Lunchtime Incident

I went out for lunch today. It had been raining so I had my umbrella.
At the lights the red man turned green and I started walking across the road. Halfway across, a big white car was turning and coming at me. It didn't stop but kept coming. What the fuck? What was this idiot's problem? Trying to run me down goddam it. I jumped out of the way, then I saw the people inside. Two people in the front. A guy driving and a girl in the passenger seat. They were laughing. Really laughing it up. They found it pretty amusing by the looks of it. A great wave of rage swept over me. The sky seemed to flash red. Through a shimmering red fog I watched the car move off down the street but soon it had to stop again at another set of lights.
The rage suddenly vanished along with the red fog. In an instant I felt calm and in control, and started walking towards the car. I saw the heads still laughing. They really had played an amusing joke. I started smiling too.
Cars honked at me as I walked in the middle of the street. I didn't care, kept walking. Got up to the white car and the driver's window was open. He turned around to see who was at his window, still laughing. I'll show him something funny. I swung the umbrella up and rammed it through the window point first into his happy laughing mouth. The metal point came out the other side of his head with a splash of blood that hit the windshield and sprayed over his girlfriend, or wife, or whatever the fuck she was. She started screaming. I pulled my umbrella out and the guy's body fell sideways against the girl. Blood was jetting out all over the place. What a mess. And what a noise. Well, at least they weren't laughing any more. But now I was.
I laughed and laughed as I walked across the street into Market City to get my lunch.

Bonkers

Saturday night Anders and I worked at another of Brother's rave parties. This one was called Bonkers and was out at Penrith again, at the skate centre.
It was the usual thing - selling glowstix and flashing spiked balls and CDs and t-shirts to the youthful rave brigade - but there were some people there who were noteworthy.
This was a smaller party than the others so half the venue was fenced off, and instead of the DJ booth being up the far end well away from us, it was immediately to our left. It seemed that everybody was almost right in front of us, almost facing us.
First of all, there was a gang of four ravers who caught my attention. I say *gang* because each of them wore yellow dayglo roadworker vests, and written in black texta on the back of each one was this:
H.H.R.C.
BONKERS
2560
I had to find out what the H.H.R.C. stood for. (I guessed that the *2560* was their postcode. Or *zipcode* for my American friends.)
These kids were DEDICATED. Their eyes were blazing with intensity as they focused on the DJ behind the decks. They moved constantly, limbs jerking and shooting out, green glowstix thrust up and out in salute to the pounding electronic beats and squeals and sped-up helium vocals.
One of them shouted, "OLD SCHOOL!" They rocketed the three metres over to the front line of the dancefloor.
They came back, taking a break but still twitching, and a moment later another yelled, "FEEL THE POWER!" and they were off again.
But what did that H.H.R.C. stand for?
When they returned, I called one of them over and asked him.
An enormous proud grin spread across his face and he said, "Hardcore Houso's Ravers Crew!"
"What does *Houso's* mean?" I asked.
"Housing Commission!"
Somehow, don't know how, his grin grew even bigger and I found myself grinning back. He rejoined his Crew.
The second noteworthy *gang*, this time a gang of two, were two girls.
At these parties there is always ONE GIRL who we seem to, uh, obsess upon. One of these two girls was that girl.
She had short peroxide blond hair and wore sunglasses. She was tall - I have an irresistible urge to say *willowy* - which indeed may have been accentuated by the white knee-length platform boots she was wearing. Yes, she was very attractive, but that was not the whole of it. Sitting watching the ravers dancing, she was still, perfectly composed. In a sea of twitching awkward jerking gurning rave kids it was as if Galadriel (as played by Cate Blanchett) from Lord of the Rings had just popped in for a visit.
Then she got up and started dancing. God Almighty never have I been so captivated by a girl dancing. It was as though she were trapped in the coils of a spring, but not really trapped, she had rather trapped the spring and was moving down and around it, smiling all the while, utterly hypnotic. To watch her was to feel something indescribable and overwhelming, something that transcended lust.
On the other hand was her friend. She was attractive too, but her dance? It was the exact opposite of her friend. Does the term *bump and grind* mean anything to you? It was like that. She was grabbing the railing in front of the DJ booth, throwing her other arm out, grinding and thrusting her hips. She was humping the air, grinning like a fiend. Should I have found it sexy? It struck me as thoroughly grotesque.

Nothing

I am sitting here doing my best to come up with something. Trying but losing. Not winning. Trying hard but failing. Failing to come up with anything. How frustrating. Other people can do it. They come up with something. I have nothing. You could take my brain out of my head right now and write on it, because it is like a blank page. Nothing there. Should be something, but nothing. I see a wall, a bench, an ashtray, my legs, my fingers. Parts of my body are moving, I can see them, doing their thing, yet my brain refuses to cooperate. Brain not moving, only controlling eyeballs to watch other parts of body that cannot possibly come up with something entertaining to write. Brain on strike.

1 in 365

Tonight the kitchen bin was full so I tied it up and took it downstairs. Back in the kitchen I poked around under the sink for another one. There weren't any left. Oh wait, there's one. There was one left. Something fell out of it. It was a shopping docket from the local mini market. I use those bags as binbags. They are the perfect size. Looking at the docket, the date struck me like a coconut:
22/06/1999.
A gambling man would be able to tell you that there is a 1 in 365 chance of that happening.

Batman Begins

Today was a half day. Work until midday then get the hell out of there to do whatever I please. And you know what that means.
I took myself along to the nearest movie palace and saw Batman Begins.
In the early '90s I bought a LOT of comics. Back then I went to the comic shop every week, but when I got REALLY obsessive I went almost every day. Anyway, among other titles I bought a lot of Batman comics. One of the most memorable stories of that era was an enormous story arc that went right across all the Batman titles and even other DC titles. There was a massive dude who looked like a Mexican wrestler, and he had a gadget strapped to his arm that contained a drug. Tubes led into his arm from that gadget so that when he pushed a button, the drug pumped into his veins and he would go NUTS. It was like some kind of mutant steroidal amphetamine, and it turned him into a SUPERPOWERFUL KILLING MACHINE. This maniac's name is BANE. The Joker *created* bane and went on to let all the Supervillains out of Arkham Asylum. He did this with a particular goal in mind which you will soon see.
All these psychotic Supervillains are now running around Gotham City and somebody has gotta get them and put them back. You think the cops can do it? No way. They don't have a hope in hell. Of course the only one who can do it is Batman. So Batman goes after these supervillains one by one and puts them back into Arkham Asylum. But it starts to take its toll on the poor guy. These guys are not your average villains who run along the street and steal an old lady's handbag. No, these guys are SUPERvillians. And Batman is only human after all, he's not Superman. (And why didn't Superman lend a hand anyway? They're both in the DC universe, right?)
Anyway, Batman finally defeats the last Supervillain and puts him back into Arkham Asylum, but Batman is worn out. He's bleeding. Got some broken ribs for sure. He's tired. Hasn't slept in days. He's a wreck, but at least he's got all those damn Supervillains back in Arkham Asylum, right?
Ho ho. Right at that moment Bane busts into the room, presses the button on his arm gadget, sending a massive dose of those PSYCHOCHEMICALS surging through his bloodstream, lets out a mighty bellow, and tosses Batman from one end of the room to the other. Batman has nothing left. He's a rag doll. Now for the final, climactic indignity: Bane lifts Batman high over his head, pauses for a heart-stopping split-second, then brings him down with full force, breaking Batman's back on his knee.
.......................
Oh yeah. The review of the movie! Oh man, now it's late.
OK. I had very high hopes going into this movie. I was pretty sure it would be excellent and it was. It did not disappoint. Christian Bale is an excellent Batman (as good as Michael Keaton in the only other Batman movie as good as this one, the first one with Jack Nicholson as The Joker), the story is played for real, no goofy spoof or tongue-in-cheek bullshit. Everything seems to be possible in terms of science/technology. Although I'm not sure about the microwave device affecting the city's water system like that. But I'll let that one go. The Batmobile you will DROOL over, and go AH! and OOH! Micheal Caine is wonderful as Alfred. Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon? Huh. That guy from 28 Days Later was pretty good as The Scarecrow.
Who cares. Liam Neeson was also in it and he is always brilliant.
The theatre was packed even though it was a 1:00pm session on a weekday. Pretty strange. All these Batman fans having half days. Haw!
One amusing thing happened in there: To my left two seats over was a young mother and her very young son, he was about five. He kept talking loud during the movie, it was pretty annoying at times, but I thought well he's just a little kid and he doesn't know any better. But why did the mother bring him in? Isn't that retarded? Well, maybe she had no other place to take him. I made up some excuses for them. Maybe I am getting less cranky somehow. Could it be? But anyway, three quarters through the movie they got up and started to leave. They got almost to the bottom of the steps near the exit door and I noticed she had left her umbrella or whatever the hell it was on the seat next to me, so me in my socks (yes I always take my shoes off in the cinema, no my feet do not smell bad) grabbed that thing, got up and ran all the way down, almost slipping at one point going down breaking my damn neck, but I made it to them before they got out the door and I says Here you forgot this! The woman turns around and giggles and says, Oh no, only going to the toilet! I feel a little silly and make my way back up in front of everyone back into my seat and continue watching the movie. The woman comes back with her kid and sits down, says thanks. Aw hell, I say, that's OK.
Superhero.

Fogbringer

OK, so that CA fellow who made a comment on my *Crazy* post of June 17 was actually Jim from Jim's Joint. Jim, let me get this straight: you have completely dumped your old blog and there is a reason for this (it must be a pretty good one) but you don't want me or anybody else to ask what it is. How's that for comprehension? Yes I am pretty quick when I am not being slow, you better believe it.
OK, I will not ask the reason. Patience has come down on me like a fog. The fog will eventually lift and I will fully comprehend the meaning of all this.
Meanwhile, how about some book news?
Yesterday I finished reading The Once and Future King by TH White. This book is excellent. I can highly recommend it for all ages. Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, Merlyn, Mordred, et al. The stuff of legend! Although, after the wonderful R-rated atrocities of George RR Martin and his first three A Song of Fire and Ice books, the first book (The Sword in the Stone) of TOaFK did seem a little junior burger-ish with Merlyn's dancing teacups and whatnot, but then some nice grim and depressing elements came along which were an enormous relief. What good is the light without the dark, I ask you?
Today I started reading The Lord of the Rings. Well, it only took me 37 years to get to it.
In other news, I seem to have misplaced my obsession for women reading on the bus. Sad for me. Sad for you? No, I guess not. No, don't try to tell me you did not get a little bored with it. No. Please don't lie to me. Our relationship could not possibly stand it.
*falls off chair in dramatic insane fashion*
Anyway. Now I am waiting, waiting as a man waits for a bus, for my next obsession to come along and seize me.
Again with the patience!

Jim Where Are You?

You see there on the right I have a link to Jim's Joint. You see it? Well just try clicking it and see how far you get. You won't get very far. If you do, I'd be surprised because all I'm getting is a *Not Found* Blogger page.
Where are you Jim and what the devil have you done with your blog? You better come back, y'hear? The Blogsphere is a grim and barren enough place these days without you going and disappearing on us.
You come on back now OK?
You owe it to those of us making a stand against the foul-smelling tidal wave of adblogs that are polluting our realm.

Broken Toilet

My toilet broke a week ago. Not the toilet exactly, but the button on the top of the toilet. The spring mechanism of the button came apart and flew up and almost took my eye out. When I recovered my composure, I examined the mechanism carefully to see if I could fix it. Some of these things can be fixed if examined carefully. This one I couldn't fix. The spring had come away from a white plastic part of the mechanism. It was broken for sure and I couldn't fix it. Being somebody who enjoys one or two beers of an evening after a hard day sorting mail and flipping files (and dealing with a Boss who is almost constantly vibrating with demented rage), it is obvious that a working toilet is essential. The beers go through at light speed it seems.
The only way to make my toilet flush was to take the lid off and examine the mechanism to find out how it operates. I see I see, you simply pull that little plastic elbow up, the toilet flushes, then push the rod inside the tube back up so the water doesn't keep dribbling down into the bowl.
Because I rent my microscopic apartment, all I had to do was call the real estate agent and ask the receptionist to send a plumber out to fix my broken toilet. It's not a hard thing to do. Most people would do it the next day probably. But I don't do things that way. It's been a week and I'm still revving myself up to make the call. I should have done it by now, I know, you don't have to tell me. The thing is, I don't even mind very much that each time I have to flush the toilet, this fiddly plastic elbow pulling routine is required. In fact now I got pretty good at it. Can do it fast. It's no problem. It just looks all wrong when you walk into the bathroom and the toilet lid is leaning against the wall and you can see into the top of the toilet, and it's kind of grimy in there, like a neglected fish tank with no fish.
I gotta make the call.

Crazy

God, my life has been so CRAZY lately.
Does YOUR life ever get so mad and CRAZY? You know, when your life gets real CRAZY and you just have to admit it to the world? So many CRAZY things are happening, it's like, man, this CRAZY shit! CRAZY, man! Wild and CRAZY, your head is spinning. Gee, my life gets CRAZY sometimes. All these CRAZY things happening at once. Gee, what a wild and CRAZY life.
You know?

Crash

I went to work today, did my work, got the hell out of there and took myself off to the movie house to watch a movie. The movie was called Crash.
The movie did not have one story but a bunch of interconnected stories all tied up with the issue of race. It all takes place in the RACIAL HOTBED of Los Angeles.
There was a racist cop played by Matt Dillon who hates blacks. He hates blacks because the government handed over his father's garbage business to blacks and his old man went bust. Driving around in his patrol car, he looks for black folks to torment. He spots a black guy driving an expensive car and sees what he believes is a white woman giving the black dude a blow job. They're actually married, and she is only, uh, mulatto? half-black-half-white? What is the PC word for it? Anyway, she is drunk and shoots her mouth off and something not very nice happens courtesy of the nasty white racist cop.
A white District Attorney (Brendan Fraser) and his wife (Sandra Bullock) get their car stolen by two black dudes. The wife hates blacks because she thinks they are all criminals and she seems to have been proven right.
Amazingly, the two black car thieves, or actually one of them, he won't shut up about how white folks don't trust black folks. That was pretty amusing.
In another story, a Persian immigrant and his daughter try to buy a gun off a white dude in his gun shop but the white dude gets angry at the Persian guy because he thinks he is Arabic, maybe a cousin of those bastards who flew planes into the World Trade Centre.
Then there is the Hispanic locksmith who replaced the locks in the house of the DA and his wife and the wife saw his low-slung chinos and tatts and made him for a gang banger so loudly demands that her DA husband get somebody else to come and change the locks again the next morning because she is sure the Hispanic locksmith is gonna sell the keys to one of his homies.
The locksmith also gets called out to the old Persian guy's shop to fix a lock on the door but due to a misunderstanding the Persian guy thinks he's being tricked or something.
Everything escalates and gets totally out of hand. People don't understand each other, they just see a nigger or a spook or a dim sim or a towelhead.
The movie was excellent. Great dialogue, compelling at every second, not a dull minute, wonderful soundtrack (by a guy called Mark Isham), superb acting.
There were two scenes that really got to me with their emotional power so I was almost crying like a girl: the crash scene where the racist cop rescues the woman from the car, and the scene with the vanishing bullet (you'll know it when you see it.)
[The screen was sufficiently large and the audience behaved themselves. There was only a minor disturbance with an old guy a few seats to my right who went into a couple of superloud coughing fits so I missed a line or two, but the cough sounded so alarming that I was more concerned for the old fellow's welfare. Yes, I am humanitarian of the goddam year. Thank you and goodnight.]

Oz

I hardly watch TV anymore, but there is one TV show I will not miss and it's on every Monday night. Tonight is Monday night and the TV show is called Oz.
Oz is a BRUTAL prison drama where EVERY episode features atrocity upon atrocity committed by man against fellow man. Every week somebody gets stabbed, sliced up, burnt up, raped, thrown from a balcony, injected with a poison, etc.. The show's creators must have a whale of a time coming up with new atrocities. (Is a modern prison REALLY this bad? Could it be?) I doubt if even one per cent of the population would have the stomach for it. But I just love it. Why? What is so compelling about a prison drama? Well, there's one thing that I think of whenever I watch it, and that is thank God Almighty I'm out here and not in there. Even disregarding the likelihood of getting savagely beaten, or killed, or painfully butt-banged by a foul-smelling musclebound psychopath, in prison you are constantly surrounded by people. And not even by people you like. In fact you would be surrounded by people you would probably not like because they are not very nice people.
You might think, I don't like my job very much, no it is not my dream job, and my boss is not very nice sometimes and he or she tells me what to do and is sometimes in a bad mood and also unfair sometimes, gee look at those movie actors don't they have a real swell life with all that money and all those fans and wtf that one has a totally pimped out escalade and gee they are all so good looking isn't it unfair here I am stuck in my shitty job where is the justice?
Well, at least you can go home after work, back to your little apartment where you can sit by yourself and have a can of baked beans and write in your blog how unfair everything is, and how mean your old boss is, and you can sit there by yourself in relative comfort and have some pleasant daydream about telling your boss to go shove it because you just won the lottery. You can also watch a movie or read a book or play a video game and temporarily forget about your imperfect life. And didn't Edgar Allan Poe say Never to have suffered would never to have been blessed? So you are blessed. And you are not REALLY suffering, really, are you? If you still think you are, write about it in your blog and we'll see if you are really suffering. Because, you are probably not. But fuck it hey, it's all relative...
But what I aim to get to about this prison business is this: If you are the type of person who is a solitary sort, somebody who can quite happily spend hours or days alone with nothing but your *intellectual pursuits*, and you don't like crowds, and perhaps you do enjoy spending time with the other humans, but only one or two at a time, and then for only just a certain amount of time at which point you happily take yourself back to your *cell* (haw!) and you know, and all that jazz, WELL, you are not going to enjoy prison very much, are you?

Amusement Redirection

Well, impossible as it sounds I can't think of anything amusing to write tonight so would you kindly allow me to direct you to some amusing pieces written by somebody else:
Bunster Gorbin wrote these music reviews and I find them rather amusing and with any luck you will too. ... Did you? Did you find them amusing? I must know.
P.S. I rewrote previous Battle System Breakthrough post below and made it better so in fact I lied. I CAN think of amusing things to write. Was it amusing? Was it? Wasn't amusing before but now is or contains elements of? I must know.
*falls of chair babbling insanely, manic and feeling like Emperor*

Battle System Breakthrough

A major breakthrough tonight. I was having some trouble with the battle system of Star Ocean 3 (second last post), the trouble being that for the most part I didn't know what the goddam hell I was doing. I was blundering through that dungeon like a baby with a blindfold.
Well, tonight I figured out what the problem was. I wasn't paying attention to the Fury gauge is all it was, and when I figured that out, that dungeon was MINE. Ripping and tearing through enemies with a fully charged Blazing Sword, I wish you could have seen it. The glory. Triple experience points. All of a sudden I found myself levelling up like mad. Those poor bastards didn't stand a chance. Yes that's right I am a total HERO. You want some too?
Right before I had figured it out I had managed to bumble my way through the dungeon and onto the roof for the boss battle with Shelby (the badass bully boy of the dungeon who I later sent to Hell) and his pals and they quickly and efficiently handed me and my colleagues' asses on a plate. It was humiliating, yes it was.
But after the Fury guage revelation, followed by some SERIOUS power levelling (*thrusts hips and grunts insanely rolling eyeballs in power ecstasy*), I went back to the roof, took on that bastard Shelby and his gang, and DEMOLISHED them in thirty seconds flat.
That's right. You don't wanna mess with ME.
*slams fist through wall inadvertently killing entire family next door*

Dumb Word

Today at work one of the IT robots came into our office to find out if one of the other IT robots had gotten around to connecting some wires to one of our new machines. He was talking to the Boss about it and I heard what he was saying. At one point I clearly heard him come out with the following statement about another team of robots:
"Yes those people were good they were really proactive."
Proactive they were. Proactive. I have heard this stupid dumb idiotic word before and it is always used by robots. It is a dumb stupid meaningless robot word. Does it mean anything? No, it does not. In fact it seems to mean nothing more than the robot was being a robot and not asking questions, like why are we using this stupid made-up word as though it has some great and profound meaning?
If you hear one of these robots use this word, jam its stupid head into the nearest toaster and tell it to stop being a dumb idiot robot and start using proper words.

Star Ocean

I have been playing Star Ocean: Till the End of Time for the past two hours. I am up to the Kirsla Training Facility and it is a four-level dungeon and, God Almighty, I am hopelessly lost. I am supposed to meet the Stern Matron and her daughter somewhere on level three and they will give me a key for a locked door on level one. The dungeon is enormous and the map does not seem to give me sufficient information (like where are the goddam staircases huh?) and I keep running into monsters to fight and they are very strong and have all kinds of evil attacks and I really don't know what I am doing. The only option is to escape. The battle system at this stage of the game is still, for the most part, a mystery. What am I doing? This dungeon is driving me quite bananas. I have to stop, but somehow must find my way back to the level one save point. Impossible? Yep, it sure seems like it, but I will make it. Somehow.
Aside from this frustrating section, I want to say how AMAZING the music in this game is. I have been listening to the soaring, orchestral epic space opera styled four-minute intro theme over and over and over again. (And the accompanying visuals are breathtaking.) It's rare that the music in a videogame is so captivating and awesome that I go out of my way to learn the name of the composer, but I did with this game. The composer's name is Motoi Sakuraba, and he won an award for his work on another game, Baten Kaitos, which I aim to track down just as soon as I possibly can.
Meanwhile, it's back to the dungeon for me!

The Machinist

I had to go and see a movie after work today to get rid of (no matter how briefly) the memory of my Boss's insane rage today. This morning while opening the mail, I put a letter addressed to her on her desk and she freaked out because it was a courier invoice. She hates that courier business. How unthoughtful I was. But I ask you, what is worse - Employee putting a letter on Boss's desk when he should have sent the damn thing to the finance department, or Boss flying into a spectacularly insane fit at Employee over such a trifle?
Bah! Enough of my mad insane psychotic boss and onto the movie!
The movie I chose to see was The Machinist. In the movie, Christian Bale plays a guy called Trevor Reznik. The first thing you notice about him is that he looks like he just walked out of a death camp. This is not a special effect, it seems the actor purposely lost all that weight for the role. He is so awesomely thin and bony and unhealthy-looking that I am still wondering how the hell he managed it. What a crazy job!
Anyway, Trevor works as a machinist at a place called National Machine. When he is not at work we see him visiting prostitute Stevie (Jennifer Jason Leigh), washing his hands and looking at his bony face in the mirror, cleaning his bathroom floor with bleach and a toothbrush, and hanging out at a cafe next to the airport every night where he enjoys talking to the waitress Marie.
He soon admits to Stevie that he hasn't slept for a year. Why has he not slept for a year? Why is he so skinny? At one point we see him wolfing down some food. Does he only do this once a week?
Then some strange stuff starts to happen. Outside the factory he meets a strange man who, back inside the factory, attracts his attention while he is helping another guy fix a machine. Trevor accidentally bumps the ON button and the machine cranks to life and rips the other guy's arm off at the elbow.
Back at his apartment he notices a yellow post-it note on his fridge with a hangman drawn on it. There is a six-letter word but only the last two letters have been filled in: "ER" he gets more and more paranoid wondering who has been sneaking into his apartment.
Then we find out that the strange guy (Ivan) who distracted Trevor and caused the guy's arm to be ripped off, does not seem to exist. Nobody by that name works at the machine factory.
This movie is grim. All the colours have been almost washed out. Christian Bale gives an awesome performance. Yes I will have to watch American Psycho again. All the way through the movie you will be on the very edge of your seat wondering just what the hell is going on, and you only find out right near the end. This one will easily make it onto my Best of 2005 list.
The theatre where I saw it was massive. There were only four of us in there so I had a perfect position right in the middle with nobody even close to me.
One noteworthy person in the tiny audience was a man about seven rows in front of me. Early in the movie, Stevie (the prostitute) says to Trevor, "If you get any thinner you won't even exist" to which the man in front of me waved his arms and shouted, "YEAH! WOO!" It startled me. I had never experienced this behaviour before. Had he seen the movie before? Had he been to every session? Was he a Christian Bale fan? At four or five other points in the movie, he cried out, "YEAH WOO!" and chuckled to himself. It didn't annoy me, like those girls with their mobile phone action throughout the movie, or the idiots who keep talking or whispering, in fact I quite admired the fellow for his enthusiasm.
I hope he is at the next movie I see.

Friday Night

It's Friday night. I've worked all week and now I can do whatever the hell I please. Don't even have to go to bed at all if I don't want to. Can stay up all night and doesn't matter how I feel tomorrow because I don't have to go to work. I can drink as much as I please without looking at the clock to see what time it is because it might be time to stop drinking and go to bed ready for work the next day. Tomorrow is Saturday. My time is entirely my own. Don't have to report to the office and boss. Memory of work fades fast. Feel tension leaving body in glorious waves of release. Drink another beer. Bought 30-pack carton tonight and loaded fridge with military precision. It's locked and loaded, soldier. No, it's not locked, but it is loaded. I leave fridge door open marvelling at the sight laughing out loud then go back to videogame. Still playing Final Fantasy X but right near the end. About to beat it for the second time. Friday night I can play games all night. Or read my book all night. I can do anything I please. I am flying, free. I feel pretty damn good, I'll admit it. Enormous smile on face. Anything is possible. The world has opened up its loving arms for me and my joy is so great and surging it bursts up and through the stratosphere.

Play Well and Win

This morning I heard a football player being interviewed on the radio. His team was coming up against another team. The interviewer asked him something like what is your plan?
The football player thought about it and said, "If we play well, I think we have a good chance of winning."
I thought about this answer. In effect, he was also saying that the poorer his team played, the less chance his team would have of winning. If they played well, they might win; but if they played poorly, they might lose.
This is the kind of answer the football player comes up with.
But here is a question:
Who looks the bigger fool? The football player who comes up with a dumb answer or the interviewer who sticks a microphone in his face expecting an intelligent answer?

Workman: Morning Routine

I get up. Always hard to wake up and get up, but somehow I do. Stumble into bathroom and squint at hair on face. Used to have goatee but these days growing beard and only shave neck part but don't need to today. Turn shower water on, only hot tap, have gas heating, only have to use cold tap in warmer seasons. Hot water runs over head and I feel like I am waking a litle bit faster. Hard to leave shower but eventually with enormous reluctance turn hot tap off and get out. Dry self off. Make effort to maintain balance. Put jazz in hair. Look like forgotten movie star. Move three feet around corner into kitchen and take multivitamin with pineapple juice then have bowl of Nutri Grain. Put on uniform: olive pants, black t-shirt, black shoes, black *hoodie*. Look around apartment one last time. Two last times. Wishing I could stay. Always hard to leave and go out into the world.
An eternity later I get outside the door and walk to work.