I Don't Understand A Word You're Saying But It Sounds Great!

I love randomly flicking over to SBS, you never know what's going to be on. Whether it be an opera that looks like it’s been relocated to the set of Red Dwarf where everyone is dancing around in a way that would probably get you nutted on a mining ship or some soft-core porn - also known as foreign cinema feature film - it’s usually fairly entertaining.

If you’ve got a bit of imagination and some equally easy to amuse friends you can entertain yourselves by muting the television and making up stories to go along with the faux industrial ballet or can just settle down for a nice drinking game where every time the roaming interviewer on Iron Chef says ‘fukusa!’* you all take a shot.

There are news services available in a range of languages throughout the day so depending on your cultural heritage and your willingness to get up at sparrow’s fart, turn up late for work or actually learn how to operate your VCR/HDTV recorder/magic picture box recording medium you can hear all about the world in your native tongue or try to pick up someone else’s native tongue.
Unfortunately something else you’re going to find now is ads.

SBS, the more internationally flavoured of Australia’s exciting government-funded free to air television channels has obviously fallen on hard times. It used to be that the only ads you’d get were in between the subtitled movies and documentaries and the like, all they were advertising were other upcoming exciting programs and there were never ad breaks during the actual programs. This was novel and strange to me when I was a kid and now at the venerable age of 25 I’m already explaining to my younger acquaintances how back in my day SBS was one of the only places you could go to watch something and not have anyone urging you to run out and buy a CD or a hamburger**. There are still less ads than on other channels but they have snuck in there and now every ten to fifteen minutes or so you will find your Scandinavian murder mystery interrupted for a quick capitalist inventory pimp and you can pop off to the toilet, instead of practising a bit of advanced bladder control that modern man seems completely incapable of these days.

Quick survey: Can anyone remember going to the cinema lately to watch a movie and not having about a third of the audience sneaking out to go to the bathroom at some point or another?
Apart from the natural progression through the digestive system of the inadvisably large drinks and food items that you are tempted to buy at the snack counter, people just seem to be completely unable to hold on for the one and a half hour duration of most movies.
I don’t know about you but I’ll be damned if I’m going to leave the cinema and miss part of a movie that I’d either have to shell out to see again or wait six months to borrow out to find what happened during my potty break. Because I will also nail my ear to my elbow before I become that person who leans over to the person next to me and hisses “what happened whilst I was gone?”***

Where was I…? Oh yes, SBS…

It is still however a much safer place to hang around if normal television advertising makes you twitch and start calculating exactly how many people you could take out with a hockey stick before anyone worked out it was not an amusing reality television stunt and tried to stop you.

There are no reminders to ring in and vote for any of the half dozen dancing/singing/living-in-a-box shows currently running, no flimsily clad ladies washing cars or each other later at night asking if you’d like a quick chat and none of those shitty new offers to download a ringtone for only $12 per second or to find out if your partner is cheating on you via the simple process of SMSing both your names to a magic oracle who can tell that the person is scum just by how many letters they have in their name… or however the hell it works.

SBS also has all sorts of exciting sports that don’t make it onto the more commercial channels because they are not AFL or cricket or rugby****. During the World Cup I spent a lot of time SBS-gazing and in between the football games/displays of extreme acting I also became very briefly well informed about current world events.

Another interesting point is that the fun nudie times movies seem to have been moved to an earlier time slot so we can all enjoy a bit of excitingly different plotting, non-Hollywood-style unromanticised bonking and never-going-to-make-the-Top-100-actually-good music and still be able to get to bed in time to get a good kip before work the next day. The later time slots have now been reserved for the truly worrying programming, anime.

I’m not quite sure if they just did the math and realised that more people wanted to watch world cinema than giant robots/breakdancing samurai/giant breakdancing robots but if you are amongst those that do you must either once again become technologically savvy or sit up late enough to make the start of your work day a two-cups-of-coffee-required occasion.

Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to go watch some surprisingly well-developed teens in giant robots kick the shit out of some aliens. I’ve got the caffeine on standby.

*Or whatever the word actually is, I apologise for my phonetic attempt and the high probability of having either written gibberish or a terrible swear.

**And also, if you stayed up late enough, see some naked people!

*** I know there is a marvellous black market running in downtown cyberland but I am what the French call ‘too lazy’ to work out where the pirated movies library is located on the interwub.

**** Hence the hockey stick reference earlier… Also I have a lingering fondness for Elias Koteas’ Casey Jones from the 1990 TMNT movie…

Contentment Is The Fun-Killer...

Life has been so unbelievably boring since two of my best friends got boyfriends who treat them well.

That may sound cruel and slightly worrying to you but it wasn't until they met some boys who weren't social retards, raving emotional monsters or just plain old richard-heads that I realised exactly what percentage of our conversation time had been taken up discussing the latest transgressions, cries for dumpings to occur and general relationship faff.

But the thing is that all this lovey dovey contentedness has spilled over and affected other realms of conversation in unforeseen and annoying ways! One thing becomes 'good' and everything else is suddenly 'good' also!

Look I made you pie charts!

We have BEFORE*

And we have AFTER*


Verily there are other modes of conversation than getting really worked up about things and describing in exquisite detail exactly how you plan to kill everyone but seriously is that bitch who does the rosters any less of a bitch now that you are secure in the knowledge that your fella isn't out doing the dirty on you? I doubt it!
And if I sit there explaining in intricate detail the exciting backstabbing weirdo story of the week that has occurred at my workplace they react appropriately but it feels vaguely odd, like bitching to your Grandmother using hardcore swears and watching as she politely ignores the sassy language as any lady of a certain generation is wont to do...**

Even boring happily married friends natter about more, even if it is by way of what their lovely spouse did or what the lovely children did or what they're doing to their lovely house to make it more lovely...

I get the worrying feeling that they're all going to start talking about interior design and mortgages and the like and I'll be left sitting here with my comic book collection wondering when they all become so... parent-y...***

I'm glad they're happy, I approve of and like their fellas but I miss the intricately laid out plans for murder-death-killing...


*They get bigger if you click on them!

**Well not my Grandmother, my Grandmother's fun to bitch to, she suggests a smack upside the head for everyone! Equal opportunity flicks around the lughole!

***No I'm not sitting here with a twitching Peter Pan complex singing 'I don't want to grow up', I just don't want to grow... boring...

You Don't Know What They're Like...

Kangaroos.
Everyone thinks they're so damn cute with their little twitchy noses and their little pouches and every other damn thing.

Yeah well, tell that to my car!
Driving along, minding my own business, BAM!
No I didn't bloody hit the kangaroo!
I am not whining because it jumped out in front of me and I was unable to stop before impact, that's common enough and a risk we all take driving anywhere with a kangaroo population, I could have dealt with that.
I am whining because I had a kangaroo run full tilt into the side of my car!
Being hip-and-shouldered by a marsupial whilst driving - I mean who prepares for that?
There goes a huge wad of cash as the automotive industry breathes heavily and rubs a statue of the roo in a somewhat indecent manner.

It's hard enough keeping your eyes on the damn indecisive nancies that line the roads as you approach, twisting their toes in the dirt and shyly wondering whether they're going to bound in front of you, keep time alongside you or turn and head away back into the bush. They like to leave the decision until the last possible moment just so you can enjoy the spontaneity of their bound with them.

I mean yes I feel bad the damn fool animal probably hurt itself but those things are built like brick shithouses, they are taken at birth to a secret grove where cement is injected directly into their veins so even the smallest roo can completely total your vehicle.
That and the fact that even a moderately sized kangaroo could, if startled or all hopped up on sex hormones during that time of the year, kick your intestines out through the small of your back, has led most of us to have a healthy respect for the buggers.

Visitors to Australia are sometimes a little shocked that we're not more excited about kangaroos and get this terrible kicked puppy look in their eyes when we casually mention that the best place to spot roos is gently bloating along the side of the highway.
Or mention that roo meat is delicious...

And people who want to hug koalas?
Well you wouldn't want to hug them if you heard the noises those little buggers make, like an old man with a phlegmy chest perving on a catholic school girl, or saw what they could do with those adorable little clawed hands of theirs.

If you want to hear some interesting stories about possums, ask a New Zealander, as their country regards this member of our fluffy inhabitants as vermin who are actively destroying aspects of New Zealand's ecosystem. And you don't want the buggers in your roof!

Wombats? Never bothered me personally but if you hit one in your car it'd look like you lost a game of chicken with a solid iron ingot about the size of a dog and apparently they have been known to burrow under your house and do... things, and also knock over your bins.

Echidnas pretty much keep to themselves so are still considered cute but step on one...

Platypi* are even more reclusive so they're one of the more highly favoured Aussie animals and we don't even eat them...

Emus however, mighty tasty...
Look they're big stupid curious birds who will scare the shit out of you.
If you have a packet of hot chips on you and are unwise enough to wander out anywhere in emu territory you will find them converging on you through the long grass in a manner reminiscent of the raptors in Jurassic Park II.
Of course emus can't open doors but they'd have a spirited go at eating the doorknobs.

I don't know why we're supposed to feel any worse about having an emu burger than someone in the States or appropriate parts of Europe should feel about a big old deer steak but something about nomming down on the animals on our coat of arms really really seems to bug folk.
Yes, Skippy was a wonderful fanciful program and so on but so was Bambi and that hasn't stopped anyone...


*Yep, that's the plural.

Making Shopping Fun

I like to go to supermarkets and buy the most confusing assortment of odds and ends - light globes, mouthwash, copper wire, blu-tack etc - and then give the cashier shifty looks.
Whether they think I'm up to something devious, am some kind of mental MacGyver or just plain weird this is a great way to pass the time and worry people.

If they comment on the incongruous collection and try for the laugh, protocol dictates a 'I-know-something-you-don't-know' smile be given and the items be described as being for 'Home Improvement'* even if they are made up of snail pellets, bleach, a plunger, a rubber duck and a packet of straws.

At the very least it'll give the check-out chick or chap something to tell all their friends which much exaggerating of the craziness of your eyes, the condition of your teeth and the soullessness of your hellish voice.

At the next stage you can have a whole other level of fun when your local law enforcement turns up, scowling suspicously and inquiring as to your intentions, only to find you fresh-breathed, with newly globed light fittings, a snail-free garden, recently plunged toilet, soaking your whites in bleach, making little figurines of mousies with copper wire that you prop up with blu-tack, sipping a cool drink through one of your new straws and watching your rubber ducky bob around in the bathtub.
Their embarrassment will be almost as tangible as their mild concern as they back away from your crazy castle.
Afternoon well spent *dusts off hands*

Now if National Security forces get interested however...

[The following paragraph withheld in the interest of international security]

*Oh Sin City!

Biohazard: Maintain A Safe Distance...

First cold of the season.
Feverish, cranky, feels like flesh is crammed full of electrified cotton wool.

Big storm the other day.
No electricity.
Laying in dark feeling sorry for self.
Won't leave candle burning as keep having visions of burning to death, snot streaming from corpse as it plunges from the second storey window and face-plants in downstairs' herb garden.

Contemplating new career as country and blues singer with wonderful new woeful material.
Mull this idea over and decide leaving the candle burning would be preferable.

Electricity back on.
Light bad.
Milk in fridge gone wrong.
Return to blanket cocoon and reinforce protective minefield of tissues around bed.

Call work.
Don't want to go in.
They don't want me in either.
Germs go through workplace like the plague.
Stupid building-wide ventilation system, stupid non-opening windows.

Return to bed.
Glad nose all blocked up.
Bet bedroom smells like a giant's armpit.

Over-judicious application of medicated lozenges, skin scalding hot showers and hot lemon with honey.
Cats taking advantage of semi-comatose fever paralysis to use body as heated couch.
Too tired to protest.

Still not dead.
Still pretty gross.
Settle in to wait for immune system to resolve industrial dispute and fix this shit up.
Could be a while.

Sooo, How Are You? With Those Things That You Do And That Life That You Live And Stuff?

There are few things as likely to throw me completely off balance as someone walking towards me smiling, waving and saying my name.
I hate running into people when I'm not expecting them.
Drives me nuts.

Don't get me wrong, I love my friends and family and assorted associates but I suffer from what I like to call Context Recognition Dyslexia.

If I only ever knew you from Uni I'd better damn well only see you in Uni.
If I know you from work and you suddenly come towards me in a CD store waving, things will not go well.
If we hang out in Melbourne, God forbid you should try to attract my attention in Bendigo.
Not because I am going to be rabidly angry with you for trying to escape your category in my brain but because outside of the scope of that category I will honestly sometimes have no idea who you are for a good five minutes without prompting.
You'll look vaguely familiar, I will know that I know you but I will be entirely unable to remember how or why.

At this point I will usually attempt to probe you for information using detail-lite, generic questions. If one of these questions throws up a nugget of data that my brain can immediately attribute to you, you will suddenly come into focus like a Magic Eye puzzle and I will recognise you. At this point I will get infinitely more chatty.


Case Study
A couple of years ago I was working a coffee job near Flinders Street station in Melbourne, I had just got off my shift and was gleefully on my way to hit the local secondhand book store, when I heard someone calling my name. I looked around and some short-haired girl walking with a bespectacled woman and a gangly boy was madly waving and grinning at me. I tentatively waved back but it wasn't until she got close enough for me to hear her voice that I recognised her. It was my best friend, her mother and her brother. I had known these people for EIGHT YEARS! I could recite her entire life history, sketch a basic life cycle of her many many haircut experiments and tell you stories of such surpassing embarrassment about her that you would probably cringe. I know her and her family only marginally less intimately than my own family and I didn't recognise her because I never see her in the city, at least not without arranging ahead.
Which links in nicely to the time I almost didn't recognise my own cousin standing next to me on the train platform because I never see him at train stations...


I expect it's some form or other of Prosopagnosia, 'the inability to recognise faces', though nothing that severe.
I recognise faces, emotions, remember people - but only for about two years without repeated re-exposure before they are purged from the memory banks, with a few exceptions - but step outside of my context for you, get a haircut, change your weight or even your clothes and you may find me blinking at you in polite bewilderment.

Strangely enough I might have entirely forgotten your face after not having seen you for three years but I will remember every story I ever heard from or about you after very little prompting.
This has lead to conversations such as...
"Who was that?"
"Sarah, you know Sarah,"
"Sarah...?
*sigh* "She was going out with that fire-breathing guy...
"Oh right, the one who sold ecstasy on the side and burnt off his eyebrows that time... And her sister was pregnant last time we spoke and we were wondering if she was going to name this one something as awful as Moonshine Illuria or whether she'd overcompensate and name it John or Jane. And she always had that gross dribbly nose because she wouldn't admit that she was allergic to cats and kept like twelve of them until the RSPCA came round and had a word..."

It's not all bad though, on occasion people I haven't recognised easily have been dissuaded from reestablishing regular contact and I have later recalled who they were and made sure to thank any passing deities for their timely intervention.
It saves me the trouble of having to tell them to bugger off the old fashioned way.

Liquid Lunch... And Breakfast... And Maybe Dinner...

My friend DumbDumb* has started one of those diets that primarily consists of replacing most of your meals with shakes and salads. As long as the salads don't contain any vegetables that are too brightly coloured or taste good or make you feel full or anything.

From what I can remember the she has given up most vegetables, meat, all forms of carbohydrates and... well everything short of water.
Apparently she has to keep this up for three months until she reaches her optimal shake sculpted form and then she gets to go onto Phase Two where she gets rewarded with the return of some of the evil vegetables and possibly some pasta!

She's one week in and going strong... but being the cynic that I am I'm fully expecting her to sink into a shake-inspired diarrhoea-riddled lethargy or to snap and eat something scandalous like a banana or even some chocolate and will end up curled up in the corner sobbing with guilt.

I don't claim to be an paragon of dietary restraint and virtue but I've never trusted the programs that require you to drastically change your habits for a limited period of time, it's always suggested that any results you achieve will last for a limited period of time too.
Of course Dumb Dumb says that once she has reached Shake Perfection she will take up regular exercise to maintain her new chassis, as is usually the claim, so fingers crossed she will, otherwise all those chalky beverages will have been consumed in vain.


*names have been changed to protect the dumb dumb.