Category: Life and Associated Annoyances

Ramblings

You know, I was planing to write up what I did in Melbourne this weekend – including why I was there in the first place – but I ran out of time. So instead I’m going to blog about television.

Exactly when did swamp-dwelling hillbillies become a television genre? Swamp People, Swamp Men, Turtleman – what maniac decided these were good ideas for shows, and what maniacs watch them in sufficient numbers to make them viable?

American Digger – I think this show is mis-titled. It should be called American Destroying the Archeological Record for Fun and Profit.

Caught the first episode of Black Mirror last week – the one where the British PM is blackmailed into… well you know if you watched it. They describe the series as black comedy, but I didn’t find anything comedic about it. Which is not a condemnation – I found it a taut and thought provoking thriller. I’d like to watch the others in the series, but they’re on a bit late and I need to work Tuesday mornings. No doubt they’ll be available online.

Apparently that’s all I’ve got to say about television. Hmmm.

Caught Lawless last night with Rebecca. It was actually really good – I’m astonished to relate that Shia LaBeouf can actually act. The Appalachian accents were a bit tough to decipher from time to time, and Guy Pearce’s villain was a bit over the top, but overall a damn good watch. Also, Jessica Chastain – wow (and I was thinking that before she got her kit off thank you :)).

Um, yeah. That’s all I’ve got to say.

Melbourne Bound

For reasons I am not at liberty to discuss, I’ll be flying out on Thursday night to spend the weekend in Melbourne with my workmates. Oh hooray.

I should probably explain myself. Those who either know me, or read this blog regularly, will be well aware that I am an Aspie, and a severe introvert. I go to work, and do my job in order to have money to pay the bills, but when I walk out of the office doors on Friday afternoon I don’t want to have anything to do with the place until Monday morning. This isn’t because I dislike my job (any more than anyone does anyway) or my co-workers, but because being around people drains me, mentally and emotionally. The weekend is when I recharge by either spending time on my own, or by interacting with other people strictly on my own terms.

Spending the weekend in a hotel room with my colleagues – not to mention having to attend an industry event – is not going to provide the opportunity I need to recharge. By the end of the following week I shall most likely go somewhat mad, or at least become quite emotionally erratic. But hey, whatever.

On the plus side I shall have most Saturday free in Melbourne to do things with. I’m not sure exactly what at this point. The Royal Exhibition Building is a possibility and maybe the Queen Victoria Markets. I was also planning to buy a new coat as my old one is starting to look distinctly ratty, but the coat place I was looking at turns out to be run by Jews, so that’s no good.

(No – I haven’t turned into some lunatic racist. It’s simply that the coat place is closed on Saturdays for Shabbat.)

What else is there to do in Melbourne? Walk the route of the Grand Prix through Albert Park? Wander up and down Carlisle Street trying to spot John Safran? I dunno…

Anyway, that’s how I’m going to be spending next weekend. Whether I like it or not.

I’m Back Baby!

I’m back. Well, I’ve actually been back since Thursday afternoon, I just haven’t got around to making a post about it. As I kind of suspected, my hard drive was to blame. It was on the verge of complete failure, so I needed to get a new one put in and Windows reinstalled from scratch. Bwah.

On the upside, the machine now seems to be running beautifully. Thanks to semi-regular backups and that Ubuntu disk I mentioned I don’t seem to have lost any serious data – just my iTunes playlists and ratings, which is a pain, but not a major one.

On a completely different subject, I know I’m completely behind the curve on this one, but isn’t the opening sequence of Games of Thrones astonishing?

Back to work tomorrow. Bwah 🙁

Dagnabit!

Bwah! My computer has decided to die, right in the middle of my two weeks off work. This happens now and then, but I can usually manage to resuscitate it – this time? No dice 🙁

I’m currently accessing the Wyrmlog (and the net in general) via a Ubuntu live disc I had sitting around. This should at least let me backup some stuff before taking the box into the shop. But once I make that move, I’ll have no net access at all.

So if you need to contact me – phone. If you don’t know my phone number it’s 08 9…

No, I’m not that dumb :). If you don’t know my phone number you’ll just have to wait for my glorious return.

Whenever that may be. *sigh*

Not a Good Start

Went into work early today since I had lots to do, and a meeting at 10:00.

Walk out front door at 6:30. Five minutes later struck down with agonising stomach cramps. Stagger to train station, wait 12 minutes for train in various states of severe discomfort. Board train, can’t get seat. Stand at end of aisle, trying not to pass out and sweating like have malaria. Get off train at Perth station, stagger up to “City Place Rest Centre”, pay 50 cents for admission and spend next 15 minutes in toilet stall apparently expelling all major internal organs into bowl.

Stagger out to pharmacy to buy to Buscopan. Not open until 7:30. Go buy water at Trainstop Bakery. Slam finger in door of fridge. Endless agony and subungual hematoma. A distraction from bowels at least. Pharmacy finally opens, scoff down Buscopan like candy.

Get to work, only one in office. Mail server is down. Troubleshooting procedures fail. Phone call after phone call from disgruntled clients.

All things considered, decide to cancel my meeting.

Annual General Mouthoff

Strata company AGM last night – absolute clattering bag of madness.

Usually only about 12 of us turn up. Since this isn’t (despite what BSG has taught us) a quorum, the meeting is adjourned for a week, at which juncture six of us turn up, have a brief discussion about the issues, and get home within an hour. Last night – thanks to a series of rabble-rousing letters that have been circulating around the complex whining that our strata fees are too high and the strata company are a bunch of despots on par with Darth Vader and Pol Pot combined – about 100 people turned up, all of whom wanted their own chance to yell poorly thought out abuse and idiotic questions at anyone who got up to speak.

The meeting was scheduled for 5:30. It actually started at 6:00 because it took that long for everyone to sign in (people insisted on monopolising the sign in sheet while whinging at the Strata representative) and didn’t finish till 9:10.

Idiocy reigned. There was a lot of yelling about cockroaches, herb gardens, guttering and how a bunch of palm trees have been devastating one woman’s existence for the last five years. Every budgeting decision was held up for prodding, poking, ridicule and demands to get a series of quotes, and every decision made at last year’s AGM was attacked by people who couldn’t be buggered turning up at the time but were now outraged that they weren’t consulted.

The main insanity revolved around the budget. People seemed completely unable to grasp the concept that the budget isn’t a list of what will be spent over the coming year, it’s a list of what can be spent over the next year, should it be necessary to do so. The fact that the total budget exceeded the expected revenue from strata fees by about 5 percent had people in absolute conniptions about how the Strata Company “can’t do maths”. A revised budget was eventually passed that clipped $50,000 from the maintenance budget for absolutely no reason apart from it made some morons feel that they were striking a blow for freedom and financial prudence, leaving me feeling like the transit advisor in Sim City 2000 and hoping that a retaining wall falls on their front doors and can’t be fixed until the following financial year.

Me, at Strata Meeting
Me - 8:30pm Tuesday

Perhaps the most jaw dropping moment of the entire fiasco was when we were informed that problems with the complex need to be submitted to the Strata Manager in writing, rather than via a phone call. A woman – who had just been elected to the Resident’s Council no less – responded by complaining that she “[didn’t] have time to write a f***ing email”. If she doesn’t have time to write “a f***ing email”, where the hell is she going to find the time to serve on the Council? But then I’m probably just making the mistake of thinking logically…

Finally the dates for some levies were pointlessly shifted around and the meeting concluded with a bunch of imbeciles patting themselves on the back about how they’d stood up to the evil Strata Company and got to have their cake while simultaneously gorging on it.

The next year should be interesting to say the least…

Adelaide Hospital Abusing Petzold

On hold with the tech support desk at a hospital in Adelaide, trying to sort out a client’s email problems.

They’re playing eight bars of Petzold’s Minuet in G Major for Broken Doorbell at me on a loop.

In the name of all that’s holy Lord, kill me now!

Sightings

I saw a UFO this morning.

At this point people are probably going “Oh god! Don’t tell me he believes in UFOs! He’s insane! I’m never reading this blog again!”. To which I say “Of course I believe in UFOs! I’ve seen a number of them over the years, I’d be mad to not believe in them!”

The point of course is that when you say “UFO” you probably mean “alien spaceship”, and when I say “UFO” I mean exactly what it says on the box – an Unidentified Flying Object.

Now I suppose it’s possible that any given UFO could be an alien spaceship, but – as a person with a decent grasp of both interstellar distances and physics – I wouldn’t be holding my breath. While I’m of the opinion that some UFOs may turn out to be anomalous – which is to say they are examples of a phenomena currently uncategorised by science – common sense dictates that the vast, vast majority of sightings are perfectly ordinary objects (such as aircraft, birds, stars, clouds, planets, meteors, etc.) seen from funny angles or under unusual conditions. I’m sure for instance that what I saw this morning was a plane either taking off from or circling to land at Perth Airport, which is only five or so kilometres from the site of my observation, Bayswater Railway Station.

What I saw at 8:33 this morning was a shining, slightly ovoid disc traveling from right to left across the east-north-eastern sky for between 30 seconds and a minute. It kept level at about four fingers above the treeline, and covered a distance of about four fingers before passing behind a cloud and vanishing. A mass of thin, whispy dark cloud was blowing across the sky from left to right, and the object was passing behind it, occasionally vanishing behind pillars of cloud – I was careful to note that the object was moving relative to the ground, not just to the cloud. Its level of brightness varied up and down, but remained constant for the last ten seconds of observation.

There were a large number of people on the platform at the time, but no-one else seemed to notice the object – or if they did they just assumed it was a plane. Which it almost certainly was. I considered taking a photo, but really couldn’t be bothered 🙂

So there we are. UFOs buzzing Bayswater. Tune in next week when I tell you about the thylacine I saw down by the river!

(Note: I have never actually seen a thylacine down by the river or indeed anywhere else :))

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