The bathroom, mark 2.

I don't mean to harp on about our bathroom at work, but things are just getting stupid. This is the latest sign to appear in there:

In an effort to entice users of this lavatory to maintain a basic level of hygiene and show consideration for the female population of Level 10, we have provided a supply of disinfectant products and paper towels - PLEASE USE THEM.

And when I say "appear in there", I mean on the back of every fucking cubicle door, the second entrance door, etc etc. What on earth do they think people are doing in there? In the entire time I've been here the worst I've encountered in some fierce looking skid marks in the bowl, and that was only once. I'd go so far as to say that these facilities fall into my 'top 5 workplace toilets' list - on the whole, they are clean, they have excellent airflow (no lingering foul smells), they stock excellent soap in the dispensers, and hell, they even have showers. This lead me to the conclusion that the moron who wrote the sign and stuck it everywhere is on crack.

So I started asking people around the office if they knew what had happened. The responses varied from recoiling in abject horror that I could ask such a question, to outright denial of signs and all mention of the event. Something had gone down, and I want to know what it was. Maybe it was so horriffic that people were scared to talk about it, maybe people thought it was me who did it, or maybe, just maybe, it's the fact that EVERYONE WHO WORKS HERE IS A FUCKING PRUDE!

But now - thanks to Ms Crackhead - every time I got to the bathroom, I stare at the sign, and picture what exactly could've happened where I sit. How could this possibly require disinfectant and paper towels? Surely if it was all that bad, we'd be given gloves, mask, a series of scrubbing brushes, a bucket, and a bomb disposal squad. How, how can something so apparently evil simply be cleaned with a paper towel? If whoever committed the obscenity-that-must-not-be-named was too disgusted to clean up said unsaid obscenity, presumably the availability of paper towelling would not change their stance on this issue... I mean, what the hell do they think toilet paper is christs sake?!

This is driving me mad. Every day, I use this toilet and am further confronted by the frustration that is not knowing what the hell happened. Was it something invisible? Even more worrying, was it something invisible only to me?! I need to know - for my own personal safety and amusement. I have written a letter (below) and neatly placed a copy in each cubicle with a stolen pen. Daily, I will check to see if any responses have been made, and will keep the good readers of rantoltol posted on the toilet conspiracy. Only the good ones - you bad ones can go to fucking hell already. You heard me, fuck off!

Nah, no really, come back, it's okay. I was only joking. C'mon, give me a hug - That's right, all of you are bad in my eyes.

Despite my frustration, clearly there is a winner here, and it's me & my household. As long as they keep being disgusted at imaginary unsanitary events, our house keeps in stock of disinfectant and cleaning agents. Fantastic.


For your reference, the letter:

Bathrooms and OH MY GOD! What the hell is in my coffee?!!

I'm at work, chillin', 'bout to write another installment to rantolotl regarding yesterdays happenings, fo' yo' ghetto asses. yo' momma ho. Werd. Is 'werd' still in? I never know. Anyone who says otherwise can experience some form of arse-cap busting scenario. Or something. Yo momma.

Anyhoo, back to said rant.

I don't take my coffee with sugar. If I ever wanted to, I suspect I'd probably ask for some. But what I take total fucking exception to is when I find mystery sweetness in my coffee. Today, I got that in a chunky, crunchy, and definately not sugar sort of way. Just as I'm logging in to post a rant, I take one of the few remaining sips from my tall, and until this point, tasty Hudsons coffee. To be precise, it was a straight up skinny cap. No bullshit syrups, no whipped cream, and definately no fucking sprinkles. So as you can imagine, I'm duly surprised when a sort of sweet sludge in contained in said sip. I'm even more surprised when I discover that this sludge is crunchy.

I'm actually still drinking it. It has me totally fascinated - and this isn't the first time it's happened to me. My first experience with stealth sweet crunchy stuff (which I assure you is definately not sugar) hiding in the bottom of my cup, was at Gloria Jeans. If the fact they served my coffee with unwanted whipped cream & sprinkles on top, and that they are run by & fundraise for right wing lunatics wasn't enough to put me off their beverages, then the crunchy shit at the bottom of the fucking cup was.

I'm not a massive supporter of multi-nationals and all that shit, but frankly, the reasons are mounting to not use them at all. First Dominos (read more), now Hudsons. I suspect the next time I eat at McDonalds I'll find a fucking fetus in my burger. So, my dilemma; Hudsons is now inserting odd crunchy shit in my cups of coffee. What do I do? The cafe at the bottom of my building is run by gorillas who can't brew for shit. The next closest coffee-arium is Hudsons. Anything else is out of work-skyving range and will probably get me fired. Is it really possible I'll have to face going back to instant? Aren't those barbaric days over? Why not seal the deal and take away my DSL and give me a fucking 28.6k modem in its place, too.


And in case you're wondering about the bathroom aspect, well, to cut a long story short my office bathroom is flooding. I was just washing my hands - quite innocently I might add - and the tap starts thumping. Water pressure increases. I cautiously remove my hands from the sink and slowly take a step backwards. The water flow stops ever so breifly, then explodes with brown, then red, water. I carefully lean over and try to turn the tap off, but to no avail. The fucking tap is possessed. There's foul water everywhere. I leave the bathroom. Hastily.

Hopefully the woman I left in there worked something out. Maybe she used a rubbish bin as a raft or something.

In case of emergency, please pull pants.

There's been something bothering me for a long time. Until recently, I couldn't quite put my finger on it. But then it hit me; There's something wrong with the world, and that something is the Evolution of Pants.

It started out just fine. Cavemen were getting into the clothing thing, getting around in a single-piece fur outfit, draped from the shoulders, and skirting at the bottom. This was standard active, sleep, casual & formal wear for both women & men alike.

We can then progress to the times of Ancient Egypt, Greece & Rome, where once again male & female leaders, land owners and lumpen alike, all wore legless attire. So far, so good.

But then came the British Empire, all smarmy with their cups of tea and fancy pants.

Now I'm no historager, but there seems to be a big chunk missing in the history books between "Roman Empire: Pantsless" and "British Empire Soldiers: Pants". Where did pants come from? Where are they going? And are the British responsible for what's gone wrong here?!

What do you mean wrong? You might ask. Well, I would answer. Well, well, well.

And then I would form a coherent response. Like the one below;

Pants, in theory, sound like a fine idea. In fact, they are a fine idea. Just not for men. Women can wear pants with ease - they can run, jump, play and swim in them, all without problem. Why? Because they have hips. It's natures belt. Men, on the other hand end up with the age old problem of pantlessness.

Some might attribute such occurances to drunkeness. They'd probably even be partially right, but it still doesn't alter the fact. Men + Pants = trouble. Refer to the diagram below for a less wordy explanation, as I need to go get a beer:

Meet Bob.

In figure 1, you can see Bob in all his glory, saying Hello to us all. He is happy.
In figure 2, Bob has purchased a brand new pair of pants! He is happy.
In figure 3, Bob has discovered the problem with wearing pants on his manly frame. He is angry and embarrassed. His shame is unhidden from the world (actually, it still looks pretty hidden to me).

Now, lets compare Bobs first scenario with the one below;

In figure 1, we see Bob happy, as he was prior to his experiment into Pants wearing.
In figure 2, Bob has tried a different style of dress; a dress! Bob is pleased with his purchase, and is happy.
In figure 3, we complemented Bob's dress with a lovely sunhat. Isn't he pleased!

So there you have it. Comprehensive proof that men should avoid pants. The Romans had it right, and not just with the lions. Togas are here to stay! Women; surrender your dresses and give them to your male friends and family. Together, we can build a better, safer, and more sensible world.

See? Yet another avoidable pants-folly


Remember boys, just say no to Pants.

Lyrics analysis stole my life.

This morning I uncovered an ancient & buried treasure: My old self-titled The Living End CD. The friend I got to burn it for me back in 1998 was a tool and managed to change the burn speed at least three times during the process. The end result is CD that's totally unplayable tracks 1 through 4. That's fine, I never liked the big hits from that album anyway. Not even Prisoner of Society.

But listening to those punkabilly tracks bought back a lot of memories; skipping school, hanging out, drinking cheap vodka, making fairy bread. But most of all, it reminded me of that awkward habit of stupid teenagers - trying to make sense of the shithole that is life by reading and re-reading the lyric sheets that come with your favorite bands latest album, clinging to the hope that your ability to read between the lines is insightful, original, and was exactly what the songwriter was thinking when they wrote those very sentences. Maybe you could write to them and share your deepest feelings with them & they would ask you to come backstage, and then to tour with them, because you understand what no one else does. Or maybe - just maybe - the songwriter was completely off their face when they wrote it, and is far too busy living it up with hookers, beer and crack to be bothered with your snotty arse interpretation of some crap line that fit with some crap music with the only intended purpose being to sell more records. But I might be wrong.

I wanted to see if these people ever grew up. In fact, if the evermore cynical youth of today really were all that cynical, or have just been using the anonymity of the Internet to hide their shame - turns out it's the latter. Check out what I found here.


Song analysis #1:
The Offspring - Gotta Get Away
"This song is about superheroes who go through a lot of stress and just want to get away from everything."

"I like the song because it describes how I feel a lot of the time, just wanting to get away from myself."

Superheroes?! What the fuck!? What the hell are kids taking these days? Comment number two was far more insightful and correct, and wins a rantolotl Boo hoo hoo award for his efforts.

Song analysis #2:
The Killers - Andy you're a star
"Andy is a football player and attracts the eye of a girl Natalie. She likes him but he doesnt really like her but dates her just to hide the pain of Jenny"

"I don't know exactly where it says Andy is a football star, but the killers are from England and they don't play football, they play things like soccer and rugby."

I thought The Killers would be impossible to analyse, given their only clear quality seems to be that their singer sounds vaguely like Robert Smith - but clearly I was wrong. I thought they came out of Cali or somewhere too, but bah!, lets not let mere details get in the way! Maybe I should move to London and play rugby and stuff.

Song analysis #3:
Green Day - American Idiot
"Yeah, the title pretty much says it all. It's a song of rebellion (or at least critisism) against what's becoming the status quo in the U.S.A.
I've also heard the line "maybe I'm the Fagg*t America" is a reference to rumors about Billie Joe's sexuality. Don't take this as a fact, I just heard it somewhere. " blah blah blah...

It continues like this for paragraphs. Does this song even need analysis? Isn't it entitled to the group analysis of 'George Bush is a fucking moron'? , just like three fifths of what's been released in the last three years? Fucking hell.

If this is the best that the youth of today can come up with, then we're totally fucked. At least in my day we'd turn these things into a guide for better living, not a fucking gossip column on the songwriters lives. In 2006 even music is a tabloid magazine. So with that, I'll leave you with the humble words of Homer J Simpson:

"You can dance!
You can dance!
Everyone look at your pants!"

Analyse that.

Dominos, why have you forsaken me?

As a share house full of drunks, layabouts and hippies, from time to time we scrape up enough dough (hah – what a pun!) to get ourselves one of the greatest treats in life. A Dominos triple cheese pizza. While this sounds like a heart attack served in a box (and in fact probably is), it’s possibly the most fantastic example of fast food yet created. Cheese, more cheese, BBQ sauce and your favourite toppings – what would go better with some beer and crap TV?

And that’s just what we were thinking the other night when we picked up the phone and dialled.“Hi, I’d like to place a delivery order” I stated, carefully & courteously to our pizza dealer, Sharon. Then she asked for out address, and just as I’m getting ready to sneak out the plea for the triple cheese, she says it. She says “We don’t deliver to Brunswick.”

I was shattered, heartbroken. “What do you mean?” I said. “How can you not deliver here?” I cried desperately. “You have stores in our two neighbouring suburbs!!” I appealed. But alas, it was too late; she’d smelt my desperation and hung up on me.

We got scheming, and started devising plans to call back and tell them the right road but the wrong suburb. It might’ve worked, except our street name is stupidly common in the area. Maybe we can call back and get a different person, someone more sympathetic, we mused. But it was not to be, and we ended up with Indian take-out. It was good, but there was something missing. It just wasn’t the triple cheese.

We initially thought this discrimination only applied to our household, but then came Black Saturday; the day of the vanishing order. A housemate was at a different location, in a totally different suburb, calling a completely different store. This time they let him place his order. Then they teased him… they called back 40 minutes later asking for his address again, ensuring him the pizza would soon be on its way. BUT IT NEVER CAME! No call, no knock on the door, no stinkin’ pizza! He’d been robbed!

So why Domino’s, why? Why must you taunt us like this?! Why did you let us have that first delicious taste if you were never to grace our lips with the cheesey goodness of the triple cheese again? What did we do to you? We tried to be loyal, but you just wouldn’t let us. No, no, don’t say it, Dominos, don’t try and apologise. It’s too late. I know how you really feel. We’re moving on now, and you can’t change it, you can't take it back, you’ve hurt us too much. We've learnt to live without you & the triple cheese. Really, we have.

For any others who have experienced a similar form of fast-food discrimination, I suggest you find yourself one of these babies to tide you over…

Neighbours; a case for extermination.

I don't live in the closest neighbourhood. In fact, I've only met four of our neighbours in several years. One appeared on our doorstep to ask if he could purchase a couch - at 6am on a Sunday morning. When we said no, he wouldn't go away. He insisted on looking at our couches. We insisted he fuck off. That was the last time we participated in a neighbourhood garage sale.

The rest of our neighbour-meeting occurances have been relatively pleasant. Nod-at-each-other-in-the-street acquaintances have been made, forged on the unification to get our street surfacing fixed (it looks something like this), and the unforgettable impaling of a dog on a fence. But now we have a new need to unite - we have foes in our midst. At number 28, to be precise.

Now I'm all for party houses - I think it's better to keep drug & alcohol induced destruction and annihalation to a confined area, like a house, if at all possible, instead of drunken mishaps on the streets. I think this is particulary relevant to the annoying bastards at 28, if for no other reason than their own personal safety. If they attended bars, they'd regularly have the living crap beaten out of their annoying, sports-liking, whiny-girlfriend equipped, yobbish, country-boy bodies. So why is the party house a bad idea in this case? Because we live in a quiet, yet densley packed inner city suburb. And we like to sleep. At night. Most nights. Number 28 is preventing us from these mere luxuries of life.

Dubious? Here's a shortlist of their crimes against civilisation (me) thus far:

• They stole my motorbike, and hid it in their shed.
• They party at least 4 nights of every week - and I use the word 'night' loosely. I suspect it's actually one giant party that just doesn't end for 96 hours.
• They have fucking noisy girlfriends that I'm more than happy to call slappers. They fight and bitch and moan, loudly and often in the middle of the street at any hour they damned well please.
• They're not offering me any of their clearly very interesting drugs that seem to allow them to party this fucking hard for what's now coming up to a year.
• They steal our recycling bins. For what purpose, we'll never know.
• And just to reiterate my first point... They stole my motorbike and hid it in their shed.

When they first moved in, we attempted some early and ill-thought out plans of revenge. We would wait until their 'music' stopped (it's all fucking bass line dance music), and redirected our stereos speakers towards their house, and got the Merle Haggard out.

It didn't work. I think it actually encouraged them. So after months and months of pain, I've resorted to Plan Ultimo. The Plan to end all Parties.



I got me a megaphone, and I'm not afraid to use it.

Not only can I shout abuse, instruction & taunts at an alarming volume, I can also use the handy dandy siren that this baby is equipped with. I've noticed that number 28 becomes very quiet when they hear an emergency vehicle siren, or see a cop car pull up, and I suspect it's due to the earlier referenced hoard of drugs contained within the property & its persons. Never again will we have to lay awake at night listening to the thumping bass of whatever shit music they're listening to at 3am, accompanied by the screams and squeals of their annoying guests; for we have the megaphone! (I named it Monty). If we're particularly clever in its usage, we might even be able to get them to destroy their stereo (many plans have been hatched to break in and steal it, but they seem to have around 100 people living there at any given time).

"Attention morons! This is the police! We have a warrant to search your premises. We first ask that you unplug your stereo and throw it out the window. We fear it is a terrorist device. Do this now, or we send in the sniffer dogs."

If you think this plan relies on said partiers to be off their faces, then you'd be right. But I really don't think that's a problem.

As an added side-note, I think it's worth noting a few of the bonus uses of the megaphone include;

• A driving aid. Car blocking you off or just being an asshole? Randomly wandering pedestrian? Notify them with Monty!
• Don't like queues when shopping? This is where Monty comes in handy yet again! Announce super specials at will to clear the long line to the register.
  
• Amuse yourself by hanging out at the river watching rowboats in training go past. Fuck up their rythym by yelling ROW! ROW! ROW! out of sync with their rowmaster.
• In a busy restaurant and can't get the wait-staffs attention? Monty won't fail here! Simply announce your order into the speaker, and you're sure to get the attention of every staff member in the place. *Note; this won't work at McDonalds.
  
• Go to a nightclub and turn the siren on a little after midnight. Whatever's been taken should be kicking in by then and will cause hilarious results.

Actually, don't do the last one, it's just a bit too mean.

Projects

Last night I went to a film festival. It was a pretty casual affair, designed for people who owned little more than a camcorder and could lure 'friends' into production roles with promises of 'lunch'. I might offer a simple warning to readers here; if you ever find yourself in the position of 'friend', this free lunch may or may not exist, and I'm willing to count on the fact that if it does, it's probably in another time dimension. I know this, because I've offered said 'lunch' before (If any of my 'friends' are reading this, don't worry, it's just satire - your lunch is on the way. I swear.)

While this was a very amateur event, it certainly didn't stop the wankers from coming out of the woodwork. Entrants and spectators alike, pretentious hats & tinted sunglasses were in full swing and were further encouraged by the lack of knowledgeable people around to tell them they were talking shit. Falling apart wooden benches, decrepit couches & crap beer were the features of the venue (it was a beer garden), and by the end of the night they were all covered in bird shit (yes, the beer as well). But by the attitudes of the attendees, this was a red carpet waiting for them to stroll down in all their glory. Too bad 90% of the films were beyond saving. Oh - did I say film? I meant 'project'. Because we don't make films in our fancy hats anymore - no, we make projects. these are all three and four minute projects that cost us all of our creativity, and my fucking god, I'm a genius! That's why only I may wear the hat. When you're this good, you can get your own damned hat (but it won't be as good as mine).

While this conversation may not have actually occurred, I think it came pretty damned close. I love the idea of these 'projects' - you can turn any mundane creative idea into something new, something brilliant, something groundbreaking, just by replacing the name for its actual medium and replacing it with 'project'. I fear speaking to these people. They seem to get upset easily.

Me: "Hey dude, I like your new film".
Artist: "Film? What film?!"
Me: "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought that was just your film being shown then. Sorry to bother you."
Artist: "Film?! No, it's my project. It's not finished yet, either, but it's more than film, it's an audio-visual breakthrough. I'm creating new techniques. This is beyond film."
Me: "Oh, I'm sorry... it was a nice project. I really like documentaries."
Artist: "Documentary?"
Me: "Ummm.... nice hat?"
Artist: "You can't have my hat!"

Well, I'm about to start working on my first three-to-four minute project. I'll call it 'going to the bathroom'. It will be a first in combining handwashing, flushing and bodily functions. Hmmm, maybe I should stop there before I ruin the storyline.

Welcoming myself to Blog hell

You'd not think that it would take that much effort to kick start a blog, would you? Well, you'd be wrong. Sure, my interpretation of 'much effort' and yours might differ, in that I see the task of filling up my water bottle at work, as effort. First you have to get up, then you need to walk to the tap, consider cleaning your recepticle of choice,you fill it up, and then make the long trek back to your desk! All the while clinging to a desperate hope that no one you know will show up and start talking to you. It's a tough life.

So, I jumped on the web and started looking up Blogs, in a thinly veiled attempt at research.

These are the first two images I found on image search, from here, and here:

God knows what the hell they are, what context they've been used in, or why anybody ever wasted their time with firstly taking the photo, and then bothering to upload it to their computer, let alone their blog (actually, I think the pumpkin head one is kind of cute). What I care about is why the Internet was ever reduced to this. I was uninspired. For whole minutes, I walked a desolate web desert alone, abandoned by my hopes and dreams to participate in something so noble as Blogging.

So I did it anyway, and recreated the mess you see above. Maybe it'll get better, maybe it'll get worse.

Welcome to rantolotl. I hope you enjoy your stay.