Impending Winter

It's starting to get cold. Not bitterly cold. Not wet and damp cold. Not snow or frost or anything pretty cold. Just I wish I had a fireplace constant cold.

So far it's only morning and evening, but this is enough to kill any desire to keep getting up early. The newly formed resolution to stop pressing the snooze button was going well last week. Today it's colder, so that alluring button won out. I find it funny that there is that connection in the mind between exhausted and cold - it happens as soon as I stick my semi-aware foot out form under the covers. It registers cold... and suddenly I'm so exhausted I couldn't possibly get up before having another ten minutes sleep. And another ten. And another.

The cats - Jonah and Tyla - have also started to realise it's getting cold. For the whole of summer I've been missing Jonah's company at my feet. He would solidly refuse and only come into the bedroom to explore the cupboards at 6am on a weekend, when we're trying to enjoy a rare sleep-in, when he felt he was hungry and knew we'd go feed him to settle him down. Otherwise the pair of cats - the boys - would both camp out at the door periodically and stare, but would not come in.

They've changed their tune now. They are a little pair of sentinels on the end of the bed. Mostly, they start out one on each side. I must be less of a moving sleeper though, because they both seem to end up on mine after a while.

How is it that a six-kilo cat turns into something like a bag of concrete when it's on top of your quilt? And once they've decided on a spot, they turn into feline boomerangs. I pick Tyla up from the position that I'm sure is wonderful for him, but nestles directly between my knees, and I move him over onto flat patch on the other side of the bed. Next thing he's walked straight back onto that spot. Pick him up, put him somewhere else. Nope, back he comes to the one spot that guarantees I can't move around unless he does.

The cold approaching means a few good things, too. The appreciation of the morning coffee grows stronger as my hands wrap tighter around that preciously warm mug. I have a couple of favoutrites just for winter that feel right in my cupped hands.

It also means crisp, beautiful mornings. It means fog with sunlight breaking through. It means gorgeous photographic opportunities. It means positioning yourself in the patches of early morning sun and appreciating the small warmth upon your back as you are heading out to work.

It's time for heaters. For the next few months that peculiar dance, the heater dance will happen. You know it. We've all done it. You know, that slow left-right rotisserie in front of whatever heating appliance is available. Where you start off just a little crouched. You stick your hands out in front of you, palms at right angles to your wrists. And then slowly, you start to twirl, as you realise that the back of your knee area is getting cold too. As you spin, you move your hands to your bum and point them at the opposite right angle direction. Yep, you know the dance all right.

The cold has started, alright. This morning I've hit the snooze button three times, wrapped my hands around my favourite mug and looked outside at the already marvellous day. At least there's some positives.

Sunday Smart

“The truth is I put figures in mainly for scale…” - Jeffrey Smart

Dorrigo

I thought I'd better post a few of my photos, even though I've been really dissatisfied with my strike rate lately. Here's the best of a bad lot from a reasonably recent trip to Dorrigo.



Dorrigo is the home of a World Heritage National Park, an old train yard, a somewhat interesting hand-made motorbike called the Ned Kelly bike - more interesting because it's housed in a very terribly cafe - and really not much else. From my older days of living near that area I remember that Dorrigo red soil potatoes are apparently the best you can get. Those must all get shipped out because we didn't see a spud anywhere!



Back to the bit about the World Heritage National Park - it's part of the Central Eastern Rainforest reserves of Australia. Here's the tourist mini-guide: "Dorrigo National Park protects areas containing plant and animal communities typical of the eastern rim of the New England Tablelands. High rainfall and moist conditions nurture subtropical, warm and cool temperate rainforests. Subtropical rainforest grows in the richer soils and supports huge, buttressed yellow carabeens, black booyongs ahnd bungalow palms. Strangler figs germinate high in the canopy and vines loop from the branches. Elkhorns, staghorns, crows nest ferns, cunjevoi, ferns and mosses create a vivid green forest, splashed with deep red flowers of flame trees in early summer."

I really would love to spend days and days walking around these rainforests. The vegetation is amazing. The greens are so vivid. Theres thousands of little microworlds to learn about, explore and marvel at. And then there's fungi. Keep a firm grip on my hand... because when I stop, fascinated by something, it's easy to leave me far behind!

Sunday Smart

“I find myself moved by man in his new violent environment. I want to paint this explicitly and beautifully… only very recently have artists again started to comment on their real surroundings” - Jeffrey Smart

Things that constantly amaze me

• Rain. I know the sciencey blah behind it. But seriously, it just falls from the sky. Then it doesn't. Then it does. Then it sniffs out public holidays and stays! Brilliant!
  
• The abilty of cats to sense when you wake up and appear just in time to wind themselves in between your legs on the way to the kitchen.
  
• My continuing fascination with Matt Preston
  
• Auto Electricians. *Snip *Snip *Snip *Twist *Key-click *VROOM. There you go, done. They make a spidery mess make sense in ten secons flat.
  
• How I can use a packet mix to make muffins yet still feel like a masterchef at 6am when those little bliss bombs roll out of the oven.
  
• The addictive properties of the Zelda series of games.
  
• Tourism-driven art vendors.
  
• That practising scales to a metronome is the best form of relaxation I know.
  
• How much Jonah continues to amuse me. I just watched him bury his nose into the bristle end of an oversize paintbrush and waited for the inevitable sneeze. Cracks me up every time.
  
• Touch phones
  
• The undiminishing libido of my partner... *grin*
  

Bin for Laden

I'm feeling like an arse.

In America there's people dancing on the streets in joy that Osama bin Laden is dead, people spontaneously singing the Star Spangeld banner, shouting out USA! and waving flags. Kids who should not know hate waving signs.



Here, I sat in front of my computer and raised my eyebrows. The most I spoke was a comment to my girlfriend - Hey babe. They reckon they shot Bin Laden. Why am I feeling like an arse? I'm not excited at all. I don't think it's a milestone in any way other than to take away the known element - the focus of a name - and bring back in to play the core of terrorism: that the perpetrators are faceless. At least with a figurehead those who felt the need to hate had somewhere to point that hate. Those who felt the need to fear had someone to blame for that fear. Now what?

Just because the guy who was the face of Al Quaeda to the media is dead do we think it's over? Even if Al quaeda itself were to proclaimed eradicated it would not be over. There will always be terrorism in some form because it is a very strong capacity in humans to be terrified.

I can't get excited about it at all.

I can't even decide on which of my ideas I support the best. I'm just not passionate about it at all.

Do I go with theory one: That Obama is coming up for re-election and needs some form of victory to justify that troops are still kicking around away from home? Piss off Pakistan so it can stay in the media for a while? Get some pictures of blood stained trashed rooms together (miraculously no blood on the walls, just the floors... even though there were claims of head shots)? Get some party pictures of everybody in the situation room like they're about to watch a football game. Then dump the body over the side of a boat and say it's out of respect?

Or do I go with theory two? Al Quaeda needs a new face. Bin Laden has been at it for ten years and it's time to give the guys someone new to respect. They'll be taking over from someone who was taken out by the very people they despise - a great motivator to start something new. It'll shut the Americans up for a while, too, because they feel they've made a victory. There'll be more pressure to take the forces back home.

Or theory number three: That it wasn't Osama at all. Just a dude with a beard made to look like him and that he's planted his own death.

Too many theories. Not enough desire to believe them. So I'm settled with this for the moment:

A dude is dead. The Americans are happy because they shot him. It apparently avenges the thousands of deaths associated with the twin towers plane attacks.

Road Trip!

We're heading off to a festival this weekend.

You go, you camp out, you listen and party like you know best.



Problem is, it's been pissing down for the last few days and it's not letting up.

Diagnosis Fail

I've been using an internet stick. You know them. The ones that you punt into the USB port and supposedly magically enter the world of the internet from anywhere.

Bullshit.

Even though there seems to be three levels of network speed in the area the fucking thing disconnects. Then the program that talks to it won't fucking start. Then after several different pissed off combinations of double-clicking it still won't fucking start. Even after I bring out the old key commands – the highest sign of my annoyed state – the program still won't fucking start.

Of course, I'm writing about it because it happened just now. Happily cruising along and then



Well why the fuck not? I look at the stick poking out the side of my laptop and the answer is there. That little light that chooses whatever colour it likes to be depending on how fast it feels like going today, well, that little light has started flashing. We've dropped out. Gone AWOL. No more pointless surfing. No more pointless poking around on Facebook. No more looking at silly pictures just because you can. Because now you can't.

Then I looked at the Oracle in front of me and realised that it may have the answers. That button certainly looked like it might. Diagnose Connection Problems. Sounds important. Why not? Click.

Consult your computer manufacturer's troubleshooting information. You can also use another computer to visit online support services. Contact your computer manufacturer for additional assistance if required.

Let me paraphrase that:

Dunno. You're on your own there.

Great. My faith in Windows is as strong as ever.

Quote of the Day

All I want is a nice glass of wine.

And a cardigan.

Holy Cow

I stopped dead in my tracks to gawk at him. Holy Fucking COW was the pathetic line that escaped me.

His name is Fonzy. He is 1.885 metres tall. He is a Canadian Holstien. He is one hell of a big boy.

Bloodsuckers

Female mosquitoes drink blood. Males do not. Both can feed on nectar and sugar. Females can only produce eggs after a blood feed. Then they keep going on feeding on blood anyway for the love of it.

Males swarm at dusk.

Females join the swarm because they're guaranteed a root in there.

So many parallels to life can be drawn.

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Ouch

Oh. My. God.

Bra chafe!

It's been so hot the last couple of days. Inside a mining machine that has been running a couple of hours previously, the air is still and the heat of working components refuses to go away. In winter it's ideal. Summer... Well.

Knowing this weather is hard on everyone I jumped into one of the worst areas to give the crew I was leading a bit of a break. I hooked into digging some incredibly hard crap and gave it my all.

I have bruises in suspicious places.

I not one, not two, but threechafe lines across my chest now, and also across my back.

This shit is not comfortable. Especially when you're supposed to do it all again the next day. Top surgery seems like a far better option!

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On Meeting a Drag Queen

I played pool with him. Her. Fuck... I don't know? Also, I'm afraid to ask.

Just let it roll... I think.

He puts on his feminine moves while he plays and it brings out this... instinct in me. Even though I am seeing before me a male, somebody I would not consider attractive or a potential partner, those feminine moves appeal to something deeper in me. They draw my masculinity out. They reach into that side that says I must look after those I consider vulnerable and precious in my life. They say to me that woman is definately precious to me.

Yes, it draws out my masculinity.

A male, acting in feminine capacity, makes this biological female feel masculine.

What a world.

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Quote of the Day

Not so much a quote, but a humorous writing on a toilet roll dispenser:-

"Turban repair kit."

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YUCK! Android Phone!

Testing a suppsedly crappy blogger app. If it works, all I have to do is master typing on this crappy little touhscreen...

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Quote of the Day

Heard on a children's television show:

Just sit there and practise until your blisters harden into callouses.

Damn, I should have been using that one on my students all along.

Early Morning Wash Job

For work yesterday the Roster Gods granted me the pleasure of having to do a 4am Excavator wash. It's been ages since I've been rostered on to do one of those – I tend to get stuck elsewhere doing other things and miss out on all the fun.

And it is fun.

Alright, you get shit all over you. It's freezing at this time of year and you're pressure blasting with water – which means that you will be standing outside in a long sleeved shirt with two jackets over the top, two bright white sperm suits over that, both of their little white hoods up over your beanie adorned head and a hardhat on top. Looking like a slow moving marshmallow. And you will still be freezing. After three hours solid of pressure blasting, you will also be saturated even through all those layers.

But...

You're using a gun with 4000psi behind it. They're easy to hold when you're used to them, but there's still a kick that will send a beginner backwards. You get up there in the dark and carve away at the grease and mud covering this huge machine and work your way toward the dawn.

I had chunks of mud an inch thick and the size of a man's shoe blasting off the top of this machine in the path of my water gun. All around me there was destruction caused by me, and only me. Oh, therapy. It was brilliant. After the destruction and debris is blasted off the side and into the dark the machine emerges as clean, shiny, and - of course – overwhelmingly orange.

Somewhere near the end of all this comes the other bonus of the shift... Dawn. I love seeing the sky change shade by shade as I'm working. It comes as a surprise every time. I look up from my destructive path for a second and realise There's a tinge of blue to go with those stars now and it makes me smile. It carries with it this indescribable burst of energy and wonderment mixed together. It's exciting. It gives me this wonderful feeling of awe at the way the world works.

It also means I can see any bits I've missed before we hand the machine back to the service crew.

It's crap, it's dirty, it's freezing, and it has the remarkable property of reminding me that it's great to be alive.

Breaking Down

Seven golden rules for healthy eating habits

1. Drink plenty of water.

2. Eat more fruit and vegetables (at least two servings of fruit and five servings of vegetables every day).

3. Manage your portion sizes.

4. Eat less processed food.

5. Eat regular meals – don’t skip meals – and always eat a healthy breakfast (e.g. bowl of natural hi fibre cereal with sliced banana and low fat milk).

6. Restrict your alcohol intake.

7. Limit your intake of “extra” food. These foods are not essential to provide the nutrients the body needs and some contain too much added fat, sugar and salt. Examples include lollies, chocolate, biscuits, cakes, pastries, soft drinks, chips, pies, sausage rolls and other takeaways. Choose these foods sometimes or in small amounts.

I went to an osteopath yesterday. What a disaster. All my conceptions of my own health are out the window.

I thought I was strong. No. My back is in severe pain because my muscles have degraded so much through bad nutrition that I don't have the strength to support my own body weight. There I was thinking I had just overstepped things a little. I thought I just needed a little adjustment and I'd be okay again. Good to go. Not a chance.

The weight that I am now, which I thought was reasonbale, but still about seven kilos over where I'd like to be, is actually fourteen kilos above the upper limit of the healthy weight range for somebody of my height. Fourteen to drop before I'm even on the border of it.

The tension in my neck is ridiculous.

My muscle tone is terrible.

This has all happened through years of constant abuse, lack of nutritous eating and proper exercise and of course, the word that is spat at me as a devil by every health professional I've seen: Smoking.

My blood pressure, however, is spot on. And my pulse is good. Conclusion? My body is fucked but I have a good heart.

I'm crushed, to be honest. I really thought I wasn't that bad heathwise and now that it's all come crashing down around me I feel like curling up into a ball and crying for a while. There's a small glimmer of positivity there - this is a good wake-up call to lead a healthier, more active lifestyle. To lose more weight. To give up or cut back on the smoking. It's an uphill battle that I wanted to fight and climb through anyway. But that hill just seemed to morph from a small ascent into something size of fucking Everest. Not many people have the skills to get past base camp there! How the hell are me and my fourteen extra kilos with zero knowledge of proper healthy lifestyle going to ever be equipped to tackle this one? Will I ever reach the top and do I have the guts and abitlity to maintain my balance when I get there? Will I teeter on the top for a while before my strength runs out and I go rolling back down again?

Gender and the Bathroom

I've started wearing ties again. Oh Fuck, it's been about two years since I felt comfortable enough in one. Let's just say that the elements I surrounded myself with in the time in between were rather quick to judge and I fell for it, slowly but surely cutting out the little masculine things I enjoyed. At the time I was kidding myself that I was fitting in. Now I see it as a major setback in my personal gender explorations.

Anyways, tonight I stepped out in a dress shirt and a tie. Apart from the fact that my chest still sticks out far more than I'd like it to, I looked good. I was happy. All I needed to do was to avoid checking myself out in side profile and I'd be fine and confident in my manufactured masculinity. Happy and fine as a non-gender-specific polymorphous individual.

I'm lucky to be sharing a very supportive environment now. The people around me are not just okay with me expressing who I am, they are encouraging me to explore it more, even. It feels great to be filling out my own skin again.

The fact that there are differences between my reality and that of other people became apperent when I went to the bathroom at the club we were having dinner at just this evening. I went to the bathroom for obvious reasons, and also to tidy up my apperance. I adjusted my tie in the mirror as I was turning to leave. At the same time, a poor older lady was walking in. She looked at me and I could see the embarrassment in her eyes. Panic that she'd walked into the wrong bathrooms. She walked backwards out the door and checked the sign.

Shit.

First thought: I don't want a scene here at all.

Second thought: Fuck you, lady. I wear who I am on the outside. I'm sure you piss in the same bathroom as your husband at home anyway.

Such a dilemma. I felt for her confusion, yet was angered by her narrow-mindedness.

Perhaps I just need to remind myself that other people's thoughts and reactions are their own, and not mine?

Quote of the Day

"Vic's back is like a jigsaw puzzle that doesn't fit together."

Object of Affection

I want one.



It's rare these days for me to make a decision based on pure sexiness of an item. I tend to be influenced more by functionality of an item rather than looks. A nice, sleek looking car? Why the hell would you do that? Can you fit a drum kit in the back of it? No? What the fuck would you want it for then??

But wait just one second.

I want that one.

It gave me a funny feeling in my crotch. It made my mouth open. It made my eyes glaze over. It made my heart rate quicken and I don't want to stop looking at it. I want to stroke it.

What the fuck will happen when I sit on one?

Dear Vic

When leaving in a work truck it is important to:

- Make sure all items required for the day are packed.

- Delegate a spotter before reversing a truck and trailer out of the smallest vehicle parking area in the world, which is packed with far too many vehicles. If not, you may actually run into something.

- Make sure the radio works by cranking it up. This will also ensure that nobody in your work crew will snooze on the hour or so drive to the mine site, thus ensuring that they will be 100% awake and ready to work (or at least hastily exit the truck) when they arrive.

- Walk around the truck prior to departure making sure all items that are supposed to be secure indeed actually are. This should stop things from falling off.

- Walk around the truck prior to departure making sure all items that aren't supposed to be secured have been detatched completely. This should stop you from taking a trailer along by accident next time. Who would guess it? You're dragging around 2.3 tonnes of vacuum unit on wheels and you don't even know it? Damn.

That is all.

To My Co-Workers:

Train Station Goodness:

I love trains. Always have. Watching them, hearing them, travelling on them.

Train stations will always hold some hidden little smiles for me - a surprise flower growing between the tracks, the weird way an underground station smells in all it's tiled clinicity, the fifty people all gathered under the clock as a meeting spot. There's graffiti, one of my favourite visual excitements, and usually there's a slogan to make my mind twist.

On the way into Sydney recently to see the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade I caught sight of a beauty at Waverton station: a beautifully painted station fixture sign that said

Alight here for Beautiful BALLS HEAD

... and we all know what comes right along with balls, don't we? But there's plenty of those types of heads floating around already and I'd rather not like to spend time with them!

On Morning Time

It's early. I have twenty minutes in which to drink a cup of tea, put my shoes on, panic about the whereabouts of my keys and cigarettes and then I'll still be at work before I'm meant to.

Jonah the Mostly Black Cat is rustling away beside me tearing up the latest box that has pissed him off. The fridge is humming away to itself, the pay TV box has joined in with it's own somewhat possessed hum and yet still, above all the household running sounds I can hear the crickets carrying on outside.

This time of morning is pretty relaxing when I'm not rushing to find clothes, shake off a hangover or just beat the consequences of too many hits on the snooze button. There's stuff all traffic out and about. All the drunken idiots that tend to walk by have either got into a fight and been hospitalised or arrested or they've passed out somewhere by now. It's just me and the crickets.

It's times like now - kicking back, relaxing before the start of the hectic day - that I try to resolve that I will get up well before I'm required to every day. I know somehow that it's not going to happen. Things will get in the way. Jonah will destroy my bedroom all night leaving me with the five minute gaps the snooze button affords me to catch up. I'll get hit by the drunk stick before bed, rendering any form of organisation completely useless. I'll forget to put the washing on early enough and have to fight my way through the stress of ironing still wet clothes while saying shitgoddamnhell just dry. I'll decide to make muffins for sixty people at the drop of a hat.

There will usually be something to keep me from kicking back relaxing in the mornings.

But.... I really do love this time.

Period of Annoyance

It’s time for a little song. Come along, warm up your vocal chords and join in whenever you’re ready. No need to be shy, now! Today’s song is called Riding the Red Pony or is otherwise known as Making Teabags for the Vampires…

Periods. Why do I even need them?
Periods. I hate them with a passion.

(shout)
[Aunt Flo sends her regards!]

Periods. Make you panic in the restroom.
Periods. Soak your pants if you bleed through.

(shout)
[Blowjob season. Bitchy Witchy Week!]

Rags. What a pity there’s no riches.
Monthlies. It’s what turns us into bitches.
Cramps. Hurl your stomach into stictches.
I’m out of action. Can’t stand the bodily glitches!

Periods. So much better if it’s not you.
Periods. Can’t find a toilet when you need to.

(shout)
[Feed the lesbian vampires!]

Periods. A curse I can’t get rid of.
Periods. Tell all of them to fuck off.

(shout)
[I sat on a tomato]

Visitors. So much for battle of the sexes.
Girl Things. Wish them on your exes.
Red Tide. It’s The Blood of St. Menses.
Sticky Time. I’ve got a Leaky Basement!

THERE WILL BE NO MORE MENSTRUATION JOKES, PERIOD.

Streaker

Last night I woke sprawled face down like a starfish across my double bed, in just a pair of underpants. I must have tried to embrace my bed in a bear hug out of joy for finally seeing it. That’s right, I think to myself. I came home on the train last night and had to wait forever for it. No wonder bed was obviously a disorganised event consisting of Aim and Flop. The process was more than likely hastened by tripping over the cuffs of my jeans as I tried to step out of them.

Why did I wake from the depths of my overtired, exhausted and somewhat alcohol induced slumber?

Rain. A downpour of summer storm proportions. We’ve been having heaps of those lately in Vicsville. Normally it would be a great feeling to roll over, stretch a bit and then settle in to listen to the beautiful sounds it creates, bask in the smell of rain and the cool breeze it brings. I have always loved a downpour. It gets into your soul. It calms you in a way that nothing else can. It is contentment.

This time it is panic.
It is panic, and near-naked streaking.

Out into the common driveway of six units I went at full sprint. Underpants hanging around my arse, tits (stupid things they are) heaving in all the wrong ways, and car keys gripped in my hand.

How the hell I remembered that the windows were down I have no idea. In those twenty seconds of full world exposure I managed to get my only item of clothing, my underpants, completely saturated.

With my entire body wet, still exhausted and probably still drunk, I ditched the soggy, floppy underdacks without ceremony right next to the pair of jeans I’d tripped out of. No sitting back and basking in the sounds tonight. Straight back to embracing the bed and the sleep that comes hand in hand with it.

Night Out

An hour of preparation shared between the shower, razor and the bedroom mirror.
An hour of self-admonishment for forgetting how to let loose with my style.
Five cans of Rum & Dry.
Half a dozen cigarettes and a couple of slices of cold pizza.

Smash the last can of rum down on the half-dozen block walk to the train station and there’s no turning back.

We’re going out on the town.

More specifically, I’m going out on the town to the only local gay bar I know in existence. That was another point of self-admonishment. I’ve forgotten my dyke style. I haven’t been around my kindred spirits for so long I’ve forgotten how to make my statement among them.

Twenty minutes of train journey.
Twenty minutes of enduring some snotty little teenage girls talking about how many guys they got onto and how so-and-so is so disgusting for getting onto so-and-so.
Get me another fucking drink.

I turn on the music player on my phone as I get off the train. Let’s have some pump-up music, in the form of Big and Rich’s party track Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy:
Well I saddle up my horse and I ride into the city
I make a lot of noise ‘cause the girls they are so pretty

Yep, yes, and hell yeah. I’m hoping to see me quite a few of those pretty girls, bust a few beers down and perhaps make a few friends. Then I plan on getting my merry arse on to the dance floor and working off all the pies I shouldn’t have had on the way to work. Then, hopefully, I’ll make it home without sleeping past my stop on the train.

It worked out, sort of. I listened to bad karaoke run by a fantastically camp tranny. I watched two absolutely gorgeous women play some great pool. I was hanging out in the smokers’ section chatting to the occasional random person when…
I got picked up on.
You’re joking. I think to myself.
I haven’t hit my peak with the style. I’m wearing sneakers for fuck’s sake. I’m carrying ten kilos more fat than I want to, and in all the wrong places.
Surely this is a joke.

I bailed to the dancefloor because I wasn’t actually there to pick up. I just wanted a night out.

She continued to seek me out, cornering me in the smoker’s section.

No joke. She definitely wanted me. Wow! Holyshit and whatthefuck all in one big swirly mix. I ended up trying to go home because I wasn’t exactly that interested in her. She was sexy all right, but I was tired and she was extremely forward. She asked if she could kiss me before I left. Sure, I say. Why the fuck not then?

It was nice, although it felt as though she was trying to rape me in the middle of the courtyard after a while. I broke it off, kind of embarrassed to be virtually fucking in front of everyone, and also not wanting to have her think I was going to take her home. Another day, maybe I would have. Not this time. I had only just started coaxing my dykeness back out of the closet and there was no way sex was going to come easily to me. I thought it best to head home. That’s where things turned nasty.

I was a fucking tease
A mole.
Apparently I knew that she’d had her eyes on me from the second I walked in the door.
An arsehole.

So maybe it’s going to take a while to get my mojo back in full swing. Certainly it’s going to take a while to deal with being hit on. That normally doesn’t happen to me and was a daunting surprise to say the least.

But the mojo, my inner dyke style?
It’s coming. It’s coming back with a vengeance.

Quote of the Day

"The problem with your gene pool is that there's no lifeguard."

Born today: Newton

"Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians."
- Keynes, John Maynard (1972), "Newton, The Man"

Sir Isaac Newton was born three hundred and sixty-seven years ago, today. At the time of his birth, though, it was Christmas Day, 1642. It just happens that England hadn't adopted the Gregorian calendar yet. In fact, the Brits didn't change to the different style calendar until quarter of a century after Newton died, so the poor bugger was stuck celebrating Christmas and his birthday on the same day. They were the fourth last in the old Europe to join in on the whole Gregorian calendar party, so if he'd been born somewhere such as Spain or Portugal he could have enjoyed separate Christmases and birthdays his entire life.

Most people have seen cartoons of an apple donking Newton on the head, prompting him to come up with the theory of gravity. Well... not quite true. Watching an apple fall from a tree in his mother's garden prompted him to think on gravity. Not whether it existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to it's orbit. Since he guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motion he named it "universal gravitation".

"The" tree is a subject of some debate. The school that Newton went to (even though his mother took him out of school to be a farmer for a while - which he didn't like much)claim that they bought "the" tree, uprooted it, and plomped it in the headmaster's garden years later. Apparently his signature can still be found on the library window sill - so possibly the school has spent more money on refurbishing their gardens than they have maintaining the buildings.

Woolsthorpe Manor, Newton's family home, reckon they still have it safe in their garden. Trinity College in Cambridge think they've got a descendant of it in their gardens below the room he lived in when he studied there. You can even buy a descendant tree for yourself, from the National Fruit Collection, for your own inspirational benefit. Perhaps you could place it next to your model of Archimedes' bath. I feel a theory on the rate of decay brought on by fruit fly invasion coming on.

Heading off to work to:

Well, to install some insulation...

But my real aim for the day is to keep a tally of how many lame Hey Vic, haven't seen you since last year! comments I can get.

What Happened to the Weekend?

Yesterday I was planning to write about a nice little drive in the rain through the local countryside. There were nice little rainy landscape shots. There were geese. There were heritage buildings. There were bunnies and flowers. There were signs and reflections and patterns and all things photographically inspiring.

And then there was major pain. The type of pain that landed me in hospital.

So began couple of hours of morphine and uncertainty as to what the hell was going on. In fact, I still don't know what really happened. It was somewhere between my chest and crotch, but it was sending cramping pains all over my body. Mainly I just lay there in pain while the nurses shoved opiates at me and asked if I felt any better. Occasionally I dozed off.

There were a couple of beautiful moments of Australianism to witness. God, our people just make me smile.

One of the nurses came by with a plastic cup and shoved it out toward me. The doc said you should have this. It tastes like crap. I raised my eyebrows at her. Serious, darl. It's gunna stick all the way down your throat and you can't have anything for ten minutes after you have it. It's horrible crap. Well, at least I didn't have any good expectations for it then.

Where's me tape? Who stole me tape this time? Inspiring, definately.

Anyway, after a bunch of drugs and a few scans I still don't know what caused the pain. I have been told though, that I need to avoid cheese and large meals, as well as smoking and drinking. Have these people been informed of my cynical approach to the "standard" resolutions for the new year? Am I somehow being sent a message that it is time to act on those rather than putting it off for another year?

Kisses, Happy New Year

Now that I am capable of some degree of movement, it is time to say Happy New Year to everyone. The standard resolutions are in place - I have contemplated never drinking again, looked at the financial gains of cutting back the smoking, and swilled down Coke while affirming that I need to be more healthy in my lifestyle. They'll all go to shit very quickly, of course. But this year is mostly about being the Groover.

Out of the foggy hangover haze that is clouding last night's activities rises one very clear memory: a kiss. Actually a couple of kisses.

It was out of the blue, and to be honest I have no idea why or how it started. We were wrestling for the possession of my hat, and somehow ended up kissing. Oh shit I remember thinking. Maybe I shouldn't have done that. So I pulled away quickly, only to be grabbed by the back of my neck to come back for more. Oh what a fantastic feeling. That hand on my neck pulling me down. The beautiful soft feel of her lips. The slightly sweet taste of her mouth. The feel of confident, strong, desiring hands upon me. The soft skin of her neck under my lips.

It's been so long since I've had a hand that desires me touch me like that. It's a memory that will make me feel a little weak at the knees for quite a while now. Wow, what fantastic kisses they were.

Of course, I want more. Typically, though, I have picked a person that I shouldn't have. The search will need to be continued elsewhere. That's another resolution. I want somebody else to touch, to share with, to kiss with passion and receive all that back in full from them. I think I deserve it.

Oh, and I resolve to blog far more frequently than last year.

Quote of the Day

Housemate Country was describing my cat Jonah's latest effort in the litter box of doom. The stench was unbelievable given the size of the kitten. You could market them as weapons of mass destruction. Death wrapped in fur and four legs.

Holy shit says Country. If he was a bloke I have high fived him.

Go Fish

Scumbagland yielded a whole lot of hours of boring waiting around today.

It had rained, typically, for the entire Christmas break, making the mine we were going to impassable. At least until the dozers had knocked a few layers off the existing roads to expose a bit of dry dirt. What does that mean? Five hours of waiting around with people you don't know much about.

I've been in this situation before, you see. Plenty. One amazing guy broke the awkward silences by bringing in riddles for us all to do. I've played music games. We've all spent hours playing target practice with the plentiful stones. I have a collection of fossil leaves and other interesting stones from trawling around where the truck has been parked for hours.

And I also have a pack of cards.

That's where that interesting cross-section of people becomes far more of a hinderance. We're constrained to what everybody knows how to play. The lowest common denominator. Sometimes you can jag some really good card players and set up a tournament of sorts... Other days, like today, it's junior style cards in the form of Go Fish!

There's something campfire-ish about tucking a bag of rags under your butt and dealing out the cards while you're sitting out there in the nothing of a mine. People open up to slagging each other off a bit, letting out their sometimes guarded senses of humour, relaxing a bit around people they normally don't talk to. Face it, it's better than ignoring each other and trying to sleep on a wonky bench seat in the back of a truck [ie sauna]. Sometimes a decent person will emerge through the chance to be sociable.

Go Fish stumped me today. That's a pretty basic card game. Should we hold Scumbag interviews with a mandatory gaming skills test?

Should I be campaigning for a card game rules book to be part of the daily equipment?

Dear Scumbag Boss Peoples,

I am writing in order to place a request for a copy of certain card game rule books to be placed in the glove boxes of all working vehicles (and possibly those that aren't, for later). We lower Scumbags feel that it is in the best interest of crew dynamics and sociability that group activities such as the participation in card gaming are an asset to crew dynamics and staff satisfaction. This, in turn, leads to a greater sense of camaraderie amongst employees and therefore a more positive approach to the safety of others within the crew.

Yours Sincerely,
The Scumbags in Scumbagland.

Can we have some staff training days too?

Resolutions?

It's leading up to the end of the year. That precious time where you think of all the resolutions you can make for the coming year. Where you plan to instigate changes, usually radical, and hope they make your life swiftly better.

Reality usually reduces that to one simple sentence.

"I'm never going to drink again."

However, I face another New Year's Eve of not drinking and instead falling asleep on the lounge in front of the television. In previous years I have played in front of drunken mobs of idiots, wishing I could join the throng in order to not witness the tragedy from under the bright lights of sobriety. This time around I've got to work a nasty long shift New Year's Eve, and a 4am start isn't particularly condusive to partying after work.

So what will be the focus of my lounge-bound life-altering resolutions?



Up Yours, All Right

That's it. Whatever way I can find to say Fuck You, This is ME I want to embrace and try it out.

Hey, something's gotta work. This past year I've been run down by the people I trusted, I've given myself more the enough knocks of my own doing, chance has given me some dodgey turns and frankly I didn't want to come out of it alive.

Why? I think I got so caught up in wanting to be wanted that I lost sight of the real me. The sometimes funny, intelligent musician who had a genuine love of seeing new things and finding wonder in the world. I want it back. Fuck you, this is ME.

And if you can't hack it...

Don't bother sticking around.

Do You Ever?

Do you ever:

Wish you could play music all day and never stop?

Want to work with friends and not losers?

Hope that the chick you just saw a picture of and thought she was gorgeous would realise that Mr. Wonderful was actually you, the person who doesn't actually have a penis?

No???

Maybe it's just me then.

PhotoHunt: Fast

The PhotoHunt theme this week is Fast. The immediate thoughts are of speed and motion. Trains rushing along a set of tracks in the middle of nowhere. Jet contrails. Streaks of tail lights in long exposures. The blur of a cricket bat being swung during a game in the hot Australian summer.

Since when has the obvious been fun? A deadline prevents me from bothering to set myself up for any of the obvious shots, however let's pretend that I've actually been clever and approached the task from a different angle completely.

What goes fast around here?

I mean, REALLY fast.



That's right, BEER. It doesn't stay for long at all. It comes and goes again altogether far too quickly for my liking. Especially at this time of year.

Why on earth does the silly season demand that people "get together for a few drinks before Christmas"?
Fuck off.
Why not get together for a few drinks at any time of year for absolutely no reason but the hell of it? It would make Christmas a hell of a lot easier to cope with when it comes to cash flow. Not only do I need to buy presents for the family, I've had to buy carton after carton of beer.

Stuff the silly season. In future, if you really want to drink with me you won't wait until December.

The Family Extended

Ah, that ever-evolving process of change that is life. I’ve taken on a flatmate, known as Country. He’s a fellow Scumbag Industries worker and a true champion. To my home life he’s brought hours of supermarket indecisiveness He’s a fellow Scumbag Industries worker and a true champion. To my home life he’s brought hours of supermarket indecisiveness, a brilliant excuse to cook more often, and of course, several too many hangovers. It’s only been a couple of weeks.

Another addition to the Groove Shack is Jonah. A kitten who is both frustratingly loaded with testosterone and unmeasurably cute. He’s perfect.

Jonah came into my life in a typically weird way. Every day the Scumbags stop at a particular bottleshop on the way home, to grab a beer after a long day of dealing with grime and grot. Consequently, we all know the staff by name and have a good relationship with them. One day my favourite staff member showed me the stray kittens that had been born out back of the shop.

Marg, I want one.

I didn’t get one that particular day, but about a week later. I was working alone, so I had a whole dual cab ScumbagMobile all to myself, and nobody else in a hurry to get home at the end of the day. Perfect for kitten-catching.

The kittens had holed up at an abandoned shop next door to the bottle shop. I made my way through the overgrown yard, plucking blackberry thorns away from grabbing at my work clothes as I went. For the first time this summer, I was glad for the heavy thickness of our uniforms. The trek through the yard behind me, I climbed onto the verandah of this abandoned shop and peered around for these supposed kittens. I spotted one, a black and white little cutie with blue eyes who looked scared to death - like he’d never seen a human up close before.

I made a diving lunge for this kitten over boxes, milk crates and old shop shelving. Missed. Nowhere to be seen. But then… I spied the tips of a pair of little black ears. I reached in and snatched. Hauling him up by the neck, we stared each other down. He was incredibly scared but bold. Too young to figure out what his claws were for, he waved them around in the air and instead leaned in and latched onto my thumb with his teeth. Little fucker drew blood.

Meanwhile, old Marg is peering over the fence. She’s pretty short, so all I can see is her eyes and the top of her head.

Did you get one? She yells.

Holding my little trophy in the air, still by the back of the neck, I showed her. There was blood streaming out of my thumb and running down my right arm.

Fucker bit me Marg!

Here, put him in a box she says, and flings an empty beer carton over the fence at me.

It doesn’t end there. I grabbed a beer from Marg, still bleeding and laughing uncontrollably about the whole adventure, then proceeded to try to make my new little charge a bit more comfortable for the long drive home. I’d grabbed a bunch of rags and the plan was to put them in the carton with him so that he had something to snuggle up on and feel comfortable in. I’d keep the box at home as a bed for him, something familiar.

Nice plan. Thankfully I’d thought enough to roll up the windows on my ScumbagMobilebecause as soon as I opened the box my little guy made a leaping dash. Smack! into the window. He then Made a run to hide somewhere in the back of the truck.

Ah well, I thought. I’ll find you when I get back to the yard.

It must have looked great on the security cameras at the vehicle yard. It’s about nine o’clock at night and there’s Vic crawling around the back of this truck for a while and then coming out hugging a beer carton! Not only that, but talking to this beer carton.

Ah well, the things you do to build a family.

Scumbag Phraseology

There are a few main phrases to be aware of as a Scumbag.

That’s What She Said - This can be used at any time as an interjection to a conversation. A show-stopping statement.

Vic (talking about a grease buildup) : Holy shit it’s hard.
Anonymous Scumbag: Yeah, that’s what she said.

I Fucked Me Back Ay - Often accompanied with hobbling actions, this is based on a worker who did not last very long at all in Scumbag Industries. A Dead Set Unit, who spent a night shift playing on some over-exaggerated injuries. Basically the guy got the site safety officer at the time involved and sent my stress levels through the roof in a few short seconds. The other guys picked up on this phrase and started using it to make me laugh about the entire episode.

From there it became a way of breaking the silence. The guy has long since been shuffled off, and I’m not sure whether half the workers really know the origin of the phrase. It’s just something we say to break the tension now.

Wanna hat? - [Why? ‘Cause you’re a cock]. There are lens cleaner wipes out where we Scumbags go, that are in little individual packets with the brand Uvex upon them. Somewhere along the lines a bored imagination took hold of this and ran, twisting them into a brand of condom. Usually the phrase Wanna hat? is accompanied with the action of reaching into the top pocket to fish one of these out and attempting to hand it to the person receiving the comment. Why? ‘Cause you’re a cock is most often implied in the statement and not needed to be said. Unless the person is a Dead Set Unit.

Watch this fuckin’ idiot - One from the self-proclaimed King Scumbag, this must be stated with rising volume and pitch. Out of respect one of his phrases has been appropriated into general usage. Originally to warn of an approaching idiot driver, the usage has broadened to include general workplace hazards as well.

What have you done for me lately? - This is what happens when a bunch of Scumbags get together socially. Out comes Eddie Murphy doing stand-up comedy with Raw, and we all have a new phrase to play with. This one is so new it’s guaranteed to almost make me wet myself laughing, or at least reduce me to tears.

Scumbag Lingo

It’s about time I introduced the world to some of the Scumbag lingo. We have our own way of speaking, derived by spending far too many hours together in sometimes extreme, other times extremely boring, and most often isolated conditions.

Scumbag - One who has earned the title through being a good worker and good person. This title is not just bestowed upon any old person who rocks up for a shift. You can depend upon a scumbag, you can have a laugh and you will look after each other no matter what.

Deadset, or, for more emphasis, Dead Set - Serious, absolutely true. For example: Dead Set, I fell over a rock with every bastard watching me. Another example can be displayed in the following conversation:
Vic: Deadset mate, he’s a fuckin’ idiot.
Anonymous Scumbag: Deadset?
Vic: Dead Set.

Translation:
Vic: Seriously, he’s an idiot.
Anonymous Scumbag: You’re serious?
Vic: Absolutely.

Unit - A worker who is most definitely not a Scumbag. This may apply for a small period of time, in humour, to a Scumbag who has done something idiotic. This may be phrased Dead Set you’re a fuckin’ unit, mate. A deadset unit.

Most often the term unit is used to describe those with little to no aptitude. They could be dumb, oblivious, dangerous or just downright lazy.

Festy Cheese Beanie - The worst of the worst. This term applies only to the opposition. It literally translates to “foreskin” and this translation has been described in great detail within earshot of the offending crew members, without their knowledge that this is actually how we refer to them. The Festy Cheese Beanies are inferior workers, with inferior knowledge and equipment. They have amazing amount of distaste bestowed upon them by the Scumbags.

Mad - Excellent, amazing, deadset awesome. Example: I found this Mad new way do the job.

Goggle Box - The fluttering of the eyelids upon a woman’s clitoris. This is a hypothetical sexual manoeuvre invented on a boring day, laughing at this term inscripted on a wash pad storage box. ”Check out her eyelashes! Vic, I bet she could give you a mad goggle box!”

SuperSucker

I bought a vacuum. Two thousand watts of cheaply made supersucking household domesticy. Ahhh. I love it almost as much as my kitchen.

The vacuum is good for everything. I give them hell. These things don’t only do floors. They do window sills. Blinds. Skirting boards. Upholstery. This thing will suck up all the dead flies out of the light fittings. Hell, why bother with swiping a spiderweb down with a cobweb brush? Don’t you get sick of the fucking spiders crawling down the handle, or falling off on to the floor? Suck them out of existence and the spider that came with it will disappear in a whirlwind of cyclonic beauty.

Deeply engrossed in my domestic supersucking bliss I decided to clean the bathroom. I did the edges of the mirror, the top of the lightswitch, in beside and behind the toilet. All was going well, beautifully even. And then I spotted a bunch of offensive dust specks on top of the toilet roll holder. Well we’ll just suck those out of existence too then!

Note to Self: In future DO NOT place the nozzle of the supersucking awesome vacuum cleaner (on maximum suckage setting) anywhere near a toilet roll.

Before I knew it, the entire roll was gone. Unravelled all the way down the tube and spinning madly in the cyclonic catcher. Holy shit that was quick! I thought as I started to laugh, standing alone in my own bathroom holding a vacuum nozzle and looking at the empty roll on the holder.

So from now on I think I’ll stick to vacuum cleaning everything except the roll holder.

Quote of the Day

Again, to Scumbag Queen, The Mole.

Aww cheese. Yum. I love cheese. It’s my favourite of all yellow foods.

Scumbag Muffins

A while back, the Scumbags were working 24/7 on a machine. This doesn’t normally happen, unless one is getting pulled apart for repair – a shutdown. Usually an engineering company gets pulled in to run the repairs and it goes full stick for about a month, maybe more. You get to know the people from the other companies because you’re all there day after day, night after night.

I was on night shift supervision the entire time. Four nights on, one off. As it happened, one night I was working away on a particularly tough job, right in front of the engineering foreman’s office. It’s never a place you want to have to work, because that area also houses the site safety supervisor and all other sorts of demons. This particular night, though, the engineering foreman wandered over near me, fiddled about with a tool and some air lines for a while and then came right over.

He’d hooked up something to make my job ten times easier. It was an air chisel – a cylindrical vibrating barrel that he told me with a grin not to get too excited about.

I handed it back at the end of the shift and thanked him. You owe me one he said, with a grin.

Shit. That was a priority job that I never would have finished before morning if it wasn’t for that tool. I think this means I’ll have to get in the kitchen. By the time I get home from this site I’ll get four hours sleep, get up and bake and come back to work. It has to be something quick and easy. Muffins!!.

It was a winner. I pulled the Scumbag crew up for a break around 11pm and the engineering foreman came over to tell me he’d already had four breaks just to have a muffin. They became a hit where I brought in trays (actually cooked by my flatmate instead) for pretty much the entire work site to get into.

Since then I’ve laid pretty low on the muffins. Last week, though, I decided to bake a whole bunch in my new sexy kitchen. I was up at three in the morning and baked enough for pretty much every worker in my company to get one. Plus a few left over to butter up the foremen at the site I’m working on currently.

Later that morning I clocked on at the work site and scuttled off to fill my travel mug with the first coffee of the day. While sipping away, I walked past the safety supervisor’s office. He’s a lovely, generous, loud guy who happens to be able to see a lot of the indoor activity from his office. Vic! he yells out. You shouldn’t need a coffee this early! You haven’t even started yet! I pulled up a section of his doorway and explained the muffin project. Turns out he fancies himself a bit of a cook, and has spent more on his kitchen than it cost to build the house. We challenged each other to a bake-off. Specifically muffins.

Two days later, doing the same travel mug filling run, he spotted me. The corridors are a hive of activity at that time of morning. There’s blokes everywhere getting work orders and paperwork signed, getting coffee and getting ready for a day in the field. Mr. Safety Man yells out to me through all this:

Oy VIC! When are we going to have our Muff-Off?

Surprise Chef

I’ve been eating a lot of salad lately. It’s easy to knock one together, and I can keep the ingredients for a long time without them going off. I also don’t have to worry about finding a microwave at work to heat up my lunch in – which if you have a kick-arse reheatable luinch that you’ve been looking forward to since getting out of been at three in the morning, it’s guaranteed the ones out on site in Scumbag Workplace will have given up the ghost.

The fun thing with my approach to salads is that anything I feel like seeing in the bowl gets thrown in. A handful of fresh beans? Chopped cashew nuts? Any thing goes and mostly it works out.

I’ve been using labna chopped into it to replace dressing. Labna is a cheese of sorts, a very soft yoghurt ball thing that tastes awesome and tends to spread throughout the salad and coat everything in it. But the other reason I’ve been using labna is… I haven’t stocked up on the dressings yet. My relatively new pantry is bare when it comes to corruptible greats such as mayonnaise and assorted vinegars.

Last night’s salad effort included the last of the leftover roast chicken. I decided that the labna would no longer cut it when it came to bodgey dressing ideas. It was time to get creative. I had a lot of crunchy elements in my salad, which was lucky. The only elements in my pantry corruptible into some sort of dressing were of the asian factor.

What a brilliant experiment. It was simple and so effective.

I grabbed half a lemon and juiced it. Into that I put a splodge of sweet chilli sauce. I tasted it and mixed them by adding more until they balanced out – not to sweet and not too sour. Then I beefed it all out by adding olive oil and whisking it briefly. Fuck yeah. Yummy, and perfect for chicken and crunchy style salad.

Often I have invention disasters in the kitchen. I fail to see all the factors in what’s happening and end up with a bin-able offense. But when I pull it off, well I have to say I get pretty proud. This particular adventure is definitely a “save that one for later” recipe.

Now Playing:

The brilliant Aussie hip hop outfit, the Hilltop Hoods are back with a new album State of the Art. While I’m not usually a fan of this genre at all, these guys win me over with brilliant construction. Their backing is varied and very closely linked to jazz and funk. The vocal timbre for their rapping is more light and bouncy, more rhythmic and humorous than the forward-pushing angry vocals typical to the genre.

Here’s some standouts:

Track 1 - The Return
This album builds from the opening notes. The introductory track commences with a suspense-laden motif that changes context immediately as a funky main guitar riff enters, becoming a fill support for the overall groove. At times the entire backing will drop out unexpectedly, and then return full swing in order to emphasise certain lyrics. Nicely mixed, there’s a little jazzy keys improvisation at times to fill out the complexity in the backing.

Typically Australian in lyrical content, we have humour mixed with politics - The System is broken/the cistern is broken/the shit is just floating. As I mentioned before the vocal style is rhythmic and bouncy, fitting with the funky backing.

Track 3 - Chase That Feeling
How can I resist a track that includes a syncopated violin ostinato? From the outset, a piano (ahem, keyboard) riff sets the scene for this to be a far more serious song than the others. There’s a sung chorus, incredibly well built up with orchestral backing which is inspiring to say the least. And I will take that feeling/Take that pain and replace that feeling comes out under the chorus, emphasising the point of the song.

Of all the tracks, this is worth the most attention. If you’re Australian and own a television, you might have already heard it, since it’s already been [abused] appropriated by Channel Ten for station advertising.

I find it hard to listen repetitively to this album. The vocals in hiphop always tend to get to me after a while. But for a once off listen every now and then this album is brilliantly thought out, funky and definitely worth playing at high volume.

Quote of the Day

...goes to Scumbag worker The Mole.

”It’s more useful than a cucumber in a women’s prison.”

Without Music!!!

Note to anybody moving a CD player with a carousel:

MAKE SURE THERE ARE NO CDs IN THE CAROUSEL WHEN YOU LAY THE THING ON IT’S SIDE

I went to open it up the other day and there was a sickening crunch. The tray stopped in its tracks, halfway out. I tipped it on the side and hit the button. No matter what way I moved the whole setup, there was no I was getting that to go anywhere with the press of a button. So I grabbed it and pulled.

CRUNCH

followed by

tink tink!

and now a tray all the way out with no discs in sight. More button pressing and the thing wouldn’t retract either. Time for surgery.

[Bear in mind that I had consumed most of a very cheap bottle of white wine in all its horror. Every step I describe here seemed like a good idea at the time.]

Safety first, I unplugged the whole setup and set to work busting into it with a screwdriver. Fifty screws and a sore wrist later, I popped the case off and found the three offending discs. They’d slipped over the back of the tray and jammed it.

Now is where I turn the thing on and hope that removing the blockage has magically fixed the operation of the tray. No dice. Bastardfuckingbastard. Dammit.I spot the gear that runs it in and out. I poke it gingerly, as if it might wake up and suddenly spring into normal operation. I poke it more roughly. I try to spin it, in order to remind it what it should be doing of it’s own accord. I try a bit more forcefully to spin it.

CLUNK

At this point I realise that I’ve probably stuffed it for life now.

Well stuff you, thinks Vic. I’ll beat you another way then. I’m drunk and I require music.

I plug my wireless router into the stereo games input. I normally have this setup and it works fine. Brilliant. I’ll use my computer to listen to the backlog on my hard drive and rip my CDs to it when I want to.

I fish out the trusty laptop, fire it up and hunt down iTunes.

”iTunes has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.”

Sorry for the inconvenience???. Sorry? Needs to close??? You didn’t even fire up in the first place, fuckwit. Not happy, Jan.

How to Clean Up Minor Grease & Oil Spills

Preparation time: 10 minutes, and two cigarettes.
Serves: At least six hours of continual work in various areas around a machine.

Ingredients:
2 cheap plastic buckets (1 without handle)
1 plastic bag
1 bag rags
1 scraper
1 pair incredibly cheap crappy leather gloves
1 pair degreasing gloves
1 sperm suit
degreaser

Method
1. While smoking first cigarette, prepare buckets. Insert plastic bag into bucket without handle and roll the edges under, so that the bag acts as a liner for the bucket. Put degreasing gloves and scraper in this prepared bucket. Pour degreaser into the other bucket with handle.

2. Finish cigarette, put on sperm suit and incredibly cheap crappy leather gloves. Stand, have conversation, and light second cigarette. Walk to machine.

3. Finish second cigarette and locate nearest spill within machine. Scrape excess spill with scraper and place bulk in lined bucket. Once excess is removed, take off incredibly cheap crappy leather gloves and replace with degreasing gloves.

4. Take one small rag, dunk it in degreaser and wring out the excess. Make sure this is done over the bucket so as to not make any more mess and conserve degreaser. Wipe over the spill area.
*Do not place used degreasing rag back in degreaser bucket. You can use this rag multiple times before it loses effectiveness on spills, at which point it should be discarded. A common mistake is to place the rag back into the degreaser and reuse it. This will only turn nice, clean degreaser into oily black slop.

5. Replace degreasing gloves with incredibly cheap leather gloves and dry area with clean, dry rag, leaving no streaks.

6. Take cigarette breaks as required.

7. Repeat degreasing/drying process if necessary, before moving on to find more spills.

IT’S NOT THAT HARD.

Quote of the Day

From a recent day out with Boz and EspressoHead…

Boz: You should join the Vulcan pick-up lines group. It’s awesome.

Vic’s ”YOU’LL LEARN” list

Chorizos go in Chimichangas. DUH
(at least they do in my version)

Measuring cups are required for measuring things.

There will come a time when you will, undoubtedly, require salami.

Every roast potato “fuck-I’ll-chuck-it-in-it-can’t-be-that-hard” experiment has been utter failure. Look up trustworthy advice and follow it.

Saucepan does not equal Frypan.
You don’t own a frypan.

The big fuckoff burner at the front of your stove won’t simmer. It knows only hard boil and flat out.

Five gladware containers is NEVER enough.
Buy two packets.
Or start eating chinese takeaway more.

White corn tortillas SUCK!!!
addition from Dot the EspressoHead:
so does instant coffee. Buy a plunger.

Reformation of The Groover

I have my own place now. For approximately the last year I’ve lived in a fairly reasonable situation in a granny flat titled Pixieland. I’m glad to get out of there, though. The name Pixie is a sour reminder of a sexual happiness I’ll never get to access again and living under a roof with that title constantly brought it home to me. It was like driving a car with a muffler leak. The carbon monoxide will make you feel tired but you won’t realise why. It’s my own fault that I have not taken this step earlier, completely.

Now I have a far larger place of my own. It’s eight in the morning and there’s sun spilling across my entire living area. The kitchen is filled with marble and stainless steel sexiness. I actually have a built-in closet that almost fits all my clothes. Once again I have a room to set up as a studio for music, editing and photography. Life is looking up.

On the list to aid in the reformation of the Groover of previous times:
- more bizarre kitchen adventures
- random road trips
- MAILBOXES!!!
- far more adventures in learning weird and wonderful things

Come along if you dare, but I’m going anyway.

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.

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.

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."

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.

One of the best math jokes

Life is complex: it has both real and imaginary components.

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?

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.

Quote of the Day

The universe is full of magical things, patiently
waiting for our wits to grow sharper.

- Eden Phillpotts (1862-1960)

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.

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?

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.

The Death of Myrtle [Part I]

Finally, after months of legging it and fare evasion, I have a new car. It's burgundy. It's a station wagon. It's a Subaru with roof racks and a tow ball. Since I'm such a short-arse I can sleep in the back of it. AND the existing stereo is pretty damn good. I am in love with it's leather seats and sticking power windows.

I don't think I ever wrote about the demise of the last car. I'd just lost permanency in my job due to a stupid decision to douse an idiot with a cup of coffee. Said idoit was a relation of the boss, so I was lucky to be kept on as a casual. Anyways, I was driving this car around unregistered. The brakes were pretty shot - actually they were totally fucked to the point of grinding for ages after you atempted to use them - so I was using the gears to slow the car and babying it along. Since I'd gone from earning a grand a week to less than half that I had no chance of fucking the car off for a new one, so I was driving a bomb.

And it wasn't even registered in my name. I had no idea that I had to swap the rego over to my name when I bought it. I thought the dealer I bought it from would do that. Anyway, as things turned happened, that little oversight worked out well for me.

I was planning a night's stay a few hours drive away to meet up with friends kelsuperstarsinger and Icepick to take in the glorious And Difranco in concert. I'd been thinking about how the hell to get there a little more safely in my unregistered bomb. [Public transport? Pffft. Australia's a big place, and we don't have trains everywhere.] The plan came about that rather than taking the police-laden traffic haven of the highway straight up the coast, I would take in the longer, infinitely more scenic journey through the mountains on all the old back roads. In fact, stuff it, I might as well leave a day early and camp out on the way.

Shit happened that made me leave very late. I can't remember what exactly. I know I was near breaking point mentally with life and my job (or lack thereof) so I was operating on the flee instinct. I packed the car with my camping gear, gave it a bit of oil and set off into the dark.

The problem with taking a mountain route is that they tend to be pretty windy. I'd forget to use the engine to brake and instead use the stuffed brakes, producing a heart-wrenching grind that just seemed to get worse. The oil-light came on, which was no big drama because the beast has had a slow oil leak since I got her and it's perpetually coming on. Nothing open now out here, I thought. I'll put a bit more in tomorrow. So I kept on going, winding my way through the darkness with a spiralling head and a car with fucked brakes.

They got worse and worse, the brakes, or so I thought. And then it happened. I was on my way up one of the larger inclines when the engine seemed to chew itself to shreds. I stopped. No forward, no backward. No start what-so-fucking-ever. Dead in the middle of the road. In the middle of the night. With guard rails on one edge of the road and a cliff on the other. Shit.

All I could do was let it roll back down the hill until there was enough room on the side to pull over. I pooped the bonnet to check it out and my heart sank. There was oil everywhere. And my oil cap, sitting exactly where I'd left it when I took it off to top up the oil before leaving. Three hundred kilometres later and the fucking thing was still sitting there being a final reminder of my ineptitude.

I flagged down a passing car and they sold me a litre of oil for fifteen bucks. Rip-off bastards! But I obviously needed it. I put it in in the hope of reviving my poor dead vehicle but no dice. Luckily I was prepared to camp! I had the essentials for a decent night's sleep in any situation - a swag... and plenty of beer.

Next morning I tried to start the beast and it had a bit of life in it. Holy shit! She's still kicking!

Welcome to Scumbag Industries

Work has been my social outlet for a long time now. The roster varies from day to day, and so does the work. Crews of varying number get sent out all the time, so it's almost pot luck who you end up with. Some weeks you'll spend sixteen hours a day with the same four people. Other weeks you'll turn up for work excited because you're rostered on with somebody you haven't seen for a month.

We call each other scumbags. It's been known to be yelled from truck windows to fellow workers. It's been known to be yelled on the street. It's our form of greeting. A term of endearment. We spend hours rammed into a truck like sardines to get too and from the mine sites. We drag our sorry arses into the yard at 4am to get ready for the day, where the conversation is thin and sleepy. We crawl into spaces that you can't even sit up in and scrape out bag after bag of grease and dirt and dinosaur shit. We share a beer on the way home, rammed into that four-wheel sardine can, sweaty, filthy and giving each other shit all the way.

A scumbag will liberate anything that is apparently "forgotten". I have a toolbag that I've only bought one item for. Everything else in there has been liberated. Relocated. Rehoused. Even the bag itself. That bag is my scumbag pride and joy. You want a tool for the job? I've more than likely got it. And if not? Well... I'll probably have it by the end of the day. Scumbag.

Rearing Up My Ugly Head

I'm back. Same old Vic, farts and all.

Expect drivel, pictures, music, more drivel and the occasional illustration.

Continue at your own risk.