My hand hurts. You may be curious as to why my hand hurts. It's because I just punched a wall. You may wonder why I punched a wall. It's because I was unable to punch the guy who drove by as I walked home and yelled "SLUT!" at me out his car window.

I'm beginning to think that our justice system should more closely resemble the process of training a dog. If a dog poops on the carpet, you reprimand him immediately and sharply - if you delay, he will have no understanding of why he is being punished; and if you are not sharp with him he will be unsure if he is actually being punished or not.

As such, it should be perfectly legal for me to punch somebody in the face in response to him calling me a slut. In fact, it should be illegal for me NOT to punch him in the face for calling me a slut. By not punching him, I am allowing him to escape his offence unpunished, and he will have no hesitation in re-offending. I am contributing to the overall lawlessness of society. I am failing in my duty as a citizen. I'm a bad dog!

By the way, Frank, my favourite Canadian writer would have to be Gordon Korman!!!

Ever seen a 24 year old wear a paper hat with no sense of irony? If not, you missed your chance last Sunday night. There I was, along with Aidan and two other mid-20's rockers, standing in a queue (yes there was a queue) to see Peter Combe. We had previously been to a burger place and stole their newspapers with which to adorn ourselves, and we were not alone in this.

For those of you who did not spend your childhood in Australia in the 80's, allow me to explain. Peter Combe once had a 5-minute segment on ABC TV each day, during which he sang. His songs were topical, relevant, and very deep. With songs such as "Wash Your Face With Orange Juice" and "Newspaper Mamma", who could fail to love him?

He got up on that stage on Sunday night, and all of us who were fans at the age of 3 were still rocking on! There was not one person there who didn't genuinely have a good time - it was a return to innocence and better days. Nobody gave a political message, nobody was trying to rebel against anything, and nobody was selling anything. Iit was just a happy reliving of childhood. He got three encores, and he came out the final time to say "We've played our entire repetoire, so we'll just do one of them again!" Yes, we mid-20's crowd exhausted the repetoire of a children's performer and loved every second of it.

The world needs more of that.

According to Google, "Stace needs" the following things:
- to re-configure his [her???] luggage
- to learn someone's ass some respect
- a vacation already
- mental institution
- to contribute more
- a new boyfriend
- to start saving
- to find something more constructive to do with her free time other than pissing of people she doesn't know
- a proper education

According to Google, "Stacy was arrested for" the following things:
- DWI [I don't even know what that means... Drunk Within Tent?]
- passing out in her car with her children present
- being a slut

I googled "Stace is bored" and it only came up with links to my own previous posts. Searches for my own names (maiden and married) fill in a little time... there's quite a few people out there who share my old name and my new one. Mostly men, thanks to my parents weird foresight in giving me the traditionally male spelling of my first name.

I'm bored.

There is a wonderful old computer program called NIALL - anybody know it? Niall attempts to learn English, or whatever language you care to teach it, by breaking down the sentences you type in, remembering words and connections between words, the number of times a particular connection has occured, and start/end sentence markers. So you start by typing in something - "It's a nice day," or whatever you like, and NIALL responds, and as you type more things it "learns" more word combinations. I used to have loads of fun with it years ago, and I've re-discovered it tonight (http://www.lab6.com/old/niall.html) so I'm having lots of fun again. NIALL just told me, "I've missed you like a computer program and then why don't know." I've been feeding it song lyrics and profound or amusing quotes in the hope that it will pick up something useful, but it's all to no avail! Lots of fun, though. Give it a shot if you've got a spare few hours!

Ok, time now to address your blog topic suggestions. Thanks for nothing, Steve, I'm sure I've done a DP blog at some point in the distant past!

Funniest thing that ever happened to me
Probably not THE funniest, but pretty funny anyway... Whilst in the company of a very good friend of mine, I saw another friend. I tried to introduce the two of them, only to find that they went to uni together and were already very good mates. I then saw a third friend, and tried to introduce him too, but they all knew each other!!! Ever since then, I've never tried to introduce anybody to anybody else without checking if they have a prior acquaintance!

People from Primary School
I have no idea at all where any of my primary school friends are.
- I bumped into one of them in the city fringe a few months ago, she was working nearby and studying in the city. (Oddly enough, she used to date a good friend of somebody I used to date. Make sense?)
- I know through another friend that somebody I went to primary school with has been in a car accident and is now blind as a result.
- At my old job, I used to receive faxes from a company signed by a lady with the same name as sombody I was at primary school with. It's not a common name, but I never asked her if she was the same person.

At about 5pm yesterday, all of these bottles were full. In fact, we'd only just bought them. This photo was taken at approximately 9pm. What can I say, I love Midori! See:

Well, I had a little "end of first week" feedback from my new boss today. He says I've done a good week's work, and seems quite happy with me. He has also informed me of certain dates when he will be away, and it will be my responsibility to manage everything in his absence. He evidently believes that by the time those dates roll around I will be sufficiently capable. This is good!

My last few posts have ALL been about work - interviews and leaving and starting. What else can I blog? Should I do another endangered species?

Actually, here's a thought: give me a potential blog topic in the Comments, I'll pick one and research it and blog it in the next week or so.

No, I haven't disappeared off the face of the Earth! Just off the face of the blogosphere for a few days. It's hard to find time to blog when I can't do it at work and my evenings are occupied. Not any more though - I finished my bartending course! Passed all subjects, so now if I wanted to I could bartend. I don't know yet if I will. Perhaps 2 or 3 nights a week - something to do, and a little extra cash.

The new job seems to be going quite well - as far as I can judge after four days, anyway. There's a lot to learn, but I'm fairly sure I'll pick it up quickly enough. My boss says he goes easy on people if they screw up during their first week, so I'm semi-dreading next week!!! He won't tell me what he's like if people screw up AFTER their first week, he just said, "test me". Hrrrmm!
The good stuff: Part time hours, casual clothes, relatively close to home, better pay (on an hourly basis) than previous job.
The bad stuff: I haven't found any yet.

Life in general is ticking along quite nicely, I'll try to post something more interesting and more frequently now I'm done with evening classes!

It is done! I have left. Quit. Nicked off. Scootled. Resigned. Gone. And all that!!! They got me flowers and a nice card, they got me slightly tipsy, they hugged me, one of them gave me a lift to the train station so I could get home, and that was that! I'm unemployed until I turn up at my new job on Monday. It feels a little odd - I can't quite grasp the fact that I will never see some of those people again, I will never work in that office again, I will never again get away with quite as much as I did there!!! (I have told them that if the new job doesn't work out, though, I'm coming back!) So there you have it. I'm going to stop writing now, and go and get some more alcohol. I deserve it!

I don't know a song about frogs
There are songs about lizards,
koalas, and dogs
But no-one writes songs about frogs

I don't know why I like frogs. It's not an obtrusive obsession, it doesn't occupy a lot of my time or mindspace, but I just like frogs. Did you know there are 13 endangered and 2 critically endangered species of frog in Australia?

The Armoured Mistfrog was last seen in 1994 in Far North Queensland. Currently, nobody knows anything about it - how many are left (if any), the gender balance, breeding season, tadpoles... it's all a bit of a mystery.

The Mountain Mistfrog is in a similar situation, with just as little really known about it, but it hasn't been seen since 1990. Surveys conducted in 1991, 1992, and 1993 all failed to find any trace of this frog.

Somebody's got to care about frogs. Even if all I can do is blog it, that's better than forgetting entirely.

It's the final countdown! (Hat-tip to Europa) - Three days left! Slightly less, actually... just under 25 hours of working time left. That's excluding travel time and lunch breaks. Am I getting too excited about something mundane? Yes, I am! But that's ok! It is excitement-worthy, although I'm sorry to waste your time by crapping on about it! I promise at some point soon I will blog something interesting.

Some people just make me want to SCREAM!!! They call up and I tell them what happened and I apologise and explain what I will now do for them. BUT IT'S NEVER ENOUGH!!! They just want more and more and MORE,or they just want to complain and whinge and moan about it, and then they try to sound menacing by asking for my name again at the end of the call - as if they're actually going to tell somebody about it or lodge a complaint. I just felt like telling her, I don't give a crap because I've already quit and it's because of people like you!

 

It's calls like that which make me realise that yes, leaving the call centre industry is the best thing I've ever done.

Stuff I forgot to say:

Yes, the job "trial" went well and I'm starting my new job as Office Administrator on Monday! Yay me!

Yes, I'm doing a bartending course which started last night and it's fun. Yay me!

Yes, I'm really tired now but also very happy with the way things are turning out. Yay me!

Yes, I'll stop saying "Yay me!" right now. Yay me! Well, ok, NOW I'll stop.