Belonging

Nearby my new office, amid the office buildings and shopping centres, there is a tiny corner. See? Here it is on Google Maps.

View Larger Map
Yeah, it’s there, but you can’t see it. That’s because this place was willed into existence.

That little laneway corner thing? Someone nailed a roof on it, stacked some kitchen counters and cabinets and a few camp stove burners, then started piling things up, stacking things around, and making coffee.

This is Circa.

As anyone who follows me on “the Instagrams” knows, I have been sneaking many a photo of this place. That’s because there is so much to see in this small space. There are old timey bicycles nailed to the walls, there is a hatrack with a top hat, a flat cap, and whatever the hell the owners and baristas wore to work that day. There are wine crates full of books about anything from graffiti (I had a leaf through Banksy’s Wall & Peace) to ballet & photography. There is an inlaid mother-of-pearl backgammon set. There is a record player and a stack of 45s. The cakes they made in-house that day sit in a kitchen cupboard on the wall. The menu is written on butcher’s paper & stuck on the wall.

The three guys who run the place are hard at work, but are constantly talking with customers both regular & drop-in. Though the walls are concrete, they’ve built windows and painted them with seaside vistas. The music playing is a far cry from Cafe Del Mar or any Chillout mix. It’s James Brown, Ray Charles, soul and funk from the 70s, and even some US. It comes either from some of their records, or it’s one of the guys’ iPhones plugged into a dock by the door. The music is usually good enough that I take off my headphones when I enter, which is unprecedented.

Today, I sat at the back of the place and had my coffee & listened to the owner chat with a woman who had come in. She mentioned that she had brought them more books (including some comics from the 90s), and that she was happy to print them up some cards to give to people. This woman was not affiliated with the cafe, she was just a regular. She then started talking about which pork roast was best, then segues into how, “Yes, Lisa, it’s a wonderful, MAGICAL animal.”

Hearing it, it made me want to be a regular too. More so than at any other cafe I’ve been to.

The Scrivener

Behold: a ScribbleBlog which I was initally not to happy with, but I wanted to save the pages.

Also, just to show you what I've been doing between the 45 or so daily minutes where we learn something and we aren't waiting for the system to start working again, I will show you.

PS: I hate it when you've got a book you know nothing about and buy and read and like and then it ends unsatisfactorily because it's the first part of an as-yet-unwritten quadrilogy. Fuck.

Instant Gratification, Thy Name Is Kindle

Despite the literally 20 books-to-read I have at my bedside, I still look at bookstores. And I spotted this book right here "Allison Hewitt is Trapped: A Zombie Novel" by Madeline Roux. The back of the book explained that this was a book about a blog written by a graduate student that got trapped in the breakroom of the bookstore she worked in when the midden (zombies) struck the windmill (everything else).The various blog entries have comments from other survivors and it's that format that holds the whole thing together. But I get ahead of myself. I'm still in the bookstore. I look at the price: it's $29.95. That's too much to conscience considering I won't have a job in the week. So I use Google Goggles on my phone to search it, to be told it's not available to have on Kindle in Australia. Bugger. So I get home, have a quick search of torrent sites. No luck. I try Amazon again and suddenly I'm allowed to buy it in Kindle form. Go figure. $9.35. Sold.

Then I sat up until 2am reading it. It's that gripping. Having worked in a big chain bookstore, I could imagine that backroom with such detail that I suspected the author might have spent some time in Borders Bondi.

I can't spoil much, as like I said, the book ain't done. But something's bugging me. It's something I've noticed when other writers with have a character, in-story, decide to record what's happening, be it with a journal, or a blog, or a recording, or something: the writing style doesn't change. It should, really. A character commiting things to paper/computer will write differently from a fiction author painting a scene. The description might be toned down, word use might retreat to bare facts, instead or reporting word-for-word what someone said in quotations, it should be reported like "we discussed it, then moved on", etc. This book doesn't read like a blog:

it reads like a book. Because of this, I actually I find the initially-interesting blog format to be constraining. Would a character REALLY write down a hallucination-like dream in such detail in the middle of a life-or-death struggle? Oh no, our character is in danger and I'm really in the moment! Oh, wait. It's going to be okay, otherwise how would she blog it?

So yeah. Stuff like that keeps pulling me out of the story. But I like it, and will finish it.

also there is a cat named Sugar who keeps jumping up in front of the keyboard and blocking the keys with his tail and no matter how many times you sling a cat against a wall it never really stuns 'em does it

Machine of Death: HA!

I'm reading this book on my Kindle:
"Machine of Death: A Collection of Stories About People Who Know How They Will Die"
Here is it's Amazon listing.
Here is it's website.
It's about people who go to a machine which pricks their finger and then tells them the exact method of their death (but not time or details. Like "Almond" or "Car Crash").
Some of the stories are ironic, some are Twilight-Zone-Dark, a few are worrying, and one so far touching.

But this one made me laugh out loud the moment I turned my Kindle-page.

(Oh, FYI, the titles of each story is one of the causes of death mentioned, most, but not all, being the cause of death of the main character.)

I present it here, in full:























HAHAHA. Ah ha.

I'm being good.

Want to know how good I'm being?

This is how good:

I have on my bedside table the latest Robert Jordan/Brendan Sanderson Wheel of Time book, the latest volume of Empowered, the two Bone prequels/sequels, a compendium of Hopeless Savages, plus a couple of miscellaneous graphic novels & comics, and a book on the nature of jokes and humour.

On my Kindle I have the latest Terry Pratchett Tiffany Aching book, Robert Rankin's latest Brentford book, a collection of short stories of people who know the exact method of their death but not the time (by a slew of webcomic authors), about 30 Neil Gaiman short stories, the entire Dresden Files series, and all but one of Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series.

In the spare bedroom I have the last 4 months of The Word magazine.

I am not reading any of these things. I am reading my wife's draft of her novel on my Kindle. Because she asked me to.

You bet I'm good.

Squick.

And another thing...

I'm about a third of the way through Guillermo Del Toro's "The Strain" (loaned to me by Adrian). The villain is described as a sort of ghost-vampire that sires zombies. I think. It's early in the book. Well anywho, the main bad guy is described as sort of a moving inblot, with long toe/talons that scrape along the floor as he walks, and a long tapered head with leech-like skin, glowing eyes & a slash of a mouth, which opens to lots and lots of teeth. Basically, it's a childhood scared-of-the-dark-thing-behind-the-wardrobe description.

My brain showed it as a combination of Inque, a shapeshifting villain from Batman Beyond, and Candle Jack (don't say his name) from Freakazoid. While Inque is not portrayed as scary, just a dangerous mercenary, and Candle Jack is played for comedy (he even sponsered a meme), the combination hit the "Scary" button in my head that hasn't happened since Stephen King's IT when I was 14.

Think of a Candlejack head on top of a sinuous, Inque-type body, and that it attacks you hen you're asleep, and feeds upon you, so you're found dead with a tiny bloodless superthin cut on your neck (and maybe rise up as a horrific zombie thing 3 days later).

Brr.

See also Squick, Body Horror, and Orifice Invasion.

Digest.

I got quite a bit of reading done today.

We headed up to Tanja's folks' place for Mother's Day. Since CityRail bosses seemingly do not have mothers, they scheduled trackwork from Blacktown up to the mountains. I, imagining a long trip, grabbed several digest-sized books from Oni Press that I had purchased in a 50% off sale at Kinokuniya. Later, after gorging myself on steak, cheese, potatoes, bread, crackers, wine, beer, and cake (and then unceremoniously falling asleep in a recliner), I got to read again on the way back. Then, once home, I went back to the sale-pile and read some more. This is what I read:

Hopeless Savage, Vol 2: Ground Zero (By Jen Van Meter & Bryan Lee O'Malley, with 3 other artists helping out)
A really fun and well-written story of a child of two rock stars, her interactions with her family, her friends, the trash newsmedia, and a guy at school. Very sharp and funny (though I was glad the use of made-up slang mostly dropped away after the first few chapters), and using a lot of the teen romance tropes while subverting them at the same time. Like in my other favourite book, Scott Pilgrim, O'Malley's simple art and fantastic facial expressions tell so much with just a few lines. One thing I want to comment on in this book was the strong relationship Zero (the main girl) has with her siblings. It's so nice to see a family of siblings that seemed to genuinely like one another, help one another out, and are supportive. The only disfunctional family relationship is Zero and her mother, and that's treated as an odd occurance. As someone who's read about the Weasleys in the Harry Potter books and the Stantons in the Dark Is Rising Series, I'm wholeheartedly sick of large families that seemingly destroy each other's lives on a day to day basis, only to band together in the end. I don't know, I just don't seem to have patience for that. Fred and George Weasley, for example, drove me mental in the Potter books. But back to Zero's story. Something else interesting is that flashbacks, television and chapter breaks are done by the guest artists, providing a clear shift from the day-to-day lives/art-style. Very cool, and I want the 1st and 3rd volumes now.

Moped Army, vol 1 (By Paul Sizer)
This book makes me a) want to get a moped, and b) make a tshirt/get a patch for my backpack and show Moped Army solidarity. Rich girl forsakes life in upscale super-suburban futuristic city to hang out with the nicest biker gang on the planet. These aren't your Bandidos, though. They're essentially nerds and outsiders of various stripes, a "survivor clique", as coined by one of the characters: punks, hackers, hippies, gearheads, (there's a girl named Chu Toi, pronounced Chew Toy, but she'll freakin' end you if you comment) riding kitbashed mopeds and trying to cobble together a sense of community in a world that's mostly forgotten them. I REALLY liked this. That t-shirt might be in the making soon.They own the skies, but we own the streets!

One Bad Day
Zero character development, flying-by-the-seat-of-your-butt-because-you've-lost-your-pants storyingtelling. It's pretty much a Run-Lola-Run-style action movie in comic book form. Girl sees old acquaintance. Old acquaintance. is hit by car. Girl suddenly being chased. People get hurt. Things get scary. Bad birthday parties are attended. Riveting stuff.

Clockwork Angels: Texas Steampunk Vol. 2
And the big disappointment of the day... I just can't get into manga art. It's the comic-book equivalent of the Wii controller.There are people who adore it and worship it, but if you can't get past the controls, you won't dig the games. I couldn't get past the art style, so found myself unable to pay attention to the story. Everyone looks alike,speech bubble don't point to the right characters, they seem to say things out of the blue and without reason, like an avant-garde French film. And I was really looking forward to this! I love steampunk, and the story that combined mysticism, parlour magic, intrigue and mystery seemed really cool. Too bad I only made it about 15 pages in.

So yeah. Books, huh?

Birthday thoughts.

I’ve never considered myself hard to buy for, but lately I’ve had two requests for What I Want For My Birthday (both from Mums, oddly enough) and I haven’t had a clue what to say. I’m pretty sorted with movies and TV series, CDs too, and I’ve got 4 newish video games for the PS3 and a bunch of demos, so that’s no good. Books, I’m sorted, apart from back-catalogue Robert Rankin. Comics, I tend to buy myself as I find them. So yeah. Don’t know.

At last.

It took a surf and turf and three beers at the AB Hotel to get up the courage, but it finally happened.

I bought a second-hand softcover trade of Watchmen.

With the film coming out and everyone reiterating how it's one of the greatest books of all time, I figure I need to have a better opinion than "I got it from the library and disliked it so much I skipped to the end, then returned it early."

So now I have it.

Has this happened to anyone else?

Fact: I read the Narnia books in the correct order, but was told it was the WRONG order by everyone I knew. I knew it was:
1 The Magician's Nephew
2 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
3 The Horse and His Boy
4 Prince Caspian
5 The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
6 The Silver Chair
7 The Last Battle
This was the order they were in when I found them in the tiny elementary school library of McAdam Avenue Elementary School. All my friend and even some teachers told me that LW&W was first, and I would agree, but know in my heart they were wrong. Of, course, I know now that there is dispute over publication order versus chronological order (see the Wiki). When the film came out, with all of its CGI "glory", I had the urge to reread the series, as it had completely lost me in the end, with its chucking the story in favor of ham-fisted religious metaphor (the ape, the donkey, and the doorway). Also, I read the Neil Gaiman short story "The Problem of Susan" which disturbed the hell out of me.

Fact: When I read the Dark Is Rising series, I skipped the second book, The Dark Is Rising, which introduced the hero character of Will Stanton. In fact, one of my friends had only read that book, and so when he was explaining it to me, we suddenly caught on that it was the same series. As I skipped the intro of Our Hero, when he shows up, I though "Who's this jumped-up kid and why should I care?" I bring it up because I've rented-and-iPodded the Adaptation Decay that is The Seeker: The Dark is Rising (which tries too hard to be Harry Potter and my GOD must they have gotten a sponsorship from a flat-screen TV company because there is one in nearly every scene).

Fact: Now that I've gone from my 80 gig iPod Video to my 32 gig iPod touch, the video quality and sound are leaps and bounds better, but the music playback doesn't have the volume, depth or oomph that it does on the Video. Strange.

Nightmare Fuel and Over My Head (reposted from The Lucas Letters)

"Dear all and Sundry:

Ok, been a while since I updated The Lucas Letters. Seems to be one of those things I keep meaning to do.

Work has been busy as of late, with my team merging with another team to create a super-team (no Blind Faith or Plastic Ono Band jokes, please) so there's lots to be done.

The name for this post comes from my recent viewings of the Muppet Show Season 2. In the first episode (with special Guest Star Don Knotts, who looked like he wandered into the wrong studio) something happened which triggered a powerful memory. In the skit, Knotts is playing a scientist, studying a little baby Muppet puffball, which inexplicable starts trying to attack him. It's funny seeing a Muppet the size of a coffee cup trying to eat someone. Then he knocks it away into next week, and the thing's mother comes along. Which is one of the huge Sweetums-sized Muppets, all eyes and teeth. The mother eats Don Knotts, and the last we see of him is his feet disappearing down the creatures gullet.

This scene transported me back to Victoria street, when I must have been 5 or 6 (I recall it being a school night), watching a similar skit from a later season where, instead of a little monster, the scientist was trying to feed 5 or 6 giant monsters in cages, and it goes worse and worse, this one biting his fingers, another grabbing his leg, until one finally grabs and eats him.

This shocked the ever-loving crap out of my little 6-year-old brain.

I actually couldn't sleep that night. I was scared to close my eyes. I remember Dad coming in and talking to me about it, and (in a move I was told about years later in my psych classes) got me to draw a picture of the monster. He then held up the sheet and I punched straight through it.

End of scared. Slept just fine.

I've also been reading lots of the Ex Machina series by Brian K. Vaughan (writer of Y: The Last Man and some of the Buffy Season 8 comics) and I love it, but it tends to give me the feeling that certain later episodes of the Wire, The Sopranos, and the last half of certain Discworld books give me: it goes over my head.

It's kind of like I'm following the storyline like someone following a helium balloon. It's at waist-level, I can see it, and can reach it if I want, then it's at shoulder height, whoa little dicey now, can still reach it, then at head height, but I can still see what's going on and I'm still walking at the same pace as the balloon. Then it goes up and I can't see it anymore. I keep walking, though, as I know the balloon is travelling at the same pace, and hope that eventually, it'll come down low enough from me to see it, and maybe, if I'm lucky, grasp the string again before the end of the episode/trade paperback/book.

It tends to be when the plot (or more so, the ideas in the heads of the characters) gets so twisty that I can't follow, but I hope it'll come back and I'll get the gist before it's over. It's like a magic trick. You're following along, thinking "ooh, nice overhand shuffle, into a card force, well layed there, nice patter and how the hell did he do that, and where is that dove coming from!"

I don't know if that makes me shallow or stupid, but I'm still reading/watching, so I'm game to fine out.

Sincerely,

Lucas"

Swing and a miss (reposted from The Lucas Letters)

"Dear all and sundry;

Ok, so there goes the whole "updating every week" idea. Three weeks missed out! Bad Lucas.

Anyway, as usual, work is work. I've been ATLing all this week and will do so until the 31st. Speaking of the 31st, people at work are organising to show up in costume on Halloween. Typical. As soon as I give up on the idea of forcing my friends to dress up in costumes, someone else picks up the ball and runs with it. And I get to be the "Oh, I used to do that all the time" guy. Oh well. I am planning a Halloween movie marathon at our place. Should be fun. Previous marathons were successes. I managed to cook without exploding from stress, and people showed up and everything. So, good.

Picked up some DVDs this morning on my way to work. I got Iron Man (which i saw in the theatres and loved to pieces), a combination pack of 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later (Zombie movies that I've rented seperately, but was waiting for a decently priced box set) and Pump Up The Volume (an 80s movie starring Christian Slater that escaped my radar until a year and a bit ago). So I have new things to watch. I nearly bought The Mist for the marathon, but I figure I'll rent it closer to day.

I also got the new Terry Pratchett book The Folklore of Discworld, which is not actually a novel in the series. It's all about the mythology and characters of the series as compared to actual folklore. I think more books should be written about books I like. It's like getting a reassurance that what you're reading is good. Same when a review raves about something you already knew about. It's very gratifying.

Wedding plans proceeding, no refusals yet, everyone so far has RSVPed. Looking good!

That's all for now.

-Lucas"

Day 1: Mountain time

(if this entry seems mundane, it's mostly because its an exercise in learning to type on my new eeePC!!! and it's slightly tiny keyboard)
So yeah. I'm currently up at Tanja's parents' place in the mountains. After having people over Friday night and going to bed so late, I was completely wiped this morning. I got up and packed and got to the train on time, only to find out the was track-work between Central station and the mountains. Cue to two hours later. Two hours, mind, of sitting over the transmission hump of the bus, so that whenever it stopped, my seat would shake like a good martini. I had a massive headache by the time I got to Penrith. I took some tablets and slept for an hour. Feeling better now. I brought along the fourth Scott Pilgrim book, but I loved it so much that I read it too fast and now it's done and I have a lack of book. Tanja offered me her new Vogue to read, but I have my pride. I shall not fall to the fashion magazine!

So Tanja and I saw the Golden Compass. Twas a good time. Not as twee as Harry Potter or Narnia. Kick-ass battle sequences, interesting story, and they didn't give away everything ion the first chapter, leaving some mystery for the rest. Nicole Kidman was a slimy lizard-like creepy woman with a bad monkey attached to her. So a real acting stretch for her. Picked up the book on the way home. Much different tone. Very 19th century, and much less child-like-wonder than the film. It's STEAMPUNK! Hooray! I spent what was I'm sure a boring 20 minutes explaining steampunk to Tanja. I'm annoying that way.

Book Leave

Blast! I'm ten pages from the end of the latest Harry Potter book. I bought it Saturday. stupid work. There should TOTALLY be book leave.

I did a similar thing when we went to Melbourne. I had 30 pages left of the second John Birmingham WW2.2 book. I stayed up until 1 am reading the night before we left before giving up. And on the way back, I bought the third book and was seventy pages in before I finished the second.

"I was happier then, with no mindset..."

(The title has bugger all to do with my mood, it's just a line I like from a song I'm listening to at the moment)

We finally got a new music guy at work. We hired him last week, but he didn't show up for his first few days. It seems my direct boss Worth neglected to call him to tell him when he was supposed to start. Well done, Worth. Dumbass. Oh, and guess what the blighter's name is. Two guesses, but you'll only need one. Lucas. Yes. So now I'm "Lucas B" or in Tanja's case when she calls in, "Lucas from Canada". Just rolls off the tongue.

Oh, and to people in the area, I'm planning a dinner/night at the pub next Saturday (the 1st) for my birthday. Plan at the moment is to meet up here for an early dinner (this has been decreed a wine only event in order to ensure that we actually GET to the pub) and then off to the Rose in Erskineville. Sound good?

As for other birthday stuff, Tanja and I are going to see comedian Charlie Pickering at the @Newtown venue. I've not heard of him before. Does anyone know if he's any good?

Also, if to beleaguer an open-ended paragraph structure, I’ve begun properly reading Robert Rankin, and I’m really getting to enjoy his books (despite not liking “The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse” as I was unfamiliar with his style). Any of our English brethren know of/read him?

This is too much fun:
It's like Buster the Dummy from Mythbusters!

I need a haircut soon. I'm starting to look like an exhibit from The Golden Age of Muttonchops.

Oy.

I've just been hit with a wave of despondency. Here I am, checking my email on a Monday morning. I should reply to my sister, but i don't feel like it. My movie group people are attempting to organise certain nights, one to see the Constant Gardener (which I have no interest in seeing, as seemingly no one knows what it's actually about), and one to see a play (which costs $55 a ticket, which I can't and won't afford, but the rest of them can, have GOOD jobs and being older and richer than me). I wanted to see Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, but they planned it for a Friday when a) I had just gone with them on the Sunday to see Me, You, And Everyone We Know and had spent my movie money for the week, and b) on one of the few nights off I get to be with Tanja lately. I've also got a farewell at work this Friday that I don't really want to go to, a Christmas party on the 6th (at a fucking Bowls club, no less) which will be starting at 4pm, but which I and the other poor saps scheduled to work that night, won’t be able to get to until 11:30, by which time all the food will gone, and the people will have been weeded down to the few pissheads who are left at the end of every party. All this is not being helped by the fact that I’m reading John Birmingham’s “He Died With a Felafel In His Hand”, and I’m past the early funny parts, haven’t reached the funny ending, and am bogged down in the depressing middle, which is all about living with junkies and freaks and ferals. Fun times. Only not. I have stencils to cut for the vinyl art I want to make, but I can’t bring myself to start. I rented some movies: Unforgiven (which I told Bruce the Movie teacher that I’d watch and tell him what I thought), Biodome (which Tanja declared that she’d outgrown her like of after watching it last night. Duh :P), Life Aquatic (which was SO odd and not that interesting), Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (which looks like one of those films that require work and so I don’t have the energy for), and The Ladykillers (ditto). Ugh. And it’s raining. And I’m going to be at work until 11 again tonight wandering my section, surveying all the damage done by marauding teenagers, having no room to put out new stuff, and realizing that a cleanup would take the entire night, and if I did so and didn’t finish, I’d get the talk of “why are you starting tasks you can’t finish, Lucas?” from the boss. Also, there’s yet another drama with Tanja’s sister and her fucking knob of a boyfriend. I’m honestly at the point where my first response upon hearing there was a problem was “fuck ‘em.” because I didn’t have the energy to mediate and keep the peace like I always do. Not to mention that the only way I get Christmas Eve off (when Tanja’s folks have their festivities) is if I work a 10:30 to 6 am on the 23rd. You see, Borders has decided that we’re going to be open from 9 am the 23rd to 6pm the 24th. You know, to catch all the folks who turn up at 4 am Christmas Eve wanting a John Steinbeck novel. If I don’t work the night, I’ll be working till 11pm the 23rd, and then til 6 the 24th. Since it takes 2 hours or so to get to Tanja’s folks’ place, that won’t do. The holiday season, ladies and gentlemen. Bring your wallets.

I need more coffee.

"Gut spasms. Hmm."

Tanja is sick. And she's going through a medical dictionary looking for symptoms she can relate too, and make her condition sound worse.

"Do you ever wake up tired in the morning?"
"Oh my God, write this down, whatever it is, I have it."

Sympathy monger. :P

*ahem*

Things I Did Today
by Lucas

1. Bought Thank You, a Stone Temple Pilots compilation at Hum Records. I wanted to get Tiny Music: Song from the Vatican Gift Shop (as this was the album I had taped from my cousin Dan in the 9th grade that turned me onto STP), but they were sold out. So I got this for 10 bucks. Turns out, whether by name or not, I know EVERY song on it. Yikes. This hasn't happened since Big Shiny 90s. And it's not a bad thing. It�s a good thing. Like swimming in your own soylent waste. (Bally! Craig! Ted! You must get that or I'm going to look weird! Er!)

2. Watched Rear Window. Very cool. There's good reason for it being a classic, Simpsons parody notwithstanding. Although, admittedly, I had to resist the urge to call out "I'm a MUR-DIDDLY-URDERER!" at one point. I also remembered (also from 9th grade) two of my classmates who, after we watched It's a Wonderful Life in class, continually referred to Jimmy Stewart as "ol' Jimmy" and talked like he lived down the block from them. "How you doin'?" "I'm good, you?" "Good. You?" "I'm good. Can't say the same for ol' Jimmy, though." "Ohhh, poor Jimmy. He's a character." etc.

3. Finished the book The Historian. Jeez that last few chapter stretched out. If they were going to go and talk to one more old cryptic monk, I was going to plotz.

4. Made this shirt.


In your face Mylo! And also Australian Idol! And no, the shirt is not yellow. It's off-white, it's just the picture.

"My God, you're a beard with an idiot attached."

Whew. While since I updated.

Really fast recap: Tanja and me. Noosa. Lovely weather, got a tan, shopped a lot, went to the beach, met Steve Irwin. Drank in swim-up bar.

After I got back, I “quit” the CCA-regime and the field of telemarketing (the quotation marks are because I haven’t actually told them yet) and joined the ragtag motley crew at Borders Bondi as part of the music team. It’s not bad, actually.

Things I’ve learned since starting at Borders:
:: Black Books is wonderful (the boxed set of all three seasons selling at $41 actually wooed me away from buying Shaun of the Dead… at least until next pay), and Dylan Moran is my hero.
:: Shelving books and organizing things is strangely calming. It’s kinda Zen. It’s “Ze”.
:: I am the only one in the store who cares about the graphic novel section. You can’t put American Splendour next to Ultimate X-Men. It’s not RIGHT!
:: Sometimes managers (with names beginning with W) are not the knowledge centres of their sections, and you’ll learn more from a part-timer who started 4 weeks before you.
:: When people change the display, you can get free posters!
:: The film “Hero” is about saying three phrases, then flying at people with swords. Repeat, later, rinse,stab.
:: Little French guys in camouflage will get upset when you tell them that electronica is in the Dance section. “Bhut, electah-roh-in-CAH izznot dance! Then they’ll spent an hour and a half looking at the whole section, and then ask to listen to seven different CDs for ten minutes each (during which, I’m not allowed to leave information) and then get angry when I won’t take an import CD out of its cellophane, and then buy that one import, and leave all the ones he listened to.
:: If your microwave gets broken, a sandwich-maker will appear like magic within a day.
:: Sushi is only good when it has chicken in it.
:: I need more money, as there are many fancy and expensive things I wish to purchase.