Watevs...

Look I don’t know what to tell you, I said. 

She just looked at me, chewing. 

You’re kind of a fat cow, is all. It could never work. And literally, I was talking to a cow. A dumb cow, only really useful for dairy. A dairy cow, you could say. Chewing away, chomp chomp chomp at her cuds, that dull stare always looking all dopey at me. 

How could you do this? She asked. 

Men are fucking pigs, I replied. 

Sometimes when I’m talking on the phone I accidentaly use the wrong there/they’re/their and I’m like phew, thank god it’s over the phone and they couldn’t see.

death.

Last night, I don’t know what time, but while we were both asleep, my lover died. I woke up and straight away noticed it was eerily quiet. I looked to her to ask the time and just couldn’t wake her. She just stared blankly back at me. NO! I cried, please god let her live! But she was gone. I looked at my computer screen, it was 8:54 am, 6 minutes before my bus came. Usually she wakes me up in time, but not today. Today she had failed. I know she would’ve been sorry, had she had the energy to be, and so I couldn’t be mad at her. Besides, I had no time to be mad, or to be sorry, or aggrieved, or mournful. To make it all worse, this was a special day. The last thing I’d thought about before sleeping was how I needed to put in extra effort in the morning because I was going out after work and wanted to look good. But now I had no time to get ready. I’d slept an extra half hour, and for that I was extraordinarily energetic. Funny, one of us runs out of energy, the other gains it. I couldn’t help but wonder if that’s how the universe works, just shared energy. Maybe for every bit of energy I don’t use, someone or something else gains it? Who knows. But there was no time to wonder about that, I was running late. No time for a shower today, I used extra cologne instead. If only I could fold time and travel back twenty minutes, I could rush a shower and sort out some clean clothing…. But I can’t fold time. No one can. The only folds I had were in my shirts; I had to put on a dirty one because all my clean ones were creased and I didn’t have time for ironing. I supressed my exasperation, I didn’t have time for irony either. I had no time. I was alone, without my phone.

Running to the bus I had no idea if I was running late or not, she usually keeps track of time for me.

“Machines broken today,” said the bus driver.

“I know,” I said.

Fin.

Whyyyy does it take so long…

For years now, the locals who walk to our local mall have had to trot down a steep, grassy hill to get from the footpath, to the mall car park (the orange line on the map). There is a footpath you can follow, but it adds close to 300 meters of walking to your journey (the green line on the map). It’s just much faster to go down the grassy hill. There is even a path stamped out down the hill from the years of popular use of this shortcut. The only people who opt not to take the hill/car park shortcut would be elderly people and those who cannot cross a steep slippery decline.

Once you are down the hill, you have to walk through a car park, not ideal, and then down to one of the mall entrances.

About a year ago I was pleasantly surprised to see that the grassy area had been roped off with construction site tape. Finally, they are putting a path here. It’s about time!

They started to dig around a few weeks later.

Nothing happened for a few weeks after that.

Some wooden stakes were put in, which seemed to take about a month.

Then I moved to Japan for six months.

I came back. The path was starting to take shape; I could see it lead along the grassy slope, not down it. Whatever, it must be leading to the other entrance, I thought. Still good.

Over the following two months, the cement was laid making the path, but the construction tape remained there.

Then they removed some of the cement that they had laid.

Then a few weeks later they replaced the cement.

Then finally, around a year after starting the project of making a 200 meter footpath, the project was complete. The red line on the map depicts the path. Notice that it doesn’t actually lead to the mall at all. It swoops by the mall, but not down the grassy slope, then it crosses the highway, and takes you to a petrol station. Which is great, for all those times you need to get petrol for your car, but you want to do it on foot.

The fact that it took one year to complete the physical work, plus whatever planning time went into this, just about sums up everything that makes me so angry at the way construction work happens in Australia. Let’s not forget the fact that the mall was built in the late 70’s, so it’s been a problem for thirty plus years now. Now, compare that to the way shit works in Japan, and you can understand my frustrations. 

rant about elevator advertisements

There’s ads in the elevator in my building that always try to make jokes about the fact that you are in an elevator, as if you are gunna be like WHOA HOW DID THAT AD KNOW I WAS IN AN ELEVATOR!??!?

That’s the whole premise of every single elevator ad - it has to refer to an elevator. They get so hung up on referring to you being in an elevator that they forget to actually make sense or be funny.

The one I just read said “Unlike this elevator, Microsoft Cloud has no maximum load.”

L!OLLO!LLLLLL!!11

GET IT?

Cos it has no maximum load, but the elevator has a maximum load.

And you are in an elevator.

Ohhhhh, at first  I was like “What? I don’t get it…” but then I remembered I was in an elevator and literally couldn’t stop laughing and shitting myself simultaneously.

Dah, I just get so angry that someone actually got paid to come up with that… Paid by Microsoft, no less! I mean, it’s not even a joke. It’s not even a thing!

I don’t know when it happened, but every ad seems to require a pun or some kind of word play or at the very least something resembling humor. What happened to the good old days of just pointing out how good your product is?

It would make more sense if it just said “Microsoft Cloud has no maximum load. That’s pretty amazing, right? You should buy it for your company.” 

When I switch on my retarded phone.

First off, it starts to vibrate for no reason, except maybe to let you know that it has acknowledged the pressing of the power button. There is no other hint to this, as nothing appears to happen at all for the first 5 or 10 seconds.

The screen goes white for a few seconds, then the splash screen comes up saying HTC. Then this ridiculously loud jingle plays, and there is no way to make it not play. It’s louder than my phones ringtone on full, easily audible from anywhere in my office.

Then right under the HTC logo some text starts to appear – but because the phone is so freaking slow and horrible it appears all erratic and jolty, and takes like 12 seconds for the two most ironic words in the world to appear: Quietly Brilliant.

Manager of the Year, 2011…

This is what’s just happened on the other side of my desk partition.

Very unprofessional manager lady:

sits on the desk of one of her team members, says in very casual tone

“So Jun, how’d you go at the doctors? You got Diabetes?”

Timid Chinese woman:

“Ah, no.”

really long awkward pause.

“they did some test and it’s not diabetes.”

Very unprofessional manager lady:

“Oh, well that’s good. So did they say what’s wrong?”

Timid Chinese woman:

“…Ah”

awkward nervous laugh

“no they don’t know what it is yet…”

Very unprofessional manager lady:

switching to a condescending tone, as required when talking to anyone with an Asian accent

“I suppose that’s good that is not diabetes, isn’t it. But bad that they don’t know what it is. So ahhhh… yeah…”

Manager walks away believing she has just performed some part of her managerial duties.