Overheard Mark II: Trains

I thought the worst – or best – of Train-Bogan fun was behind me when I abandoned the Belgrave/Lilydale line for the delights of the Hurstbridge.

It would appear I was wrong.

Overheard in the train last week from a woman with thrashed blonde hair, cropped short followed meekly by a Cro-Magnum puppy/stalker: -

“Get the fuck away from me you C***. I’m serious, I’m not going to jail for you again. I’m serious, Fuck off C***. I’m not breaking parole. Get the fuck away from me, stop following me around you C***, I’ll call the Jacks meself. Get off the train or I’ll call the Jacks. Stop following me around or I’ll throw you off the train. I’ll throw you under the wheels, you C***. I’m not going to jail for you again, I’m serious”

She then proceeded to apologise to the carriage at large for the disturbance, and repeat the above litany until I got off the train.

Is it too much to ask that some kind of recording device materialise in my hands at moments like these?

Incommunicado

Have been very busy this week, as I only have two days at work this week, since I’m jetting off (Read: taking a train and a bus) to the north of the state for my traditional Easter sabbatical with half a dozen friends. I do have some posts in the making, so when I return there’ll be posts on the following:

Why pro-lifers aren’t really pro-life
Why I’ve stopped listening to the radio
Summer, and why I hate dressing for it
The funniest conversation I’ve ever heard on a train
Curly hair, and why it tries to kill people
My brother and his new theory on how to beat the traffic.
Happy Easter, all. Have a good one.

Ehn ehn ehn

Has anyone else noticed just how many wars we are fighting at the moment? At last count I had the following;

Pokies
Drugs
Binge drinking
Inflation
Crime
Terrorism

And I thought Hitler was a bit silly for fighting multiple fronts....

A How to Guide: Looking Blonde without Bleach part.2

Second in this series of How To Guides: How to look Blonde at a train station.

Ideally in this scenario, you will be running late. You will be juggling at least two bags, and have a cardigan in one hand, and a large handbag in the other.

(Sidenote, those who know me; How fabulous is my large black and white handbag? Beautiful, right?)

You'll need to put one bag down, and - this is the important part - do not put down the handbag. Keep that on your arm.

Proceed to put the (buttoned) cardigan on. Pick up other bag, and try and move off in a leisurely fashion.

Realise that youve just put your cardigan on over your large handbag. Somehow, it's all become tangled. You are stuck, being unable to move your arm from it's bag cradling position, and only the kind assistance of a passer-by will save you from manoeuvres that would make the most committed yoga devotee wince.

I don't do mornings. Have I mentioned that?

Its all about the tunes, man.

Seriously, what is going down at Triple M? I’ve heard at least eight or nine songs in the past two days that Triple M used to play, and had stopped playing due to its push into commercial shite.

I do so hope this is a permanent shift. Am loving hearing more old-school Blur and less Tom Petty (Although I love the Pettster, you can have too much of a good thing)

Oh, and one gripe, Mr. MMM. I know This Heart Attack is a good song. Mr. Pink and I are awfully fond, and I’m listening to Be the Twilight at the moment, but do I really need to hear it four times a day?

Overall though, I’m happy that you can once again distinguish between Mould FM and Triple M.

Mild, tentative kudos in your general direction.

Just enough education to perform

Recieved SMS E-mail from Vox-Populi mailing list late last night (Mental note; must think about changing message tone. Eric Idle asking me to bring out my dead at 3am? Slightly creepy)

Stereophonics touring Australia during May.

Permit me a girlish reaction here;

SQEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Ahem. So, Forum, second of May, I am there. Bells attached, naturally.

Bring it on.

Mr. Pink is on the blink

I think my I. pod mini, Mr. Pink, might be seriously on the way out.

He hasn’t been himself for a while now. The turn-y thing doesn’t turn anymore, which means I’m stuck at one volume and having to go through every song to get to the one I want to listen to.

But I could deal with that. As long as he played something, I was fine. Until this morning.

His batteries ran out, and I usually charge them at work. So I’ve plugged him into the USB, but nothing is happening.

I’m hoping it’s a fault with the PC, but I have to face up to the fact that it might be something wrong with him.

Mr. Pink, I know you’re only a mini. I know I could get something better now, but I don’t want to. I’m not ready to let you go.

Please, Mr. Pink. Hang on.

**UPDATE**

Still not working, but in Ominous Sign news, about thirty seconds after posting this entry, I received an e-mail entitled "WIN AN iPOD A DAY WITH DR SEUSS' HORTON HEARS A WHO"

**UPDATE ON THE UPDATE**

Being a cocky little optimist, I tried to charge Mr. Pink this morning, and he's working! Huzzah!

So You Think You Can Blog, Part Tiga

I missed last nights So You Think You Can Dance episode, but with the public holiday I missed blogging on Sundays episode anyway. Some points;

Natalie, for the love of God and All His Tiny Angels. Next time you’re sitting in front of the stylist, give them this note from me – you have weird eyes. Don’t make it worse by going the heavy brow-length fringe.

Especially with the half-arsed curl thing you had going. My sister went the curl route on Sunday too, and she looked awesome. My sister is not a stylist, nor did she have the benefit of one on hand. There is no excuse.

NO EXCUSE, NATALIE.

I’m also told that although the half-arsed curlery was gone last night, she still looked like trash. Why am I surprised, though? She doesn’t wear pants in any of her music videos.

Vanessa once again mostly kept her mouth shut. Henry got rid of the hair and looks hot. Laura is nothing but a Barbie doll; Anthony is just so smiley and likeable. For some reason what works on him doesn’t work on her. The rest were a bit meh-ish.

And that’s all I have time for, today folks

Porn on Wheels

Vroom.

Anyone wanting to know what to get me for Christmas, or my birthday has now been informed.

Purrrrrrr.

A How To Guide; Looking Blonde Without Bleach

Spend the best part of fifteen minutes gnashing my teeth wondering where the hell my eraser is. I do a lot of work in pencil in this job of mine, and the eraser is a must.

Mutter, progressively louder and faster, about where the hell eraser is, and which of your colleagues may have eaten it.

Look high, look low. Check the bin, my drawers, between sheets of paper. Nothing doing. Decide I was wasting too much time looking for it, and a neat strike-through would do. Go to pick up my pencil, which is kept on that handy groove bit at the top of my keyboard.

Squeal. The eraser is sitting on my keyboard. Bare in mind that I had, at least once on this search, lifted the keyboard to see if it hadn’t wedged itself under there. It's a large eraser. It has DERWENT written on it in large white letters on it's grey cover.

Repeat, at least once a week, with a pencil, or bright pink pen, or, I don’t know, a large calculator.

Mission Accomplished, I think.

N.B Relatedly, at least twice a day I engage on a pencil-search, ending only at the moment I realise it's where it always is - tucked behind my ear.

Faith in humanity: restored.

Triple M is playing Dennis Learys “Asshole”

Whoever chose this song over at Triple M; I doff my cap to you.

Things overheard in a pub

Was waiting for my mother in a pub in Mooroolbark this evening, reading my book and half-listening to conversations. Overheard the following:-

• "So her mate had this "Friend with benefit" and she slept with the "Friend with benefit" and got Gonorrhea off him, and she gave it to her boyfriend. He told her, and she told him that she got it off a toilet seat. As if you can get an STD without swapping body fluid!"
• "So for thirty bucks you get this full body massage. Head to toe, mate. And there's this hole in the table, and you flop it through, and she finishes, and for an extra twenty five she'll pull you off. It's the best feeling in the world, mate. Been there done that"
• "That bastard next door. Every time I'm doing the dishes in the nude, he's standing there watching me. And he just stands there and smiles. It's enough to make you want to close the blinds"

I'd forgotten what living in the Outer East was like.

N.B The book was Belle De Jour, The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl.

Hot Air

I see signs everywhere. I don’t look for them, but they seem to be around anyway. Maybe I try to notice them.

Whenever anything was about to go wrong with The Boy and I, the song “Bring me Some Water” by Melissa Etheridge would follow me around. I’d change stations; it’d still be there. Every day, at least twice or three times, I would hear it.

I haven’t heard it once since we split up. Not once.

Whenever I felt down, or things weren’t going too well, I would look for the hot-air balloons that you can see coming round Yarra Bend on the Eastern Freeway. Every morning, they would be there, and sometimes I could still see them as I waited at Smith Street for a tram. The days when I felt the worst, they seemed to be lower, and larger in my sight. And instead of linking that with anything that was wrong, they seemed to me to be a sign that good things were coming.

Yesterday morning walking to work from the station, four huge balloons filled my sight. Huge, low, moving at speed. Moving with me, instead of away from me. I whipped out my camera, and hurried along, taking photos between the powerlines. But I just couldn’t get that sense of vastness on camera. They seemed so small in the viewfinder, yet when I looked up, they were all I could see.

It probably seemed nothing to other people, this girl with the camera, hurrying along the road with the balloons at her back. But to me it was a sign. That things haven’t always been great, won’t always be great, but I will always be able to find the signs in life that point towards a better day.
And my god, am I lucky. I can see the balloons. I can feel the joy at simply seeing them, as they laze through the air. I can look at them and be thankful. I have nothing but things to be thankful for, right now.

Nothing at all.

So You Think You Can Blog, part deux

Something I forgot to put in about Sundays show:

Did anyone else find it really strange that they chose a huge, overblown classical number (The name escapes me) for the Paso Doble and then had the opening soliloquy from Romeo and Juliet over the top of it? I mean, I can see where they’re going here. Star-crossed lovers, passion and all that, but the dance didn’t actually fit in with that at all, so that was confusing.

And from last nights show:

The only reason I can think of that JD and his bitch of a partner were not in the bottom three was sympathy votes. Which is ridiculous. It’s supposed to be about voting for the best dancers, not the worst because they have a bit of a teary. Sheesh, people. We get rid of Marko and Stephanie and that rabble stays in? Get it together, teenagers!

And one more thing. If I hear that “Pictures of You” song one more time as a TV promo, I’m going to spit it. There are literally millions of songs out there, so put a bit of thought in, would you?

So You Think You can Blog

Watching So You Think You Can Dance last night, I was struck again by three things;

1. Natalie Basssssssthingwaite has creepy, creepy eyes. She very rarely seems to open them all the way, which led my stepmother to suggest that she was on dope. She had that heavy-lidded look going on. At first, I was inclined to be kind and say that she might have trouble reading the auto-cue and was squinting without wanting to look like she was squinting, but the more I think about it, the more I think my stepmother is right. It would also explain why she has all the personality of a hairbrush whilst presenting, when she had seemed pretty good at it in the run-up

2. She’s sharing her stash with the costume department. It’s the only reason I can come up with for making some of the contestants look like they do. Some of them look great (Pre-Joint) and others look like they just grabbed the first thing to hand and flung them at the contestants and slammed the door. I’m not exactly a fashion plate, and I reckon I could have done a far better job.

3. Vanessa, I applaud you. Clearly, you’ve listened to the advice you’ve no doubt been given, and kept your mouth shut as much as possible. I swear, she’s only getting through because she’s paired with the extremely talented Henry.

I’m hoping tonight that JD and Vanessa go, as everyone else doesn’t bug the living bejebus out of me.

Weekend by numbers

Got out of work on time +5
Had to walk up Hill of Doom anyway –5
Bombers lost to St. Kilda –5
Watched Bombers lose with good company +5
Sister barracks for St. Kilda and sent me SMS mocking me –5
Nobody else amongst the St. Kilda supporters did +5
Cops marathon on CI channel on Foxtel +5
Everyone in New Orleans was arrested, and best I can determine, are let out once a year to participate in Mardi Gras and delight us by getting arrested again +5
“That’s not how we roll in New Orleans” and “That won’t fly” peppered liberally throughout show. Plus, a plethora of odd names, and names ending in numbers +5
Had to do the ironing, or would have been going naked to work –5
Was able to watch the Simpsons, and part of Clerks II whilst ironing +5

Total: 15 points in the positive. A good weekend all round, really.