Monthly Archives: April 2004

Whippit, Agnetha!

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My three favourite Lemonheads albums.
1. It’s a shame about Ray.
2. Lovey.
3. Come on feel the Lemonheads.

My three least favourite NZ Idol contestants.
1. Filipo.
2. Ian from the top 60.
3. Emily from the top 24.

My three favourite carbonated beverages.
1. Vanilla Diet Coke.
2. Fanta.
3. Bundaberg ginger beer.

My three least favourite modes of transport.
1. Horse.
2. Taxi.
3. Getting a ride with a friend of a friend.

My three favourite movie theatres in Auckland.
1. Village St Lukes.
2. The Lido.
3. The Bridgeway.

My three least favourite mispronunciations.
1. lingerie as “lon-zher-ray”.
2. known as “no-win”.
3. performer as “preformer”.

My three favourite mispronunciations.
1. milk as “moowk”
2. ask as “arks”
3. New Zealand as “New Zullin”

My three least favourite business jargon terms.
1. Solutioning.
2. Provisioning.
3. Human resources.

My three favourite eating places in Raglan.
1. Vinnies.
2. Tongue and Groove.
3. Raglan Bakehouse.

My three least favourite things at the gym.
1. Dodging puddles and BMWs in the carpark.
2. Yelling out my warm up time to the instructor.
3. The shoulder machine.

My three favourite things at the gym.
1. The horrible mosaic by the pool.
2. Seeing 29:59 on the treadmill timer.
3. The flower arrangements along the hallway.

My three least favourite things to do with my car.
1. Renewing the registration.
2. Getting a warrant of fitness.
3. Refilling the windscreen water tank.

My three favourite things to do with my car.
1. Driving along the North-Western Motorway, along Upper Harbour Drive and back along the Northern Motorway.
2. Late night hooning.
3. Going through a carwash.

My three least favourite real spam subjects:
1. Your order N28-17823-324106 has shipped
2. Affordable Health Insurance Available Now
3. Free Yourself Of Kilograms At Once

My three favourite real spam subjects:
1. Dont let go the chance that can make u 20 years younger Agnetha
2. peach strong demitted swenson blackfeet
3. Y Stuck With Ur Current Job? Buy A Degree N Get Higher Salary whippet

Rubbish day

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I’m still liking my new job, but something happened this morning that made me glad that I have the next four days off.

Today is rubbish collection day. Because I live on a main road, the rubbish is collected very early in the morning, to beat the morning rush hour traffic. The rubbish truck usually gets here around 6am and the truck noises usually wake me up.

This morning I sort of half woke up. I was lying in bed listening to the truck noises, trying to figure out what was happening. My first attempt at a logical analysis of the noise was to conclude that it was sound effect important to the plot, and that I would have to make a caption describing the sound.

Then I properly woke up, was disgusted with myself, put some earplugs in, and went back to sleep.

Punk-arse

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I captioned an entire episode of you-know-what Street. It took me about 18 hours to do one commercial half hour. I’m told it gets quicker. Much, much quicker.

I saw the WBC at the King’s Arse tonight. They hadn’t played in a couple of months and had a new drummer, so it would cool to see them live again. The Arse had to close at midnight because it’s now Anzac Day, and therefore the only time we are allowed to hear a trumpet is playing taps at a dawn ceremony, not in a ska band. But the w00da snuck an extra song in, so much love for them.

The spacebar on my iBook had broken. I can still use it, but it’s lost its spring so I tap a hard, flat bar. I fear getting it fixed, because knowing Apple I’d have to get a new keyboard, which would probably cost about a million dollars.

Oh, and my computer is old and slow. Technology has caught up with and passed it, so every time I use it I spend minutes waiting, waiting, waiting for it to do basic tasks. A new iBook = two million.

Urgh, if only I was a bogan, then I could buy a lotto ticket, win first division and spend my days with a brand new iBook and one of those giant leather couches that nouveau riche bogans are into.

Employmental

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I’ve just done two days of training for my new job. It’s actually been really fun.

The company is pretty big, and it seems really well run. My last job was for a big corporation, so there are things like health insurance deals, gym membership rebates and 10% off at a local liquor outlet. There was even a mini packet of M&Ms in my welcome pack.

I’m very impressed with the staff cafeteria. It has a really good selection of food. Actually, I’m going to digress here and tell a story.

At my old-old job, there was just a kitchen and a vending machine. One day at a staff meeting the general manager got really excited and shared his plans for an amazing new cafeteria with us. He was going to build a proper kitchen and have chefs cooking up juicy steaks. Everyone got excited for about five minutes before we realised it was never going to happen, and it never did.

So far I’ve had two really good sandwiches. I think the prices are slightly subsidised so that it’s marginally cheaper than going to a cafe. And the really good news is that the cafeteria is open late so that I can get dinner from there.

The job itself is very cool. I’m currently obsessed with it and think about it when I’m not at work. It basically involves writing captions (a.k.a subtitles) for TV shows. It is almost a perfect job for me. Other people can not understand the appeal of sitting at a computer with headphones and writing down everything that everyone in a soap says, but for me it just feels right. Rockin’.

It’s excellent to have found a job where I don’t feel out of my depth or bored or tense. I knew taking typing in the fifth form would have a good use.

MLIR

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I briefly – oh so briefly – appeared on an item on the late news tonight. They did a piece on the popularity of Idolblog.com, and the massive NZ Idol online community. Rachel, who runs the site, invited me over to be there for the interview. It was mostly about her, but the reporter asked me a few questions.

Tragically none of those bits made it to the final cut, but there were a couple shots of me and Regan (the other Idolblog person) hovering over Rachel at her computer. Oddly, Regan was named but I wasn’t. Oh cool, my indie cred is still intact.

It was an interesting item anyway. They even mentioned the small legal hassles Idolblog has had with South Pacific Pictures, so while the network is screening NZ Idol, they aren’t playing by SPP’s rules.

I bought some trousers today. Every year or so I buy a pair of trousers like these and end up never wearing them ever again. The problem always is that I never have anything that goes with the trousers, and I think this may be happening this time too. Obviously the solution is to buy some clothes to go with the trousers. Or return the trousers.

Urgh, modern life is so difficult.