Pigeon Tricks

A sunny afternoon in the park. An audience.
There was a kid doing tricks with pigeons. He had five suitcases in a row and made the pigeons fly out of them, fly around, then fly back into the suitcases.
A man behind me said, "Look! He slams the suitcases shut!"
Later, when the crowd had left, and the kid left, I saw a man going up and down between the suitcases. The pigeons were inside, but broken and bloody, fluttering spasmodically now and then, jerking horribly. The man had a handgun and was aiming and shooting these pigeons in the suitcases. Some had fallen outside on the grass and these he finished off by stepping on them heavily and grinding his foot along the ground.
He made guttural sounds of disgust when he saw a pigeon that was not yet dead.

Readers on the Bus

After work I caught a bus to my brother's place. There were two women reading books but they were far away. A man in the seat in front of me was reading a technical/computer book. Another man was reading a Time magazine. A woman across the aisle and behind me one seat was reading a fashion magazine. It was hard to read my book wondering what books the two women were reading. One day in the future I will go up and ask them.
I got off the bus one stop early because I felt like walking. I'd never walked along that part of the street before. A building coming up on my left caught my attention. On the side of the building were four tall windows with pointed arches at the top. Was it a church? It looked like a church building with those windows. When I got in front of it, there was a big white wall with vines hanging down, but I could see a sign at the top of the building, under the roof. It said: HOUSE OF SUFISM.
Sufism?

The Amityville Horror

Today I finally got to see The Amityville Horror. I have to write about the audience members first because they severely diminished my enjoyment of the movie. It is still hard to believe what I witnessed.
First of all, two girls came and sat down in front of me. They were young and very cute and smelled wonderful, intoxicating. Then to my horror I noticed that the girl on the left continually, throughout the entire movie, at five-minute intervals, pulled out her stupid phone and stared at the stupid little screen and fiddled with the stupid little buttons. Did I mention she did this THROUGHOUT THE ACTUAL MOVIE? It was beyond my comprehension. Can somebody explain this behaviour to me? Is this the great and often praised ability of this generation known as MULTITASKING? Multitasking be damned I say! Give me art! Art, uninterrupted by robots wanking their idiotic little phones!
Secondly of all, long after I had chosen my seat, in an excellent position, and just as the movie was about to begin, some junior burger and his girlfriend decided to sit right next to me. Right next to me I say! When there were HALF A MILLION unoccupied seats as far as the eye could see! And do you think they had the courtesy to leave ONE MEASLY SEAT between me and them? NO. They sat right next to me, right up against my person. And furthermore, do you think they had the courtesy to position themselves with the cute girlfriend next to me? No. The hairy-assed boyfriend sat next to me.
Make no mistake, life is cruel and unkind.
Well, my immediate idea was to move the hell away, get some goddam space between myself and these horribly inconsiderate lovebirds. UGH. But then, I got another idea into my head. Maybe they expected me to move! Of course it would be a victory to them! Oh, the cunning of these young devils! Well, if they could put up with it, I could put up with it! (Yes, I am an idiot, no need to point it out. I should have simply moved the fuck somewhere else.)
It was very hard to put up with. It was hard to concentrate on the movie. I am sure I missed quite a bit of the movie due to hotly simmering over the situation. It was clear that it did not bother them in the least. The girl was too busy shaking like a leaf at the nerve-shattering horror being played out on the screen, and her boyfriend was too busy playing the hero, consoling and reassuring the poor shivering little thing.
To the movie! I enjoyed the movie. There were some good scares. The little dead girl was cool. *The Library Nazi* from Seinfeld was in it. At some particularly inappropriate moment I laughed out loud and saw the two girls in front of me tense up. That was amusing.
The movie was pretty good.
The audience deserved to be stuck in the neck with a letter opener.

Robert Jordan

One noteworthy thing I have found out about the world of fantasy novels is the case of Robert Jordan and his Wheel of Time series, which was apparently excellent for the first four books, but then started going alarmingly downhill. It seems that nothing actually happens any more in his books, aside from endless descriptions of women's clothing.
The series is now up to Book 10 and the (mostly negative) reader reviews are hilarious.

This Fantasy Business

I did not see any women reading books today. Yes, it is depressing. But tomorrow is another day, and I remain optimistic.
I have not seen a movie since last Tuesday. All I do now is read books and keep watch for women reading books.
Yesterday I finished Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham (excellent) and today started A Game of Thrones by George R R Martin (hooked by the end of chapter two.)
Must find out what this fantasy business is all about!

Woman Reading at Bus Stop

I walked to work yesterday. I haven't been riding my bike much because the front wheel is about to collapse. To get a new wheel or buy a new bike is a decision I know I will probably put off until the wheel does go ahead and collapse. I only hope it does not happen going downhill in morning peak hour traffic...If I don't write in here for more than three days running, you will know it happened at that time.
Anyway, I was walking to work and got up near Hyde Park, outside the IGA mini market where the bus stop is. I saw a woman standing at the bus stop and she was reading a book. This is a new one I haven't done before: I saw her and walked past, behind the bus stop, but my curiosity about what book she was reading tormented me to such a degree that I knew I had to find out no matter what. A bold move was required. I spun around and headed back towards the bus stop. She was in front of it, close to the street. I moved towards her and stepped down from the curb onto the street, ducking my head in a necessarily conspicuous manner and bending my neck at a severe angle, looking up at the cover of the book. I saw that it was a book by PD James. PD James? Is that person not a writer of detective novels? If I am not mistaken, she is welcome to them.
I circled back around the bus stop, wondering if anybody noticed my not-very-covert manoeuvre, but not caring much if they did, and continued my walk to work.

No Books

When I got on the bus this afternoon, it didn't take long to notice there was something wrong. Something terribly, terribly wrong:
Nobody was reading a book.
A bus full of people and not one of them reading a book. Maybe I had just stepped into the Twilight Zone. Maybe it was the first day of the end times. It was disturbing. It disturbed me. My head spun, mouth went dry.
A bus full of white wires and microscopic telephones.
No books.

Bus Trip with Giant Woman

Left work today and walked to the bus stop. The bus arrived. I got on sat down and started reading my book. A few stops later more people got on the bus, one of them was a woman who sat down next to me. I noticed she pulled out a book to read and to my amazement and great joy she held the cover so that I could almost read all of it. It was by somebody called Tad Williams. The title was obscured by her fingers, all I could read was 'The [something] Chair.' Tad Williams? Never heard of him. Must find out about him and his books. On the spine it said book one of the something or other, and judging by the illustration on the cover it appeared to be a fantasy novel. I must investigate this Tad Williams. What does she like about his book?
The woman was remarkable. She was a giant, well over six feet, dressed all in black with long perfectly straight jet black hair. God, she was magnificent. I found it impossible to concentrate on my own book, kept looking sideways at her, wondering about her. God Almighty, there was so much of her, I sat beside her in awe. Next to her, I seemed very small. An acolyte at the temple.

The Interpreter

O how I look forward to Half Price Tuesdays at the cinema! The simple pleasures of life, those are sufficient for me.
I have been looking forward to seeing The Amityville Horror with great enthusiasm and today was to be the day. Imagine then my dismay when I discovered that yet another idiotic programming decision had been made. The next session was HOURS away. The second choice was The Interpreter so I took myself along and saw that.
God Almighty what a dull movie.
A woman who works as an interpreter at the United Nations accidentally overhears a plot to assassinate an African dictator who is coming there to give a speech about what a damn humanitarian he is really. She reports this to the authorities but they don't believe her, they think she is only trying to get attention, maybe because of her boring job, but then after a while they do believe her when they see with their own eyes a man threatening her while wearing an African mask. Then other boring things happen. Or maybe they were not boring but only made to appear very boring.
I should have suspected something because now that I think of it, when I heard something recently about the movie, a big deal was made about the fact that this is the first movie where they have filmed inside the United Nations. Is this exciting? Is this a reason to see the movie? Well, I guess it is if you work for the United Nations and you want to take your non-UN friends along and point out the place where you sit.
The Interpreter was the most BORING movie I have seen in years.

Office Spider

I was standing in front of the fax machine waiting to find out if my attempt to send the page had been successful. Behind the fax machine is the wall of my workstation and we pin postcards to it. When one of us go on holiday, that person is obligated to send a postcard to the others back at the office. That was the wall I was looking at while waiting to see if my fax attempt had been successful. There are postcards from The Gold Coast, Melbourne, Christchurch, El Nido, and from The Big Banana. Looking at those postcards is something I do while waiting for the stupid fax machine.
Today there was something different there. A tiny grey spider. I moved my head closer to see it better. It was very small. When I softly breathed on it, it only moved a step or two. Then I noticed that its abdomen was flat, like it had been squashed, or attacked by something. But maybe that was what the abdomen of that particular race of spiders looks like naturally. I thought it, but did not believe it for a second. As I wondered about it, my COLLEAGUE came in the door behind me and noticed that my head was unusually close to the wall.
'What are you doing?'
'There's a little spider here.'
'Well, get rid of it.'
'Or what? Or you will kill it?'
'Yes. I don't like spiders. They give me the creeps.'
'But this one is tiny! Look at it!'
'I don't care.'
Of course she didn't care. A spider was a spider, even if it was so tiny you could barely even see the damn thing.
'Goddam it,' I muttered, and found a piece of paper to relocate the spider with. It hopped onto the paper and I opened the door. The smell of forklift exhaust came up from the loading dock. I squatted down near the railing, selected a steel pole to move the spider onto and gave the paper a tap, but instead somehow the spider went zooming down the inside of an adjacent steel pole I hadn't even seen. The pole went right down to the ground, a long way for a very small spider with a flat abdomen to get back up from, it seemed.
I walked slowly back into the office with the feeling I had sent it to its doom.

Eye

Hello. Here eye am. Yes it has been two days since last writing in here. Friday night a friend read my Women Reading on the Bus story and said myself used "I" too many times and now me have some kind of complex about it and can't stop thinking about it. Is it true? Does myself use "I" too many times? Impossible now to write it. But is it really true? Stratu re-reads his stuff a dozen times, has not noticed this, was happy with his observational first-person tales. Until now. Now he is obsessed and depressed that he writes "I" too many times.

Telemarketers

Tonight the phone rang. I thought it would be somebody I knew. It wasn't somebody I knew. It was a telemarketer. He said, 'Hello my name is Richard Rash and I am calling to ask you about how you what you think about services products what you how you where you product services where and how you and why product services...' It sounds funny, but that is what I heard.
I only ever think of clever and very smart funny things to say after I have hung up from these people, but by the time the next one calls I freeze and can't think of anything. This time I said something dumb like, 'Ugh. I do not want to talk to you. Sorry about that.' It's true I don't want to talk to these people, but I am never sorry about it. Why did I apologise? God, how lame I am. Unbelieveable as it sounds, I can really be quite lame at times. Hard to believe, isn't it?
These telemarketers, I know they are people just doing a job like anybody else. They have bills to pay like everybody else, have to buy beer and order that Gore Gore Girls DVD, I know it, and I should be polite and say, 'Well gee, I'd really love to help you, and it's nothing personal, you're only doing your stupid job and all, but answering your dumb questions is something I am not prepared to do, now or ever. I have more important things to do. Like dusting. Thanks for calling and I'm sorry I can't help your ass, but that's the way it is. Goodbye.'
You see! That wasn't even polite. I started off with the intention to write something polite, but it is not possible when you are dealing with these robots. I don't care if they are only doing their goddam job.
Anyway, after I came up with my lame reply to this telemarketing robot and got off the phone, I tried to think of something. What could I say next time? I had to come up with something. Then it came to me. I got an idea. They want to ask ME questions, what if I ask THEM questions? I will ask THEM questions: How many people have you called tonight? What percentage hung up on you? Did they abuse you first? What did they say? Do you fantasise about killing your boss? Are you allowed to go to the toilet? Is there something else you would rather be doing right now? What is it? Will you quit this stupid job tonight? Is there not another job you can do that does not involve annoying people? Have you ever been to Iceland? Have you ever been snookered on the red and potted the brown? Necrophilia: an abomination or a perfectly valid yet misunderstood form of sexual expression? etc..
The ultimate goal, of course, to get THEM to hang up on ME. Would it work? I must try. I must find a way.

Assault on Precinct 13

After work today I went along to the movie house and saw Assault on Precinct 13. I wanted to see it last week, as you may remember, but the programming was retarded, so I saw Robots instead, which was pretty good except for the idiotic and annoying pop culture references.
Anyway, I know this is a remake of a '70s movie made by John Carpenter, and I probably saw it in my late teens when all I watched were these kind of hyperviolent movies, but I was probably very drunk which is why I don't remember it. So you can relax and forget about any egghead movie critic comparisons.
Let me tell you that this movie does not fuck around with any kind of slow build-up, it jumps right in. Within the first five minutes we see a man punch his dog in the face. Three times. The dog was asking for it though, it was barking its damn head off at our man Jake (Ethan Hawke) and looked like it was gonna bite him, and the dog was a big bastard too, could obviously handle a few punches in the face, and it seemed to be the perfect method of discipline with this particular creature because it calmed the brute right down.
This opening scene involved Jake and his two partners during an undercover operation to bust some drug dealers. The bust goes sour and Jake's two partners end up getting drilled. The movie then flashes forward two years (I think it was two years) to New Year's Eve (2004) inside Precinct 13, while a blizzard rages white and savage outside. This cop shop is about to close down for good, it's the last night and Jake and his two cop colleagues are basically caretakers for the night, since all calls will be transferred to another precinct.
So there's Jake, who is now an alcoholic pill-popping burnout who sits behind a desk pushing papers around and no doubt having nightmares and feeling miserable about letting his drug bust team get waxed; Jasper (Brian Dennehy) who is a big barrel of an old school Irish cop looking forward to getting good and drunk for NYE; and the secretary Iris (Drea de Matteo) who wears microscopic black skirts and can't stop fantasising about getting porked. Then Jake's shrink Alex turns up. She has been trying to get him to admit he's got some problems.
Things get interesting when a prison bus is diverted and has to drop four prisoners at Precinct 13. Three of them are small time criminals but the other one, Bishop (Laurence Fishburne), is something else. A cop killer. They get locked up. Some of the dialogue is pretty funny here, especially from the Puerto Rican junkie, Beck. He says to Bishop, 'A Puerto Rican and a black man are in a car. Who is driving?' Bishop knows the answer: 'The cop.' Beck gets real upset, it's his best joke and he is crestfallen that Bishop knows the answer.
Things get even more interesting when some balaclava-wearing maniacs bust in and start shooting up the place. What the fuck? Turns out there are countless maniacs out there with massive firepower and technologically superior gadgets, and we are not talking about handheld personal organisers. The place is under siege, but what do the bastards want? Whatever they want, the only way to fight them is for the cops and the criminals inside Precinct 13 to join forces, which naturally sets the scene for all kinds of tension.
The movie was damn good. The actors did a fine job. The dialogue was good and not annoying at any point. It was very violent and satisfying. Many people including myself laughed out loud. The sound was AMAZING, especially the sounds of the weapons firing. The sound guys excelled themselves. The screen was enormous, not small or medium sized. I enjoyed the movie very much.
The only problem I had was with some members of the audience. There were some kids there who refused to shut up. Two of them, some dumb fuck junior burger and his girlfriend, sat apart from the others, they sat over on the right side of the room, right against the wall, a totally retarded and idiotic place to sit when there were so many free seats. I imagine it would be like listening to headphones with only one can against your damn ear. But these were teenagers, the majority of which you can't expect much sense from at the best of times. I guess what it was, was they wanted some privacy, the least-populated spot they could find, so they could stick their thumbs up each other's ass or something. If they only did that, fine, but they wouldn't shut the fuck up throughout the movie. People who won't SHUT THE FUCK UP during a movie deserve to have their goddam heads MICROWAVED.
The end.

Fax Machine on Line One

There is a new woman in our office. She is a temp or something and will only be with us for six weeks. She is gonna help Boss do something with something. I don't know.
I was hungover at work today but felt great, high. Talking to myself the whole time, not caring who heard. People give me strange looks there, I see their mouth form a secret smile that makes me wonder what they heard me say to myself. What do they make of the guy pushing the mail trolley talking animatedly to the air, gesturing at invisible things, nodding? It doesn't matter. I feel like a King. This place is mine.
Later, the new woman is using the WORKSTATION next to mine. The phone rings, she picks it up.
'It's a fax machine,' she says.
'A fax machine?'
'Yes, a fax machine.' She confirms it. That's what I thought she said. She half turns in my direction, not quite looking at me. She puts the phone down and looks back at her computer. But her phone rings again. She picks it up.
'It's a fax machine again,' she says.
'Again?' I says.
'Yes. A fax machine.'
Two robots in a white room beeping at one another.
She passes me the phone so I can hear it. I listen. There are some beeps but it doesn't sound like a fax machine, but I don't tell her that. I've been called by a fax machine before and it doesn't sound like that. I give her back the phone.
'We don't want to talk to a fax machine, do we?' I says.
I watch her face for the change of expression, but it remains the same. Pained, confused. Is she traumatised? It appears so. It looks that way. What she thinks is a fax machine calling her has set her on edge, that's for sure.

Special Forces

Why did I not write anything here last night? Why oh why! Easy now. I will tell you. You see, it's like this. I played Resident Evil 4 all night, that's why. Andre came over and we played that ULTRAMEGASUPERAWESOME game from 6:00pm all the way through to 2:30am.

Anyway. Yesterday afternoon I walked down the street to do some things. Then I got a bus home. I got on the bus and it was almost full. No seats. Not one. Goddam it. But wait! The seats right at the back appeared to be empty! I made my way to the back of the bus and there was a man sitting on the far left seat, so I sat on the far right seat. There were still three empty seats between us, yet no sooner had I sat down and pulled out my book when a black funk assaulted my nostrils. I should say a yellow funk because it was the singular smell of stale urine. I looked over at the man in the other corner, it was coming from him. His pants were shiny, pants that were not made to be shiny. His hair was at crazy angles and seemed to be bathed in dirt, or ashes. None of that bothered me. But THE SMELL. Overwhelming. Alive. God Almighty it was savage and eye-watering. It seemed that I could actually see the air around us wavering like a heat haze. I looked around at other people. Surely they could smell it. I searched for any sign. No, they could have been sitting in a fragrant garden drinking iced tea.
Oh well, if it doesn't bother them, why should it bother me? I would not let it bother me. I was getting off again soon anyway.
Then a guy came up and sat between me and stinky. First thing I noticed was that this guy had liberally doused himself in after shave, or cologne, or something, which instantly neutralised the smell from our friend in the other corner. For me at least. Then the guy took out a book, but he didn't open it right up, he sat there holding it, making small movements of his head. The funk had caught his attention, for sure. That was it. Anyway, the book was a Tom Clancy novel. Tom Clancy, I thought, isn't he the guy that writes books about covert ops and special forces and all that shit? I continued looking sideways, covertly that is, at the guy, and noticed he was muscular, but not in the preening gym jerk way that most muscular dudes around this part of the city are. This guy looked like the kind of guy that if you smashed a mahogany table over his head, it would have the same effect as if a fly had landed on it. And his haircut was strange, unfashionable, but that would be the last thing you would tell him.
Then I noticed a tattoo on the inside of his forearm. BLOOD GROUP A POS. Why the hell did he have THAT tattooed on his arm? It struck me as the oddest thing in the world. What kind of man has his blood type tattooed on his arm?
But then he snapped his book shut and got up and stood in the aisle. I guessed that the smell had gotten the better of him. I could understand it. The smell was bad enough from where I was, but he had been almost right next to him.
Then it was my stop. I jumped up, not a little thankfully I might add, and made my way to the door. But walking home, I continued to wonder about that guy with his blood group tattoo. I remembered he was reading a Tom Clancy book. Covert Ops? Special Forces? Do those guys have their blood group tattooed on their arm?

A Survey of Some Recent Blogs V

Now I continue my quest for good blogs! There must be one or two out there. There has to be. Let me steel myself. I'm going in...

1. A girl has written a list of random stuff about herself. #35 is all you need to know: 'My biggest dream is to swim with dolphins.' Uh huh. You and about five hundred million other New Age idiots.
2. PropheticNews. A fellow completely obsessed with the imminent end of the world. Oh. He is a Catholic. Apparently Pope John Paul II will be buried falsely (?) and then an anti-Pope will be appointed. Plagues of insects, frogs, locusts, etc etc etc... *ZZZZZZZZZZZ*
3. 'Welcome to Heaven! Click on any of the cute little bears to navigate through the site!' Gee, sounds tempting. How could I refuse? Easy. Next!
4. A baseball fan's blog. What have I learnt here? That Tony Blanco should NEVER come to bat against a power pitcher like Billy Wagner. If I was Tony Blanco and armed with information like this, I would walk onto the field with my bat and a high powered handgun tucked into the waistband of my baseball pants, and just as ol' Billy Wagner started up his fancy showoff wind-up, I'd pull out my handgun and blow the bastard's pitching arm off at the shoulder and grin like an idiot while I watched him rolling around spraying hot jets of blood in screaming horrified agony. Problem solved.
5. *Student and professional skateboarder* writes boringly about how tough his stupid homework is and how he got a job in a restaurant. *yawn* It appears that this idiot robot has also voluntarily put an ad on its blog for those white wire personal audio devices. It occurs to me that the kids are NOT alright.
6. Argentinian blog. One post. Can't read it. Don't care.
7. Cheap Printers ad blog. Goddam ass vomit fuck ad blog. I will find you, hunt you down, sooner or later, I will never rest, never sleep, will find you and corner you and grab you and twist your head off and throw it at the wall and watch it bounce off, splashing blood comically, and catch it again, look into your dead ad blogger eyes, laugh, scratch my ass lazily, then put your stupid bleeding dumb severed ad blog head into a cardboard box and mail it to the North Pole.
8. Evil Ang's blog. EVIL Ang? No, she is not EVIL. Nothing anybody describes as EVIL these days is actually evil. But she does use the term 'blow this popsicle stand', which forces me in the opposite direction at high speed, so she may as well be evil, I guess.
9. [Must stop for a minute to watch music video on Rage by band called Sahara Hotnights. Girl band. Handstands.]
10. Here is a guy who has recently stopped smoking. He says that he can tell when a smoker comes into the room, but that is not so bad. What is bad is when he is in an elevator full of people who have been smoking. 'Urgh. I can't believe I had that odour hanging over me.' He then apologises to everybody for his former odour. He apologises. For his tobacco smoke odour. He is sorry about it.
.............................
Ugh. That's all. I've had enough. I feel sick. No good blogs, not one. I know they are out there, but I can't find them.

Women Reading on the Bus

Finished work. Walked outside. Walked for bus. Bus arrived. I got on. Then sat down. Pulled out book. Looked around.
Across the aisle from me was a woman and she was reading a book. I was reading my book but naturally I kept looking over at her reading her book. What book was she reading? She better show me. Will she flip the cover up? I imagine that the compelling intensity of my curiosity will be enough to make her snap the cover up for me to see. Unbelievably, the book stays flat down.
Please. Just give me one look at it, my dear. Just one brief look. That's all I ask. Flip it up for a fraction of a second, at just the right angle, and let me read the cover and find out what book it is that you are reading. Will you do that one thing for me? Is it too much to ask? No, it is not.
Next time I look over she is staring ahead, into space. She must be thinking about something she has just read, some paragraph that moved her, that excited some deep personal memory or feeling. Ah! Perhaps she has identified with a character's action, or words, or motivation! That look in her eyes! How it strikes me! A perfect reverie!
Then! Then I look down at her book and she is holding it closed, while staring into space, and I can see the cover! My awesome persuasive mind power was successful after all! She is reading a book called The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving. This tells me nothing about the woman, sad to say. Who is John Irving? I have never read a book by the man. What kind of books does he write? I have no idea. I think 'John Irving Hotel New Hampshire' dumbly, staring into space myself, vowing to read a book by this fellow, to know what he writes about.
Now I can look in other directions. My eyes aim straight ahead to the two people sitting in front of me. There is a woman on the right and I see that she is reading a book. Another book-reading woman on the bus! I look hard at the pages and can only read a few words: '...we got on the helicopter...' What kind of book is this? Somebody got on a helicopter? At no point does she move the book in such a position that I can see the cover.
While my head is craning around to find some angle to see the cover, to my ASTONISHMENT I notice that the person sitting next to her is also a woman and she is also reading a book! There are two women sitting right in front of me and they are both reading books. My head spins. I am surrounded by book-reading women! This simple bus trip from work to home has suddenly exceeded all expectations. Yet my great joy is tempered with a crestfallen dismay as I soon realise that neither of these women are prepared to flip their respective books to give me a peek at the covers. They are reading, but I do not know WHAT they are reading. (Even when the bus reaches my stop and I get up from my seat and move past the women towards the door, and bend over at a conspicuous angle in order to get a look at the covers, my gambit fails, and I remain in the dark, as it were.)
And as wonderful as it is for me to share this bus with all these book-reading women, I can't help but wonder what the hell the men are doing. I see one man reading the goddam sports pages. One man looking dumbly at the ads on the walls. One man fiddling with his stupid mobile phone. Another man with white wires sticking out of his ears. What is happening here? Why are the men not reading books? The women are reading books. What the goddam hell are the menfolk doing?
Ah, whatever. Whatever the fuck.
Today I was on the bus surrounded by book-reading women!

Operation

I had an operation on my right arm but I was left in the hospital, walking around with the enormous cut still open. I lifted up the skin and saw with the light shining through, it was mostly translucent and I could see the actual cells, red and blue. I could also see the muscles and they looked just like steak.
I wasn't horrified by this, I only thought it was inconvenient.

Robots

There was a comical scene at work today. The morning flew by, speeding up fast to midday, which would be my cue to get the hell out of there because Hallelujah! I had a half day today! Anyway, midday rolled around and my COLLEAGUE said to boss, 'Boss, is it OK if I go out for lunch?' She never goes out for lunch, she always eats at her desk. Boss said yeah, sure. Then I walks up and says, "Well, see ya, boss. I'm off, too!' 'When will you be back?' she says. Boss hates being in the office alone because someone might come in and ask her to book a courier. She HATES having to book couriers. I look at her and says, 'I ain't coming back. Got me a half day!' She forgot all about it, you see, even though I made sure it was OK with her last week, and even reminded her yesterday just before I left for the day. She spluttered, going, 'Buh buh buh buh...' then started saying 'You know you have to check with ME first...' but I cut in and I says, "I checked with you about it last week. You said it was cool and you were gonna write it in your calender thing on your computer. Plus I reminded you yesterday, remember?' She backpeddled pretty fast, like one of those guys on a unicycle. I flew out the door just as fast, like I had never been there at all.
Ah, Tuesday afternoon! BUDGET TUESDAY at the movies! I wanted to see Assault on Precinct 13 but the next session was hours away. What dumb programming! I'll have to have a word with these idiots.
My second choice was Robots so I saw that.
Let me get this out of the way: the movie looked great, the animation was excellent, there was some very funny moments and some STUNNING scenes, like the one where Rodney and Fender are transported through Robot City inside a metal cage-type vehicle, along rails, blasted from spring-loaded catapults, at tremendous velocity and in a spectacular, stomach-churning manner. There was also one of those domino scenes like you will see at the end of the TV news about once a year, where there are a million dominoes set up in strange patterns, over an enormous area, and it has taken an army weeks to set it up but it all goes down in two minutes.
The movie is worth seeing for these two scenes alone.
Now for the negative, here it is. Some goddam idiot who had some influence on the making of this movie thought it would be FUNNY to include such things as making one of the robots do that stupid move, I've seen it, you probably have, too. I've seen it in different places, and even in real life I saw some goddam fool do it. I understand it is from the Rikki Lake Show because while the person does it, they are chanting "GO RIKKI! GO RIKKI!" And there is a ridiculous body movement that goes along with it. You know it, don't you! You have seen it too! Well, in this movie they make one of the robots do it! Who decided that this would be FUNNY or a GOOD IDEA for something a robot should do? Huh? HUH?!
AND! Not only that but there was another scene where, to my HORROR, a Britney Spears song started up and they made the robot dance to the Britney Spears song!! Was THAT a good idea? For a robot to do that? Who thought it would be a good idea? Somebody who had something to do with the making of this movie must have, at some point, come up with these stupid ideas, and either convinced, or more likely FORCED, the other people to use these goddam annoying and retarded and NOT FUNNY or AMUSING ideas. These kind of stupid ideas can RUIN a movie! It almost ruined this one! For me! Yes, for me it almost ruined my enjoyment of the movie!
O how I wish I could have the person responsible for this kind of ATROCITY identified and brought before me! My sick imagination will soar and exceed itself! The torture will be SPECTACULAR and ENDLESS! And included as one of the SPECIAL FEATURES on the DVD!

Bloodshot

Didn't sleep too good last night. Kept dreaming I was writing a book, the words pouring out in a torrent, so fast I could hardly keep up. It was like I wasn't even sleeping. This dream seemed to last all night. I woke up exhausted. Got up groggy and staggering, couldn't see properly, stumbled toward the bathroom. Look in the mirror and my eyes are as red as ever. I look at people these days, and if I see that they have clear white eyes, I feel envy and wonder. What is their secret? How is it possible to have such bright and clear white eyes? Were mine ever so?
Watched Pleasantville again the other night and felt a great gladness to notice a scene where Tobey Maguire had bloodshot eyes and it did not appear to be a special effect.

A Song

A funny thing happened yesterday. I had come out of the Turkish place where I had a Turkish pizza. I walked along the street a bit to the bus stop and waited for my bus.
While I was waiting, a small man walked up to me. He appeared to be an Islander of some sort (Fiji? Samoa?) and he was smiling and looked up at me.
'Would you like to hear a song?' he asked me.
'Yes, I WOULD like to hear a song!' I replied, without a moment's hesitation.
He started up his song, in a soft voice, almost melodious, and he sang while gazing wistfully up into the air. The song sounded familiar. I was sure I recognised it. Then I knew what it was: he was trying to sing 'Every Breath You Take' but the words were all wrong, or maybe he changed the words himself. Maybe he liked the tune but not the words, so he made up his own.
Anyway, after a minute or so he was done, and looked back at me, expectantly.
'I like that song! It was very good!' I told him.
His smile grew bigger and he nodded.
'Would you perhaps have fifty cents? Towards a hamburger?'
Ah! So that was the game! And fair enough, too, for such a performance! I told him his song was worth more than fifty cents and gave him two bucks.
He thanked me, his smile bigger than ever, and walked away and up the street.

Resident Evil 4 II

It's 1:10am. Another night spent battling the insane villagers and horrific monsters of Resident Evil 4. Eight hours last night and eight hours tonight.
I am reminded once more that videogames are not compatible with keeping to a strict writing regimen. At least not for me. I don't know how other people do it. Do other people manage it? (I know Gordon Cheng doesn't seem to manage it. Gordon, how is World of Warcraft going? Please stop playing for a few minutes and make a report in your blog.)
The thing is, Resident Evil 4 is ADDICTIVE. Did I put that in caps? Yes. Good. I had to buy it, you see, I read months ago how goddam AMAZING it was going to be, and a few days ago I found out it had been released, so I had to get it, I had to, no way was I not going to get it, and I know I vowed to quit the videogames, but I just can't do it. No sir, I can't and I won't.

Resident Evil 4

No time to write.
Resident Evil 4 has me cornered.