I hate people that spell loser as looser! You sir are a loser! Courtney Love is looser. Actually Courtney Love is a looser loser.

What’s a foot doctor called? Podiatrist or Paediatrician? I need one, and i want to be sure i’m getting the right person. My feet are awful…one of them in particular. It has this kind of growth thing over the heel. i need about 3 months in flip-flops i think and am hoping to get a subscription for it. Havianas as a tax write-off…nice.

I’ve noticed i subconsciously manage to find reasons to justify my unjustifiable hatred of people. Example. The other morning i walked to the train station and there was a geezer standing in my spot. I’m not OCD or anything, but i am a creature of habit. So here’s this LOSER standing exactly where i stand every morning…surely he has seen me before? Anyway whilst i was forced to stand in my backup spot – which is nowhere near as cool as my usual spot – i noticed i just began singling out things about him which annoyed me. At one point he got out his blackberry and i had to really concentrate to figure out if i really did hate all blackberry users, or, if i had suddenly just developed this hatred on the spot to vindicate my hatred for him standing in my spot?

My mind wandered off before i could fully explore this conundrum but if i had to take a 50/50 for the television viewers even though i’ve already taken the cash i’d have to say i hate all blackberry users….

Then there was this guy to my left who was just pacing…i mean proper walking in circles of about a 2 meter radius and at a decent pace mind you. He was just plain weird. I decided not to hate him just in case he wasn’t all there. You have to be careful throwing your hate around willy nilly as people tend to judge you when you openly hate ‘disadvantaged people’. They have this universal immunity, kind of like Seth Efricans…

People like that last guy though intrigue me, as does anything that doesn’t add up. I find i get bogged down on little trivial things, just because they don’t add up, or fit the pattern. As soon as something makes sense to me, i put it to the back of my mind and find something else to normalise. Like at lunch the other day, we walked past a smart car with an Opel sticker on the back. That just didn’t make sense to me so i couldn’t let it slide. I found myself running through different scenarios of how or why this might have happened. It’s not like i cared…if i came across the answer i probably wouldn’t give it a second thought. until then though it just bothers me. I’m the same with people. If their words don’t add up to their actions i start theorizing. I’m not suspicious i just want to know how things work. I’m not as bad as a Psych degree pigeonholing people who stray away from the norm, but i do want to know why? Once i know why i couldn’t care less if they stayed that way or not.

I think this idiosyncrasy of mine would come in handy if me and Squires fully develop out Bourne-Stylee training. Do you remember in the Bourne movies how Matt Damon bangs on about all the things he notices when he walks into a room, like the exits, how many cars are in the parking lot, how many miles he could run flat out at this altitude etc… well we think there can be a practical application of such a skill. Imagine using the ‘Bourne Method’ (patent pending) when entering your local bar.

One could tell you instantly:

• Where the exits are
• Closest methods of transport away from the pub
• Areas where it might be possible to smoke inside the pub
• Areas outside the pub where the smoking of both legal and/or illegal substances is likely to take place
• Who i could bum a cigarette off if needed to impress a girl
• Which girls i fancy in the room, in order of preference / attainability
• Who i could probably go home with if i was drunk enough and needed a place to stay
• Which lads are likely to kick off in a fight
• Which lads are likely to back you up if a fight kicks off which involves me
• Where the toilets are, and the approximate amount of time it would take to get there pending an explosion from either end.

I’m sure we came up with more but i can’t think of them now and have already given too much time to this already. If you can remember any more, comments form below!

I hate how at work every day, some of the lights don’t come on properly in the morning, so it is really only half bright – not that you can really notice mind you, until the missing ones gradually kick in several hours later….every day….which is met by sarcastic cheers from the traders….every day. Never get tired of that one….

Handy tip for you. When you are working in a German office and the air conditioners suddenly come on at full power and your colleague jokes that someone has just requested air, do not reply with “either that or we are being gassed….”. The innocence and naivety with which it was said may be misinterpreted.

You know when bands put a little short introduction to a song on their albums but they keep this as a separate track from the actual track itself? Ordinarily this does not have any impact and will blend in seamlessly…unless you have your ipod on shuffle and it puts one of the aforementioned introductions from, say, Body Count, leading into a completely different song from, say, Simon & Garfunkel…

“The problem isn’t the lyrics on the records,
its the fear of the white kids likin’ a black artist.
But the real problem is the fear of the white girl
fallin in love with the black man.
And here’s to you Mrs Robinson,
Jesus loves you more than you will know…“

I cant believe how many Germans ride bikes with headphones on…for a people so anal about sticking to the rules you’d think they might pay attention the the ones where you don’t die if you get it wrong.

So, probably the reason why people love Coheed and Cambria and hate them at the same time…find below one of their song’s off the Neverender cd’s with everything from duelling Guitars, a talk box, singing into the pickups, a theremin, drum and bass solos etc… enjoy!

Another one i have written is ‘Modern psychology stopped with the hysterectomy’. This is hilarious. I would assume i was being facetious with this. I think it is more funny to me to think where my mind must have been at that point in time. A quick brush up for those of you who don’t know, the hysterectomy originally came about as a cure for hysteria. It was thought at the time that only women could suffer from hysteria. What makes a woman different to a man? A Uterus. Well let’s get rid of the Uterus then…that should cure it!

A duck!
Who are you that are so wise in the ways of science…

In many ways modern psychology hasn’t progressed at all since these days. Of course there have been giant leaps forward in some areas but so many old habits are still lingering. I wonder why i would have been upset about psychology??? The mind boggles.

Working in an insurance agency is the ideal place for a woman to hunt for men. In three questions yesterday i was asked ‘Am i married?’, ‘Do i have any kids?’ and ‘how much money do you make?’ It’s like looking in a catalogue really isn’t it…Have to admit i was a bit embarrassed when she followed it up with ‘Well you do make a fair bit of money….which is a good thing!’ The latter comment tacked on because i had become visibly uncomfortable. Firstly i don’t earn that much, and secondly i don’t find money to be impressive. If i wanted my ego fellated i would go hang out at Living or Velvet with the masses of horrible excuses for people that seem to plague financial cities like Frankfurt.

I almost got suckered in by suggestive advertising yesterday. Which is annoying really cause i’m not usually susceptible to suggestion. I was in Railslide and they were having a sale on Jackets for 50% off. I’ve needed a new jacket for about 2 years now so was browsing away. Noticed this brown number so thought i’d check out the size. I only added brown into my repertoire last year, seems to be working. I notice the label and it’s a North Face jacket. I fucking hate North Face as a brand. I hate people that wear North Face gear. Have you ever even seen a fucking mountain? I bet you drive a range rover through the city as well. Cunts.

Anyway, i was about to walk away but just out of curiosity i thought i’d check out the price. Original price €399, marked down to €249…i’m thinking an additional 50% off this makes it just over €120. That’s almost €300 off! Now all of a sudden i am thinking…well how much do i really hate North Face? Surely they deserve their day in the sun…But i stood strong! €400 is a bit extravagant for a jacket for my tastes..that’s about the price of my entire wardrobe…and it’s still fucking North Face!

I rate that story about a 2 out of 5. I gave one point for the use of the c-bomb.

I’ve been going to the doctors a lot recently…hell if i’m paying for health insurance i may as well use it. Anyways, i have to say i really, really dislike reception staff in health care facilities. Notice how i didn’t use ‘hate’? Cause you’d all think i was a prick if i said i hated them. …I fucking hate anyone working in the service industry who doesn’t appear to like their job. If you don’t like it, don’t fucking do it! The service industry wasn’t for me, that’s why i got out. If you don’t like talking to people, don’t get a fucking job which requires you to answer phones and greet people. Slags.

My GP is good, actually my GP is great. Silk put me on to them. I sit in their waiting room listening to whale noises and shit, ogling the walls which are covered by autographed pictures of the head doctor with famous people. Seriously, Shakira, Elton john, Carlos Santana…all get sick going through Frankfurt apparently. But the nurses there are great. They at least attempt to speak English with me. They also assume i can’t speak any German at all when they speak to each other – “Er ist süß!”

Damn right i’m sweet bitches…

I have no problems with that place, it’s when they refer me to a specialist or something that all the problems begin. Every fucking time, i try as much German as i can…they refuse to speak any English and develop some massive chip on their shoulder like i shouldn’t be there. It’s not the doctors, they are fine. Always the fucking reception staff. Today i walked out after my ultrasound – turns out im not preggers – and i said to the woman in German ‘..ahh are we done?’ She points back to where i just came from and says ‘i don’t know, go and ask them’. Fuck that. I just walked out the door. You can ring me if you need anything else. Trollop.

I now have my insurance sorted, tax sorted, and my health is looking better. 3 Down, 3 to go!

It’s another long one. Sorry, but it is a little treat for y’all. This is the blogging equivalent to a time capsule. Every computer i work on – work, home, laptop, etc. has text files scattered about, normally called something ingenious like blog.txt with one-liners and point-form arguments or stuff i want to write about. The idea being that occasionally i open it up and flesh some of them out into a post. Sometimes i can’t be arsed or don’t think they need further explanation which usually provides the shorter snippets at the beginnings of my posts. Example:

It never ceases to amaze me, Australia’s uncanny knack of achieving notoriety for something really really good, or really really crappy. It’s instilled in us from a young age. I mean we’re constantly reminded at school, “We’re the world’s smallest continent…but the largest island!”. Me and a colleague were looking up parts of Australia on Google maps the other day and were hovering over Darwin. I said oh you don’t want to live up there, they get cyclones and stuff. Really? Well they had one that i can think of – Cyclone Tracy – that was pretty bad, caused loads of damage. Interest sparked, i pulled up the wiki page to pad out my story with some ‘facts’.

cyclone tracy…world’s smallest tropical storm…

Seriously. Whatever the criteria are that defines a tropical storm apparently we had the suckiest one ever. Why was everyone banging on about it so much?

Every now and then my keyboard settings at work switch from German into English. There is some key combination that i can’t be bothered turning off that makes the change mid-sentence. It’s really only the z and y that gets you, until i tried to end a sentence with an emoticon…

Same key combination:

German settings – :o)

English settings – >o(

Smiley happy-go-lucky in Germany is angry frown in England… speaks for itself really.

They are advertising a Jamie Cullum album on tele at the moment. Quote at the bottom of the screen:

“Jamie is fantastic”

- Clint Eastwood

yeah cause that’s going to make me buy it. I like records that 100 year old cowboys like…

How many songs does Robert Plant use “Hey baby, oh baby, pretty baby…nah nah nah no do me now”? 7.

What are the limits to the term ‘no offence’? Exactly how much does it cover? “No offence mate, but you’re a cockstain!”

So looking through my documents the other day to find something i stumbled across an old entry that i wrote and never posted. Meta tags showing creation date of 15 February 2007 13:04:00, and given the subject content this is a pretty accurate description of what my life was like almost 3 years ago.

To set the scene, i’d been in Frankfurt for i guess 8 months or so, and was working a Praktikum/Internship for an absolute pittance for the Walt Disney Corporation – Life rocked! Only 2.0 can probably relate to how this really feels, though Kat had to listen to me whinge about it incessantly and did help me though it.

So i bring you (unedited)…

Me T-3

This is every week since getting a job in Germany. This goes way beyond being a creature of habit.

Monday:

Wake up and curse that it feels like minutes ago that I finished work on Friday. Promise to rest more next weekend.

Walk to work. Pass old man with a bike just standing in front of a building. If I don’t pass him he’s late or I’m late. Or he’s dead. But he doesn’t look that old. Still wonder when he’s not there.

Pass short girl with brown hair in between Bockenheimer Landstr and Taunusanlage tube stop. She is always smiling or almost laughing yet is always alone. Only two possibilities…she leaves an incredibly funny person at the tube who always tells her a really funny joke that lingers enough to keep this ridiculous smile up till I have to walk past her… or she is torturing some guy and is cynically laughing at how she holds his heart in her hands…im thinking the latter is more believable.

Get to work and do ‘Monday morning activities’ which invariably includes fitting in the development of whatever whacky zany improvements my boss has ‘thought of’ (please read as ‘read in a web designers magazine’ AND/OR ‘seen on one of our competitors sites’.)

Monday morning meeting. Discuss whacky zany improvements. Provide feedback. Feedback is ignored. Make suggestions as to why this is a bad idea. Suggestions ignored.

Go back to Monday activities which now include fixing up ‘whacky zany improvements’ from last week and making them how they were before – see ignored suggestions from previous week.

Lunch.

After lunch, spend a lot of time cursing under breath and watching the clock.

Stay back after work to catch up on emails. Started the day with 44 unanswered emails in email box. 22 of which are from people saying why have I not answered my email. Now have 74 messages, 30 of which is Kat and Squires saying shots on a Sunday is bad.

Go home leaving 44 unanswered emails.

Put music on.

Cook cheapo spaghetti from Pennymarkt which only has 20% tomato in the sauce. I hate tomato sauce. I hated spaghetti 6 months ago. Eat half and keep half in lunch box for Tuesday.

Watch snooker/MTV/Bundesliga 1 on tele, AND/OR play Spider Solitaire.

Go to sleep between 11 and 12.

Tuesday

Wake up and curse that I didn’t go to sleep earlier.

At work before I have woken up. Same boring tasks, unless there is more whacky zaniness.

Eat left over 20% Spaghetti for lunch and continue working. Can’t take lunch break cause have to leave early for school. Positive this is illegal however working full time for €400 a month should be as well.

Curse a bit after lunch and count down minutes until 5:00.

Go to bathroom till 5:15 when it is time to go to School.

Walk two train stations so I can save 40cents and get the 3-stop ticket.

Have my first coke of the week. Think about my plan of only having coke when I’m at school so that I develop some sort of Pavlovian association with thinking in German and Coke. Marvel at how I have a psychology degree.

Nervously squirm through 2 and a half hours (3 in German time) of Deutsch Lessons.

Catch train home three stops and walk the rest.

Cook something on toast. Options are: Toasted Cheese Sandwich / Beans on Toast / or Virgin BLT’s. Generally haven’t done shopping and only have cheese and butter in fridge and loaf of bread. Narrows choice down significantly.

Watch snooker/MTV/Bundesliga 1 on tele, AND/OR play Spider Solitaire.

Go to sleep between 11 and 12.

Wednesday

Wake up and curse myself for being so tired. Can’t wait till weekend.

Same things today at work.

Go home for lunch – something on toast, or fish-fingers. Sometimes have lunch with Phong.

More usual work stuff.

Finish work and stay back to catch up on emails. Spend most of time writing this blog that only 30 people in a week look at and they are all in Germany. 28 of which is Squires opening up his browser at home where he has our blogs open up automatically.

Go home leaving 44 unanswered emails.

Put music on.

Cook cheapo spaghetti from Pennymarkt.

Watch snooker/MTV/Bundesliga 1 on tele, AND/OR play Spider Solitaire.

Go to sleep between 11 and 12.

Thursday

Wake up and curse that I always curse in the morning.

At work before I have woken up. Same boring tasks, don’t care for more whacky zaniness.

Eat left over 20% Spaghetti for lunch and continue working. Thinking about weekend already. Look at what times Man U is showing so I know when I have to be in pub. If Man U aren’t showing, look at what time Chelski is playing so I know when to be in pub. Continue process ad nauseum till I find a reason to go to the pub. Under 21B’s Georgia Vs. Lichtenstein…. I’m there.

Curse a bit after lunch and count down minutes until 5:00.

Go to bathroom till 5:15 when it is time to go to School.

Walk two train stations so I can save 40cents and get the 3-stop ticket.

Have second coke of the week. Coke has no effect now. Just want sleep.

Nervously squirm through 2 and a half hours (3 in German time) of Deutsch Lessons.

Catch train home three stops and walk the rest of the way to the pub. No food at home so going for Midnight Buffet. Play pool until midnight buffet. I love Pool. If no family there, play pool by myself and have a beer, eat and at home in bed by half 12 at the latest. If family there, play Pool with squires, have several beers, 42 Jägermeisters, fall over, put buffet somewhere remotely close to mouth, and stumble home for a few hours sleep.

Friday

Thank fuck.

Don’t care how tired I am cause it’s Friday. Tell myself and everyone else I’m going to have a quiet weekend. Invariably end up going out anyway.

This could entail:

• Video Night at Squires: Typically pick up two bottles of red on the walk over….each. Check email, listen to music, drink wine, talk shit, every now and then put a DVD on, Squires getting tired at about 12 cause there’s no girls for him to try to tune, me and Kat leave, have to walk past Irish to get to both of our places, discuss for entire journey the pro’s and cons of stopping in, invariably decide to stop in for a quiet one…next few hours can vary….get home by 6 if we’re lucky.
• Playstation night at Ben’s. Meet Ben at Wormland. Get off bus at supermarket near his house in the sticks. Buy crate of beer and frozen pizzas. Walk back to his. Play playstation, listen to music, watch movies, look up good united goals on youtube. Finish crate of beer about 3 or 4. Walk to service station to buy more beer (crate) and pizza. Come back and eat pizza, fall asleep halfway through first beer.
• Laundry on a Friday (Cause United play early on Saturday). Meet Kat at Irish. Catch train to Laundromat. Throw clothes in machine, turn it on, go to nearest pub. Have one pint, go back, take our washing out, throw both of ours into one enormous dryer, set it to run twice and head back to pub. After pint, take clothes out, walk home, dump clothes on floor next to bed, but hang up work pants. Priorities. Head to Irish – carnage ensues.

Saturday

Wake up swearing out loud. Head hurts. Need to do laundry. Head hurts. Go do laundry with Kat. Eat Pizza. Wave to the same waiters at pizza hut. Order the exact same food. Have the same conversation about how we shouldn’t be drinking this much. Try to recap the night’s events. Text other people we might have seen the previous night to try to piece together what happened. Begin to make plans for tonight. Find out when football starts. Watch football. Head hurting less. Swear that we won’t still be here for Karaoke. Shots..blurry..walk Kat home.

Sunday

See Saturday with a bigger hangover. Throat sore from singing. No laundry so night begins earlier. Typically go out to eat food cause forgot to do shopping on a Saturday. Run out of bread. Still have butter. Options limited. Start thinking about work tomorrow. Know that I can’t afford to go out and plan to stay in and not go out. Receive a text that anyone is out anywhere…last remaining will power dies, liver cringes.

Possible exceptions to this are:

Man United playing Champions League or League Cup or any other reason they would be playing midweek. In which case, add beer / Jaegermeister and midnight buffet to mid-week schedule.

I have work for London to do – substitutes for TV and Spider Solitaire.

Greener pastures…

Seriously people, it’s time to set an example for the kids. Be like Bono and think of the children. Don’t cross at the traffic lights when the lights are red…walk 20 meters further up the road and jaywalk instead. Don’t be lazy!

Predictive text didnt recognise “schmancy” as a word, as in Fancy Schmancy. Fair enough its not a word, but instead of just saying no it offers “Rainbowy” as an alternative??? That arc of light in the sky over there reflecting the full range of colours is very rainbowy.

I fucking hate catchphrase humour. A joke really hits it’s funnyness heights the first time an audience hears it. Each time after that is a sliding scale downwards. There are so many ways to say something in the English language, why choose to use the same words over and over again? Be imaginative. Create something. I haven’t liked mayonnaise for going on 29 years now. This is not really news anymore (if it ever was). Time for some new material people.

After a little deliberation i’m going to post a heavily edited version of the post i had originally written. Most of it was reaction to hearsay which is how rumours and everything like that spread and would put me in no better stead than the others. So until i can actually confirm what was said i’ll just have to take it on the chin and merely make a few directionless statements.

I don’t believe all opinions should be shared. I’m not pulling a Keano here with a ‘do as i say, not as i do’ approach, but i truly believe some ideas are best kept to oneself. That may sound a bit rich coming from someone who publishes rants on a blog, but i do my best to keep these at a general level, and not to preach. My opinions are my own and can be ignored…i do not suggest that my way of doing things is the right way and should be followed. I merely point out inconsistencies and hypocrisies that i see around me. Why do i publish them? Do i think people want to hear this? Judging by my fan base of 4 loyal readers i would say no. But given that i’m rarely allowed to speak long enough to build up a point, i need some other sort of outlet.

I like how some people appear to presume they are in a position to delve out suggestions from their own ‘guide to better living’ at will, on the assumption that is righteous, altruistic behaviour. Ok i understand the care and consideration a friend can show towards another friend when they are worried or thinks that person is heading down the wrong path, but i think there are serious limits to this approach which need to be considered. It is entirely subjective to say there is something wrong with someone else if the person in question has not asked for help themselves. To then go about creating theories on how to ‘solve’ or ‘fix’ this problem which may or may not exist seems to me a futile exercise in self-importance. Does it make you feel better to create a problem so that you can solve it? If it ain’t broke, it don’t need fixin.

Somebody get Ja Rule on the line…i need to make sense of this…

At times it feels like i am surrounded by dogs on heat. This overbearing ‘need’ to find women seems like borderline desperation to me. The amount of times i’ve had a conversation with someone recently where their eyes have drifted off to some tail, or they have just flat-out interrupted the conversation to make some schoolboy comment about a chick is alarming. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a fan of window shopping and checking out the local standards, but i don’t let it consume my being where i lose control over all my other functions. Each to their own i guess. My outlook on this topic has not really changed since i was a young’un in Australia. I loathe going out to ‘Pick up’ with a passion. I can’t stand it. This idea of going out with the solitary goal of ‘hooking up’ rather than, and often at the expense of enjoying yourself is beyond me.

I don’t think it’s necessarily an age thing as i’ve always thought this way, but perhaps more of a personal thing. I think that i look for girlfriends rather than shags. Sure everyone’s had the odd one night thing…i wouldn’t take it back, but wouldn’t necessarily throw myself willingly into it again either. Just as a girl may imagine herself with the boy’s surname when they are dating (old fashioned girls, not modern one’s who probably have an issue with this and are possiblly fully justified in thinking this, i just don’t care either way), if i hook up with a girl i am imagining going out with her. Hence why i probably wouldn’t go into some of my one night flings again. Hindsight is 20/20.

I find it hard to justify going to ‘pick up’ places, or joints where people go to meet girls – clubs etc. I cannot see myself dating someone who enjoys going to those places. The only way that could possibly work out is if she was in the same boat as me and was dragged along by her friends, loathes the places as well and see’s the only chance of meeting someone is if they hate the place too. The odds of this are not high. Probably as high as a nice girl turning up to the places i like to hang out at. Same chances, one place i enjoy, the other gives me hives…pretty simple decision to make.

The thing is, i just don’t need to go and pick up. I have no urge to. No desire. I am quite content with things at the moment. If a girl comes into my life, fine – i’ll welcome it, but i don’t need to go out and chase it. When i actively want to meet someone – if that ever happens – then i may have to adopt a different approach, but right now i am in no rush. So when i make plans to hang out at my place or a mate’s place, i’m obviously not trying to pick up anyone am i? You’d think then that it stands to reason that whatever extracurricular activities i pursue during these occasions have sweet fuck-all bearing on my ‘chances of picking up’? I mean i hate to bring logic to the party and all, but i think it missed the invite.

And yes this was the censored version…Moving along swiftly…

As we are on the topic of girls, i had been meaning to pictorially represent my top 5 hottest celebrities as discussed in Portugal. Unlike some vegans i know, my celebrities indeed have names, and are not just dehumanised pieces of meat (oh the irony). Who the fuck is Zac Efron anyway? Who’s he when he’s at home?

I am going to cheat a little though to make my life easier, and break it up into two categories – Music and Film/TV. Basically for no other reason than i get to add more pictures of chicks to my page and i can list Milla Jovovich as a musician giving me another film and tv one. It’s true, she’s got mp3′s available on her page and stuff. Haven’t heard them though as they are probably rubbish and it will break my heart.

Please note i don’t necessarily endorse the music of the musician’s listed. Thankfully this has no bearing on how hot they are.

So in no particular order the film/tv category are as follows:

[Show as slideshow]

(From L to R): Alyssa Milano, Eliza Dushku, Jessica Alba, Megan Fox (though i’m pretty sure she’s stupid), Monica Bellucci

and the Music Category…

[Show as slideshow]

(From L to R): Alizee, Brody Dalle, Fiona Apple, Katie Melua, Milla Jovovich

Seems to be a theme there doesn’t it. It’s not that i don’t like blondes, i just prefer brunettes. I’ve never had a blonde girlfriend. I saw this girl briefly who had dyed pink hair, but the carpet didn’t necessarily match the curtains, not sure if that counts? Milla was blonde for a bit wasn’t she? Jessica Alba was well fit as a blonde in Sin city, but if i had to choose…