“Ride the Lightning”? Yeah, I Bet it’s Rainbow Lightning, Too

by Jeb on February 3, 2000

First it was my car – now another inanimate object is making fun of me. Every time I approach the elevators in the lobby at my work, the doors of one of them are usually open. However, just as I’m about to walk into the elevator, it usually shuts in my face and goes scuttling off to some other floor. If elevators can be this rude to me, I’d hate to think what things like escalators and chairlifts might do.

I’m coming under criticism at the moment for wearing a backpack to work. Apparently it’s something that ‘teenagers’ do, according to Ms. J. I’ve always worn a backpack, it holds everything, and those satchel things are a bit too handbag-esque for my likings anyway. Then again now I think about it, I don’t really put a lot in my backpack, but hey! It’s not as if it’s a crime.

*****

So, the new Smashing Pumpkins album is coming out soon. I remember on the launch of their previous album ‘Adore’, they were all ranting about how ‘rock and roll is a dying artform’, rah rah rah. So on the eve of their new record, what do they announce? ‘We’re going back to our rock roots.’ Pahhh!

While I’m on the subject of bands changing their musical direction, don’t even start me on Metallica. I know they’ve progressed musically, rah rah rah, but to me (just my opinion!) I feel they sold out baaaad. Listen to their old stuff – total hardcore mayhem, real bogan metal! And what’s this ‘S&M’ crap, playing their stuff with a symphony orchestra? If you asked a Metallica fan ten years ago that Metallica would some day release an album of them backed by an orchestra, they’d laugh in your face. The way they ‘cleaned up’ their act when they released Load made me laugh. They cut off their long hair, had a shave, made the music more radio-friendly… hell, it’s only a matter of time before one of them announces that they’re gay!

*****

The strange fart smell is back in the lobby of where I work, and there’s also strange blood and bone type smells in the toilets. I don’t want to theorize on why they smell like this because… well, I have to use those toilets sometimes.

*****

Jeb Official Bad Things: Car alarms

I don’t even need to justify why I don’t like car alarms. But what I hate most, is when you’re sitting in the vicinity of a car alarm going off, and…

Car alarm: MEEP! MEEP! MEEP! MEEP! MEEP! MEEP! MEE… (silence)
Me: Oh, thank Christ that’s over and do – -
Car alarm: EEMEEMEEMEEP! MEEP! MEEP! MEEP! MEEP! MEEP!
Me: (buries head in chest)

I HATE it when car alarms stop and you think you’re free of the aural assault, then it starts up again 10 seconds later. Yaaaargh!

*****

Where I work, when people ring us up they get a menu to pick what service they want (eg ‘If you want to enquire about product A, press 1. If you want to enquire about product B, press 2.’) I think this person had been through a few menus before they got to speak to me:

Me: Hello, welcome to (company), how can I help you?
Caller: (silence)
Me: Hello?
Caller: Oh. Is this a real person?
Me: ….yes?
Caller: Ah, good. I get worried listening to all those disembodied voices.
Me: Ahh.
Caller: Your organization will send me schizophrenic one day.

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