spies hide out in every corner

If, when I had started this job, Aaron (the editor at the time) had informed me that a few other people worked nights here as well, but that you didn't really see them that often, I would have believed him. As it happens, nobody else works here, but it seriously does sound like it sometimes. There is an appliance that regularly makes the exact same noise, which is what leads me to believe the noise is in fact mechanical and not human, but it still sounds exactly like someone dropping something then sighing as they bend over to pick it up. Perhaps not exactly that, but it sounds like a person made it, nonetheless, and I jump every time I hear it.

To be honest, if he'd told me that these people were all spies whose job it was to mark my every movement, I would have bought that as well. I guess I am pretty paranoid.

compulsion and revulsion

I think I have mentioned before the incredible capacity (or perhaps capacitance) of metal surfaces in this place (Global) to hold static charge. For this reason, I get zapped with static every time I open a door.

I don't know why but I always touch these doorknobs with two fingers first, the index and middle finger, and get zapped with just them rather than my whole hand. The reasons for this are unknown even to me. Unfortunately, it's turned into a bit of an OCD thing - I touch virtually every metal surface with my index and middle fingers now, including ones it would not be considered usual to touch. It's weird enough that I do it before grabbing hold of metal bannisters, but also metal columns, metal signs - virtually everything that could potentially shock me and is within reaching distance. This is a problem, because a lot of these things actually do shock me, and because virtually nobody touches them, the shocks can be quite bad.

The more I try to control it the more rampant it becomes. I think I need some kind of professional help.

how very qwerty of you

Anyone who knows how to touch type, and I don't just mean those who intentionally learnt it, I mean anyone who's been typing for a long time; anyone who knows how to touch type is no doubt aware of the little nubs on the F and J keys of your keyboard. These are supposedly to help you find the home row without actually looking at your keyboard, although I guarantee you've never consciously used them for this purpose.

However, as they are emplyed near universally, it's amazing how off putting it can be to have them missing. The keyboard on the Avid doesn't have them, and it's so easy to get lost on that thing. They might have been intended to help you find your home position, but in reality, they act like keyboard GPS - they're a point you can work from, even if you do it totally subconsciously.

It probably also doesn't help that the letters on the Avid keyboard play second fiddle to the myriad incomprehensible symbols that populate the keys.

confusion never stops. ever.

You know the signs in music shops that read "NO STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN / NO HEART AND SOUL"? They should be modified to read "NO STAIRWAY TO HEAVE / NO HEART AND SOUL / NO CLOCKS"

Seriously, there can't have been more than ten people in that shop, and I heard that song twice.

barring all else

It seems work and transport are indeed a muse for me.

I'm writing this on the bus, unusual for me, because if there's something happening I'll usually just jot it down on my notepad. Unfortunately, everyone else in the house has realised how great a thing those little notepads are, and all of them have been usurped.

So, I'm on the bus, in a window seat. In the window seat opposite from me - so in the same row, but two seats and an aisle seperate us - is a man talking feverishly. I have no idea if he's talking on a phone or not: his right side being obscured, there could easily be a hands-free kit attached to the side of his face.

I've realised it doesn't matter at all - someone talking on their mobile is exactly as annoying as someone talking to themselves on a bus. Even if he thinks he is talking to someone, he could trouble to keep his voice down.

we never learn from our mistakes until we've made them twice

There are over one hundred million people on MySpace.
Why are there over one hundred million people on MySpace.


Ok, now the hiatus is over for real. Posts start again from tomorrow.

the new stupid spoiled whorez doll

Two girls sitting behind me on a bus:

They are talking in those loud piercing voices whose extreme stupidity can penetrate even my shield of extreme apathy. They say two things of particular significance which made me laugh out loud, although in a stifled manner so I wouldn't have to actually face them. The first was that Augie March was formed from the old members of Crowded House. Their evidence in this case appeared to be that Augie March had a song called One Crowded Hour, which kind of sounds like Crowded House. Vaguely.

The other piece of shocking ignorance was that Paul Hogan and Hulk Hogan were the same person. They didn't say this literally, like they did Augie March, but they were referring to Paul Hogan from Hogan Knows Best. I'll remind those who don't know, Paul Hogan played Crocodile Dundee, and Hulk Hogan is a WWE wrestler.

nine days without breathing

It's been nine days. I'm going to call it a hiatus, a brief one that quite obviously ends today. The reason? Well, I kind of bled myself dry. For a while there nothing happened in my life: the back reserve of stories and ideas just dried up like a low level dam in the summer heat. We've been on production break this week, which means no work and no travel, per se, at least no travel of the extremely long variety. These are the places where I usually get ideas for blogposts.

It's something I might do from time to time. Just like the one sentence posts, occasionally expect a short hiatus.

killing time

Let me set the scene: we are walking back from Woolworths to Liquorland which is inexplicably several blocks away. I ask why we don't simply stop at the adjacent Woolworths Liquor store, and Matt replies simply "We totally have time to kill." I say "Okay. Let's commit chronicide." It takes a few moments for the meaning of this phrase to sink in, but once it does, an album title is born.

I'm also thinking a good song name is "Musical Feelings", in that it is sort of like Musical Chairs, but with feelings in place of the chairs. I'm not totally sure the meaning gets through, though.

i guess this says a lot about our ingrained responses?

I was totally planning to blog about a legal line on McDonalds cups which I found to be pretty funny, and fully planned to take a photo of it and then upload it and post it in this very post. I thought to myself "Don't throw this cup away, otherwise you will not be able to take a photo of it." So what do I do the moment I finish the drink? I throw it away. Not merely away, into a fucking dumpster, eliminating any hope of retrieval.

The moment I did it, I realised my mistake, and yelled "Fuck!" right there in the middle of the carpark.

we are being surveilled - it is so obvious

Katherine asked me if I could help her edit her Art major work, or rather, the video component thereof. I happily obliged. It is sort of interesting because it doesn't really have any direction or plot, or for that matter a reasonably large amount of footage. Nevertheless, it is sort of effective because what you're watching is a surveillance video, or rather a series of surveillance videos, so the idea that it's directionless sort of works.

There is an incredibly good shot of a very slow zoom in on a security camera. I don't know what it is about it that I like - the composition, I guess - it kind of looks like 16mm, and has that very deliberate, dramatic look of arthouse film. (Note that arthouse does not mean student or poorly made).

speed it up: just keep moving on

It is for certain: Belgian Bier Cafe for Morgan's Eighteenth. And also for Adrian's farewell. After that, we shall see.

google suggest is the light of the world

Okay, have you ever been to Google Suggest? It is located at labs.google.com/suggest. It basically suggests common searches based on the words you have typed in so far. It seems pretty simple, but it also helps a bit with saving tiny amounts of time. It is also kind of fun finding out what the most common searches are for certain things. (Like you type in some words and see what comes up.)

It's pretty nice to know that the first result for "oh all" is "oh all that i know there's nothing here to run from", the second to last line of Coldplay's Don't Panic.

haven't you people ever heard of closing the goddam door?

Panic! At The Disco is about the most ridiculous band in history.

Yeah, it's another short post. Maybe I'll make it a thing where I occasionally do a one-sentence post. I really wish blogger had categories or tags.

(Update: The new Blogger Beta has tags. You can see them below.)

goddam

I slept for about nine hours today. This woldn't be so big if I hadn't gone to bed at ten in the morning.

I think that my sleeping patterns might finally be irrevocably screwed!

matter of fact, it's all dark

Okay, I am a massive Pink Floyd fan. This much is for certain. When I saw Dark Side of the Moon, vinyl, original pressing at Ten Seconds Down, for $14, I picked it up immediately. I was disappointed to see the sleeve was in a pretty bad state, but the record itself was pristine - no warps, the grooves still sharp as the day they were pressed.

General consensus seems to be that the album is about varied forms of insanity, and if that's true, then I think The Great Gig In The Sky must be about autism - or rather, the aspect of autism that means that you are incapable of speech. There is not a single lyric througout the song, but the vocals still clearly speak of immense loss and sadness. You don't need words to communicate. It's possibly the saddest song ever written, and it doesn't say a thing.

Of course, what the name seems to indicate and what I always thought was that it was about a funeral, but there's no reason it can't be both.

apologies; meaningless in the eye of the beholder

Okay, I had planned two to three posts a day, and I actually didn't post anything at all for the last three days. At the moment, I think I have pretty much failed in that endeavour.

I guess I could theoretically blame it on writers block, but I haven't really had writer's block. I've actually had heaps of ideas for posts, but none whilst I've actually been at a computer. This might be hard to believe, given my near perpetual proximity to computers, but it's true. Every time I sit down and direct my browser to blogger.com, I'm left thinking "I was going to post about something... but what?"

This phenomenon is called Inter-Roomal Memory Loss, and nine out of six Australians suffer from it. Ever stood in the kitchen wondering why you came in? IRML.