Five Minutes

Seen on a Mt. Franklin water vending machine in Northbridge that had its sign torn, showing the programming instructions behind. Apparently Coca-Cola really is the source of all evil — or at least that nasty pornography.

Thanks to Ian, who had his camera with him and took the shot.

It’s so old it has tooth marks from starving humans trying to find food after the Toba event, but it’s still funny: How many Perth students does it take to change a light bulb?

For reference, my high school’s entry:

Governor Stirling Senior High – Two. One to change the bulb and one to figure out how to get high off the old one.

File that one under it’s funny because it’s true.

On Tuesday night, I went looking for a mobile phone as a Christmas present. As per usual for the week before Christmas, the shops were packed with people seeking gifts, and as I’ve come to expect from phone shops, I got roundly ignored by the sales staff.

Seriously, what is it with phone stores? Most stores have sales assistants who will at least come by and tell you they’ll be right with you, but phone store staff seem to delight in leaving people to their own devices. Maybe they just focus on the cashed-up teenagers who they think they can interest in the latest million-SMS-per-month deal.

Anyway, I decided to conduct an experiment tonight. On Tuesday, I looked as I typically do over summer: T-shirt, old jeans, about a week’s worth of facial hair. (For me, sadly, that doesn’t actually mean a hell of a lot.) So I figured that today I’d dress up a little: better pair of jeans, shirt with a collar, clean shaven.

I didn’t even take two paces inside the entrance of the (just as busy as Tuesday) phone store before a sales guy came over and started asking me how I was doing, and what I was looking for. It was actually quite incredible. It was as though he stopped whatever it is that mobile phone salespeople do when they’re not serving customers (ie about 97% of the time) and came straight over… because my shirt had a collar!

I’m going to use this. If I can harness the power of the collar, I can save hours of time by jumping straight past the slovenly members of the proletariat and getting straight in with the salespeople. I could use the time freed up by that to rule the world!

Wait, that would be the same world that still seems to be sending the message your appearance matters way more than anything else, such as what sort of person you are loud and clear. Screw it.

Why does it have to be so hard?

One of the interesting things about walking through a crowd — in this case, Christmas shoppers — is that you often pick up tiny snippets of conversations. The aforementioned quote was something I heard said (well, whined, actually, in the unmistakable tone of a 14 year old girl) tonight at the shops.

I wonder what she was talking about? Was there a genuine reason for the tone of voice, or was it just a bit of tiredness at the whole Christmas shopping experience? How did her mother respond?

Maybe there’s a story there.

Apparently I didn’t make the list of Perth’s top 100 A-listers. What a terrible, terrible mistake! Why, I’ve been so busy rubbing shoulders with the city’s glitterati that I hadn’t even had time to read the article until now! There’s only one thing for it; I’ll have to call my social secretary to task.

Wait. What’s a party again?

Well, I’m back from Mongolia. I have some 32 pages of journal entries to transcribe over the coming days, so I won’t waste my precious typing fingers (and quality time here in the university cafeteria on a pleasantly warm spring day) talking about that for now. Instead, the readjustment back to life here is consuming my attention.

I think it’s just the little things, really, that make it seem odd. Looking the other way again when crossing the road. Actually driving for the first time in 27 days (there were a few fairly iffy gear changes in the first couple of kilometres, I have to admit). Seeing the usual random assortment of university students rather than Mongolian nomads. Hell, the fact that there are toilets and I can flush toilet paper down them is a bit of a novelty at the moment.

Unfortunately, I’m also consumed by the things I have to do in the near future. In addition to transcribing the aforementioned journal entries and titling and uploading 300-odd photos, I also have to clear my work e-mail (1800+ messages), write a project management presentation, write two essays, four scripts, contribute to a project report, one Computer Science assignment, recover whatever data is still readable on my work hard drive (which I’ve just been told is failing), do a very compressed cricket pre-season…

Oh, and all that’s got to be done in the next three and a half weeks. Guess the blogging’s going to take a bit of a hit. Now excuse me while I panic quietly.