Saturday 04 October 2008
8:05pm

Going to Newcastle tomorrow. Daylight saving, lose an hour, lose some sleep, talk like I’m narrating Fight Club. Etc.

I watched Tideland today, which was not at all what I was expecting. I’d probably misread the info on it (good; it’s always best to be intrigued but wrong about what it’s going to be) and assumed it would be Alice in Wonderland but perverted. Not at all, really. It was also brilliant, and I’d very much put it in my revised Top 45 or whatever number I choose Films list (which would also include Dancer in the Dark, and uh... I dunno, other things).

I also started watching Pan’s Labyrinth due to the apparent similarities of the two. Bad idea. I was bored halfway through and switched off. Which is probably very unfair to it, considering how much it’s been lauded. And anyway, “boredom” is hardly the best criticism. I’d need to watch the whole thing first before giving an opinion. And thus, expect my opinion in about twenty years, when I also get around to watching Lost Highway, Get Carter... and loads of other films I’ve started but haven’t bothered finishing.

So, instead; I learned, via looking at someone’s profile on IMDB (he shall remain nameless, mainly because I don’t know his name and it’s not like he needs the publicity of being mentioned on my blog), that Empire have now done their Top 500 Movies (voted by the public, o’course). This guy on IMDB also posted a few thoughts on some of the entries.

I’m now going to do that too. The full list is below, because I’m anal, but I will hardly be commenting on all of them...

EDIT: No I won't, because what I wrote was genuinely stupid. I've removed it because it pains me to even see it.

OH LOOK, I FOUND ANOTHER UNPOSTED ENTRY:

Obligatory mention: Nina’s birthday yesterday.

O’course, she’s now 14. Which means [SNIP! Again, ask for it and I'll give it]

Speaking of which, for the wedding on Sunday, I had to shave. First time I’ve shaved since... erm, being taught to shave (and promptly forgetting) back in late 2006 (from memory. And yes, that memory is poor). And so far, no-one has commented on that... apart from [SNIP! Sorry, I'm snipping too much]

‘Course, I’ll never know for sure. I’m currently talking to Michael Sandford, who’s just been asked out by a girl. At 15. That’s incredibly lucky, or more likely she just doesn’t know protocol. Because, as it happens –

Oh yeah, and here’s an irony, because he’s asking me for advice. This is another thing that happens fairly regularly and I’m not sure why. Maybe most people just assume that I would’ve, y’know, had a girlfriend at some point.

– I’ve never been asked out by a girl. In every instance where something has(n’t) happened, they’ve waited for me to ask them out, or to at least hint that I’m interested in such a thing. This is silly. And no, I’m not that fucked up that I’m blaming them for this. In fact, I’m actually in a very good mood as I’m typing this.

What I meant is that girls are, obviously, much better at reading this sort of thing than guys are. Face it, girls, you’re smarter. You’re more aware of the world around you. So yeah, it’d make more sense for you to initiate something if you’re really interested, rather than the clueless guys like us. Or something.

This is why my Journal is full of lots of references to a couple of girls – because I try and limit this kinda thing after the very-embarrassing-to-read-but-then-again-I-was-happier 2006 entries – but inevitably, unless I’m somehow clever and prophetic enough to have mentioned who I’ll “end up with” about a million times in this Journal (which would be... erm... Kate), any romances will suddenly pop up out of nowhere.

Who am I kidding? WHAT ROMANCES, DOM.

Yes, I heard you, no need to shout.

I’m thinking of restarting Tds4a Tardis, and just making it snippets of thoughts I’ve had rather than full-blown reviews. Even though a part of me wants to write a full-blown review of Torchwood series two. Maybe I’ll eventually do those too, who knows. I’ll mix it up.

And yes, I’m aware that I’ve been thinking about restarting it before, and yes, I’m aware that I might not have written that I was thinking about restarting it before in this Journal before and therefore that aforementioned thing migh-*explodes*

LINK TO THING I JUST POSTED: http://tds4atardis.blogspot.com/

It’s telling that I spent far more time today thinking about potential Torchwood storylines than about women. Or indeed, about getting complimented – if it even was a compliment. I – no, wait, I don’t even need to point out that this is obviously why I don’t have a girlfriend, even though that’s exactly what I just did. And so-*explodes again*

Too much work. I’ve had too much work recently.

I’m also boiling hot at the moment, so I’ll just take my shirt off. Hang on a tick.

Alrighty. Hi guys! Welcome to my now shirtless journal!

With my shirt off, I can now drive around and call everyone I see a faggot, it’ll be awesome.

[SNIP! I just cut some personal stuff. If anyone desperately wants to read it - i.e. Bz - just ask, and you shalt receive]

...I don’t actually have anything to talk about, I’ve just realised. Bugger. Bugger. No, let’s think. There must be something. I need to write something cool and bloggy for my blog. And yet something not personal like the previous sentences I just threw in. Hmph.

Maybe I’ll go the easy way out, and discuss something nostalgic. That’ll do.

Actually, something that’s been concerning me recently. Everyone who has read this entire Journal – yes Dom, I’m looking at me – will remember that I once spent two weeks in Sydney, whinging about how much I hated business. What concerns me is that, when doing these transcriptions, which’ve been about Westpac and online banking... I mean, banking... I’ve been far more interested in the detailed interviews than the customers. So customers saying things like “I bank and the people are happy!” is intensely boring, whereas a banker saying, to steal straight from the transcriptions, “For a start, with the credit card piece, one of the key advantages about online banking is that you can look at all the transactions you’ve done, so we might feel more inclined to use our credit card in places we might not have before, like online. But if I was actually speaking to you, we’d probably be having a discussion about how we’d have a credit card used to pay for a home loan, and you need to be able to see that working, and online banking helps with that, we could use the example of having the credit card pay for everything. Then they could go online banking and see the reduced interest that they get in the following month to the month when they weren’t using that model”... is somehow interesting when I’m listening to it. And I bet that you, reading that, actually skimmed it.

And yet, here I am, reading Terry Pratchett’s Making Money during my break in work, a book that makes fun of how dull banking is. And I’m finding it funny because we all know that banking is dull. Well, except for when I’m transcribing about it, right?

Oh, never mind.

Still looking for something nostalgic. I’ll run out of endless silly childhood stuff soon.

Oh, mind you, I once transcribed a ten minute video about a guy who was in love with gold digging. For all that that sounds far more romantic than banking... a ten minute video bored the shit out of me, whereas literally an hour of a sales rep talking about banking interested me.

What have I become?

Speaking of money... [band] (I won’t mention their name in the blog version of this, because I’m still too in love with my balls to want to risk being castrated) have a song that, as far as I can make out, is about the Newcastle flood that happened last year. One of the lines in it is the ever-powerful sounding...

“It takes its toll”

...except, if you look at the word “toll” literally, then it starts to look silly. To me, a toll is that thing you pay when you’re crossing a bridge that doesn’t have a troll under it, and therefore the lyric makes me imagine the flood rising from the beach, slamming down towards a street, and then knocking on the peoples’ doors in the manner of a repo man and saying, “Excuse me, sorry to bother you... but I’m going to have to take your car, your furniture, your pets... in fact, just your house in general. Possibly your lives too. On the plus side, you’ll get your pool filled, free of charge.”

Note to self when writing lyrics in future: a lyric that somehow makes a natural disaster sound like bureaucracy is a really bad lyric.

And to continue the theme of ridiculous language being used, I was in Big W yesterday and a guy described his new computer as being “pretty epic”. And he wasn’t even a nerd, he was a jock.

I was looking at the TAFE list of courses yesterday, and there’s no suitable media course, or anything that approaches it, in Newcastle. I’m shattered about that. This means I’ll have to go back to Uni, FUCK.

Although Joeon said that if I was staying next year, he’d put me on some kind of training procedure that’d make me a senior staff. I uh, yeah. Hmm. Apart from the fact that I detest the idea of serving customers because I’m a scared little shit, good idea!

How many words is this now, barring the probably-personal stuff? Hmm, close to a 1000. This’ll probably do, unless I find something interesting to talk about. Anyway, Bz didn’t post the blog he said he was going to, so he can’t blame me for a relatively shit one on my own.

Actually, about banking – if you put a deposit of $100 on your savings account, and transfer that online t-nope, not interesting bz.

EDIT: I know! I can also paste the Empire thing, which I neglected to do before. Yep! That’ll be – nope not interesting OH SHUTUP BZ SHUTUP SHUTUP ALL OF BZ etc.