
In the depths of Mysterious,
Krajik Lake.

For my sister Eve:

The Teapot Queen,
Could not be seen,
'Cause Knottie lowered,
the Shadowy Screen.

For my Mum:

The Wealthy Gnat,
Picked out a Hat,
Which matched his Shoes,
And his Cravat.

For my Dad:

In Saturn Port,
The Spaceman caught,
The Ring-ed Fish,
Which he had sought.

And for Janie:

In the Carrot Patch,
Detective Katch,
Knew he'd finally,
Met his Match.

I had to mix a new colour for this one. Microsoft Paint doesn't come with orange.

I got a bunch of cool stuff, mainly a season-camping ticket to woodford folk festival, which I will cover in the next post. I was also given Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, and Adventures in the Screen Trade by William Goldman, and a mug with books on it, and an spectacular olive dish, and a thing that whizzes around and makes funny sounds.

The eating was good, also. And the drinking.

Download: The Last Pirate - Episode One

2005-12-24T15:43:00.000+10:00

"Mutiny on the Mirabella"

By Tom Guerney

Right click here and select "save target as".

The Last Pirate

2005-12-20T04:24:00.000+10:00

It's finished! It's complete! The Last Pirate - Episode 1 - Mutiny on the Mirabella, the latest thing in audio-adventures, will be given to you by a Tom this summer. It will also be uploaded on to a website in .mp3 format at some point, thanks to Ronnie.

Night night!

Bee!

2005-12-10T04:29:00.000+10:00

Nyargh. I have not written or drawn anything for ages! I have been busy with work and writing and critting stories! It's not over yet! Har Har! And now I'm too sleepy to do anything!

Okay, here's a really quick picture of a chef.

Really quick.

Goodnight!

Subjects for Next Year

2005-12-05T15:55:00.000+10:00

2006/1
KWB103 PERSUASIVE WRITING
KWB107 INTRODUCTION TO CREATIVE NON-FICTION
KWB201 CREATIVE WRITING: DIGITAL MEDIA
KWB203 CREATIVE WRITING: THE NOVEL

2006/2
KWB002 OZLIT
KWB204 CREATIVE NON-FICTION: LIFE WRITING
KWB205 CREATIVE WRITING PROJECT 1
KWB206 YOUTH AND CHILDREN'S WRITING

Turkey-Tea

2005-12-05T04:51:00.000+10:00

Once upon a time, all the brush turkeys lived in the middle of a deep, dark forest. They built houses in the trees, and got together on Sundays to drink a special blend of tea called turkey-tea.

Then one day, they all went into town for a few drinks, and got so pissed that they forgot their way home. That was a long time ago, and ever since, brush turkeys have just wandered around Australia, completely fucking lost.

Is this where we lived? They ask, scratching around in some dry leaves. No! I think it's up here! they say, standing on a roof. Let's face it, they say, We're completely fucking lost.

And that's how the brush turkey, and the secret of turkey-tea, became lost.

In other news, it's the casino staff Christmas party tomorrow, technically being today of course, but of course, it's never tomorrow until I go to sleep and wake up again. It's great fun, you get to see everybody, including your bosses, drunk. And with their inhibitions gone they're liable to tell everybody what they really think, or do what they really want to do, and then fights break out and the mascara runs and Tuesday night at work everybody avoids eye-contact, and I laugh! Because, of course, of course, I never do or say anything stupid.

Night.

Results.

2005-12-04T16:31:00.000+10:00

I got straight sixes. Huzzuh! Not sure how that works exactly, especially since my highest mark was in Narrative, which I did the least work in, and got a 4 and a 5 for the first two out of three assignemnts, so I must have a got a 7 for my last one. Weird. Although, it did reference the Ed Keup-Nuts, and that's worth a 7 in intself.

But yeah, happy about all that. Especially if I keep my GPA above 5.5 (it's at 5.75), I can go into honours or masters after this degree.

Moon-Howling

2005-12-03T15:26:00.000+10:00

I'm waking up later and later... staying up earlier and earlier... becoming more and more nocturnal... becoming afraid of sunlight. This is what full-time night-shift at the casino does... turns you into some sort of caffeine addicted grumpy-monster, howling at the moon.

I only come out at night, and in the hot afternoons, being mornings for me, I'm inside, hunched over the computer writing stories. Stories that go, "All work and no play makes Tom a dull boy". No, more like stories that go, "In the year 1683 there lived a youth named Peter Sebastian Young..."

I'm a gonna go write that story now.

Inasnum Contego

2005-12-01T05:10:00.000+10:00

I've just been working a lot. Not much happens when you work a lot. I wake up at 2pm, have a bowl of Honey-Os, sit on the veranda staring at the outside world for ten minutes, go on the computer to check my various messages, do some writing, eat some noodles while watching a DVD, do some more writing, have a shower, go to work. And work I don't really want to talk about. It's now an in-built reflex to raise the mental shield as soon as I step out of the locker room in uniform. The mental shield that seperates work from reality, and deflects all the not-nice stuff about work.

This is a mental shield:

I have a day off tomorrow. And it's pay-day. Dangerous.

Night night!

Arachno-Battles

2005-11-29T16:50:00.000+10:00

I just had to go out of the house and down the back steps to the laundry, to put on a load of washing, and had to fight through an entire spider-lair. It's getting ridiculous. They're everywhere out there. We have a special sword that we use to battle them. If we want to do our laundry these days, we need the sword, armour, and three day's rations. It's quite a quest:

I'm going to work again tonight. I'm going to work full-time, or even more, this fortnight so I can get adequate Christmas and Woodford money. I'm not bringing any food to Woodford. I'm buying it all, like last year. Man, they have some great food. Langos - oh yeah. Pizza Loca - awesome. But best of all is the Chermoula spaghetti sauce at Spaghetti Junction - the bestest, spiciest, tastiest physical thing in the cosmos. I also need to afford the planned boozing. I must complete the Woodford pub crawl this year. Thirteen bars in the festival. I must have a sizeable drink at all of them in one night. I almost made it last year, but I'd had a few pints before we got the idea, so when I made it to the thirteenth, at the top of the amphitheatre hill, I had to ask for a cup of water. Defeated.

All this is making me hungry and thirsty. I'm off to eat and drink.

The End of the Holiday

2005-11-28T02:16:00.000+10:00

I have officially scratched Moustache Holiday from production. It's a pity, because I have spent many hours on it, but, like all failed stories, I can always pillage it for ideas to use in something that isn't bore-me-a-second-arsehole lad-fiction.

I wished I was a writer during the age of typewriters, because that way I could be sitting at my desk surrounded by hundreds of scrunched up bits of paper. It would be a much more dramatic image then sitting at a laptop with over used Control-Z keys ('cause that's undo).

I'm going to start work on The Last Pirate, because that is much more exciting at the moment.

The Writing Process

2005-11-27T04:56:00.000+10:00

I've re-written the first thousand words of Moustache Holiday about eight times now. This is me for a large part of the writing process:

Ah, it's five-thirty in the morning. A great time to stay up writing till. I wasn't writing of course, because it was a Saturday night, and I was at work. However, the hours between one and four are my favourite for writing. So peaceful. And the critical part of my brain gets tired and asks the creative parts to turn the music down, then goes to bed. So the creative parts stay up on the veranda drinking tea, without the old critical stooge to bring them down, telling them they're stupid. The old stooge is always is a state when he wakes up in the morning and sees the mess they left, though.

We're all off to sleep now.

Goodnight.

Tea Genius

2005-11-25T03:36:00.000+10:00

I'm a tea genius. I'm good at making tea. Sure, by this time in my career I've got some pretty sweet equipment ($75 removable-strainer insulated tea pot, a collection of single-cup strainers, a large range of tea; earl gray, english breakfast, peppermint, chai, traditional afternoon, gunpowder temple of heaven, jasmine, russian caravan), but what makes the most difference is internal - inside my mind. It's a unique mental chronometer, which alerts me within a second that the tea has brewed for the optimum amount of time.

I also have a small zip-pocket in there to store bus money.

We had a writer's workshop thingo over at my place yesterday evening/night, which went very well, critiquing stories for the One Book Many Brisbanes competition dealie. I have now changed my story all the way from third-person-past-tense-traditional-punctuation, to first-person-present-tense-zero-speech-marks, which will be similar to the way Angela's Ashes is written, I suppose, but my story will be about a moustache, where Angela's Ashes is about growing up poor in Ireland.

The Mighty Boosh arrived on DVD yesterday. One of the best days of the year.

Time to clean up the house. These writer's workshops can get pretty messy by 3am.

Love Triangles

2005-11-24T04:10:00.000+10:00

I think the worst love triangle to be in would be an isosceles:

Especially if you were person number three.

But really, a love triangle would have to include at least one queer person. Because if love must flow either way along all sides, queerness is a necessity:Otherwise, it'd just be a love angle:
But more likely a reflex angle:

If there were only straight people involved, and you wanted more than a love line, you would have to have a love square:

Returning to love triangles, however, imagine, if you will, that people exist outside the love triangle. It's safe to assume that three people who have managed to find themselves in such a difficult position emotionally could also have strong feelings for some of these other people:

Imagine if the connections made a picture of a tortoise:

I think if I was part of the love tortoise, I'd like to be in one of the feet.

Are you part of the love tortoise?

Newsflash: Geeks Are Sexy!

2005-11-23T05:03:00.000+10:00

I read in the newspaper today that chicks all over Australia are really into geeks now. That geeks aren't to be thought repulsive, but are actually what the cool girls are lusting for. Gamers, Dungeons and Dragons players and collectible card game collectors everywhere are rejoicing.

What's really happening, however, is that the previously beautiful people are still the same beautiful people, they're just wearing a pair of thick black-rimmed glasses and a sweater-vest.

Bad news for the gamers, Dungeons and Dragons players, and collectible card game collectors.

Answer me this: What comes first? The social inadequacies or the impulse to stage epic battles with small but immensely expensive figurines?

I wouldn't know. Pfft. What?

Meticulous Planning

2005-11-22T18:12:00.000+10:00

After a very large amount of time devoted to writing (intermingled with checking, and writing in, blogs and forums, of course) I have written almost a thousand words on Moustache Holiday. Not much, you say. I say the same thing. But it's this new thing I'm trying with writing where I plan everything meticulously beforehand, then write it. It seems to be working okay. I just did a tense and style change. I got rid of all quotation marks and changed it to present tense. I think it's better, because in a story where there's a shit load of dialogue, I think all the punctuation would just get in the way.

Hey! Here's the first couple of hundred words!

Will runs a fingertip over his upper lip, studying his fledgling facial hair in the bathroom mirror. It’s little more than stubble, but far, far less than a moustache.
Stop prodding at it, says Dan, washing his hands in the neighbouring sink, Or it’ll never grow. You just have to give it time.
That’s easy for you to say, says Will, You wake up every morning with a full beard.
Dan shrugs and pushes through the bathroom door into the clean-skinned crowds, swirling lights and minimalist furniture of the Stock Exchange bar on a Monday night. Will follows him in.
What happened to Leo? he asks, raising his voice over the music.
He’s hunting for gap, says Dan.
Gap?
It’s his new favourite word.
Dan scanned the room. See that chick over there? he says, eyeballing a nearby girl, See how her legs are thin enough to create a visible space between them?
Will nods.
That’s gap, says Dan. I’m not too worried about it myself. I just go for skinny arms.
How liberal of you.

I'm off to work. Guranteed I'll get home and write a half-asleep rant about something and probably draw a picture.

Seeyas.

The Masterpiece

2005-11-22T02:32:00.000+10:00

I just paid $5 so I could put pictures on my livejournal feed of this blog.

This one had better be worth it.

Imagine the scale involved here.

A $5 work.

It would have to be Da Vinci's Mona Lisa.

Crossed with Michelangelo's Last Judgement.

Mixed with Raphael's Saint George.

And Donatello's Saint John the Baptist.

It must be a Ninja Turtle Renaissance Masterpiece.

And here it is:

Quick! Call the National Gallery! No! The International Gallery! I must go write a story!

The Infinite Power of Grom

2005-11-21T03:48:00.000+10:00

At first all there was, was an atom,
Then with the infinite power of Grom,
The atom mutated,
And the world, much elated,
Found the Street of the Lifted Tom.

My blog is also going to be posted at http://www.livejournal.com/users/theliftedtom/. But without pictures! Becuase live journal is lame in that respect.

The infinite power of Grom:

Johnson!

2005-11-20T04:12:00.000+10:00

We're Johnson's mates,
And Johnson hates,
Terracotta pots,
Oath! You'd better not,
Make him mad,
Make him mad!
Johnson!

This is Johnson:

A mighty easy night at work tonight. Plenty of dead tables, chit chat, and enough spare time to make up small rhymes about Johnson.

Tomorrow, after meticulous drafting of characters, acts, plot, character arcs, plot arcs, it's time to wrtie DRAFT ZERO of Moustache Holiday. The most evil draft of them all.

And thankyou to everybody involved in the Moleskine discussion. I did not realise that it would spark such debate, but am greatful for it.

Until next time! Farewell!

The Empire Strikes Stickleback

2005-11-19T08:41:00.000+10:00

Gala last night. Drank free wine. Drank crazy unidentifiable Asian wine at karaoke afterwards. Did stupid stuff. The Manboy and I were the Stickleback Boys:

Stickleback, Stickleback, Stickleback boys,
Christie in the bingo hall,
Running like a China horse,
Mmmm-pta-masala,
Mmmm-pta-masala,
Ketchita-Ketchita-yeah,
Ketchita-Ketchita-no.

The Mighty Boosh is everything good.

All conversations last night had this bizarre edge to them. I'm not sure. Maybe it was because I was talking to tutors and lecturers a lot, and didn't want to appear drunk, but they were probably just not wanting to appear drunk also, and I think we each just feigned all this interest in each other's words. Hey, it worked out.

I can't sleep now. I've woken up at 7.30am to write this. It's the middle of the night! I drunk lots of water, lots of coridal, lots of chocolate milk. I can't get enough chocolate milk. Soy milk, of course. Pfft.

I'm going to draw another picture because I need something to do. Let's see... how about... a viking battling a dinosaur. Yes, that'll do. No, make it a dinosaur robot. And a magic viking.

Time for a cup of tea.

Morning.

Holy Gramoly!

2005-11-17T22:27:00.000+10:00

There once was a fruit-thief bestowed,
With such speed, which when he put on show,
And stole the prized jumbo,
Fruit from old King Pumbo,
A guy said, "Check out that man-go!"

Okay, so I should have ended my Windows Paint cartooning career with the hippo. It was worth a second shot though. Probably a third, too.

A Time For Firsts!

2005-11-15T23:04:00.000+10:00

I sent off Gordon's Rocket Pack to Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, for my first attempt ever at getting published. And, considering the crapola that I've read in there, it might be in with a chance. I have read some great stories in there, also, to give the mag its dues. The only thing is its got much more "hard" Science Fiction and Fantasy in it, and granted mine is about a kid flying to the top of a volcanic plug in a home-made rocket pack, but its got more of an internal ending, what with being happy about the windy noisy rocks and such.

The least I can do is start building a collection of rejection slips. It'll make me write more stories actually, because you kind of have to send a short story to one publisher at a time, and it takes a while for them to shoot you down, apparently. So if you want to send more off, you gots to write more.

And when I send off Moustache Holiday in three weeks, it'll be the first writing competition I have ever entered.

Hooray for firsts!

Here's the first drawing of a steam-powered hippopotamus I've ever done:

Not too bad, hey?

Here's the first time I've ever typed "Footbunkle" backwards:

Elknubtoof.

Less impressive.

Nighty night.

Where be my skases?

2005-11-15T03:37:00.000+10:00

Hooray! I just progressed massively on Moustache Holiday. Now I'm going to play computer games, a little more guilt-free, or perhaps watch an episode of The Mighty Boosh. Perhaps Arctic Boosh:

Boosh Boosh - stronger than a moose,
Don't lock your door or we'll come through your roof - top,
Stop look around take your mind off the floor,
Because the Boosh is loose and we're a little bit raw.

Ice, flow, nowhere to go,
Ice, flow, nowhere to go,
Lost in the blinding whiteness of the Tundra. Ooooowwwww!

Much thanks to the wise QUT web-site searching Ronnie, I am now going to be doing the new novel subject next year, where you learn about novely stuff, write the synopsis of a novel, and write the opening chapters of a novel, up to 3000 words. How awesome! Perhaps Vernon Brown: The Chosen Guy will finally get written. I can't wait. It's going to have psychotic high-school science teachers, clones with a death-wish, generic bad dudes (think storm-troopers, nazis, vampires) called "Scratchies". A hot chick beating people up. This is all in the far, far, distant, distant future. Lot's of fun stuff. I can't wait till a deadline makes me write it. Huzzuh!

Oh, I also found some old pictures. Here's one of me when I was... um... eighteen. I'm supposed to be imitating Steve Erwin doing a "Crikey!" stance, cause that was new and funny back then, and cause there is a tiny snake in front of me, cut out of the photo. I wonder what happened to those black and white skases (ska-glasses) I had.

Genius Juice, etc, etc...

2005-11-13T04:39:00.000+10:00

I bought a Moleskine notebook yesterday, and we'll get into the *why* in a second, but on the paper insert it says all this stuff about, "The legendary notebook used by Van Gogh, Picasso, Hemingway, etc, etc...". This is all fine, but I paid $32 for this notebook. I can get a notebook at the supermarket for 32 cents, and it will accept marks on its pages not quite as prettily, but still just as effectively. Do you really think Van Gogh, a dude who had to scum money off his brother so he could afford to eat, would fork out the equivelant of $32 for a notebook? Of course he wouldn't! And they market it like this so you can walk around with this notebook going, How super-cool and literary am I? I'm an artist, I'm crazy, I'm probably liable to cut off my ear any second now, just you watch, Pass the Green Fairy, Comrade, if only I had something to write down... perhaps I should buy the legendary fountain pen used by Tolstoy, Orwell, Woolf, etc, etc... Maybe that will get my genius-juice bubbling.

As you can probably tell, I generally don't like silly accessories for writing. You hear people talking about how writing with a lead pencil on paper feels more natural, or about using a typewriter with one continous stream-of-consciousness roll of paper, like Kerouac, or sitting in coffee shops for inspiration, etc, etc... These are all just excuses for not having any ideas. It doesn't matter how or on what you write something. It's all just displacement activity (like ranting in a blog), so you don't have to do any actual writing. Think about it, you're at home, and you think, Hey, I'm going to go to a cafe and write the greatest dealie ever, so you have a shower, put on some half-decent clothes, get in the car, drive to a cafe, order a coffee, get out your Moleskine and fountain pen, tap the pen against your chin for a while, look at your watch, and decide that if you want to get home in time to make dinner you'd better finish your coffee and leave, and you're writing day is over, stopping to pick up a continous roll of typewriting paper on the way home, because maybe that's what's wrong, the lack of such.

I bought it 'cause I wanted something to write my rhymes in, in a more permanent sense. I have a million 32 cent notebooks for random ideas and on-the-run-drafts. Well, a million is a bit of an exageration, obviously. The Moleskine is for final drafts of wordy things under about 300 words.

I don't have any good excuses, really.

Journey to Swatow

2005-11-11T13:13:00.000+10:00

Uni is all over for the year. It's time to clean up my desk, make copious amounts of coffee, start doing my writing, then get distracted by something. According to the choose-your-own-adventure-lymeric-poll I posted on InsertWit, I must either "grow the world's greatest tomato" or "spend the whole holidays blotto". Sadly, I will not be going to "blow all my cash on the lotto", "compose something very staccato", or "canoe through the ocean to Swatow". Swatow is on China's south-side by the way. Where all the bogans hang out. That'd be a tough canoe actually, what with all the pirates around Indionesia. I could, I guess, go via Antarctica, dodge the icebergs, pick up some penguins, keep going up on the East side of South America, pick up some chili and chocolate, go North through the Atlantic ocean till I get to Greenland, give the Chili to the Vikings to allow my safe passage, put the canoe on my head, hoof it over the frozen wastes of the North Pole, get back in the water again, have fun going back and forth over the international date line (yesterday, today, yesterday, today, yesterday, today) head through the Bering Straight, trade the penguins with a Russian clock maker in the Gulf of Anadyr for a mechanised oar system to speed my journey (except for one penguin I named Toby who I've grown to be friends with, he now has his own spot in the bow), duck in at Osaka for some Takoyaki, hug the China coast then party on in Swatow, with a gift of chocolate.

I wrote a piece of verse!

2005-11-10T20:45:00.000+10:00

Forget, for now, the people I adore,
And slice my life into four equal parts,
You'll find the first slice is for when I snore,
A pastime, which I hold close to my heart.
The second is for playing computer games,
My storytelling craft is slice the third,
The fourth is for my ever undying flame;
That's drinking myself utterly absurd.
Although, there are times when I look ahead,
And then consider lending to slice three,
The total energies within my head,
And wonder where such effort would take me,
I would go up, go on, move forwards henceforth,
But forget that, I think I'll just go fourth.

Ranty Rant Rant

2005-11-08T02:29:00.000+10:00

I just finished reading Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night", and it's by far the best comedy of his I have read/seen. Most of Shakespeare's works have characters that disappear completely, gaping plots holes, or really twisted morals, but this one was great. It was full of drunken pranks, likeable characters, and, of course, women dressed as men.

I think the common opinion of Shakespeare is really skewed. I get the idea that most people regard him "as like, the greatest writer ever", but whether he is or he isn't doesn't really matter. He just wrote some fun stories. Or somebody wrote them. Is there a point to my ranting or is any of this thought out at all? Nay!

I think what I'm trying to say is, his plays should not be regarded as the literary equivalent of Michelangelo's David, or Beethoven's Ninth or something. Maybe more like the literary equivalent of one of Mozart's operas where he makes lots of bum jokes. Mum told me about them.

Current Writing Projects

2005-11-07T03:45:00.000+10:00

Moustache Holiday

My entry for the One Book Many Brisbanes competition. It involves ear wax, violent street-sweeper attacks, Brisbane entertainment venues, improvising free-loading musicians, and lots of bodily hair.

Escape From Crazy Zoo

My feature-length screenplay that I predict will take me right up to the start of uni next year to complete. It involves crazy old men, evil scheming nephews, a small island in the Bass Straight, insane weaponry, and most of all, a bunch of people in animal costumes running for their very lives.

The Last Pirate

I'm quite excited about this one. It's not a radio play, not a musical, but it's me telling a story with musical back-up on the acoustic guitar. About pirates - good ones. And the Last Pirate - not so good. But I don't want to give anything away. It involves a manic depressive revolutionary, a short protagonist content with his below-average height, a turtle named Steven, the sheer power of steam, an addiction, a beautiful magistrate's daughter, and a trans-dimensional journey.

The Paraducks

A short film. It's about what's claimed as fantastical versus subjective reality, put in an arena, each given a spear, and told if they do not fight, they will both die. It also involves a shrink ray, hitmen, small aquatic birds, a cult leader in a suit, the mob, and of course, a time machine.

Sensational!

2005-11-06T05:32:00.000+10:00

Ronnie and Sarah Grey's party was sensational. Heaps of cool people, I got roaringly drunk, and I don't remember anything that I specifically regret. I don't remember altogether that much, actually, probably because I drank around about 4/5 of a 700ml bottle of Johnny Red. I hadn't been that wasted in a long while, and it was great. It wipes the mind clean of cluttered thoughts.

You know it's a good party when you feel like it's over before you've had enough time to talk to everyone you want to talk to. There is one bit I wish I remember clearer, actually, 'cause at the moment it's a flickering blur. It's me in the lounge room, with a considerable sized audience, playing the guitar to a song I improvised, with the words to Captain Cabinets (will he get out? can he get out? etc).

The Captain Cabinets thing was quite funny actually, because all it is is a few lines from an episode of The Mighty Boosh. I had "C C" drawn on a piece of card, pinned to my jacket. When people asked me, What's C C? I replied, Captain Cabinets! Like it was obvious. Here's the interesting part, half the people just accepted that it stood for Captain Cabinets and didn't inquire any further, but the other half had to ask who Captain Cabinets was, to which I replied, Haven't you seen the TV show? Then sung, of course, Captain Cabinets! Trapped in Cabinets! Can he get out? Will he get out? 'Course he will! Captain Cabinets! ... Only one guy replied with, That's a load of bullshit, mate. Which I thought was great.

Isn't it funny that some people can be blantantly told that you've come to a party dressed as Captain Cabinets and won't inquire any further? How can anybody just accept that? Though people do don't they? At last year's casino christmas party I took the Manboy along, and we told everybody that he worked in "archives", which doesn't actually exist. And everybody bought it, apart from one girl who said, That's a load of bullshit, mate.

There's always one isn't there.

Even pit-bosses accepted that Manboy worked in archives. It was great. Sensational, even.

Bedtime now, goodnight.

Will he get out? Can he get out? 'Course he can!

2005-11-04T04:35:00.000+10:00

I had the biggest single bet I've ever had at work yesterday - Fifty-five thousand dollars. That's $55,000. If I ever earn that in a year, I'd consider myself a rich man. For this dude last night, $55,000 is five minutes of entertainment. Three minutes, even. Stupid, hey?

Ronnie and Sarah Grey's party tonight - it should be fun. The theme is "mysterious and fabulous", and I'm going as Captain Cabinets. (see "The Mighty Boosh" - Episode 1: "Captain Cabinets, trapped in cabinets - Will he get out? Can he get out? 'Course he can! Captain Cabinets!")

The Manboy and I have been playing FIFA soccer on the Xbox pretty much whenever we have a spare moment. I came home last night from work at 5am and he was on the couch reading a comic book, so we played soccer. Xbox soccer is for anytime. I don't even know anything about the actual game, but it's bloody addictive. It's great. If only it wasn't for Manboy's fatty liver we could make it a drinking game. Scull everytime someone gets a goal. That'd be super. Damn the fatty liver.

Snooze Time!

Bad Lines

2005-10-30T17:20:00.000+10:00

Wow, I suppose this blog was really a spawn of my procrastination, because it seems the less stuff I have due for uni the less I write in here. I must assign things to myself, soley to procrastinate from doing.

On another note, on the road to the Royal Brisbane Hospital where I go to pick Jane up from work, there are two No Right Turn signs about two metres away from each other, on the same street. One is like this:

And the other one is like this:

Notice the opposite direction of the diagonal line. What the hell? This street has recently been re-done, with new signs and stuff. What did they do? Go to two different sign companys? Get one sign, then realise they need another sign, then go to another sign company that puts the diagonal cross in a stupid direction? Doesn't that seem like terrible organisation? And do these people who make these signs actually think about the direction the line is going? Are they like, Geoph, I think top right to bottom left makes much more of a statement, and Geoph's like, Let's go with it! By the way, I think the stupid direction is the second one. See the way it intersects the corner of the arrow? It's astheticly... astheticely... astheticaly... it looks crap.

Love Tom.

Lice of Slife

2005-10-24T23:01:00.000+10:00

It's really weird when you pick up your cup of hot coffee, which after a little bit of waiting is just at the right temperature, put it to your mouth, take a mouthful, and then wonder what the hell is gong on and did I forget to put the sugar in what the hell is going on here oh that's right I made a cup of tea didn't I wow and what a good cup of tea this tastes great.

I love the rain. I also love my covered veranda in the rain. And the comfy chairs and couches on it, and there's me, sitting there, dry as a bone, thinking, Yeah, I'm totally dry, not wet at all. And that lighning up there, looks totally cool, and I'm not getting the slightest bit electrocuted, life is great.

Time for another picture, cause there ain't anything else. Most of these pictures I post are from the same night, but there's so many good ones. Plus I don't have many other pictures. Here's one now:

Things Wrong With Tom - Part 1

2005-10-23T04:10:00.000+10:00

I have Tinitus, which is this condition where I hear a sort of staccato rushing of liquid inside my ear when it's quiet. I have just been researching it, and pretty much all it says is the more you think about it the worse it will get. This is hard if you are searching for some sort of cure. It just says, Be cool with it, and it will go away. Accept it as part of your life, and it will go away. Sort of a Catch-22. I never got through that book. Although, I'm fairly comfortable with the Tinitus, as there's not really anything in existence that will keep me from sleeping, apart from Wriggly Legs. I also like idiosyncrasies that I can blame for any anxious and stupid behavior that I might have. Every now and then.

There's also the obsessive compulsive disorder, which I have fairly severly too. Everything must be parallel. Nothing on tables shall be touching. No potential energy. If something has potential energy, like it is half off the edge of a table, and a small push would send it tumbling, it must be rectified. Let's see, what else. I must see all the corners of a room. I must know what the underneath of tables look like. Symmetry is wonderful. Locked doors must be checked if they're still properly locked four or fives times. Light switches must be turned on and off ten times or so. Lids of jars and bottles must be checked if they're on properly many times also. I'm nuts. If I don't make sure of any of these things, nothing that bad will happen, I just won't be relaxed and enjoy whatever it is I'm doing. So, because I do most of this stuff, I am relaxed and enjoy most stuff I'm doing. Hey, everybody should have OCD.

No. No they shouldn't. It's stupid. If all this stuff isn't adhered to, I get anxious as hell and flip out, getting obsessed with things like small bits of dust that are on the wrong part of the floor, until it has totally possesed my mind and there is nothing else. Nothing else but the dust, and me, and my crazy brain.

There's heaps more little things also. I've become okay at hiding them in public, but they're always there. Tiny movements, me rectifying something that isn't right. Or me having mental flip-outs because I can't fix something that's wrong.

That'll do.

Goodnight!

ANOTHER PLANET

2005-10-22T04:19:00.000+10:00

I think Thursday night would have just been a regular night out if Josh hadn't got up on stage at the Rev and free-style rapped about us. That made it super-great.

Also, Jack got mysteriously utterly drunk in a very short time and was at his most offensive, which for everyone around him is fairly embarrasing, and actually quite dangerous, because of the people he's liable to piss off.

I'm going to play computer games. I feel I should increase the amount of computer game playing I do, and call it research, because I would like to write computer game stories sometime. It's simple. You just have bad guys that change colour and difficulty the further you get, and the climax has to take place on another planet. It's amazing how often they get this wrong. ANOTHER PLANET. It's obvious, really.

Goodnight.

Wasting away...

2005-10-17T13:17:00.000+10:00

Wasting time that could probably be used productively until a lecture. The lecture is on computer games, for some reason. I am curious.

This is the last week of my first year at uni! It's almost time for the season one cliffhanger of my favourite television drama - BFA. Will there be a second season? If the budget alows it. The network is looking promising though.

We are getting a new washing machine delivered today. Oh, we will live like kings! I will have clean clothes on a mere whim! It's a front loader, and uses less energy and water then top loaders. Also washes better. Hooray! You are all invited over to wash your clothes.

Hey! I just realised one reason why I could be feeling like arse right now. I haven't eaten anything today, and it's like one-thirty. Jane even woke me up this morning with an offer of bacon and eggs for breakfast, and I said no. Have you ever heard of anything so crazy? I for one, have not.

I'm off to buy a cheese, tomato and avacado pannini, the sort I will sorely miss during the summer holidays. And the refectory is changing hands next year! They may not even have cheese, tomato and avacado panninis next year! Argh! I must stock up! Farewell!

Matt's Off

2005-10-16T04:12:00.000+10:00

Here's a picture of my friend Matt explaining something in great detail:

He's off to Cairns or somewhere and then to Spain. Or South America. Somewhere, I'd better find out. He is one of many of my friends who are, who will, or who would like to run away overseas and explore around like a mighty explorer. I'm stuck in Brisbane for another two years at least, which I'm totally cool with. These guys all graduated uni last year. I'm just a little first year, with many Brisbane adventures still ahead of me. I won't feel like travelling until I actually do it, and then I'll be like, Why the fuck haven't I always been doing this?

Goodnight again.

Bi-Annual Anxiety

2005-10-16T04:03:00.000+10:00

I have just experienced my bi-annual I-want-a-new-job anxiety. Well, there are many times when I want a new job, pretty much whenever a customer doesn't say "please" at work, but serious job-search only happens every so often. It all started with that possible bookshop job, which I found out today is not actually possible, because they're just putting in a new manager, and not another casual dude. It's over now anyway. To clear my head I just have to go through the motions of looking for a new job, and find out that I can have one if I want to be a telemarketer or wash dishes. I considered washing dishes so I could at least have my Friday and Saturday nights off, but, no, I hate washing dishes. Or working with food in general. My present job is nicely driftable. I just had to remind myself of that.

Ah, rain is nice.

Goodnight!

Wriggly Legs

2005-10-13T02:41:00.000+10:00

I was dreaming, and it was interupted when Jane came home from Matt's going away party. For some reason I really had to be having this dream, and I couldn't get back to it, and so now I can't sleep at all. Hence me writing this.

It was something to do with a Spanish conquest in the New World. Perhaps lost Incan gold? I have flashes of long chains of horse-driven carriages, gallping towards something to the blaring of trumpets. This was really important for some reason. Perhaps it's just the drugs in the nose-pill I took that's playing stupid with my brain. Giving me wriggly-legs.

Who knows. Will try to sleep again now.

Goodnight.

Tom's Needs

2005-10-12T18:03:00.000+10:00

I completely stole this idea from Ronnie's blog, but it worked quite well for me so I'm gonna put it in here. You can play too! Just go to Google and search for "(your name) needs" and watch as the funny appears.

Tom needs (according to Google, and in the order it gave them to me (boring ones ommited)):

1. TOM NEEDS CURE FOR HOMOPHOBIA
2. Tom 'Needs a Hat' Mitchell
3. Tom needs to stretch further
4. Tom needs to confess and clear the man's name
5. Tom needs a swift kick in the face
6. Tom who needs to keep his pants zipped
7. Tom needs to turn off his phone during meetings
8. Tom needs a shrink for all his antics
9. I don't think Tom needs philosophising about
10. Tom needs to get a little somethin' from that country western vixen, Becky.

Cough and Snot!

2005-10-11T23:55:00.000+10:00

On Saturday afternoon I sat in front of my computer, ready to be amazingly creative, when these little fluey bastards all synchronised their swatches and burst out of my unknowning cells to throw the kind of party in my body where people throw up in other people's shoes. No, that sounds like fun. It wasn't a party, it was something utterly terrible. It was like they used my body for a never ending nutbush dance-off. From the outside, it felt like all of a sudden someone had shoved me into a twelve-year-old's corset and turned my ear-drums upside down.

So, feeling like arse, I naturally took a few deep breaths and forced myself to go to work so I could save my sick leave for more important and special occasions like, Hey, we're going for a few drinks, coming? I managed to get through work without passing out, but only just, and only after asking around for painkillers, and if there's any organisation that the emplyees are going to have a range of drugs easily accesible in their lockers, it's a 24 hour casino.

So, then it was lying on the sofa-bed, watching DVDs all day, saying not much but "I feel like arse!" and then coughing and snotting for a little while. Oh, and Janie made me lots of meals, which was lovely.

Time to choose uni subjects for next year.

Ramblerambleramble

2005-10-08T04:27:00.000+10:00

Wow, it's Friday and I'm not hungover. The date shown on this message will say it's Saturday, but it's never tomorrow until you go to sleep and wake up again, so it's not Saturday yet. Usually when I go to work on Friday nights my head is a bit funny cause of the after-uni-on-thursday drinks that always happen. Janie was sick, so I had to come home and make her dinner. Good thing, because I also didn't spend all my money. It's a nice feeling, having a clear head and a full wallet. Not good thing she was sick, by the way, it's a good thing I came home and didn't go out. Well, maybe no. Shit, this is gonna be a boing one, I'll just stop it now. Time to get some sleep.

Why I am now a couple of inches shorter

2005-10-05T11:43:00.000+10:00

I am bald! Well, I have a thin layer of hair, a sort of savanah of growth, on my scalp. Jane was clippering my hair yesterday and we're like, Let's try the blade thingo marked "Number 3". So we try the blade thingo marked "Number 3", and we discover it should be the blade thingo marked "Michael Stipe". Or maybe "Patrick Stewart". It could even have the "Number 3" on it, but in full be "Sigourney Weaver In Alien Number 3".

But, it is enjoyable. I'm quite impressed at the general shape of my skull. I've never seen it before.

It sort of looks like this:

In case that isn't a very good example, here's a Bald Eagle:

And a Bald Faced Hornet:

Well, I guess that's a bad example, since it's the Hornet's face that is bald, and as can be seen by the picture, his head is actually quite hairy. My face has always been bald. I tried going two weeks without shaving once, but managed to grow just enough facial hair to look like a sleazy teenage Mexican. I have the testosterone levels of Nikki Webster. Well, when it comes to hair anyway. I think it all went to my voice. Which is deep, for those of you who haven't met me (who would that be?). I use it to sound threatening in darkened cinemas.

People keep rubbing my head, which for me is suprisingly noisy.

I have to go eat toasties now.

Brisbane by Twilight, but also Afternoon and Night

2005-09-30T13:40:00.000+10:00

This is quickly becoming a journal of drinking adventures.

Which I'm cool with.

There was a great one last night, involving free booze, rock and roll legends, the dawning of a new martial art, famous cartoonists and bean curd.

The free booze was the best part.

It was a bright and breezy afternoon. Jack and I were at the writer's festival, briefly visted by Anna and later Strom, in a more permanent sense. We attended a few seminars amidst the soft whirring of pacemakers owned by members of the We've Lived A Hundred Years or More so We're Gonna Write A Bloody Book Club.

Question time is hilarious and painful. It goes something like this: It'll be a seminar on how truths are told in stories, and the MC guy will say, Feel free to ask questions now, but please remember that brief questions are highly preffered over statements. Then a three-hundred year old dude will stand up and a festival volunteer will bring him the microphone and he'll go, ever so slowly,

My question relates to when I fought in the Napoleonic Wars, you see, and more specifically the War of the Third Coalition. Now, the French Navy could not draw away the British fleet, and Napoleon had to abandon his plans to invade Britain, now, when they got to the Danube-

Do you have a question sir?

Yes, yes (slightly insulted) I'm getting to it, now, the Fifth regiment from Northumberland, which I fought for, wore gosling green collars and cuffs, and silver lace-

Your question sir?

On and on it goes. It's funny for a little while. Where was I? Oh yeah - drinking. You see, the best time to drink with your friends is when there's somewhere else you should be. Let me explain - sitting on the roof of the back shed drinking whiskey is fun enough. But much more fun when there's a big party going on inside the house that you could be getting involved with. It's infinitely more entertaining when you could or should be somewhere else. You create your own little elitist roof-club.

That's what me and my uni friends seem to be very good at - organising outings to all sorts of events that we can ignore by being in the pub down the road. I've been in the pub down the road from many interesting places. I love it.

So, as it ends up, Me, Jack, Anna, Strom, Jane briefly, Lana, and Lana's friend from Canberra Merissa (probably how you spell it), are in the Plough Inn at Southbank, happily not-attending the later seminars of the writer's festival.

We spend some time there, then catch the city-cat to the powerhouse, and by this time it's night, and it's Merissa's first time in Brisbane, and it's a nice quaint clear night on the river with all the lights, and about as attractive as Brisbane gets, along with my comments that I thought were terribly funny after three or four pints, about how if you look to your left you will see the stone Riverside Waterfall that the ancient Brisbane Incas built to wash their Dodo's, discovered later by Commodore Vernon of Antarctica.

At the Powerhouse I fall out of my tree and walk around in Free-Booze Park. Free booze that was not offically ment for us, mere commoners from the street, the free booze was for people with special name-tags, which was pretty much everbody except us, which was cool, cause then you walk up to the stooge with the wine and say, Fang us a red, cheers lad. And you get free red-wine, which is so enjoyable.

Then we're sitting outside on the veranda, (Me Strom Jack Lana Merissa) happily enjoying our free-booze and avoiding whatever's going on inside, for reasons stated previously, when someone notices that Strom is wearing a Saints shirt, and points out to Strom that Ed Keuper (from the Saints) is also standing on the veranda, and also apparently Lindy Morrison from the Go-Betweens, I found out later.

Anyway, we get into a drunkenly slurred conversation with Ed about something I can't really recall, and then I get in trouble from someone for yelling loudly into my phone to Jane about Ed Keuper, for reasons I don't know why. Probably cause I was standing right next to Ed when I did it, and I yelled very loudly, and some slag is like, Away with you! Thou shalt not offend the ears of rock and roll royalty in such a manner! That's what I remember happening anyway, I was probably kneeling with my shoes on my knees doing the midgit-foxtrot for all I know.

Then the booze dries up, I get a message from Anna that there's people at Ric's, so we walk to the valley, and along the way, which I'm sure was shorter, and always just over the next hill, Merrisa gets egged! Egged! Who eggs people? What is this, the last day of grade twelve? She has a red mark on her stomach where the egg hit and eggy stuff all over her skirt, and it takes about five minutes of continuing walking and pondering the egging before I look down at my jeans and notice that I've got three times the amount of egg on me that Merrisa had. I got all the backsplash.

Get to Ric's, meet up with Anna, Ronnie and Sarah Grey, who are all in a terribly good mood, and we all have a great time.

When it ends, Me, Strom and Jack are walking home, and come up with this kung-fu move called the Ed Keup-Nuts, which is where you sort of flick your leg out to the side and hit the target in the nuts with your heel. Only thing is, the move can only ever be used on Ed Keuper. I'm not really sure why we wanted to kick Ed Keuper in the nuts, but if you have a move called the Ed Keup-Nuts, then why wouldn't you?

Then I went the last leg of the trip home alone, listening to Ping Island/Lightning Strike Rescue Op by Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo from the Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou soundtrack, which I highly reccomend everybody listen to, on my discman.

The End.

P.S. I forgot to mention the famous cartoonist - it was Michael Leunig. We didn't really listen to anything he was saying, cause we were in our elitist-veranda-club while he was speaking, fueling later fantasies about kicking one of the guys who invented punk rock in the testicles using a specialised move, for some reason.

P.P.S. Oh, we ate some bean curd at Cyber City 2002 - home of the awesomest late night munchies ever. Forgot to mention that also.

P.P.P.S. Pictures were taken of last night by somebody, but I don't have any, so here's a picture of me after a few beers on some other night:

I know for I told me so!

2005-09-24T16:20:00.000+10:00

There is a small chance that I might get a job at Coaldrake's bookshop in the valley. Man, from working every Friday and Saturday night at Gamblor's Hell-Pit to working during the week around uni in an independant bookshop. What an improvement. Birds will sing more, I'm sure.

I've nothing much to say, and have no time to procrastinate more by thinking of something to say, so here's a picture of my friend the Manboy.

2005-09-23T16:44:00.000+10:00

Last night, while out, I ate three cheeseburgers. I was so ashamed about this that on the walk home I shoved a finger down my throat and threw them all back up. All's well that ends well. So I guess last night was "well", as long as "well" includes little bits of digested cheeseburger in the grass next to the inner-northan busway.

Funniest day ever at the guild bar though. And the majority of funny was drawn from stupid noises. Stupid noises are the best.

2005-09-21T17:50:00.000+10:00

Me and my chums at the end of the night.

I will now be known as... Captain Salinegar!

2005-09-21T12:10:00.000+10:00

Holy crap I think I have a salt and vinegar chip lodged in my brain. Never, ever, be playing scattagories intoxicated while eating handfuls of salt and vinegar chips, cause someone says something funny, and you inhale, and little bits of chip go flying up your nasal passage, and fill your brain with salt and vinegar. You then spend the rest of the night leaning over the bathroom sink snorting and coughing while little bits of snotty, flemmy chip drop out your nose and throat.

I think there is some still left, wedged into the frontal lobe. Perhaps I will gain superpowers from this. I can't see why not. I will gain the powers of salt and vinegar: polar opposites; the ability to make mere ordinary things more exciting to eat.

Cheerio!

2005-09-20T04:32:00.000+10:00

Me and two of my chums at the start of the night.

To work or not to work, that is the remote (points to the remote control).

2005-09-19T17:49:00.000+10:00

I'm about to call in for a shift tonight. In ten minutes. There's no doubt I would be able to get a day shift tomorrow, but I would much prefer to get a night shift tonight, because day shifts are utterly depressing. You deal to nobody but career gamblers and American tourists.

It's "international talk like a pirate day" today. I'm not sure how "international" it is, but hey, I could google it and find out. I'm not exactly sure how I feel about all this pirate popularity, but I kind of think I don't like it. Sure, it's okay to appreciate real pirates, and enjoy the fact that they once existed (and still do, but instead of lucre and booty, it's cocaine and heroin, which I guess is a sort of lucre and booty. Also, the cutlass has been replaced by the uzi, which isn't quite so romantic). However, to start acting like them and believing they were cool people? Too far. They were murderous scumbags.

Hold on... calling scheduling. Not answering. Crap, that's right they have a new number. Okay, found new number. Calling. Left a message. They called back... damn... I got the shift.

I guess that's good. Get the shift out of the way. Write best script ever tomorrow.

Where was I? Right: pirates murdered, raped, pillaged and were generally complete bastards to everyone. They nailed good, innocent people to the deck and then chopped them into little bits. If one of these little hussies with "I'm a pirate" written in gothic writing on their t-shirts under any amount of bizzare lines and passages from a french guide to home shoe-repair, but you don't know it's about shoe repair because it's in french, also written on an angle, and therefore cool and meaningful, anyway, if they met a real pirate they would not only be freaking scared, but also fairly quickly murdered, raped and pillaged, in that order or otherwise, depending on the nastiness of the pirate. Not so cute and friendly now, hey? Not your loveable rouge. But hey, I love loveable rouges. But loveable rouges weren't real pirates, cause' pirates aren't loveable, they're pricks. I appreciate any excuse to hear about a loveable rouge, sailing the seven seas and hunted down by the royal navy for unjest reasons, or because he/she was framed by a nasty count/duke//countess/duchess. But pretending that you're an ordinary pirate? It might as well be "international behave like a royal arse" day.

And on that note about bizzare lines and slanty french passages about shoe repair, this happened the other day: I go into "Just Jeans", because I have a coupon, because I previously bought jeans from there, and say, Do you have any jackets without bizzare lines and slanty french passages about shoe repair? And the girl looks at me strangely, then shakes her head like I asked for a half dozen eggs and a litre of milk. She then gets vaugely interested in the fact that I'm wearing an RSPCA shirt, and asks, Are you a member of the RSPCA? And I say, No, but wearing this shirt gets me all the social benefits of it without any of the dirty work, like paying money or looking after lost animals; me trying to be ironic. She then looks at me like I've just thrown half a dozen eggs and a litre of milk in her face.