It's also home to some of the most idiotic graffiti tryhards.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Vic's Red Marker Pen
Ah, the local train station. An outpost on the edge of swampland and industrial area. It's about a two kilometre bike ride from home, downhill most of the way. At 4:11am there is nobody there. Except possibly me. It's a place to relax and have a quiet cigarette in the early hours before hitting the beginning of the work day. It's cold, dark and contemplative.
It's also home to some of the most idiotic graffiti tryhards.
It's also home to some of the most idiotic graffiti tryhards.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Busted!
A text message from one of my bosses:It is unaceptable to smoke in the trucks you should now better
Well, that's just teasing isn't it? Smoking in the truck is punishable by termination of employment. Knowing that I was treading a fine line of getting away with it or being jobless, I was forced to hold back on my reply...
Your spelling is unacceptable. You should know better.
The Death of Myrtle [Part III]
Where we left off...
I was on my way... but the fun wasn't over yet.
If you've missed the rest of the saga, you might want to go have a look at Part I and Part II before continuing here.
I'd done a walk to some local farms and scored some oil along the away. At one of the farms I walked into, there was nobody home. I was so damned frustrated at that point I rifled through their shed anyway. I figured if I found what I needed there I'd take it and leave whatever cash I had laying there for them in order to make some sort of attempt to apologise for breaking in and taking their oil. But no avail anyway.
Finally I got back on my way, with a mixture of lawnmower oil and a little of the right stuff slurping around in my stressed-out engine. I nursed this poor clapped-out beast of a car with shot brakes toward my destination. Sometime during the previous night (before passing out) I had organised for the kelsuperstarsinger and IcePick, the friends I was to meet up with, to start making their way toward me to meet up. I planned to leave Myrtle somewhere out of sight and mind until my fun, relaxing weekend with my friends was over and only then think about what to do with her.
Oh boy, Myrtle wasn't well. Not well at all. She rattled and clattered another hundred kilometres or so, getting worse and worse as she went. Myrtle and I got ourselves to the town that joins the wiggly little back route that I'd taken to one of the most well-used highways in the country - the Pacific Highway. Home of idiots in cars, trucks, caravans, and a hell of a lot more idiots. But I digress. The lead-up to getting on this nightmare highway consists of two roundabouts. They are hemmed in on either side by guard rails. There's traffic going every which way and everybody is in a hurry to get on the highway and out of there.
Myrtle got me through the first one, just. Something in her went clunk as I negotiated my way around. The second one was where she spoke for the last time. You're Fucked she said, as she died mid-roundabout and left me with enough forward momentum to get onto the verge on the other side of the exit. There she was, past the roundabout, but half off the road and nudged up against the guardrail on a section that nowhere to pull completely off. Great.
I was pissed. I couldn't even quietly dump her now. She was the equivalent of a big neon sign flashing ABANDONED on a very busy section of road.
Luckily kelsuperstarsinger and IcePick were only minutes away from catching up with me. We ripped everything off the car of any worth to me, including the plates. I was having a hell of a time trying to get everything out of the centre console, so IcePick sorted that one out for me. Giggling the whole time, he grabbed the entire console and ripped it out for me.
With that, I said goodbye to Myrtle. We drove off toward our concert, with the prospect of drinking wine in the sun and cheering on Ani Difranco being far more appealing than dwelling on the crime I had just committed and my new-found lack of transport.
I was on my way... but the fun wasn't over yet.
If you've missed the rest of the saga, you might want to go have a look at Part I and Part II before continuing here.
I'd done a walk to some local farms and scored some oil along the away. At one of the farms I walked into, there was nobody home. I was so damned frustrated at that point I rifled through their shed anyway. I figured if I found what I needed there I'd take it and leave whatever cash I had laying there for them in order to make some sort of attempt to apologise for breaking in and taking their oil. But no avail anyway.
Finally I got back on my way, with a mixture of lawnmower oil and a little of the right stuff slurping around in my stressed-out engine. I nursed this poor clapped-out beast of a car with shot brakes toward my destination. Sometime during the previous night (before passing out) I had organised for the kelsuperstarsinger and IcePick, the friends I was to meet up with, to start making their way toward me to meet up. I planned to leave Myrtle somewhere out of sight and mind until my fun, relaxing weekend with my friends was over and only then think about what to do with her.
Oh boy, Myrtle wasn't well. Not well at all. She rattled and clattered another hundred kilometres or so, getting worse and worse as she went. Myrtle and I got ourselves to the town that joins the wiggly little back route that I'd taken to one of the most well-used highways in the country - the Pacific Highway. Home of idiots in cars, trucks, caravans, and a hell of a lot more idiots. But I digress. The lead-up to getting on this nightmare highway consists of two roundabouts. They are hemmed in on either side by guard rails. There's traffic going every which way and everybody is in a hurry to get on the highway and out of there.
Myrtle got me through the first one, just. Something in her went clunk as I negotiated my way around. The second one was where she spoke for the last time. You're Fucked she said, as she died mid-roundabout and left me with enough forward momentum to get onto the verge on the other side of the exit. There she was, past the roundabout, but half off the road and nudged up against the guardrail on a section that nowhere to pull completely off. Great.
I was pissed. I couldn't even quietly dump her now. She was the equivalent of a big neon sign flashing ABANDONED on a very busy section of road.
Luckily kelsuperstarsinger and IcePick were only minutes away from catching up with me. We ripped everything off the car of any worth to me, including the plates. I was having a hell of a time trying to get everything out of the centre console, so IcePick sorted that one out for me. Giggling the whole time, he grabbed the entire console and ripped it out for me.
With that, I said goodbye to Myrtle. We drove off toward our concert, with the prospect of drinking wine in the sun and cheering on Ani Difranco being far more appealing than dwelling on the crime I had just committed and my new-found lack of transport.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Quote of the Day
.... goes to Erin the massage chicky at Chiropractic Plus, who attempted to put right the weirdness in my shoulder. It has caused massive pain for the past few days, after tweaking it the wrong way trying to be a mechanical hero.
"Your neck is ludicrous, just quietly."
"Your neck is ludicrous, just quietly."
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Spam
Text message spamming has gone way too far when your federal government starts using it.
"It's tax time 2009. Lodge online using e-tax. It's free. Available from 1 July. Visit ato.gov.au. Please ignore if recently lodged. Australian Tax Office.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Hit, or Not Hit
Do you already know the latest stats joke?
Probably...
Three statisticians go hunting. When they see a rabbit, the first one shoots, missing it on the left. The second one shoots and misses it on the right.
The third one shouts: "We've hit it!"
Okay. So there's a bit of a point to all this. I was at Scumbag Headquarters (aka The Yard) the other day, wasting time as is the norm when you're on shift in The Yard. The resident old fart mechanic turned turned around at one point not realising I was behind him. He made a point of saying sorry to me.
What for? says Vic.
Well, I almost touched your breast when I swung around there.
Oh. I don't see my tits as a sexual thing at all. There annoying lumps of fat I'd rather do without. The guys just don't seem to be able to comprehend that though. So I come back with:
You know what the difference between almost touching a breast and being a fucking mile away is, don't you?
No? He says.
And to that I replied: Absolutely none. Whether you're a mile away or an inch away you still haven't touched, so who gives a fuck?
Probably...
Three statisticians go hunting. When they see a rabbit, the first one shoots, missing it on the left. The second one shoots and misses it on the right.
The third one shouts: "We've hit it!"
Okay. So there's a bit of a point to all this. I was at Scumbag Headquarters (aka The Yard) the other day, wasting time as is the norm when you're on shift in The Yard. The resident old fart mechanic turned turned around at one point not realising I was behind him. He made a point of saying sorry to me.
What for? says Vic.
Well, I almost touched your breast when I swung around there.
Oh. I don't see my tits as a sexual thing at all. There annoying lumps of fat I'd rather do without. The guys just don't seem to be able to comprehend that though. So I come back with:
You know what the difference between almost touching a breast and being a fucking mile away is, don't you?
No? He says.
And to that I replied: Absolutely none. Whether you're a mile away or an inch away you still haven't touched, so who gives a fuck?
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
The Scumbags find Pebbles
Pebbles?
No, not of the small stone variety.
Of the large, decaying variety.
For some reason one of our scumbag teams was sent out to pressure clean a machine part - the crowd rack, or "sticks", which is the bit that the bucket is attached to - on Pebbles. We spent an hour sitting around waiting at the workshop for directions because nobody was sure where the hell it actually was. Finally, somebody who had been around for a while recalled where Pebbles was stashed. As it turned out she was over in a nicely deserted and overgrown back corner of the mine.
See? There's her name right up there above the driver's cab.
Three scumbags, a beautiful day, and a bunch of stuff that had been dumped. How much better can it get?
Exactly as the writing on the track frame says. What now?
There's another old shovel sitting around at a mine we go to. A while back I asked around about it. What's it sitting around there for? Parts? Scrap? Turns out the thing has been there for years and isn't able to be butchered for parts. To scrap it will cost too much. So... it just sits there gathering rust and mud. I guess eventually it'll become part of a hill.
At least Pebbles gets to watch the grass grow where she lies.
No, not of the small stone variety.
Of the large, decaying variety.
For some reason one of our scumbag teams was sent out to pressure clean a machine part - the crowd rack, or "sticks", which is the bit that the bucket is attached to - on Pebbles. We spent an hour sitting around waiting at the workshop for directions because nobody was sure where the hell it actually was. Finally, somebody who had been around for a while recalled where Pebbles was stashed. As it turned out she was over in a nicely deserted and overgrown back corner of the mine.
See? There's her name right up there above the driver's cab.
Three scumbags, a beautiful day, and a bunch of stuff that had been dumped. How much better can it get?
Exactly as the writing on the track frame says. What now?
There's another old shovel sitting around at a mine we go to. A while back I asked around about it. What's it sitting around there for? Parts? Scrap? Turns out the thing has been there for years and isn't able to be butchered for parts. To scrap it will cost too much. So... it just sits there gathering rust and mud. I guess eventually it'll become part of a hill.
At least Pebbles gets to watch the grass grow where she lies.
Quote of the Day
The universe is full of magical things, patiently
waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
- Eden Phillpotts (1862-1960)
waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
- Eden Phillpotts (1862-1960)
Monday, June 22, 2009
Getting Around With The Scumbags
Working for Scumbag Industries has some perks. We might have to be leaving the workshop at 4:30am to get to our prospective work sites, but once you get there you can end up having a pretty cruisey day.
Take this day, for example.
We arrived at 6:30am and snoozed at the gate of the mine for about an hour waiting for the guys on site to say it was okay to approach the machine. Then we get there and lo and behold... the thing still isn't ready. So you either snooze, talk shit, or take photos of the whole process.
Here we have a 4WD taking on a shovel (the shovel is that big sucker on the left).
And here we have a guy wondering how the hell he's meant to turn this thing off. Can't see him? Just on the left of the bucket there.
Half a pack of cigarettes later and we're finally allowed to go to work. Some of the guys you'll have to prod awake and watch them sleepily get ready. But hey, we're all getting paid for it. It's stuff like this that makes work worth going to.
Take this day, for example.
We arrived at 6:30am and snoozed at the gate of the mine for about an hour waiting for the guys on site to say it was okay to approach the machine. Then we get there and lo and behold... the thing still isn't ready. So you either snooze, talk shit, or take photos of the whole process.
Here we have a 4WD taking on a shovel (the shovel is that big sucker on the left).
And here we have a guy wondering how the hell he's meant to turn this thing off. Can't see him? Just on the left of the bucket there.
Half a pack of cigarettes later and we're finally allowed to go to work. Some of the guys you'll have to prod awake and watch them sleepily get ready. But hey, we're all getting paid for it. It's stuff like this that makes work worth going to.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Awww
Okay. I'm trying... Let me see...
How about: Ahem. Excuse me? Uh, I think you may have missed a letter in that statement? Or perhaps you would like to take the option of inserting an apostrophe on the end of "somethin" to at least make it look like you meant it?
Saturday, June 20, 2009
The Death of Myrtle [Part II]
Where we left off...
Next morning I tried to start the beast and it had a bit of life in it. Holy shit! She's still kicking!
I'd had a night camped on the side of the road next to my car. It was shitty tent-pitching ground, so all I had was a swag with the canvas pulled up over my head to keep out the elements and anything else that might wish to intrude while I'm in drunken slumber.
Pretty early that night I'd managed to scare myself half to death when something plopped onto the canvas relatively close to my head. There was a bit of weight in it, and I lay there frozen trying to figure out what danger I had just encountered and how to deal with it. Since it had actually plopped onto my makeshift bed, I reasoned that it wasn't a snake. Good news there! So I psyched myself up to fling the canvas aside and found my assailant. Laying there, innocent and not threatening at all, was the empty beer bottle I had stashed next to the bed.
I woke at another point and realised the flaw in my plan to get a good night's sleep. When getting drunk, liquid consumed has to go somewhere. Ahhh. Nothing like squatting in the dark for a bush pee when you're completely unsure of your surroundings. After my earlier freakout experience, my overactive imagination was supplying me with images of myself pissing directly onto a snake and consequently having a snake bite me on the arse. Or worse.
When I emerged in the morning it was already light. The rest of the night had passed without incident and I had slept soundly until after eight. Fuck. What do I do now? I thought. So I tried the car just in case. And as we already know, she started. I checked the dipstick and it barely had anything on it after the litre I dropped into it. I went off in search of more.
There's got to be farms somewhere around here and where there's farms there's usually oil. A couple of kilometres, three unoccupied houses and one complete arsehat later, I came across a father-son combo who gave me four litres of lawnmower oil. I offered to pay but they wouldn't take it at all, which was sweet. Things were looking up! To top it off, I thumbed a lift almost immediately on the preety much deserted road that I'd been walking along.
The guy who gave me a lift had a travelling companion - a small dog who had his own little bowl set up on the passenger side floor. They were a great pair. The dog ran around and had an explore while old mate kindly waited with me at my car to see if it would still go.
She fired, and we waved our goodbyes. I was on my way... but the fun wasn't over yet.
Next morning I tried to start the beast and it had a bit of life in it. Holy shit! She's still kicking!
I'd had a night camped on the side of the road next to my car. It was shitty tent-pitching ground, so all I had was a swag with the canvas pulled up over my head to keep out the elements and anything else that might wish to intrude while I'm in drunken slumber.
Pretty early that night I'd managed to scare myself half to death when something plopped onto the canvas relatively close to my head. There was a bit of weight in it, and I lay there frozen trying to figure out what danger I had just encountered and how to deal with it. Since it had actually plopped onto my makeshift bed, I reasoned that it wasn't a snake. Good news there! So I psyched myself up to fling the canvas aside and found my assailant. Laying there, innocent and not threatening at all, was the empty beer bottle I had stashed next to the bed.
I woke at another point and realised the flaw in my plan to get a good night's sleep. When getting drunk, liquid consumed has to go somewhere. Ahhh. Nothing like squatting in the dark for a bush pee when you're completely unsure of your surroundings. After my earlier freakout experience, my overactive imagination was supplying me with images of myself pissing directly onto a snake and consequently having a snake bite me on the arse. Or worse.
When I emerged in the morning it was already light. The rest of the night had passed without incident and I had slept soundly until after eight. Fuck. What do I do now? I thought. So I tried the car just in case. And as we already know, she started. I checked the dipstick and it barely had anything on it after the litre I dropped into it. I went off in search of more.
There's got to be farms somewhere around here and where there's farms there's usually oil. A couple of kilometres, three unoccupied houses and one complete arsehat later, I came across a father-son combo who gave me four litres of lawnmower oil. I offered to pay but they wouldn't take it at all, which was sweet. Things were looking up! To top it off, I thumbed a lift almost immediately on the preety much deserted road that I'd been walking along.
The guy who gave me a lift had a travelling companion - a small dog who had his own little bowl set up on the passenger side floor. They were a great pair. The dog ran around and had an explore while old mate kindly waited with me at my car to see if it would still go.
She fired, and we waved our goodbyes. I was on my way... but the fun wasn't over yet.
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