by Jeb on December 31, 2009
Greetings! It’s been a little while, eh?
There’s been a few unfortunate events going on in the past few months, necessitating my absence from these bloggy parts of the world. Today’s the last day of 2009, so it seems pertinent to briefly review what’s ended up being a pretty testing conclusion to the year. Warning: it’s kind of messy, and we haven’t even reached the part where Richard Wilkins yells at us about how great the fireworks are this year.
As some of you on that deplorable Twitter thing are well aware by now, Adam and I separated in November. To dissect the details is valueless at this point, but nobody did anything bad. I met the bloke when I was 19 and we’re much different people these days. We remain friends; but it’s been an immense, challenging event to deal with.
This necessitated moving into an apartment of my own, which I’ve never done before. I’ve always had this seemingly baseless fear that I’d be instantly incapable of dealing with practical problems if I was living on my own. Things like flooding washing machines, I suppose.
Which was convenient, because my washing machine managed to flood my entire apartment with ankle-deep water shortly after I moved in. After utilising my entire wardrobe to absorb the rising waters, I eventually realised that my clothes have now been stained with suspiciously yellow marks that aren’t washing out. These days, I’m learning to accept wearing a barrel as hipster chic.
Then there’s been the unexpected speeding fines, almost getting evacuated from my place due to an impending gas explosion, the ongoing cleanup from the flooding, and the furniture in my apartment being thrown around without anyone touching it. Okay, maybe not that last one, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
But it’s not all bad. Things are starting to look up and I’m looking forward to 2010 as a fresh start. I got my wish for some crazy new neighbours (two drag queens, an angry work-at-home writer, a doting nana and a sitcom-worthy apartment full of the kinds of 20-somethings who voluntarily wear shutter shades), so you can look forward to me passive-aggressively blathering about their goings on in 2010. I’m also planning to take writing on this blog much more seriously – the goal is to get back to daily updates. I’ve got a bit more time on my hands these days, so I may as well! Maybe even videos if I’m too hungover to write (which is often)… so stay tuned for that if your care factor is high enough.
It’s been a rough conclusion to the year, but plenty of exciting change is ahead. Now if you don’t mind, I have to go prepare to jump in the ocean naked at midnight tonight. We’ll analyse the shrewdness of such a decision among jellyfish-infested waters and a forecast for lightning at a future date.
If you’re Twitter-inclined, I’m @WorldWideJeb – that’s probably where I’ll be posting details of the sandwiches I’m eating, until I’m ready to start writing regularly here again.
To 2010 and beyond.
by Jeb on November 6, 2009
Imagine a German Shepherd being injected with speed, then playing catch. That’s more or less my finesse on a treadmill.
Seeing as my daily treadmill flail tends to attract the attention of everyone at the gym, I was suspicious when I noticed a lone fellow in the corner not paying any attention. As I alighted the treadmill, I began my cool-down stretching near him.
As I continued to work through a configuration of limb arrangements which would make even a yoga master blush, something didn’t seem right with the dude. He’d been holding his left knee over his torso for a good few minutes now. What kind of strange extended stretchy activity was this?
Trying my best to appear inconspicuous, I eyed him suspiciously. The guy had been stuck in the same position for at least five minutes now, so I was starting to become concerned. Monitoring his torso for signs of breathing, I began to ponder the etiquette for checking if someone had carked it during a stretch.
My eyes flicked to the clock on the wall – it’d been at least eight minutes by this stage. The bloke still hadn’t moved. Okay, I figured, the polite amount of time for allowing someone to die has passed. I’m going in.
As I reached over to touch the dude on the shoulder, he suddenly sat upright with a terrified stare in his eyes. All he could see was me: some creepy, sweaty dude reaching out to him longingly. Somewhat startled, he jumped up and made an incredibly hasty exit to the change rooms.
Suppose he’d just fallen asleep or something. Why aren’t there any clear social guidelines for checking if people have died or are just sleeping? And don’t listen to those NRL players, their method of checking if someone’s asleep/dead is highly unethical.
by Jeb on October 28, 2009
By now, you’ve probably noticed that I’d kill for either a Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner or that new Dyson bladeless fan. Can’t help it. They’re the only way I’ll feel complete.
The natural progression here seems to be writing Roomba/Dyson fanfic. I’m hoping to start a revolution here, so PLEASE email me your own Roomba/Dyson fanfic or fan art, and I’ll compile everything together. It’ll be a hot, automated, sticky mess.
Vacuum of Desire: A Tale of Inter-Appliance Romance
Gleaming in the sunlight like Nicole Kidman’s forehead, the Roomba seductively slid into the room. Its sensors tingling with anticipation, the cleaning robot tensed as it sensed a presence in the room.
Violently smashing its hull against a solid surface, the Roomba quickly realised that presence was a wall. But onwards, harder it thrusted across the room.
Gazing longingly at the new mechanical arrival in the room, a gleaming Dyson fan heaved a sigh of annular aperture-enhanced stream of arctic air towards the circular love machine rolling on the floor. “Come to me,” it breathed, uncontrollably increasing its bladeless fan speed.
The vacuum beeped in ecstatic longing, and rolled towards the table which the fan was sitting on. Ramming back and forth, it headbutted the table leg as the fan giddily rocked off-balance. One thing was for sure: this robotic vacuum cleaner had been pre-programmed for efficiency and hanky-panky.
Finally causing enough momentum to thrust the fan from its ledge, it tumbled to the ground, aghast and flushed. “I’m so dirty… so dirty,” it whispered, in a very Dysony manner.
“Baby, I’m the robotic vacuum for you. Just wait until I’ve discharged my debris bin,” the vacuum cooed.
With that, it activated its high-speed mode, and thrust the fan towards the nearest double-adaptor power outlet.
FIN
I’m not kidding, either. Send me Dyson/Roomba fanfic or art! We can create a movement – hell, something’s gotta stop all those kids writing about Twilight!
by Jeb on October 26, 2009
We’ve owned the most offensive rug in the universe for some years now. I’m considering burning the damn thing.
At some point in the past, Adam decided that he wanted a new rug for the lounge room, and was very set on getting a specific colour. He was suspiciously secretive about what he had in mind, and wouldn’t tell me until we’d arrived at the local Omnipresent Swedish Furniture Store.
Marching up the aisles of the store, he was clearly a man on a mission. Like a laser set on a target, he hurled himself towards a shaggy rug-thing I’d call Lime Green Tentacle Attack, if I was being polite.
He’d clearly had his mind set on this for a while. “Why this particular colour?” I sadly asked, in full knowledge that I’d already lost the battle.
“My plan is to recreate a lawn inside our living room,” he explained patiently. “This way I can roll around in the grass, even when it’s raining outside.” And you better believe he did. The very day we purchased it, he unfurled himself on it and rolled around until he fell asleep in the sun. It was almost terrifying to see someone get so much enjoyment from artificial turf.
Whenever friends visited, I had to defensively explain why a Kermit-green horror had been slapped on our floor. Even accidentally taking a photo of the damn thing on Facebook recently, a friend commented on the shocking colour, mistakenly believing it to be our real carpet.
That was the last straw. Viewing this rug without protective eyewear can set you years back in therapy. We’re shopping around for something else, and then I’m having a cleansing ceremony which may involve the old rug being set on fire.
The only reason I’m dreading our next rug purchase is that Adam may have decided he’d be happy with a particular replacement. You know that synthetic plastic grass that butchers use to display their wares? THAT. Lining our entire house. We’ll be living in a minigolf course.
by Jeb on October 22, 2009
Although I’ve completely bagged Costco in the past, there’s been a growing sense that I need to visit their stupid new store and buy copious quantities of EVERYTHING THEY SELL.
Why the sudden turnaround? It’s the same thing that happens when I don’t visit Ikea at least once a month. Or if I don’t quietly add the new Katy Perry single to my iTunes. Or if I try to stop watching Desperate Housewives AGAIN. Or if I don’t buy a new Apple product each fortnight.
What happens is that my homo gland ruptures and I spiral out. of. control, and you don’t want to be around when that happens. It involves glitter.
The excuse I bleated at Adam to visit Costco is that we have a housemate now. Doesn’t it make a great deal more sense to buy everything in bulk and save money? AND DID YOU KNOW THEY ALSO SELL CANOES AND GRAND PIANOS AND COFFINS AND WE COULD BUY ALL THESE THINGS IN ONE PLACE?
Anyway, it wasn’t the most convincing argument on my behalf, but M People were never convincing either, and they managed to succeed somehow. Adam eventually agreed we needed to buy a rug for the hallway, so I emphasised the undoubtably gargantuan range of floor coverings that Costco no doubt stocked.
Off we drove to their heaving warehouse store. As we trotted curiously towards it, we noticed a lengthy curving line spiralling outside. It looked remarkably like an impromptu bogan conga line with additional shopping trolleys. I sensed Adam’s immediate reluctance, seeing as he hates crowds in all forms.
We decided to try barging into the strangely empty door marked “Entrance”, only to be verbally shot down with a sniper rifle. Of course, we didn’t have a Costco membership, so we weren’t allowed to enter. The way this was communicated was akin to a school principal admonishing a child who’d defiantly pooped on his desk. The conga line we’d spotted was actually the lengthy queue to sign up for a membership.
Rather than face an hour of waiting just to get into the bloody store, we decided to call it quits while we were ahead. Of course, by this stage Adam had really worked himself into a fury, so he decided to perform a little free word-of-mouth advertising on behalf of the store. As we walked back towards our car, he warned everyone heading towards the store: “You have to pay to get in, and it’s an hour’s queue.” Amazingly, a great deal of the people he yelled at turned from the store in surprise and began walking away. If there was a measure of how smug Adam looked by the time we returned to our car, it would have rated at 100 on the Peter Costello scale.
My wish to inspect the stupid store remains unsated. But don’t worry – soon enough those new Dyson fans will be released in Australia, and my homo glands will be working themselves into a fury of desire over those instead.
by Jeb on October 19, 2009
There’s been an awful lot going on at our place, hence my blog-absence over the past couple of weeks. We now have a housemate living with us, which is actually pretty awesome, although our place has turned into a bit of a frat house. Since Ken moved in, we now have under one roof: two gigantic TVs, four videogame consoles, two BBQs, lots of beer, and a daily metric tonne of farting.
University may also be on the horizon for me. Thanks to some discussions with Josh, I’ve submitted an application for a writing diploma next year, so I can learn to write gooder ‘n that. Hopefully my latest attempt at higher education won’t descend into the ridiculous stoner lifestyle I led when I last “attended” university ten years ago. It’s going to take a long time to complete a diploma studying part-time, but it’ll be worth it. At some stage I’d like to get into freelance writing a little more seriously – so once I’ve tended to my fairly atrocious editing skills, this should help me along.
Besides all that, it’s been a remarkably busy month. Living with a housemate means there’s always something to do, watch or drink. We’ve been eating out a lot at local pubs for dinner, and riding our bikes home in a drunken S-shaped pattern most of the time.
Last week, I forgot to wear a shirt of decent length during a particularly chilly evening, which was a rather stupid decision when we had to cycle home. Adam and Ken were giving me no end of grief of it. “WHY AREN’T YOU WEARING A SHIRT? WHY AREN’T YOU WEARING A SHIRT?” they tauntingly bellowed at me during the entire pedal home.
As we rode down Port Melbourne’s busy main street, amid the parroting cries of “WHY AREN’T YOU WEARING A SHIRT?”, a slightly terrified, wide-eyed woman alighted from her Barina and froze in her tracks. “I DON’T KNOW!” she wailed with horror, with a look of genuine confusion.
This cracked us up no end, and caused us to realise that pedestrians may indeed answer any question which is drunkenly screamed at them by passing idiot cyclists. I’m currently compiling a list of questions to scream at passers-by as I next pass through the streets of Port Melbourne after a night at the pub:
- WHY DIDN’T YOU GET THAT RASH CHECKED AT THE CLINIC?
- WHERE IS MY ALIMONY?
- WHY DID YOU MURDER LARRY EMDUR’S CHILDREN?
Other suggestions welcome.
by Jeb on September 28, 2009
Melbourne’s best and most bizarre record store has got to be the sadly-demised Gaslight Music. What other music store was famous for annual nude days, semi-secret promotions which involved making a spectacle of yourself in the store for free CDs and in-store appearances that constantly resulted in the store’s destruction? Although it closed in 2005, it’s sorely missed among the cloned, spiritless HMV and Virgin Megastore outlets that remain to sell music in this city.
Established in the 1970s by Michael Coppel, it quickly gained a reputation throughout the years as a bawdy music store for obsessive music fans. With a speciality for imported CDs, vinyl and rare t-shirts, you could always rely on Gaslight to stock the rarer cuts of music that you’d been scrambling around to find in the days before internet downloads. Before online retail really became popular, it was pretty much your best shot in Melbourne for finding, say, the rare debut EP by the band Live. If you were obsessed with them in your teens. Not that I was. AHEM.
My true “WOAH!” Gaslight moment came when I noticed they stocked almost every single KMFDM album, in various limited European editions to boot. If you’re familiar with KMFDM at all, you’ll know that their back catalogue easily fills the space of a small warehouse, so I was mighty impressed.
Gaslight’s annual nude days are what Melbourne music lovers remember most fondly. According to Gaslight’s archived website, they admittedly only attracted a modest 50 people (the first people through the door won free albums and door prizes), but the event always resulted in an outpouring of breathless coverage by the media. Footage of bare arses wiggling around to bands awkwardly playing starkers in-store were guaranteed to make the nightly news, even outside of Australia.
Yep, this was definitely not a store for prudes. After looking up the store’s old website on archive.org, I spotted the photo on the left. This was a Gaslight store window promotion for the self-titled Buckcherry album, the artwork of which featured a tattooed lass. Their cheeky promotion involved Miss Nude Australia being painted with a replica of the album artwork and lolling around without a stich to her name in the store’s windows.
When it came to supporting music fans and local artists, Gaslight talked the talk. Their chaotic in-store shows were always treated as tiny concerts and not the blatant promo acoustic tours you see these days at music chains. Every act from the smallest local Melbourne acts to gigantic touring artists appeared on the Gaslight stage. My personal highlight was a touring metal band in 1998 – I can’t remember who - playing such a thrashing in-store set that the attending throng began flying headlong into the neatly stacked aisles of CDs and vinyl. Some of the store fittings suffered a similar fate. Yet the store’s security simply shrugged and let the mayhem continue uninhibited, seemingly under instruction from management. (I seem to recall that the metal band in question was Sepultura, but surely they were too big back then to be performing instores? Perhaps it was Strapping Young Lad… my alcohol-pickled memory fails me).
Melbourne residents may also remember the famous Gaslight Calendar, which you could grab for free in-store. Featuring a smattering of bizarre daily facts, the calendar also listed a disturbingly creative series of semi-secret competitions on specific days. For example, on a particular day of the year, the first bunch of six people to form a human pyramid in-store would all receive free albums. Other bizarre challenges included barging into the store and singing opera at the top of your voice, or dressing up as the Queen in exchange for a gift voucher. On a Facebook group dedicated to the memory of Gaslight Music, one prior customer recalls taking part in a challenge that required balancing a pumpkin on your head while waving an American flag on Halloween. The things students would do for free CDs…
Eventually, the store was bought out by the growing Chaos.com empire prior to the dot com bust. Chaos never seemed quite sure what to do with Gaslight, and tried a number of strategies to merge it into its online fold. A former employee told The Age at the time of closure that the online business had caused too much of a distraction when Gaslight finally closed for business – indeed, the Internet Archive shows the Gaslight website flip-flopping between general information, a bloated online retail store and then a simple Top 10 Albums list across the years. In the end, they probably should’ve stuck to the imports and specialties that’d made them famous than try to compete with the faceless music chains.
Gaslight is sadly missed. Not many great independent record stores remain in Melbourne these days – Greville Records and Missing Link come closest for me – but nobody has the crazy spirit of Gaslight. More small businesses in Melbourne should take note! Hold some nude days of your own in honour of Gaslight and you’re guaranteed some great PR.
Photos: The Age, Gaslight.com.au via the Internet Archive
by Jeb on September 21, 2009
Wearing pants is important in society, apparently. However, I find clothes shopping so unbearably tedious, it makes me want to gnaw off my own arm. After extravagantly splitting my pants in public, though, I’ve learnt it’s a sensible move to buy new work pants a little more often.
Whenever the major department stores hold a stocktake sale, I grumpily make a point of zooming into the store at high speed, grabbing the first few pairs of suit pants and shirts in my size, then roaring out again. Done. No more work clothes shopping required for another six months.
On my last expedition, though, I made a critical wardrobe misjudgment. A particular pair of pants I purchased had an unusual pattern in a silvery-grey colour. Seemed like a regular pair of pants when I purchased them, but lo, how mistaken I was.
When I first stepped outside into the roaring sunshine wearing these particular pants, the entire suburb lit up like a nuclear blast had consumed it. Yep – I’d purchased the shiniest pair of pants in the universe. This material could easily act as a reflective beacon from one side of the Nullabor to the other.
Over time, I’ve forgotten how glossy these pants actually are. Every now and then I’ll notice someone stumbling up the pavement towards me, eyes shielding themselves from permanent blindness. Hell, when I managed to score a free ride on the Southern Star ferris wheel before it died from heatstroke – my friend accompanying me dryly remarked that she could see my pants reflecting across the city during the entire circumnavigation.
This all brings me to a crossroads in my wardrobe. Do I continue embracing shiny clothing and commit myself to the kind of polyester-based shiny clothing that only pimps and adolescent mall-based children wear? Or do I shun this regrettable purchase and revert back to boring ol’ cotton pants?
Then again, should I take this as a sign and embrace the complete opposite concept? If the U.S. military has funded the research of invisibility cloaks for this long, surely it’s only a matter of time before we start seeing the Van Heusen Iron-Free, Visibility-Free business shirt.
Nah, bugger it… if I’m going to get into reflective wear seriously, I’m going to go all-in. Once I’ve managed to raise the funds, I’m going to personally fund research into a material so reflective, it looks like you’re staring directly into a pit of burning magnesium. Fierce.
by Jeb on September 16, 2009
Electric bikes: a fitness placebo for the morbidly lazy. When was the last time you didn’t snort in derision when some lazy tosser squealed and whirred past you in one of these up the pavement? It’s like committing to a golf buggy or ride-on lawnmower, without benefiting from any of the function – not to mention any of the fitness.
This morning, I noticed that a jumbo-sized store has opened near my house, dedicated exclusively to the sale of moron-mover machines (FINE, call them electric bikes). To my dismay, there were a few interested customers waddling around looking at the displays. I’m baffled as to why they’re purchasing such a method of transport. Is it because they don’t have a licence, therefore can’t drive a Vespa, and are settling for the next best thing?
Yes, they make me irrationally angry; but so does anything mint-flavoured that isn’t a breath freshener, so I’m not claiming to be completely reasonable here.
This got me thinking. Some countries are considering passing laws to artificially increase the noise that electric cars make. It seems the hard-of-hearing are occasionally being bowled over by the whispering death phenomenon of near-silent electric cars, so governments want a synthetic engine noise to roar out of speakers under the bonnet.
Why can’t we introduce this rule for electric bikes as well? Sure, they already sound like a lawnmower choking to death on a ferret, but I’m thinking more as a loser alert than for safety considerations. Surely we could discourage more folk from purchasing electric bikes, if C&C Music Factory’s opus “Everybody Dance Now” began roaring out of built-in speakers every time you flicked on the engine?
Or perhaps just a booming, perpetual, parping fart noise whenever you jump on the saddle. Yep, that’s the answer! If you want to be the dick that rides an electric bike, you’ve got to suffer the shame of what appears to be awe-inspiring flatulence.
by Jeb on September 15, 2009
What’s wrong with this sentence? You look homeless, smell like you’ve bathed in Tommy Lee’s sweat, have almost no cash to your name, are borderline alcoholic, can barely string a legible sentence together but are utterly drowning in the affections of women. HOW? HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN?
Simply add the words “you play guitar in a band” and the enigma is deciphered! Seems that even if you treat personal hygiene as an abstract artform and not a pivotal human requirement, just as long as you occasionally thrash away at six strings and yelp wildly on a pub stage, you’re guaranteed to be fawned over by the ladeez.
An example of this phenomenon smacked me in the face over the weekend, when I spied a Popular Australian Rock Star observing The Bronx’s Melbourne gig. By the way, the Bronx are completely exempt from any hygeine-based criticism as they’ve cannily released their own cologne – and they’re one of the best live punk bands I’ve seen of late.
The rock star in question was Tim Rogers of You Am I fame. For those unfamiliar with the local rock scene, imagine a smashed crab ground into the pavement with the stiletto heel of a thunderously colossal drag queen. Then picture someone using this image as inspiration for a harshly interpreted carving on the side of a mountain, Mount Rushmore-style. Then the mountain erupting with lava and blistering all over the carving. That’s more or less what Tim Rogers looks like.
Assuming a rare vertical stance, Mr. Rogers was listlessly sipping at a beer and waiting for a fairly average support band to complete their set. The band seemed to be exclusively playing a tribute to every variety of guitar feedback ever experimented with in the 1990s, so no wonder it wasn’t holding his interest.
What floored me was the utter volume of women throwing themselves at him. Rock stars of his ilk are one broken guitar string away from becoming a vagrant with tight jeans, so it was rather flummoxing. Watching him dicknotise so many women simultaneously was quite the free TAFE course.
Perhaps it’s time to review my stop-start efforts to play my bass guitar with any degree of competency – I’ve just gotta work out how to attract dudes instead of girls. Oh, and learn to hold a disdain for bathing, I suppose.
