I need something brain-stimulating. Work sure isn't doing it. I don't think here at work. I just do stuff. The questions and answers are all the same, I rattle them off like a parrot. Maybe I should get a book of crosswords or something. Wordgames. Mindbenders. Something to keep me thinking and to relieve the unutterable boredom!

We're going to see The Who!!!!!!!
Bo and I just got tickets. WOOHOO!!!! I'm so excited!!!!!! It's not till July 31st, but I'm still so excited!!!!

Wow. I have a boyfriend. It really is a funny old world, isn't it? What's even stranger to me is that I'm very happy with this situation. A few months ago I expected to remain single with the odd uncomplicated fling every now and then. I didn't think I'd get involved with anybody for a long time. It's a nice feeling, having someone. It's going to be different this time though. I'm making a conscious effort to maintain my own life and keep seeing my friends. I need that. I cannot smother or be smothered, not this time. I will not sacrifice so much again. I did it by choice last time - devoted all my time to just one person - and regretted it badly. Now I know better and I won't be doing that again!

Deep Purple concert reviews

Radiohead concert reviews

Andrew called me last night to invite me to some 21st on Friday night. I said I'd go, and I don't even know who's turning 21. He just got this invertation saying "Andrew & Friend" and figured I'd do as a "friend". Same as Chantell and her housewarming a while back - it said "BYO booze & friends" so she dragged me along! I feel so popular! I am Jack's inflated sense of self-esteem.

Just got back from the Radiohead concert. Wow, was that ever awesome! I would say it was as good as Deep Purple, but in a very very different way. I can't go into details... I'm just too frazzled. Can't think. Good concert! Radiohead good!

Quotable Quote of the Day
fuck dentists & golfers says:
and golfers are wankers
fuck dentists & golfers says:
but they wear cool clothes
Strange Kind Of Woman says:
lol
fuck dentists & golfers says:
... providing you want to look like a colour blind smack head who walked into an opshop

Well, Brad's in Melbourne for the Radiohead concert tomorrow, so mum and dad came down to catch up with us. Quite nice, lunch and so forth. Brad just finally broke up with Kim - hard to keep up a relationship with one person living in Canberra and the other in Malaysia. They've been together for several years now... three or four, I guess. So that's sad, I liked Kim a lot. But it's probably the best thing for both of them.

Deep Purple concert last night!!! God it was awesome. For a definition of "ROCK"... listen to Deep Purple's Highway Star. Or Space Truckin'. Or, well, almost anything! I'm still buzzing. That was one hell of a rock concert. Started at 8pm with Billy Thorpe as the support, he was excellent. He played for perhaps 45 minutes. Then Deep Purple came on and played till 11.30, wow!!! They are the most amazing performers... that really makes a live show worth seeing. It's nothing like listening to an album. They don't just do their music, they make it individual and fun every time. Fantastic stuff!!!

Buzzing quietly to myself! What a night, what a great night! I won't go into detail, but anyone who knows me can take an educated guess!!
*BUZZZZZ*

This afternoon was funny. Martine called in with a lost parcel to France. Logged it, explained everything, and so forth. Took another call from Allan, I forget Allan's problem now but it was quite involved. Next call, there's Martine back on the line to talk about the same problem again. And I've forgotten everything. Didn't even remember logging it. It was so humiliating! I had to ask her, "Did I give you a reference number?"

I suppose I'm quite well paid for somebody who does nothing. Books and tea, what would I do without them? But there's only so much tea I can take, and only so much reading before a book becomes tiring. Now I'm just bored. Cold, too.

I just spoke to someone called Loretta! I wonder if her last name was Martin: "Sweet Loretta Martin thought she was a woman, but she was another man!" (The Beatles - Get Back)

Being single's been great. But I think having somebody could be pretty great too...

From April through to November every year, I hate Melbourne. The cold, the drizzle, the stuffiness of a room when it's too chilly to leave a window open, the greyness of the place - buildings and sky indistinguishable. I've half a mind to move up to Brisbane. Brisbane has colour and warmth. Of course, it's full of Queenslanders... but I could handle that. This is just awful. The only good thing about this kind of weather is when you've got someone to snuggle up with. Or a very good book. I have the latter. That's something, I guess.

I turned up at work this morning to find Allan back, Lara in my desk, and a spare desk for me stuck away in an unfashionable backwater of the call centre. I'm here literally by myself. I am good at my job, and I was good at Allan's job, and I'll probably become good at Lisa's job too, which they're now getting me to help out with. So how am I rewarded? By being removed from my team and my friends and my window seat, stuck here alone and facing a wall. I think I am justified in being more than a little annoyed. I am no longer happy to be at work. I don't enjoy this. I don't have any motiviation to work well anymore. In short, this sucks.

What a score! Cossack managed to pick up 3 computers from somewhere, and has dumped them temporarily in my apartment. RAM, network cards, sound cards, video cards, 30 gig HDD, 48 speed CD-ROM, processors... you name it! Fingers crossed that some of it actually works.

Quotable Quotes of the Day
Paranoia wisps: I once knew a girl who had 'back boobs'

Saitra wisps: The truth will kick you in the ass

Quotable Quote of the Day
Me: Express Post International is not a fully trackable service. There's nothing more we can do towards finding your letter.
Customer: So what can we do?

They'll never cease to amaze me. Customers. They certainly don't like to be told "no". I love the ones who call back five minutes later hoping to speak to a different operator and get an answer they like better. It's almost an accusation that the first operator was lying. It's happened to me several times - I give someone an honest answer, they don't like it. They call back a minute or two later, and get me again. They don't say "I just called" or anything, just launch into their story. I'm like, "Eric, I just spoke to you." Eric says "Ohhh..." in that way stupid people do when they don't know what to say.

But the ones that really bug me are the ones that just go on and on. It wouldn't normally bother me, just sitting there saying "Yes, mmhmm, I understand", that's fine by me. But when there's twelve calls waiting, you just want to get that queue cleared - deal with each call as quickly as possible. The International team is so small that we have difficulty absorbing abnormal call volumes or unusually long calls into the stats - those events have a real effect on us. So anyway, this call comes through. Some guy who just wants the price of a parcel to London. That's fine, I can do that. Then halfway through he remembers six thousand other things he wants to ask, and then his mobile rings and he asks me to hold. God it's tempting to say "I'm sorry I can't hold, call back later you moron!"

Then there's the ones who've lost parcels. You give them the bad news. Parcel gone, we can't track it, perhaps you should insure it next time. And they sit there going "Ohh... oh no..." and telling you long-winded stories about why it was important. "You see it was my mother's uncle's second-cousin's birthday present, and if he doesn't get it he'll think we've forgotten him..." The standard procedure to deal with that is simply "I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do, is there anything else I can help you with?" but sometimes they just ignore you and go on and on and on anyway!

Ok. Rant finished. I promise. I've vented, now I'll be nice.

Quotable Quote of the Day
[fritzthecat] im in canada :)
[chup_re] YOU'RE WHAT???!?!?!?!
[chup_re] what are you doing in CANADA?
[fritzthecat] umm, not being in australia lol

I had a really weird dream last night. I was in a strange house with about six people I've never seen before in my life - I think my subconscious made them up. We were getting on well, everyone was really nice, and the main guy was gay. Then suddenly the gay guy told me that his name was Dion, and his online nickname used to be TT, years ago. I yelled "I know you! You're a bastard online!" and I almost got up to leave. But he said he knew he was a bastard, and apologised. Then all seven-odd of us piled into a car... they were going somewhere specific, but they also offered to drop me off at work. So I agreed, and they drove me to Springvale. Somehow this seemed perfectly ordinary, even though I work in the city. I remember calling Wayne to say I'd be late in to work, even though at Post my team leader is Nik. Wayne was my team leader at Teletech! It was all very strange.

Woohoo!

Just got home from the "date" with Jon! A really nice night - movie, walking, and talking. So far we're getting on very well, which is a good start. He's quite the gentleman... I'm not sure if this means he isn't attracted to me and doesn't want to touch/kiss me, or if he just doesn't want to rush things or make the first move! I have no problem at all with gentlemen, but it does cause confusion! It's not really important - it'll sort itself out in time. After all, it's very early days yet. I'm rather out of practice at beginning relationships and so forth, I haven't really tried in about... three years. So I'm feeling my way gently... wondering, and to a certain extent hoping, but not expecting or forcing things. Ah well, I feel like a child again, but I suppose I'll grow up again - at least as much as I've ever grown up!

Boardgames night last night. I'm so tired! It was a lot of fun though. I'm glad Emily came up all the way from Geelong. She needs more friends, I guess she can borrow some of mine. Pity Kat couldn't make it, but we had fun anyway! She'd have liked it though. So anyway, we played Balderdash, which I've never played before but I remember my parents being in hysterics over it years ago with their friends. It was really funny, I think I picked the right people to play it with - Andrew and Emily were particularly inventive. Playing Scattegories was probably a mistake - we ended up with a few near-arguments over whether a particular word or phrase should be allowed. In that game, Andrew's inventiveness and lateral thinking were against him and he didn't like that one bit! All in all, though, a very enjoyable night. Chantel piked out around 12.30, Andrew lasted a bit longer before taking a taxi home at 3am. Emily sat up all night reading (yes I mean literally all night) while I attempted to get some sleep with the light on and Emily making weird noises!

Downloaded the new Radiohead album, Hail to the Thief, overnight. It's very good. I'm so looking forward to seeing them live! April 26... not too much longer to go!

I had lunch with Jon today! I won't go into too much detail, because I'm sure he'll be reading this later! But I will say that after lunch, everyone at work was asking what I was so happy about!

I had an interesting experience today. I was just staring out the office window at all the buildings which normally appear 2-dimensional, flat, just part of the same old cityscape. Then suddenly one of the buildings just came into focus, like it was suddenly more real to me than the rest. No reason that I could tell. I just kept staring at it and it just kept looking more solid than everything else. Very odd. It wasn't even a very nice building.

Sometimes I have difficulty remembering that I am actually alive on Earth as opposed to living in some kind of hell populated exclusively by stupid people. Most particularly, stupid people who don't know they're stupid! The ones who know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are correct, when in fact they're dead wrong, those are the ones that really get to me.

It's been a while since I've done these, but this one just has to go here!

Quotable Quote of the Day
Matt: Breakfast cereal commercials are the lowest form of wit.