Bump

I sit here, unemployed and sick, bemoaning my life. That's really not a good start. I'm not "unemployed" I just haven't started my new job yet. Yup, I got me a nice little break and a cool new job too! Suck on that "You don't fit in" idiots! But I am sick. More than usual even! I have the dreaded spring cold. Apparently it's running rampant through Melbourne currently. My entire family has it and I've dealing with the last little bits of it now. It hit me last thursday and let me tell you from about 5pm friday until sometime saturday I was having a seriously fucked up time. I've never hallucinated without the need for drugs before, I think my body was doing something seriously crazy!

Anyway, it's been a long time since posting and since I've been very sick it's been a long time since I've been able to exercise (or eat anything by fruit - score I've lost weight!!). It's just that I've had nothing overly tempting to post about.

I tried the other day. I thought to myself "Go out, it's the perfect time to do those things you wanted to do during the day but were at work". Thing is, I can't think of anything I want to do that doesn't cost money. I don't like spending money at the best of times, so when no money is coming in, I'm even worse.

I dragged myself out to the local shopping centre last week (perhaps where I picked up my cold) and was again amazed at the amount of people there during the day. All sorts of different people. I really had no idea so many people didn't have "normal" work type things to do. And no, I'm not counting the mothers who have the "JOB TIMES ONE MILLION" that just isn't fair. I'm looking at the teenagers who should have been in school. The 20-somethings who looked like they knew they should be somewhere else. The 30-somethings escaping from the office or the store to wander aimlessly. There wasn't a very big mix of the 40-50-somethings, but once the 65 age hit, oh boy, the blue rinse brigade were everywhere! I'm all for power in your retirement and all that, but some people really need to learn how to age gracefully. Or at least somehow. It's just a little scary.

I almost got to the point of understanding those "Fix your life up" shows on TV, just watching these people stumble through life (20-somethings all the way up) was amazing. Mouth open, eyes glazed, credit cards ready to swipe. I tell you if anyone has any argument about humans not being herd animals, they haven't been to a public place recently.

I tested it. I caught myself following along behind a group of people. Well a big group of little groups. Many 2's and 3's joined together. On both "sides" of the shopping centre. Each "side" going the different direction. Of course not the "stay to your left" or anything like that. So I changed. I walked in the centre of the aisle going in the different direction to the crowd, just to see how it went.

Most looked at me through glazed eyes if we approached closer than normal, then shuffled out of the way. The odd one or two would register I was a person and step aside. At least one every so often (it happened 3 times at that trip) actually bumped into me.

Perhaps I should clarify. When I say "bump", it's actually someone walking where I'm going to be walking. It's not me being very arrogant, it's me accepting the size I am and respecting my own personal space. ... Ok, yeah sometimes it's me being arrogant. But I like that at times. Cath can tell you about the trip to the Vic Market one day, I'm sure that other woman and her child will never stop in front of someone ever again. Damn tangents - bump. People seem to have this perception that if they keep walking everyone else will get out of their way. Generally there is a short list that will make me step aside - if you are bigger than me, if you are scary than me, if you are in some way confined, or I have some sort of respect for you.

In other words, if you are a short middle-aged man pushing people aside as you walk by them, I will NOT step aside. I will however ask in a loud voice "What the fuck do you want?" When your body ricochets off my side and you stumble in the group of giggling teenagers. Being 6'4 and a little large, I'm not the one who ends up rubbing my sore butt after it lands on the ground. I will be the one laughing at your sorry arse for being so stupid though.

Perhaps all this stems from that one time the 7 foot Mongrel Mob bikee stepped aside for me on a footpath in Auckland when I was knee high to a grasshopper. Not only did that scare the crap out of me, but it sure put the knowledge of respect into my head. I believe he even smiled at my mum as I tried to figure out how close his head was to the sky. Damn that guy was tall. And I was so small.

That's the way life goes

I've been real quiet recently. Not too sure why, but now I know things are looking up!

I am now unemployed. It's been a weird couple of months at the place I was working. But I know now that I won't be pushed into doing illegal or dodgy things and when it comes down to it I'm more than willing to put my job on the line for the things I believe in.

... now, does anyone have the number for Microsoft's piracy and licencing department?

Is it a little sad ...

When I spend most of my afternoon (at work) virtua-bowling? ... and then score a perfect 300 just before I go home?

Ok, I think I just answered my own question. Perhaps next week I'll get to do some actual work!

Oh and perhaps a blog entry or 2 ...

I'm at a mental blank. I've hit the wall. Do I dare even think .. writer's block? I can't even get my butt into gear to write the things I've scribbled down in the past.

I can't even write pure unadulterated crap as I usually do. What's wrong with me??

I figure I'm still at those crossroads. In fact there are a few crossroads, actually a couple of them look like cliffs I have to dive off. I'm not good when it comes to jumping off heights. That last step is always a doozie. Will I choose right and fly, or will I choose wrong and plummet to the jagged rocks below?

Do I really mind which way it goes? Have I decided that it's all about the journey and the destination is so far away that it's not even worth contemplating any more. Not even I can answer that question, I just don't know right now.


I think I see where this has come from. Friends of mine got married a year or so ago and they have been considering ruining their financial future by having children (I don't really believe that, but it made you think). Well, the wife fell pregnant a few months back. Got through the morning sickness, etc. Then had a miscarriage last weekend. The weekend before her birthday.

Understandably they both are shattered. Perhaps I'm a bastard for saying this, but the name they picked out was horrible (I hope that name is now scratched off the list) and the whole fiasco about getting a bracelet with the picked name engraved on it and writing a poem (which wasn't bad, but forcing everyone to read it at her party was a bit over the top).

I understand people have different ways of grieving and that's cool. Just seems to me that they way this particular girl is doing it is a little too ... clingy. A little too much holding onto the past and not willing to move forward.

Am I a bastard for thinking that she's going over the top? That really, the first pregnancy is very unlikely to go full term and committing so much seems a bit wrong. What happens the next time? Hell, my mother had a number of miscarriages and while she grieved for them each, life moves on, a material reminder of things isn't always necessary.

In fact a material reminder of things past can be the worst possible thing. Is the next pregnancy going to have a negative stigma because it survived where the first one didn't?

Is everyone around me growing up and having "real" adult lives - while I stumble my way through it all attempting to catch up. Or at least work out what the hell I'm doing?

I don't even know what sort of Dad I'd be ....

When I started this blog, it was a way to blurt things out in a "public" forum in a way that I could stay a little hidden but always show what was going on underneath the surface.

Over a short period of time, that changed. Then (miraculously) it changed again. The first was that I got lazy. The second was that I started dating. Let's be honest a relationship began.

I got to thinking tonight, I wanted to post something. For the life of me I couldn't think of anything. Then I realised my blog has gotten away from me a little. It's become somewhere I left off a bit of steam, but with confines. Which it's really not what it's all about. There has to be boundaries, but even within those boundaries I'm playing it very straight.

Not that I have any idea how to play anything by straight, but I digress.

I can't be the perv'ing Subtle I was in the beginning. I still perv, but these days it's only on one woman. I've also changed a lot since then. I can't be the straight-laced person I was a few years ago (let's not go into that "relationship" right now) that person is done and dusted, not going to drag him out again.

I'm (attempting to) re-invent my physical shell, I have to re-invent my inside as well. In doing that, I have to re-invent my blog persona. I just have no idea where to start.

I feel that I'm on the very edge of a cliff, or at the apex of a rollercoaster track. I know I'm safe to step (or roll), yet I'm still unsure about where it's all going.

Or whether I actually want to take that jump (or roll). It's all pretty good right now, do I really want things to change? Or have I been so fucked up by change in the past that when good change comes along I'm so overly cautious I freeze myself.

The truth is, I have to find a way to balance everything. To have the peaks and troughs. To be the sappy guy. To be the bastard. And then to be the real guy I am. Or perhaps just the real guy. Then I can be a real blogger too.

Although, I'm sure people would like to hear the story about the very younger girl walking around in the gym tonight wearing a tight white top with the words "Yes, they're real" across her chest. I'll await the "uh huh"s to escape before I add that 75% of the gym was pointing and laughing at the 25% of the gym who were literally following this poor young lass as she was trying to work out.

And yes, I was part of the 75% ... there's no way in hell I'd waste money on steriods to look like those idiots.

Either way this blog, like my life, needs some direction. Some journey to take. Something to sink my teeth into and really get my brain spinning. I don't know, any ideas???

So many things to post about right now. None of them I actually want to post about. That really sucks.

Although international mobile networks suck majorly. Attempting to hold a conversation via sms on them is almost impossible. How is one supposed to keep one's girlfriend on edge ... yeah, ok I'll stop that now.

Apparently I'm having trouble at work. As a relatively new member of the "team", I've had an uphill battle to get to where I am now. Then I get told that people are going behind my back straight to my boss about my performance. I've worked out what they mean by "performance" - I don't jump high enough or quickly enough when they call.

I've never been one to "jump to attention". I find it never works well for anyone in any situation. Spend a few more seconds getting a little bit more information and formulating the solution and it works out better and faster for everyone involved. Shame that's not how this place has been in the past.

Shame that I have complete control of the internet here and while I block other people from searching Seek - I've applied for a few jobs today. A bit sad really, but to be honest this place is no where near what they portrayed it to be and the role really isn't suited to someone with as much real work experience as I have. Perhaps a graduate? Or even a kid out of high school.

Ah well, time to get my butt back into the CBD anyway. These jobs in the 'burbs are starting to annoy me. That's 2 in a row that turned out to be crap. Give me a nice big multi-national with lots of money. In a nice tall building. Hell, anything with real walls I'd take!

Although I sure will miss having my own office ... I wonder if I can still score on of those somehow.

Anyone out there know of any nice paying jobs going in the Melb CBD these days??

Guido in training

I know, it's a bad name but it's the only one I could think of that everyone will understand.

Let me set the scene. Monday night, 1800, suburban gym. I arrive and wonder why everyone was at the gym. Now I remember why I don't gym on monday nights.

As I walk the stairs to the gym area, I can hear them. The posers. The junkies. The muscle nuts. Oh dear god, why tonight of all nights?

Getting changed, there are 3 of them in the change rooms. Obviously 1 of them is brand new ("You'll be fine brother, just follow what we do and then mum will get off your back"). Wonderful, they'll transform another almost-human into a muscle bound fruitcake.

It's not that I have anything against people exercising, hell I enjoy the small amount of banter I have with my fellow gym memebers. Thing that bugs me about this type? They never come alone and always train together. Makes any machine or set of weights they use out of order until they have all gone through.

Case in point - Guido in Training - having 3 guys use the lat pulldown is fine. Having the same 3 guys chat between sets is just a little annoying.

Perhaps I'm being a little too overzealous here, I like to use the equipment but I accept that other people pay money as well to use the equipment. Perhaps it's just the ego boosting they all need to get from each other as they circle jerk themselves around the room to exercise.

And no, I'm not jealous I can't exercise with anyone else. Even a personal trainer gets me off my game.

I'm not really sure what it is, perhaps it was the interruption to my "schedule". The fact that they were training another one to enter the ranks. One things I know it wasn't, it wasn't jealousy. I end up yelling at people who try and spot for me. Well, only once and I did apologise afterwards.


Maybe it was just the fact that the stupid scales at the gym gave me the wrong numbers. No, that can't be it at all.


Damn scales. Fuckers.