by Jeb on February 8, 2009
I’ve just realised that the Offspring have not inflicted a single on us in recent years featuring any of the following:
- a sample which incenses you to merge your forehead with any nearby cupboard
- some sort of plinky keyboard hook lifted directly from Andrew W.K.
- infantile lyrics which should almost certainly not be sung by a dad rocker in his 40s – let alone accompanied by a guitarist named Noodles, who appears to be the lead singer of Korn on the wrong side of a time-travelling paradox
Do you realise what the absence of all these things means, you guys? I have finally mastered “The Secret”!!!
by Jeb on February 7, 2009
Adam has this wincingly bad method of attempting to obscure any lapses in his vocabulary, by hastily inventing new terminology.
Most commonly in these situations, he’s smashed and can barely get a sentence out anyway. This summer he’s drawlingly requested that I turn on the “electric wind” (fan). This is a seasonal appearance, obviously – it’s replaced hiccupingly during winter with the “electric fire” (heater).
On some occasions, he’ll have blinding moments of brilliance and compose new words of genuine worth. After recently taking some pies out of the fridge to heat in the oven, then realising I’d already ordered dinner – he put them back in the freezer and announced he was “refrosting” them. Although, somehow, I get the feeling that word doesn’t exist for a reason.
Last night’s new word is bound to become part of the zeitgeist, however. Over a few beers in our backyard, somehow the conversation turned to lady-parts. Adam’s face crumpled as he visibly tried to load the memory-module of his brain containing the little-accessed references to female anatomy. After struggling to find the right word for a few minutes, he loudly announced: “That’s like when old women get loose flaps, you know, their… labidaba.”
We burst into laughter, but it struck me as what could be the next Latin dance sensation. La Bamba, Macarena… Labidaba. What a natural progression. That said, I shudder to think what the dance moves involve, let alone represent.
Anyway, I’m sure there’s a franchise in it. The Labidaba could easily be followed up by the Clickoris and the In-Va-Gina-Da-Vida.
by Jeb on February 5, 2009
This evening, I witnessed some excrutiatingly bad/unintentionally hilarious gay local theatre as part of Melbourne’s Midsumma festival. There was a giveaway that we were attending gay theatre – the production company thoughtfully left packs of lube and condoms on the seats as we entered. Classy! Right from the start, this had me concerned about what was expected in terms of audience participation.
After tonight’s experience – in future, I would be indebted if any writer of gay fiction avoids creating ANYTHING – under any media – which could fall under these titles:
- I Was Depressed and in the Country, But Now I’ve Moved to the Gay Part of the City and go to Raves!
- I’ve Returned Home as the Prodigal Son to Confront Everyone Who Fucked With Me When I Grew Up. Fuck Them All, I Can Be a Successful Dancer
- Urethra-Bursting Unlikely Account of High School Coming Out Story
- I’m Wearing a Kimono, Listening to Opera and Coughing an Awful Lot. Guess What’s Wrong With Me?
by Jeb on January 26, 2009
Edit: Google has removed these images, but they originally showed a bloke doing his business on an outdoor toilet for the world to see.
You may have seen a Google Street View photo going around of this poor bastard in the last few days. That house is actually within walking distance of my place. My thinking is that if there were photos on the internet of me squeezing out a dump, I’d probably want to know about it… but how do you start that conversation when you knock on someone’s door? “Hi, I’ve just moved into the area, would you like to come to our housewarming next week? Alsoyou’retakingadumpontheinternet.” I guess the poor dude will find out soon enough.
Google does like to argue that Street View only presents photos you’d otherwise be able to see for yourself if you were walking down the street. So there you have it! In Google’s books, lurking around in a dirty back alley in Port Melbourne, slyly peering over fences waiting for dudes to take a dump, is totally okay!
(Via Aussie Stock Forums)
by Jeb on January 25, 2009
Unlike the careers of anyone who appeared in Scandal’us, I’m not dead! We were in the process of moving house, so I was sans internet for a while.
Adam organised the removals process while I was at work this week, so he began unpacking and orchestrating a redefinition of what can reasonably be hung on a wall as “art”. When I arrived home to the new house, I was greeted with an array of his bicycle helmets hanging from every hook in our narrow hallway.
It’s not just that the display looks bizarre, but that I’m blind in my right eye. This makes it difficult to judge the proximity of things about to smash into the right side of my face (usually wayward tennis balls or footballs veering off course at high velocity). Now, every time I travel down the hallway, there’s this bizarre helmet-based anxiety that I’m about to mash my face against hard plastic. Do we have a name for this phobia yet? Because I demand one! Immediately!
Of course, this problem paled in comparison when we closed a bedroom door and it sneeringly locked with a disarming clunk. Adam and I glanced worriedly at each other, then realised we didn’t have a key to that room provided by our real estate agent. In fact, we didn’t even realise it was lockable in the first place. A few terse phone calls to our agent later, and it eventuated that our prior tenants were engaging in some dodgy sub-letting.
In the meantime, we had no access to this room. This lead to me creating all sorts of “what if?!” worst case scenarios, mostly involving me being locked out of the bedroom in my jocks with no access to my wardrobe. Adam, meanwhile, had no access to all his bikes which were stored in the room. He is a bit of a bike nut, and loves riding to work… judging by the look on his face, getting public transport to work that day was worse than having testicular cancer.
Of course, there are plenty of upsides to our new location. We’re within strolling distance of my favourite thai take-away in the suburb, which Adam inexplicably abhors. I reckon they have this unique way of cooking their meals that doesn’t make them oily or greasy; whereas Adam has placed them on his personal ban list for being too bland.
You can imagine my delight when I noticed they were running a contest if you joined their mailing list: a $250 “VIP dinner for two”. Considering most menu items are around $10, I’m assuming the majority of that prize value amounts to plonk. I’m secretly hoping I win this contest, because Adam can’t exactly turn down a free meal; but will be angrily conflicted about eating there at all. (Yes, I spend my spare time plotting ways to torment my boyfriend).
It’s also become clear that my absence from all things fitness is not benefiting me in any way whatsoever. We visited the beach with some mates after work this week, and observed a nearby dog in the water… it suddenly struck us that German Shepherds and water polo players swim in the exact same manic, wild-eyed thrashing style. While attempting to demonstrate this, I pulled a muscle in my leg and almost drowned in shallow water. Back to the gym for me.
by Jeb on January 8, 2009
We recently took out health insurance for the first time. Almost right on cue, my body began packing it in immediately.
Over the weekend, I began developing a pain in my back which I’d otherwise blame on having seen The Day The Earth Stood Still a few hours prior. However, I couldn’t recall physically exerting myself, it’s been the holidays after all! Over the next few days the pain grew to increasing levels until I could barely sit or lie down without sounding like Bruce Dickinson.
When I visited the doctor, he seemed to be making sure I knew he was WITHOUT QUESTION THE MOST INTELLIGENT PERSON IN THE ROOM.
Doctor: So, what do you do for a living?
Me: Just this IT kinda job.
Doctor: (snapping immediately) Information architecture or project deployment???
Me: (cautiously replying, wondering how this affects my back) Um, I’m … well, I’m more of a… vaguely, I’m an analyst?
Doctor: I see, and inwhatspecificfieldplease?????
Me: (baffled as to the relevance) What do you want me to say, I’m in some sort of IT/cagefighting combination role, and that’s how I did my back in?!
Turns out it wasn’t relevant, nor was it curious; he was just arrogant. The entire conversation consisted of him ensuring he either one-upped me, outwitted me – or when that failed, just attempted to terrify me.
Doctor: So you must have been working at this company for a long time, considering how bad your back is.
Me: No, actually, not long at all in the scheme of things.
Doctor: (needlessly slaps my oh-so-tender back violently) Well, this looks okay, I don’t have to pretend I’m checking for a collapsed lung now. Let’s move onto the next potentially deadly ailme– er, so… uh…. the weather, huh?
If you’re visiting doctors in Melbourne’s city, choose wisely, is all I can say!
Of course, after freshly taking out health insurance, the first thing I did was visit the dentist for the first time in eons. It seems my knack for choosing the worst possible practitioner followed me into this arena as well. There’s one particular phrase you don’t want to hear when it feels like a dentist is drilling what feels like the entire contents of Wikipedia transcribed onto your teeth, and that is:
Wild-eyed dentist: (stops mid-drill) OH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! I forgot to tell you. You will need to claim your health insurance rebate from your insurer, we can’t rebate you on the spot today. BECAUSE THIS IS MY FIRST DAY EMPLOYED AS A DENTIST! OH HA HA HA HA HA HA.
by Jeb on January 5, 2009
We’re moving house in a few weeks. This has caused us to reassess all the things we’ve never been able to do or buy in our current house. We’ve concluded the top five benefits are:
1. Domestic boxing bag
Adam has longed for a boxing bag in the home, but we’ve never had enough room. This new place has a decently sized courtyard, so we can progress from him air-kicking 5cm away from my face to an actual boxing bag. Just as long as it isn’t stuffed with hundreds of scarves from the 1970s (view old entry) – if someone was on acid at our house, that could cause irreparable damage.
By the way, that’s one of those creepy torso boxing bags over there on the left. Not a sex toy. Sicko. (Although…)
2. A life without the constant intrusion of TV programming like Naked and Funny and America’s Goriest Prostitute Murders
Admit it, there’s something fundamentally wrong about paying for TV shows like I Can’t Stop Masturbating. We’re getting rid of Foxtel when we move, no question about it. It also means the constant threat of Maggie Tabberer and Mike Hammond deleting units of my soul will be abolished.
3. Stools
May I clarify that this falls into the “things we’ll be able to buy” category, rather than the “things we’ll be able to do” category. My bowel movements are more consistent than Lavinia Nixon’s terrifying vacant stare into a land far, far away whenever she stumbles across a TV camera.
4. Living in the presence of a flesh-coloured spa
Obviously, a spa wasn’t on our must-have list when we were searching for a new house. But whaddya know? There’s a spa in our bathroom. At first I was proposing to my mates that we could have a drunken spa party, until everyone found out it was in the bathroom. The fact that it’s flesh-coloured also makes it a little dubious. My best mate dubbed it the “man-boiler” on the weekend, so the spa is going to be a little creepy, but… interesting, in a predatory way.
5. Being able to sleep without fear of a tiny part of Frankston opening up in our neighbour’s backyard
The two skanktastic girls who live next door mean well, but they have a habit of launching loud impromptu binge drinking festivals at 11pm on a Monday evening. They don’t seem to play a single drinking game – rather, there’s some sort of complex system in place where every single person is playing their own drinking game. A typical evening can involve a combination of any of the following:
- Who Wants to See if Their Body Can Support 3% Blood Alcohol Content?
- Lighting a Bonfire Under a Low-Hanging Tree Won’t Seem so Problematic If We Drink a Beer Every 10 Minutes
- Boonie on a Plane
- If I Play My Bass Guitar Loud Enough While I’m Sitting on My Amp, I’ll Eventually Climax
- Every Bacardi I Drink, I’m Pretty Sure I Can Sing a Little More Like Rihanna
How about you, had any good reasons to move house lately?
by Jeb on December 29, 2008
After taking a week off work for Christmas, I had an odd experience travelling to work today. You see, I couldn’t quite work out why I was getting such odd looks on the tram. A really odd mix of disturbed and amused looks. I shrugged it off, I look odd at the best of times.
Once I’d fired up my PC at work, I powered outside to my favourite coffee haunt. While I was patiently waiting for my brew, this brilliantly hot dude with a chin that could cut steel kept eyeing me off outside the shop. Hoorah, I thought. Nothing like some harmless flirting.
He then surprised me completely by walking over and shaking my hand to introduce himself. Whoa, that’s forward, I thought to myself… although, on the other hand, with a closely cropped mohawk, I do kinda have Default Gay Haircut #3 (or, as some might say, a “bearcut”).
Grinning like a loon, I refused to be the first to vocalise anything, because I’m incredibly prone to blurting out non sequiters in these situations. Then things got even more intense: he leaned over into my ear while grasping my arm. WHOA. Did my local coffee store just turn into the backroom of some smelly gay bar? Someone fetch me a towel!
Then he leaned his muscular bulk over me, and breathed a sentence into my ear which would haunt me for the rest of the day:
“I didn’t want to embarass you, so I’m pretending that I know you. Uh, you have a gigantic rip in the arse of your pants.”
Gravity felt like it was turning inside out, the air rushed out of the room, and I cursed my choice of bright red undies. Suddenly, I became concious to a gale force breeze ploughing through a gigantic hole on my pants. I patted my arse in terror and discovered that this tear encompassed the entire length of my buttcrack.
What followed was something I can only describe as Corporate Strafing, the act of manically travelling into and around an office building by fearfully keeping your back to a wall at all times. After slinking under my desk for a few hours, I eventually fled the building to get a taxi home on my lunch break and change my pants.
It really did not help that as I was hailing down a taxi, a nearby hotel bellboy clearly wanted to let me know about the gigantic rip in my pants in a crowded street environment. Hoping to avoid another embarassing confrontation, I raced into the taxi. Foolishly thinking I’d escaped him, he doggedly chased me down the street barraging the taxi roof with his fists, helpfully screaming “THERE IS A GIGANTIC RIP IN THE ARSE OF YOUR PANTS!” while I cowered in shame.
As always, with retrospect, I could have played today so much better. The perfect response to the hot coffee shop dude could have been “I know they’re ripped open – are you ready to take me?”
Either that, or I could have feigned intimate knowledge of next season’s fashion. All we need to do is find this generation’s Marky Mark and convince Calvin Klein to start printing their logo sideways across the arsecrack of their jocks, and we’ll be set.
You know the worst thing? This is not the first time I’ve split my pants in public (read old entry)…
by Jeb on December 21, 2008
There’s barely four hours of sleep in me, but what a night! We had a bit of a gay pub crawl around the city and ended up crawling home at 4am.
I’ve always marvelled at the uniqueness of the “back room” concept at gay bars. Really, it’s just ticking the last missing box for the reasons most people go out – to pick up and cop off. When you take a step back, it’s completely bizarre; and I’m having trouble imagining this concept at non-gay bars (although it would be hilarious). Club Retro in Melbourne is one notable exception, although it’s a venue I am slightly too terrified to step foot in again – they have these creepy lockable cubicles with suspicious shuffling noises usually resonating from behind them.
Things have been quiet on here of late – I’ve been busy tying up work for the year, and have also been sorting out some volunteer work for 2009. This was something I’d been meaning to do for some time during 2008 but never got my act together. There’s an an element of counselling to this work, so I’ve got to complete some courses before I can begin, but am ready to get my teeth stuck into things. My only fear is that I won’t know how to handle some of the more confronting cases.
For this reason, I’m starting to think it would be nice to have a Semi-Concerning Problems Hotline for me to practice with. Kinda like Lifeline running at 25% power, or an enhanced version of the Omo Stain Removal Hotline. Solving problems like “how can I get my son to eat his crusts?”, “why does Internet Explorer keep crashing?”, “how can I stop my elderly neighbour hissing at me in spite?”, and “why won’t the cat stop vomiting?”.
by Jeb on December 14, 2008
Everyone’s got an awesome local takeaway food shop in their area. Here in Port Melbourne, it’s the awesome chicken shop we have nearby. The two blokes who run this joint are champs. You get discounts if you’re a local, a guaranteed laugh, free food if your order is taking a little while to prepare, and a running commentary on the postcode region’s quality of boobs.
The love which locals have for this shop shouldn’t be underestimated. Which is why it’s completely insane that a Port Melbourne Nando’s outlet is opening next door to this shop.
They have absolutely no chance of competing. Sure, Nando’s has its place, but they’ll be effectively competing against the food equivalent of midget porn. Yes, it’s a bit grubby, it’s nothing flash, it’s cheap and it’s certainly scraping the barrel; but everyone will secretly admit to loving it. (Right? RIGHT?)
Port Melbourne locals aren’t likely to switch their chicken-gobbling habits any time soon, so I’ve compiled a list of handy hints to assist the new Nando’s with even a remote chance of success:
- Replace your peri-peri sauce with actual appearances from Matthew Perry. He’s got nothing better to do nowadays, so I’m sure you’ll find him obliging.
- You’ll need to take a step up from those entendre-filled Nando’s t-shirts your staff wear. Instead of “I Make the Chicks Hot” and “Chicks Rule”, it’s time to take action. Offer an upgrade to a large drink, large fries, and a flash of your staff member’s genitals to prove the claims.
- Incorporate spray-tanning not just on your chickens, but as a service to patrons. Lord knows you’ll fit in with all 100 other freakin’ day spas in the suburb.
It makes me a little sad that Port Melbourne’s first fast food chain has appeared, but Starbucks was banished a few months ago so there’s hope yet. Locals, stay true to the chicken breasts that have gotten you this far.