Possibly a proper update

...because most of my posts recently have been about crap.

Ah what a beautiful day to be alive. The sun is shining and the birds are chirping and the bees are buzzing round the huge purple bush they like to buzz round. I'd take a photo if I had a digital camera, it's all very suburban and idyllic. Have spent the morning with the Sunday Star Times and a big pot of coffee...ahhh bliss. Would be nicer if the neighbour wasn't mowing his lawn but I suppose you can't have everything.

I am finally settling back into Chch, the city with the soul of a zombie nun -living at home with Mum & Kate is going well now that we've ironed out most of the little things (to give you an idea of just how little, there was recently a very heated debate about whether the shower curtain gets pushed to the left or to the right side of the shower (it's the LEFT, you FUCKERS)) & realised that we are all adults here, people, so let's behave like it. And now we are, apart from the odd conversation like this:

Me: "Why is my phone charger unplugged?"
Kate: "You plugged it into the plug the radio uses."
Me: "Yes, but I was the only person home, and the radio wasn't on. The radio still isn't on. You're not even using the radio."
Kate: "Well, I wanted to use the radio before, so I unplugged your charger, but then I forgot."
Me: "Couldn't you have moved my charger to another plug?"
Kate: "No! You shouldn't have plugged it in there! That's the radio's plug!"

But then I started calling her 'The Socket Lord' and 'Adolf Plugler' and and now I'm allowed to plug things in wherever I like. As long as I plug the resident appliance back in when I'm done. Maybe I should buy a couple of motherboards...are they called that? Those four-socket things that you attach to your plug. They might be called motherboards or I might have made that up. Hmmm. If they aren't called motherboards, they really should be.

I also need to buy a knife sharpening thing - sharpening block, perhaps - as my family seems to enjoy cutting everything with really dull knifes. I mean knives. What a weird typo to make. But apart from dull knifes and weird routines everything is pretty OK.

Speaking of typos (ooh, segue!) I'm going into a temping agency tomorrow morning because the money is running out and I need to start working again. Lame. However, this will mean I get to do psychometric testing (whee) and typing tests (whee) and Excel tests (crap) and spend some of my day not sitting round the house. I have been doing a lot of gardening - my mother has a great garden, mostly NZ natives and veges and things like that, and I've been really hoeing into the weeding.

Zing!

(I have so been looking for an excuse to make that pun for about the last week.)

Went out last night - first night out in Chch, good Lord - and made some friends! (I think.) Which I sorely need, because my social circle is more of a social four-person blob at the moment, and I miss having readily available drinking buddies. It's quite glum-making to realise that you'd really like to have a beer in the sun but that you have no-one to have it with. Ah well. Friends will come! I should advertise.

I was thinking that I might like to be a real estate agent, after I've worked for 6 months or so (you need a financial cushion to keep you going while you get started, and at the moment all I have is a financial whoopee cushion). You basically get to be your own boss, and the amount of money you make directly reflects the amount of work you put in. That was always one of the things that really annoyed me about salaried jobs - you could be giving it 150%, and the guy next to you is doing a half-assed 75%'er at best, and yet you get paid the same. I mean, sure, you may get promoted sooner, but at the end of the day there's no incentive to really work. Real estate, however...if you do a crappy job, you won't last. if you do an average job, you'll make average money. if you work your ass off, you can make ridiculous amounts of money. Ridiculous amounts! The woman I went and talked to about it said, "You have to like three things to be good at this job - hard work, people, and money." I like people and money, and I'm sure I could get used to the other one.

Mind you, I read an article on the Chatham Islands this morning and now I want to go and live there (town of 200 people, one doctor, one 'constable'...I would start a dinky wee business doing God knows what, and go down to the sea and write a lot. I imagine rent is cheap), which kind of implies I am not very good at this whole deciding-what-to-do-with-my-life business.

I think the problem is that half of me wants to be a rich, high-powered and successful city-dweller who wears a lot of black and accessorizes well, and the other half of me wants to be an eccentric writer living in a cottage by the sea. It'll be interesting to see who wins. I'll keep you updated.

Am cooking tonight! Teriyaki squid. How the fuck do you cook squid? I did not think this through. For those of you who know Chow, I'm trying to recreate that squid I used to eat all the time. I doubt it'll work, but it should be...educational. The lesson will probably be "you don't know how to cook squid."

Anyway, I'm really just rambling on here, and should probably go and do something productive.

Like the Sudoku.

PS I totally cheated on this update thing. I wrote a letter to a friend this morning, and this post is pretty much lifted word-for-word from that letter. It's not laziness, people, it's efficiency. Learn from me.

A Good Morning with the Balloon Game

It has been, so far. I had a dream that I had a pet wolf (I know, right? My dreams rock) and the wolf and I were going on a road trip along with another family and my Dad. (Who I would totally take on a wolf-heavy road trip. He would know which CDs to bring.) The only fly in the ointment was that every so often the wolf would become HUNGRY and the mother of the family would become concerned that the wolf would EAT HER CHILDREN (I know, right? Unfair stereotyping) and I would have to make a quick trip to the supermarket and buy large sticks of salami (which is, everyone knows, what a wolf likes to eat).

I don’t think this dream has any deeper meaning, except that I don’t know much about the eating habits of wolves. Possibly the salami are Freudian.

Exciting news: this morning, in the ultimate modern fuck-you, I unfriended someone on Facebook, which was incredibly satisfying. For anyone who hasn’t experienced the fleeting joy of removing someone from your friend list (fleeting because about two seconds afterwards you have a minor panic that they’re going to realise you’ve removed them and create an awkward scene), I’d recommend it. The person I removed shall, for privacy reasons, be referred to only as Butthead McArseface. (Although Keith really is easier to type.) Goodbye, Butthead! May your pretentious status updates never darken my live feed again!

(Backstory: Butthead McArseface and I had an argument last week which was really sort of my fault (I am not above being something of a butthead myself from time to time), but in which he definitely gave as good as he got, so I ended up annoyed at him and he ended up annoyed at me. This in itself is not a) unusual or b) a reason for de-friending (sounds like something you have to get done at the vet’s). However, it appears that I annoyed Buttface more than I first realised, because he decided to write an email – no, wait, a Facebook private message (unimportant detail) – to my Sister Flatmate, who he has never met, posing as a ‘concerned friend’ and telling her about how I sent him a lot of very concerning txts and he is seriously worried that I’m going to kill myself.

Like I said, this was passed off as the actions of a ‘concerned friend’ and would in fact have been just that and quite excusable, if a little inappropriate, if the entire thing wasn’t entirely a creation of Butthead’s fervent imagination.

No depression! No suicidal txts! Definitely not the decidedly sordid “It’s been fun. Take care. Love you.” (Even if I was going to top myself (an aside: did you hear about the ice-cream man found dead in his truck, covered in sprinkles and chocolate? They say he topped himself, boom boom) there’s no way I would send something so…tacky. Give me a bit of credit here, Butthead.)

Unfortunately when a family member gets an email like that they get all emotional and trust Butthead implicitly and me not at all, and send frantic panicked txts to other family members, the end result of which is that I have spent a considerable amount of time over the last few days rolling up my sleeves and displaying my unslashed wrists to all and sundry as they attempt to make me ‘open up and share what I’m going through.’ Sigh.

My favourite bit about this is that Butthead, ever the master of timing, sent this email on Christmas Day, thus effectively fucking my family’s Christmas. And this is why he has been removed from my list of Facebook friends. Also from the list of People For Whom I Have No Mutual Hatred and Contempt, because it's obviously pretty mutual.)

Sorry that was so angry! Was meant to be short explanation, not long rant. Suggestions for appropriate acts of revenge appreciated – you know where the Comments field is.

In other news, the Balloon Game is awesome. I’m not going to describe it beyond “lining up balloons of the same colour and popping them,” mainly because that sounds lame enough already, but it is incredibly addictive. It is like crack. I am the star! I have not done any work since discovering the Balloon Game. (14 hours and 25 eftpos minutes remaining.)

I am also HUNGRY. Subway is calling me. So is a customer. I am much more tempted to answer the call of Subway.

Election Commentary

Warning: this is a pretty dull post, even though I do get a bit drunk in the middle.

I would like to kick off my blow-by-blow election coverage with a quote, but I can't remember how it goes. It's something along the lines of how Americans line up for hours to vote and cry when their new president is elected, whereas New Zealanders sleep in, have brunch and go, "oh, I think there's something I've got to do today."

It is probably a bad thing that I am more excited about the new range of saucepans from Tefal than I am about our election. So far the saucepan ad has been better viewing than anything I've seen on the election coverage (although John Campbell did say "There's not a bugger there!" about the Labour party, um, party and I was mildly scandalised). He was right though, there wasn't a bugger there apart from the chubby political reporter, who is one of the lucky ones who's at a major party party. (Poor old Sia Aston's stuck in the NZ First camp.)


7.30 - 8

Mike McRoberts is excited because he's hanging out with the Greens, and they have (vegetarian) pizza. Cue jokes about lack of blue vegetables. John Campbell (who shall henceforth be referred to as JC) is excited about the graphs and charts and things that he's going to be referring to throughout the night. Crossing now to Tristram Thingy, who has the job of standing outside Helen Clark's house and waiting to see if she comes out. He is excited about Helen's architecture. "Is it a villa?" "I think technically it's a bungalow." Another reporter is now 'marvelling' (her word, not mine) about John Key's shrubbery. The box hedges, to be precise. "Not a flaw in any of them...the last person to go into the house was carrying ten pizzas, so things are obviously ratcheting up."

Obviously.

So these saucepans from Tefal (slogan: 'Ideas you Can't Live Without') are pretty cool, although I can live (and am in fact living) without them. It's a set of about six saucepans of varying sizes, with one detachable handle that fits onto all of them - allowing you to stack them neatly in the cupboard like, you know, bowls, rather than having to create an architectural oddity that attempts to defy the laws of space and time, and falls over (or, as we architects say, 'loses structural integrity') every time you open the kitchen cupboard. If I needed saucepans, I would buy these ones.

Ok, that's enough about saucepans, back to the election!

Oh. Nothing has happened.


8-8.30

A whopping 5% of votes have come in. I have bought some beer. JC has said 'bugger' again.

Reporter currently having the most fun: a tie between Mike McRoberts, who seems to have caught the rather peppy vibe in the Green camp, and the reporter dedicated to Act, who has just declared with no little satisfaction that the Act party party is "just round the corner from his house" and that he can walk home afterwards.

Went out last night (don't worry, you're not missing any exciting election news, just that Steven Parker, at the Maori party party, is a Noddy No-Mates (thank you, JC)) with workmates & ended up having a really fun night. (I thought that story was going to be more exciting when I started it.)

One of the reporters is waving a fish. I'm not sure why. It's a flounder. Perhaps it is a political metaphor? JC has just said "he's such a big man" about an immensely fat MP, and then tried to fix it by saying "it's a huge electorate, he works very hard."

Back to the increasingly excited Tristram outside Helen's house! Tristram is fast becoming my favourite reporter for his remarkable tenacity and powers of observation. "First of all we had an Indian gentleman who parked and then walked to the front door with a large box...he was delivering home-made samosas and savouries. Shortly after that we had...boxes and boxes of all manner of salads. Fruit salads...I saw some mango in there." JC, blatantly lying- "We look forward to coming back to you later in the evening."


8.30-9

I have eaten beans on toast and undone the button on my pants. Speaking of eating -"One way we can tell the difference between the parties is what they eat on election night. I think we should have a competition and try to tell which one is which!" Nice to know JC is as bored as I am. The election would probably be more interesting if I were drunk. Have decided to play the Bill & Ben Party Election Night Drinking Game. (http://www.throng.co.nz/pulp-sport/the-bill-ben-party-election-night-drinking-game) Have been to the supermarket - up to 30% of votes in. Still nothing exciting happening.


9-9.30

JC: "It is proving to be a fascinating evening." LIE. They are talking about John Key's "state of the art hedge" again. National are in the lead. I am wondering if perhaps I should have voted. I am also playing the drinking game in earnest and may be slightly tipsy.

OK so the election is boring. Oh God JC has just said 'bugger' again and now I have to consume my vessel. It looks rather like the Maori Party supporters have been doing the same - while all of the other party parties are rather restrained affairs, with sit-down dinners and small jazz groups, every time they cross to the Maori Party party a group of supporters jump up and down hooting. Everyone keeps saying 'fascinating.'


9.30-10

64% of votes counted. National still in the lead, but much prattle from JC about how the big urban electorates haven't come in yet and these are normally Labour strongholds yada yada. The Maori Party are winning Maori seats - no-one is surprised. JC has just interrupted the Maori Party co-leader because he saw a taxi - "These are live pictures of a Corporate cab! This is very exciting, we haven't seen one of these all evening! We believe John Key is inside." A couple of minutes later - "I always get excited when I see a corporate cab." The Maori Party co-leader has been apologised to & we are back to the boring prattle.

Oh, only about 46% of the votes have been counted, the others are just 'in.' This is going to go on bloody forever. Feel like I should watch election as part of being a responsible citizen, which is ridiculous as I didn't even vote as part of being a responsible citizen. Perhaps I am trying to influence the election with the power of my MIND.

Reporter currently having the most fun: a tie between the younger one hanging out with the Maori Party, who looks a bit pissed, and the one minding the Act party, who was just caught unaware he was live on air and is now asking random questions about whether or not Bob Dylan would vote for Act. Also looks a bit pissed.


10-10.30

I am now completely sick of the election. Why am I watching this? I am tired. Maybe I should have a nap and come back for the end.

Ooh, Winston Peters appears to be disbanding his party! (Due to lack of interest.) He is giving quite the gracious speech. "It's not about winning or losing in parliament, it's about winning as a country...those people who voted for NZ First, your cause is not over...I have nothing but gratitude for the support that we've had, and the work that we've done." Inspiring, but...kind of sad. And, in places, slightly nonsensical - "Others will pick up the cudgels in the future...including ourselves."

Would now be totally anticlimactic if they did get in.


10.30-11

Insanely bored. I could never be a political commentator. Haven't seen any of the reporters in ages, is all serious political musings, interviews and the like. Even JC appears to be taking things semi-seriously. Maybe this would be more interesting if I knew more about politics. We are now listening to someone rather old and codgerish whose name I didn't catch and who appears to have made his way into Parliament. Made this point to friend I am talking to online, and he said "Actually he is making some very insightful comments." Well, I guess I am just uneducated then.

Am trying to explain the election to VB. This would be easier if a) I knew more about it and b) he wasn't drunk.

Looks like National will be the major political party in power. This means basically nothing to me on a day-to-day basis, but it does annoy me - I just don't like the National leader. He comes across as rather spineless and too meek to lead a country into the future. Also, he's not a good public speaker - the last time I saw him on TV was in a breakfast TV interview, and the interviewer bullied him mercilessly, and he stammered and avoided the question. I think people have voted for the 'change' buzzword and tax cuts. Which is fair enough - the current party has been in for 9 years, and will probably be back in in 3. I have had enough politics for one evening - I am going to watch the leaders' speeches and go to bed.

(Apologies for dull and increasingly cranky commentary.)

This Week In The News

Things That Happened This Week (in no particular order):
Disclaimer: the following items are not 'real' news on either a domestic or an international scale, just, well, Things that Happened This Week.

1. I am currently having a Romance (I say Romance because I'm not sure if it's a Fling (probably, but now he is Emotionally Attached so hard to extract Self), or a Fledgling Relationship (Gah! Hope not that one)) with a friend of a friend. Have just been (harshly and undeservedly) labelled "a spring-loaded baby" by Sister Flatmate's boyfriend, as the other key player in the Romance is 7 years older than me. "Spring-loaded baby" appears to be the reverse application of cradle snatching. Oh, he elaborates - "launching yourself from the cradle to latch to some poor unsuspecting man! Doing! Zat!" ('Doing' being the noise of a spring, to rhyme with 'boing'. 'Zat' is presumably the sound of me hitting my intended victim.) So yes - love life interesting, at least, although don't want to get accidentally stuck in Serious Relationship. Perhaps Romance ill-advised. SIGH.

2. I am becoming more maudlin and grouchy by the day - am still trying to decide if am going to move back to Chch or not. Probably not, to be honest - the idea has NO merit except that it would be something to do over a week or so at the start of November (which is when I will be resigning - VB resigned on Friday, it's obviously the season for it). Maybe I could go on holiday for a month or so? (My commission bonus is paid at the end of October). Oh no wait that's right, I will be going to job interviews. I shouldn't quit until I have another job, and I'm much more likely to get a decent job within the company, but - and this is the million dollar question - who really cares?

Not I.

3. I'm watching Becoming Jane, which I've seen before. It annoyed me then, too. Why can't movies display people having realistic emotions? Is all idealism and romance and feet-sweeping. Bleh. Realise quality of blog decreasing rapidly, but then so is mood. Also had a rehearsal this afternoon which went badly as had to sing songs which I didn't know and which were out of my range. Solo! Yay how could that not make my day awesome. I am going to the fridge now and getting a beer out because I've worked myself into quite a rage! Haha.

Not sure where sudden surge of irritability came from, but it's not adding a lot - think might sit quietly fuming to myself and shouting at the telly, rather than blather incoherently on, incensed about nothing easy to describe. Although, it is quite nice to have a rant, and so I shall continue! You know, I have one all lined up.

4. Our Team Leader had his last day at work on Wednesday just been. This is not something bad or rant-worthy as it is good for everyone (him included) that he's gone. Really nice guy, lovely guy, but poor people skills and just in the wrong role. Goodbye, Pigling Bland! Never darken my pod again! ...anyway, now that he's gone his manager is doing the day-to-day running of the team (because hiring a replacement within a sensible timeframe would just be unthinkably well-organised). The only flaw in this plan is that a) she's too senior to know the systems we use and b) she's too senior to be familiar with how we spend our time and c) she's too senior to, um, be in the office for more than about an hour a day. So she's delegated responsibilities (when she's out) to one of the guys in the team. However! Doubt about his competency is widespread in the team and the FIRES OF MUTINY are spreading fast! No-one is keen on Not Being In Charge, and so we have a classic case of too many chiefs, not enough indians. Or, to be more precise, we have a classic case of 'too many chiefs who spend all day running about with their heads up their arses, whooping and hooting and shouting and essentially not doing any of the work that they're meant to be doing, and about two indians.' I seem to have become the unofficial Actual Person to Ask Stuff & General Contact in My Team (for people in other teams), (because the guy who's officially the second in command, as it were, is, um, not overly helpful or for that matter knowledgeable). This would be OK except a) I still have a lot of Regular Stuff to do, which is gettin' all interrupted and backed-up like some hideous overflowing Paperwork Toilet, and b) it is intensely frustrating when someone asks me a question (to which I know the answer), and three different people pop up from their desks and start shouting answers, at least 2 of which will be conflicting and probably wrong - and even if everyone's right, there's no point in 4 people being right at once. Especially not when two of them dislike each other, and every tries to explain at the same time, actually shouting each other down in their manic fervour to prove that they, and they alone, have drunk from the Fountain of Temporary Leadership!

Ooh, I do like to rant. To rant is grand! (Rhymed better in my head.)

So work is frustrating at the moment. Have re-read post and decided Romance definitely ill-advised - oh I feel another rant coming on. I feel like one of those really bad stand-up comics who does a two-hour show and every joke starts "So you know those SUV's/cheap airlines/reality TV shows? What's up with those?"

So you know those people who come across as normal, rational human beings but are actually so emotionally bizarre that you wonder how they manage to function on any deeper emotional level? Yeah, what's up with those? It's really irritating when someone decides that their emotional issues don't only involve them (which would seem like the logical conclusion) but are also somehow your problem. And then they begin to tell you about every nuance of whatever emotional mess they have gotten themselves into (because it is invariably an emotional mess of their own creation). But they do not realise that actually their emotional mirage (as in, I am mired in this emotional um swamp, not as in lost in the desert or what's on a Chinese odometer (am I allowed to say that? hmm)), where was I, their emotional mirage is actually pretty boring and a little pretentious. This in itself is ok. Everyone is allowed their emo moments, even people who are hideously self-indulgent and mawkish about it (and also expect you to realise that no-one else has ever felt like this before, and not lose your temper and shout SHUT UP YOU SILLY FUCKER THIS IS YOUR OWN FAULT AND I AM BORED OF LISTENING TO IT, ALSO STOP TELLING ME ABOUT YOUR DREAMS BECAUSE THEY ARE ALSO BORING, YES THAT'S RIGHT YOU KNOW THAT DREAM WHERE YOU WENT TO THE SUPERMARKET BUT EVERYTHING WAS IN THE WRONG AISLE OH NO, THAT IS NOT INTERESTING, AND WHILE WE'RE ON THE SUBJECT WE BOTH KNOW YOU'LL NEVER WRITE THAT NOVEL SO FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP TELLING ME EVERY TIME YOU MAKE A MINUTE CHANGE TO THE PLOT WHICH BY THE WAY IS A TOTALLY CRAPPY PREMISE I MEAN WHO WRITES ABOUT A DYSTOPIAN FUTURISTIC SOCIETY SET ON THE MOON OH COME ON - and sadly I am always too polite to start shouting) - as I was saying, everyone is allowed their emo moments and it is fine if a friend is having an emo moment! but as soon as someone starts trying to make their emotional dramas something which it's my responsibility to solve I become highly annoyed, which makes me get really flippant about the emotional drama. This comes out in the form of blatantly unhelpful comments, which always go down a treat. I love it when I am being all distraught and wanky and accusing other people of being responsible for it, and they're all "maybe you'd feel better if you had a look at this comic I found on the Internet, it is pretty funny" or "i wonder if potatoes have changed much in shape since people first started growing them thousands of years ago" or whatever - but if you're going to accuse other people of making you emotionally weird then in that case, my friends, that is what you get. This usually goes on until I make a shockingly crap analogy involving a) Hitler or b) amputees (for some reason all of my really, really terrible analogies feature one of the former) and the person having the emotional drama abruptly becomes the person who is no longer talking to me and I think Oh thank God, now I can drink my tea and watch Coronation Street in peace.

This is becoming a very, very long post and for that I am sorry but hey, maybe you didn't have much to do and needed something to read. So maybe I helped? One final concept which I would like to put forward: what if your internal organs could email you? Actually that will be a new post and it will be above this one. But, what a good rant that was. I feel...better.

TUESDAY BIRTHDAY

It is my! Tuesday Birthday. Am killing time until flatmate comes home from Auckland with wine & presents (hopefully). I do plan to have a shower (BIRTHDAY SHOWER!) and do the dishes (BIRTHDAY DI- sigh), but not quite yet.


Three Beautiful Birthday Things:

1. My colleague got flowers from his partner yesterday and I complained that no-one ever bought me flowers. Today the same colleague had a lovely bouquet delivered to my desk.

2. A Serious Businesswoman came into the office to have a 'face-to-face' (normal people call them 'meetings') this afternoon, and she decided to sign up. As she left, she turned around and giggled, "Starting a business is so exciting!"

3. We had a morning tea with a large chocolate cake for me and the other guy in my office whose birthday is also today. This, although nice, was not as heart-warming as the e-cake that was sent to me this morning and which I have saved to my 'personal' folder.

Bonus story: was accosted on the way home by a young man called David, who was training to be a monk. I found this out because he opened the conversation by saying, "Hello, my name's David, and I'm training to be a monk. Have you heard of monks?" I was still walking at this point but my interest was momentarily piqued by the word 'monk' and a momentary interest was, apparently, enough for David The Monk-in-Training (Monk-to-Be? Monkolyte?) to pounce on. I admitted that I had heard of monks. Then I admitted that I had heard of The Soul (David the Monkolyte (Monkprentice? Studonk?) mentioned The Soul several times during his spiel (or our conversation, depending on which way you want to look at it, although it was a fairly one-sided conversation as most of the time all I said was 'mmm') and every time he pronounced the capitals), and then I admitted that I had heard of Krishna. Around this point I began to get more of a picture of what sort of monk David the Monkprentice was training to become - a Hare Krishna one, not, as he said, 'your textbook monk.' Just what your textbook monk is I am not quite sure, but think it looks something like St Francis of Assisi is supposed to.

Then we talked about The Soul ("What do you think of The Soul," asked David the Monkprentice. I said something very pretentious out of spite, which in hindsight was silly because it spurred DtMprentice on - "But what do you think happens to The Soul when you die??" I said I didn't know), and then DtMprentice told me a nice little story about some chap whose name I don't remember but who was 'an administrator, of the kingly class' (makes no sense to me either; one can only assume that a) class structures were very different back then or b) he was an administrator in some spiritual sense of the word or c) processing paperwork prominently produces prodigious power, plus prestige (perplexing)). Anyway this kingly administrator (still not a concept that sits well) was caught in the middle of a war and had family on both sides or something and he was at his wits' end! And so he asked Krishna. The story got a bit fuzzy at this point (suspect DtMprentice hadn't been allowed to make it this far through his spiel before - he got a bit flustered and lost the thread of the story) and I never did find out what Krishna said, but it had something to do with a book that DtMprentice would have liked me to make a donation towards. It sounded interesting, but I had no cash on me.

However despite my inability to donate David the Monkprentice invited me along to their next evening of meditation ("not textbook meditation," he said, "it can get quite loud" (the phrase 'not textbook' is obviously a favourite of DtMprentice's mentor. My view of the soul - sorry, The Soul - was also 'not textbook') and said that I could stay for a lovely vegan dinner afterwards, and that if I was interested there was also a class on interpreting The Book Which I Did Not Buy (not its actual name).

Unfortunately, Krishnafest Evening (its actual name) is on a Sunday night. And on a Sunday night, I have band.

Once again, band is the...the speed bump on my path to enlightenment.

(Better than 'the bunker in my golf course of enlightenment,' which was the original analogy.)

Off for BIRTHDAY SHOWER and BIRTHDAY DISHES!

Gold Coast, etc.

Finally, an update! Have been a busy little bee so not much time for internetting. also, internet access was REALLY pricy at the hotel and outside time was dedicated to shopping or band.

Had a much better day after last post - went for a walk across the river by our hotel, which I think was the Brisbane River but perhaps I made that up. There's a huge market over there, full of lovely tacky touristy crap, some of which I bought. Wish I had splashed out for a leather purse in the shape of a dog's head (it was better than it sounds from that description, I promise) and also for little leather keychain animals, which I could've given to all and sundry. As it is I am going to give all and sundry excuses as to why I didn't buy them a souvenir. "Because," I shall say, "I couldn't find any."

So it turns out we didn't come last in the marching - we came about fifth to last, but this is a lot better than we usually do. We would've done better except someone farted right before the stepoff and people got the giggles.

We also didn't come last in the main competition itself - we in fact won the main competition, which was great and unexpected as we had no idea of the standard of the other bands. So now we are officially Australasian champions.

Umm...I know I did a lot of stuff in Brisbane, but most of it is a) uninteresting unless you're in a brass band or b) one of those had-to-be-there things or c) too long a story to tell when you're paying for your internet.

Last night of contest was every bit as debauched as usual - after-match function at some hotel, which was amusing as the lobby was huge and pristine and empty when we arrived, with this tiny bar in the corner and two barstaff and a night manager with looks of slowly dawning horror on their faces as a small army of victorious bandsmen poured through the doors, waving trophies and the bottle of bourbon they'd been swigging from while the results were being read (no, actually).
Ended up going to the casino at some mental hour of the morning. The casino was Large and Neon and full of people even though it was about 2am Monday morning. Australia is fun! Got lost in the casino trying to find the toilets - I'm not sure if this was just because of the size of the casino (suspect amount of alcohol consumed may also have been a factor) and the brightness of the neon, and the blinking of the lights, and the freakin' HUGE chandeliers and things (jealous of my casino experience?) but it was BIG. Distinctly recall drinking out of the trophy the band received then being told that the last person to drink from it had previously vomited. Hygiene was not a priority. Thank God the trophy did not come down the Gold Coast with us (more on that later).

I shall draw a curtain over the rest of the evening except to say that I got back to the hotel about 6am, wearing someone else's earring and with an unfortunate bruise on my neck. Which I was hassled about constantly for the next two days.

Then there were solos, a bit of swimming, went out for dinner to a restaurant near the fake lake - it's got palm trees around it and lights under the water, which changes colour every few minutes, and sand which is actually golden and feels like gingerbread mix between your toes. Not that I've actually squidged gingerbread mix between my toes, but i've squidged it between my fingers and I can't imagine...I'm going to give up on that sentence. you get my point.

Drove down to Surfers Paradise Monday night, have been here since (obviously) - apartments we're staying at are about 3 minutes walk to the beach, which looks EXACTLY like it does on the postcards (although I suppose that shouldn't really be a surprise). All golden sand and blue sea and high-rise buildings and beautiful tanned people. Beaches aren't as busy as I thought they might be, probably because it's not peak holiday season, which means there's enough room to play soccer and cricket on the beach and swim about merrily in the waves, both of which I've been doing a lot of. This post is grammatically terrible. Sorry. I'm going fast.

Went to Dreamworld on the Wednesday (Tuesday was taken up mainly with swimming and beaching (in the playing-on-the-beach sense, not the running aground sense)). Dreamworld was amazing - I know that's a touristy thing to say but there were ROLLERCOASTERS and I don't get out much. If you want a rundown of the rides go and look on their website or something - the best one was one where you get pulled up the side of a tower, with your feet dangling in space, to the height of a 40 story building, then you sit at the top for about a minute trying not to panic, then they DROP you. And you scream. The first time we went on that, there were I think 4 band people and 3 randoms, and as we got near the top the band guy sitting next to me said in a voice which was very close to panic, "ok, let's sing the march." And he started singing his part of the march in a very strained tone. Then as soon as we got off at the bottom we ran about whooping and decided to do it again. The second time, as soon as we started going up the side of the tower there was a chorus of "whose fucking idea was it to do this again?" Was terrifying I think mainly because of dangling feet. Also suspense of sitting at the top for almost a minute, waiting to DIE. People swear a lot on amusement park rides. Went on this thing called the Claw, which was the most terrifying, and the guy next to me, who is generally very staunch and has an emotional range that covers happiness, boredom and anger and that's about it, started shouting "Fuck! Fuck! Shit! Oh my God!" about thirty seconds into the ride, and didn't stop until we got off. Then he went and sat down.

Anyway that should do for now - am going to go back to the beach and lie in the sun for a bit. Perhaps I shall have an icecream. Apologies for badly-written blog, will fix it up when back home.