The Only Way is Illiteracy

by Jeb on January 16, 2000

I’m very excited – I found out last night that my favourite band Filter is playing a Melbourne gig in mid February. This is the first time I’ve seen them, and a rare chance too as they’re from the US. I can’t wait!

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I was downloading some new fonts last night, and I’ve noticed that a few fonts have got some really twisted names. The best font names I saw last night included Belching Up Salisbury Steak; Bottled Fart; Breast Bomb; Fish Dicks; Sniping Kids For Candy; Hundreds of Dead Crack Babies; Cat Krap; Chicken Wire Lady; and Five Finger Discount.

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Last night in Torquay we had a power blackout. I was on my computer at the time, and when it got switched off, I thought okay, that’s fine. I can watch TV anyway. So I walked over to the TV… and realised that wasn’t working either. I almost went over the radio to turn that on instead before I realised you kinda need electricity for that too. So I was working my way down the entertainment scale, about to pick up a book, when I thought stuff it, I’ll go for a walk on the beach. (Thank Christ the beach isn’t powered by electricity. Yet).

I noticed that there were an unusually high amount of people walking around the streets of Torquay during the blackout, which occurred roughly around 9pm. They too probably hadn’t been without electronic entertainment for a long time and weren’t too sure what to do with themselves except wander around the town aimlessly.

The first thing I did before I went to the beach was drive to the supermarket to get some Coke to mix with my bourbon (yeah, I can still get pissed in the dark!). When I arrived at the supermarket, there was a large crowd outside the front doors, and they all didn’t look very happy. I went over for a closer look.

The manager of the supermarket was poking his head through the crack of the doors trying to explain that the supermarket was closed until the power came back on. Most people were yelling at him that they wanted to buy candles, but he just kept saying “We’re re-opening when the power comes back on”. A small riot almost started at the back of the crowd due to the total lack of candles in Torquay.

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Songs I Want To Create Hard Rock Versions Of, #295:
‘The Only Way Is Up’ by Yazz

Yazz. As if that’s a word.

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At my local Commonwealth Bank, I noticed there’s an almost totally hidden car park at the rear of the store. It’s a bit of a scary car park though – there’s a warning sign as you drive in saying something like ‘By parking in this carpark, you accept that the Commonwealth Bank, Australia takes no responsibility for any injury or death that directly results from parking here.’ A death in the secret Commonwealth Bank carpark? I can’t figure out how you could die in it. It’s the most boring carpark I’ve ever seen, a patch of gravel and that’s about it. Not even any jagged or sharp objects to slit your throat on.

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The kids who live in the house next door to us have started to learn the recorder. Yes, the recorder, the most fucking wheezy rasping instrument known to man… it’ll be only a matter of days before I get a gun.

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Speaking of blackouts, my parents seem to give themselves self-imposed blackouts. Quite often my dad will be sitting in the lounge room reading a book or something in the evening, and as the sun goes down, he won’t turn on any lights or anything because he’ll be so engrossed in what he’s reading. Sometimes I’ll just walk into a dark room in the house at 9pm at night and hear newspaper pages turning.

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So I go on my big flight to Sydney (and successfully escape the high school reunion thingo) on the 4th. I’m going to be doing a bit of a marathon dash from my work to the airport, as it’s my late night at work. I’m really looking forward to it though, I’m meeting up with someone really cool and quite special… Actually, the last plane trip I had was to Newcastle, and it was on a smaller sized plane with 20 seats. The trip I caught from Melbourne to Newcastle only had 3 people booked on it, so when I got on the plane, the pilot said to me…

Pilot: Seeing as we don’t really have many people booked today, you can sit wherever you want on the plane.
Me: Can I take that seat up there in the cockpit?
Pilot: Ummmm…. No.

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