Things that have made me cringe as of late

- Sunday Telegraph editor Neil Breen's decisions and quotes during the whole Pauline Hanson debacle.

I knew on Saturday when I had those photos and I knew that if I published something like that and they're wrong then I'm in huge trouble.
(Radio 2UE, Breakfast with Mike Carlton and Sandy Aloisi, 16th March, 2009)

- Particularly when 90% of Australia realised the photos were fake, but Breen kept insisting they were real.

Less than a week later...

...Pauline, I'm sorry. We should never have published them.
(from the Sunday Tele)

Well, no, it's usually not an awesome idea to publish incriminating photos coming from a man who can't get the dates of his lies right, and who also claims to have dirty pics of other female politicians and is probably crazy.

Photos from Sunday Telegraph. Photographed in the 70s? Yeah right...



- Tabloid journalism at its lowest: Paula Murray in the UK's Sunday Express condemns teenagers who post drunk photos and rude messages on their social networking profiles. Not just any teenagers, but ones who were killed in a massacre.

...some have them have boasted about alcoholic binges.

Bad idea, Paula. The team at Bloggerheads are outraged, and are getting their revenge by posting classy photos from her own Facebook profile.








And this is why I try not to post too many drunken photos of myself on Facebook.



- A Twitter exchange, in which Demi Moore says something dumb that will cause glee for atheists all around the world.

@Pathofreason: "Prayer: how to do nothing and still feel like you are helping."
@mrskutcher: "Everything is energy my friend, that is science."
@megsandbacon's reply: "That isn't science actually. That's faith. All great and stuff...but not science."

- When it's painfully obvious that the person leaving hundreds of little messages and "Like" clicks on someone else's Facebook has a crush.

- Especially when the commenter writes "I dreamt about you the other night..."

- And the recipient never replies.

- Ever.



(*Disclaimer: Before anyone replies saying "OMG YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT ME", please note that I have seen this happen on a few different profiles. So this isn't a personal attack)

(Though it is very funny.)

(Sorry, sorry. I'm going to hell.)

(Feel free to make fun of me for Facebook stalking to find out this information.)

Word to your mother.

Anyone who’s been following my Twitter or Facebook lately will have seen me express my rage at the word “alcopop”.

For any non-Aussie readers, the Australian government introduced a tax on pre-mixed drinks (eg. Vodka Cruisers, Bundy and Cola, my old favourite Smirnoff Blacks, etc) to reduce binge drinking last year. It was definitely not put into place so the government could get more money and has actually done nothing to reduce binge drinking, but I digress. This week the bill is being reviewed again. Naturally, everybody is talking about it.

It occurred to me as I was reading the news that the word “alcopop” was really bothering me. I think it’s because it’s not a word!

I’m not going to lie; I did partake in drinking activities when I was a young ‘un, and it’s pretty much a given that the underage drinking kiddies enjoy pre-mixed drinks. Who could blame them? The sugar content gets you drunk, there's usually more than one standard drink in one can/bottle which gets you drunk, and knocking down a few that pretty much taste like coke or juice gets you drunk. Did I mention they get you drunk?

But at no point in my early drinking career did I ever use the word “alcopop” and I have never heard any other 15-year-old on the train to a Wynnum house party use it.



Here I am at the tender age of 16, about to stab my friend with a Midori Illusion. Oh, the horrors of underage binge drinking!


So this means I never had this conversation:

Me: I am going to a fully sick party, man.
Male friend over 18: That is rad to the max, dudette.
Me: Like totally, homie G. Could you do us a favour and pick up a 6 pack of alcopops?
Male friend over 18: Fo shizzle, my nizzle.

I think this word was invented by Kevin Rudd, and merely indicates how out of touch with the youth he is. Yes K-Rudd, I know you have a pimped-out myspace but come on, you’re not fooling anyone.

The government are the kings of made-up words. Take for instance, the Cronulla Riots. Awful business that was, and it got about eight thousand times more awful when some clever clogs declared that it was “un-Australian”.

It’s not a word! Plus that word has been bantered about the press so much that I’m not actually sure what it means any more. It seems to be applied to when someone does something naughty. I mean, obviously you’d hope that beating up minorities wasn’t part of the national psyche. But considering it’s applied to matters of general human morality rather than nationalistic values, I don’t think it actually means anything. Probably because it’s not a word!



Luckily, these girls don't have to worry about being called "un-Australian".


Hugh McKay sums the debate up quite nicely in his article in The Age: “So let's not get carried away by hubris: Australians are no better than anyone else when it comes to occupation of the moral high ground”.

Also see Queensland Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg’s use of "de-necessary" – which is not only grammatically incorrect, but also not a word! Good effort at trying to distract angry unionists from the fact that you’re cutting jobs in an unstable economic climate, Mr S! It didn't really work because they ended up making an entire campaign website about it.

I am also doing a subject called New Media. It is basically about using the internet, which I thought would be cool because I’m geeky. It’s not. I try and be a good student and read my ridiculously overpriced textbook but it’s very hard to when it’s full of many long, obscure words that have obviously been invented by someone who is VERY VERY CLEVER.

Take this sentence, for instance:
“Overly optimistic or pessimistic accounts of the impact of new media, or ‘cyberbole’, have been countered by approaches that seek to identify a middle ground between extreme positions.”

I think this is basically about people who either hate or love the internet. I’m not sure because I am obviously not academic and clever enough to understand.
But really, ‘cyberbole’? CYBERBOLE?! Oh look, it’s a clever play on words with ‘cyber’ and ‘hyperbole’. In case you didn’t pick it up already and were confused because it’s not a word!

Today in class we also discussed “folksonomy”. I’d never heard of the word until now. I thought it had something to do with folk music, but alas I am wrong.

Apparently it's one of those new buzzwords that has come along with "Web 2.0" (never quite understood that, I don't remember someone saying "Look! I made a new internet!"), "social networking" (when is networking not social in some way?) and "convergence" (which was already a word, but has been whored out in academic circles like a prostitute born with extra genitalia. Made of crack.).

We then had to answer the following questions in the tutorial. Here are my answers:

3. What are the limitations of folksonomy?
It’s not a word!!!

4. What are the strengths of folksonomy?
Confusing simple-minded journalism students.

I just heard that the "alcopop" tax was voted out. Thank goodness. I'm going to celebrate by knocking back a 6-pack of Midori Illusions, for old times sake.

Nipple St terminology

I love my living situation at the moment.

I currently live in Nipple St. That's not its real name. Our street name has odd spelling and I mispronounced it as "Nippy". But I thought Nipple St sounded better, so that's what I call it.

The Nipple St house is a huge Queenslander which has been divided into two homes. Josh, a housemate and I live on one side and Josh's (and mine now I spose) good mates Bob and Brendan live on the other side. Bob's girlfriend Kristi pops in a fair bit and I occasionally see a few randos (see below) partying on down on the couch. It's a fun house full of beer and barbecue.

The beer of choice at Nipple St. Can we get a sponsorship now please?

We spend a lot of time together. For the interests of sociology, I started to document the new emerging linguistics in the house, mainly due to Toowoomba and Bundaberg influences. There are a lot of words we use around each other that I don't think the general public use.

Here are my favourites:

Ruckus: n.Origin: Bob and Brendan.
Chaotic, usually refers to partying or some sort of alcohol.
"What are you doing this weekend?"
"I dunno, I might drink some beer and cause a ruckus."
Sometimes an adjective.
"Dude, that's ruckus!"

Ludicrous, luda: adj. Origin: Bob and Brendan, possibly some guy they know.
Crazy, overwhelming. Something cool.
(while watching the guy from Jackass shove a toy car in his arse) "Woah...ludicrous."


Barpet, Rumpet, Scarpet: n. Origin: Josh's old sharehouse in Toowomba.
For when you spill an alcoholic beverage on the carpet. Barpet is spilt beer, rumpet is spilt rum, scarpet is spilt scotch, you get the idea.
"Look out for that rumpet! It's sticky."

Atom: n. Origin: Josh, apparently a Toowoomba thing.
Refers to Automatic Teller Machine
"I have to get some money from the atom..."

Slutwitch: n. Origin: Everybody who lives on the northside.
The suburb of Lutwyche, which is near Nipple St. Does not have any slutty witches at all.
"Let's go to the bottle-o at Slutwitch."

Rando: n. Origin: Kristi.
Short for "randoms", meaning various people of a miscellaneous nature.
"Hey, there's some rando passed out on the couch."

Cabbage: n. Origin: ??
Cab.
"We'd better call for some cabbage before we all pass out and die."

Episodes: n. Origin: Bob and Kristi?
TV shows.
"Wanna come over and watch some episodes?"

Cobber: n. Origin: Very old Aussie slang word, revived by Bob and Brendan.
A friend.
"Hey cobber, could you pass me a beer?"

Gee-Day: expression. Origin: Josh
A different way of saying G'day.
"I thought I'd pop round and say gee-day."

What's crackin'?: expression. Origin: ??
A more excellent way of asking "how are you?"

Herro shitty wok, you want some shitty chicken?: expression. Origin: South Park.
A common greeting in the Nipple St house.

Imagine my joy when I found an honest to goodness City Wok in Brisbane!

Bobtunes: n. Origin: Josh
The music Bob plays on his electronic drumkit.
"Oi! Play us some Bobtunes!"

Balls: expression. Origin: Me
The perfect word for just about everything.
"Oh, balls."
"Holy balls!"
"Well I ballsed that up, didn't I."

There are many other words but most of them are fairly incriminating, so let's keep this blog PG for now.

Eventually you end up saying things like

"Gee-Day cobber, what's crackin'? We're causing a ruckus at Nipple St with some randos, watching some episodes and listening to some Bobtunes. Ludicrous! Don't worry about driving, I'll get you some cabbage. Mind the scarpet though."

and now, a word on racism from a chinky gook from commie land

On Australia Day, I spent the day under a beautiful mango tree with some friends, eating barbecued meat and drinking beer. I wore my Big Day Out shirt from last year (which has a stylised Australian Coat of Arms on the front) and we listened to Triple J's Hottest 100.

Days before, I had an infuriating conversation with a patron at the pub. He demanded to know where I was from,and whether I "loved Australia."

I have this conversation every so often with some deluded old fart who is convinced that I am a dirty, slanty-eyed illegal immigrant who has just walked straight off the boat and taking the jobs of ordinary, hard working Aussie battlers, blah blah blah. To this day I'm unsure as to what they think they'll achieve by having this conversation.


Herro herro dis is Shitty Wok, you want some Shitty Chicken?

Despite the fact that I am an Australian citizen and can speak English just fine (except when inebriated), this old dude just did not get it. Our exchange ended with me mishearing what he said, his triumphant juvenile mockery of my alleged lack of English skills and myself promptly tipping his beer down the sink.

Now for the twist. You'd think this would be an entry whinging about how awful and oppressed I am, being an Asian female, in a land of thong-wearing white Aussie dudes.

Well, even though that exchange with old mate made my blood boil, I must say that racism is on the decrease. Conversations like that happen, but not very often out of the hundreds of people I talk to every week. And when they do, they're from people who couldn't be taken seriously by any intelligent life form. Like my obese, hairy, pokies-addicted friend I mentioned.

Sure, you meet the occasional person who can't get past the fact that you're not white, but I put that down to upbringing. Most people are merely curious and mean no harm, even though most of the time it comes across as offensive anyway. Other than that, 95% of my friends are white Aussies and none of them particularly care that I'm Asian.

Hell, Mr Chicken is a blue singlet-wearing, self-proclaimed "bogan" from Toowoomba whose idea of a rad time is wandering around in the bush, and he still reckons I'm allright.

One could argue that the loopy old bat I talked to was just a product of an old upbringing. Yet a lot of old people nowadays have lived through wars and the immigration boom. Many of the regulars at the pub are old men who are quite friendly to me and totally understand the whole "I'm Asian but I've grown up in Australia, mate" deal. In fact, most people in general understand, or even go the other way and are concerned about racist fuckwits giving me a hard time.

But what of events like the Cronulla Riots? I say that in the grand scheme of this country, it was a small group of people who were widely condemned by any Australian with a brain. Thank god for that. Imagine if the entire nation condoned racial violence.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that racism, in some form or another, is always going to be around. It's human nature to fear or hate something different. But the world - particularly Australia - is a lot better than it used to be, and it can only get better.

Not too long ago, it used to be perfectly okay to say "nigger" in everyday speech. Now the American president is black and an Aboriginal man is Australian of the Year.

It's a small start, but it's a good one.

Many people realise that racism, on a public level, comes from the truly ignorant or hateful. Racist comments, if they're not a joke already, are very rarely taken seriously. I try not to anyway. If I got upset every time an idiot said something insensitive, I wouldn't have time to go to the toilet.

Basically, if someone wrote a very serious letter to The Australian saying something like, "All Koreans are dog-eating communists who should be culled immediately", I hardly think a political leader would put down his morning coffee and call a meeting about it...

"Koreans are a serious problem in Australia."
"My god, you are right. They're everywhere, speaking in some crazy language I don't understand, cooking tasty food with lots of chilli, studying quietly in universities, drinking our beer and dating our sexy, sexy Australian men! Plus they're all Communists."
"Isn't that just the north?"
"Huh? Anyway, I suggest an overhaul of international relations. We must close all tasty Korean restaurants, blow up Kias and Daewoos, outlaw any eating of dogs of any kind..."

...and enact an Anti-Korean Bill of 2009.


All this talk about unnecessary racism reminds me of a certain ranga politician...

So all things considered, I don't mind being an Asian in Australia. Sure, some of our political leaders make my head hurt, the phrase "un-Australian" makes me want to slap somebody and the more nationalist bogan Aussies scare me.

But on the other hand, Australia has some good beer (well, not all of them), Triple J, crazy stoned Queenslanders (which is another blog entry altogether), a majority of fairly decent people and a prevailing sense of humour.

One of my favourite TV shows to ever come out of Australia is Fat Pizza. A thoroughly politically incorrect comedy, Fat Pizza exploits and exaggerates the stereotypes of wogs in gangs, bad Asian drivers (cheers Ahn Do), insane Italians and disgustingly racist white Aussies to make people laugh - ultimately to realise how silly it all is.




Hopefully one day, everybody will.

And i thought Eloise was bad enough...

Look at this. Isn't that awful?

I don't understand how parents could be so selfish. I'm not sure what it's like in New Zealand, but Australian children have a tendency to make fun of everybody's names, especially if they're slightly unusual. Hell, even if they're normal! Why do you think every male in Australia has a ridiculous nickname?

My full name is Eloise. El-oh-weez. A name dating back for centuries, though it is somewhat uncommon. It is constantly misspelt, mispronounced and inspires dippy teachers to trill "Ooh, that's a lovely French name!" which is highly irrelevant, because anyone looking at me would know how French I am. It is a name that I constantly associate with annoyance.


This is the 12th century abbess, Heloise, one of the most well-known women in history with my name. Here she is writing the correct spelling of her name. "No, it's not Louise with an E, you uneducated fuckwit!"

A (not anymore) friend in primary school suddenly realised that the word "wee" was in my name. "Haha!" she screeched. "Hello ELLO-WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!"
It wasn't hilarious the first time and it certainly wasn't hilarious the next ten thousand times after that. So I forced everybody to call me Ellie. Then I became Ellie Smelly. Goddammit, why couldn't I have been called Kate like everybody else I know?

But that's nothing on how much worse it would be if your name was Midnight Chardonnay. Really, I think their mother must have been sculling the stuff when she came up with that name. Pseudo-sophisticated names are awful and tend to be the product of a bogan who's trying to be classy. Schappelle and Mercedes, anybody?


Schappelle Corby was imprisoned in Indonesia for having a crap name.

I once had a friend who wanted to name her future son Bailey. Which is a nice name, except that she was naming him after the Irish cream variety (most commonly found in Cocksucking Cowboys). I thought it was quite cute at the time, but it's a bit skanky now that I think about it. Imagine going through several hours of labour, looking down at your softly, weeping newborn, and saying, "Oh, she's beautiful. I will name her Fruit Tingle."


"Mummy, where did I come from?"
"Well, I took one nip of vodka, and one nip of blue curacao, shook it in a cocktail shaker and poured it over ice with some red cordial and lemonade..."

Though I still think the worst name I have ever heard of was a woman who named her daughter Vagina.

so, i know your sister through my primary school friend's brother's girlfriend

In my favourite book, "He Died with a Felafel in his Hand", John Birmingham said:

"The thing about Brisbane is that everyone knows you or knows about you. In small world theory, there's only six points of separation between any two individuals, but you can trim down the numbers in Brisbane. Everyone's stories intersect, crossing over and through each other like sticky strands of destiny and DNA."

As it's becoming easier and easier to find people on social networking sites like myspace and facebook, I'm starting to see how scarily accurate this quote is. The instances of 6 degrees of separation - or in this instance, two or three - are becoming ridiculously frequent.

For example, let's look at Dan, my boyfriend, as a case study. I met Dan fairly randomly - not through friends. He used to work with a fellow called Jay. Jay's best friend is Amy, a girl I've known since grade 9. Another person Dan has worked with, Sandra, knows my good friend Rob. One of Dan's friends is good mates with a fellow that I partied with back in high school.

How? Why?

And wait til you see the local music scene. It's completely incestuous. Let's look at my friend, Ash, who reviews metal bands for various publications. A few of the people who drink at the pub I work at are in local metal bands that Ash has reviewed. One band, Dead Letter Opener, is playing a gig with a band called Screaming Dawn, who I helped make a film documentary about for uni. Ash is friends with a fellow from a band called Phalanx, which plays with a band called Into the Ocean. My friend Callum, who lives in Toowoomba, is friends with a few members of the band.

I find that all metalheads know each other. The Brisbane metal scene is pretty small, I guess. If you haven't met someone at Phoenix, then you've seen them at the Step Inn. That's about it really.

In person? It's hard to walk into the city or uni without bumping into someone you know, or someone who you drunkenly talked to at the pub from a few years ago, or the sister of the girl you went to school with. And they show up in weird places too. A friend of mine from way back that I hadn't seen for years suddenly turned up on TV for diving in the Commonwealth Games. He's off to the Olympics soon. Gosh.

I don't know if this extended family thing is a good thing or a bad thing. It's nice that Brisbane is sort of a community where everybody knows each other. It could be a bad thing if everybody knows that you slept with that girl's ex-boyfriend or was mean to the friend of a friend or something. I'm waiting for the day when all my fuck-ups suddenly become public and I will be forced to skip town. I think that's why heaps of Brisbane people move to Melbourne.

According to facebook, Dan's ex-workmate Churv is friends with the older sister of a boy I dated four years ago. Total and utter coincedence. I told said ex-boyfriend about this bizarre connection, to which he simply replied, "That's Brisbane for you."


edit:
Oh oh it gets better!
Today I was at work and talking to some friends of Chris (my manager). Upon finding out that we went to private schools, we realised we knew the same people. BUT IT GETS EVEN BETTER. One of the fellows I talked to turned out to be, erm, the friend with benefits of a girl I used to be friends with. I'd even talked to him randomly on the phone once when he was on the piss!

Wow. Just wow.

I'm here with all of my people

This morning at 8am (9am in Canberra), Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said sorry to the Indigenous peoples of Australia.

Dan and I listened to it in the car while I drove him to work. It was quite a good speech - short and simple. That's the way we like it.
After it finished, we were silent. Nova's announcers resumed speaking. I changed the radio station to Triple J and The Preset's "My People" was playing. Oddly appropriate song, really. As well as being an ace dance track, it's a song about refugees - another displaced ethnic minority in Australia.
Dan and I danced for a bit, then started talking about the speech. "Well, that's something to tell the grandkids," I said.


Then i got thinking. What will I be telling people when I'm old? Everything that's happening now will be history in the future. Nothing but nostalgia.

My parents were around for the moon landing. They stopped lessons at school to watch it on TV. Mum remembers her auntie, when she was little, running into the kitchen to tell my grandmother that John F Kennedy had been assasinated. Dad went to the Australian Woodstock. They remember when John Lennon and Freddie Mercury died. They witnessed firsthand the after-effects of the Vietnam war. Dad had long hippie hair and Mum wore flares. Mum remembers buying a pair of jeans for $3 and Dad realises that he wouldn't be able to get away with driving home after drinking nowadays, like he did when he was younger.


What my dad looked like in the 1970s

What will I tell my kids, if I ever get over my hatred for screeching brats and actually decide to have any?

I remember watching the Saturday morning cartoons when I was little and being quite annoyed when the news interrupted my viewing - Stuart Diver, the survivor of the Thredbo disaster, had been found.

I remember being awakened by the frightened calls of my mother early one school morning when I was in Grade 8. She was rambling on about a plane crash in New York. Then she said something about Twin Towers, and I thought she meant the hotel in Tweed Heads. Then she said "terrorists". I was very confused and tired, so I sat down and watched the news to find out what was going on. Over and over again, I saw planes that looked like toys crash into skyscrapers. I felt like the world was ending when I saw solid buildings crumble and people jumping head first out the windows.
That day at school, I remember my science teacher said, "I believe that in the end, good will prevail out of evil". We also did a French exam. Then I went home, turned on Sky News and watched the buildings fall down all over again. I heard the name Osama Bin Laden for the first time.

I remember watching George Bush tell the world that they would invade Iraq, and thinking, "Why?" I remember going to watch an anti-war protest in the city.

I was watching a late-night movie with friends in Noosa when Saddam Hussein had been captured. We kept groaning whenever the newsreader said, "Salt-and-pepper beard".


You could have just said "black and white". God.

Petrol was once 70c a litre. A new CD used to cost $20. Water restrictions weren't always this extreme. There used to be a drive-in cinema at Capalaba, a mini-golf course at Carindale and King George Square used to have a fountain. The Simpsons was once considered to be wildly offensive and rude. We all recognise the noise a 56k modem used to make whenever you wanted to go on the internet.

We are the internet, mobile, iPod and myspace generation. We wear retro fashion because we're out of ideas, and too much fluro. We are gangstas, emos, indie kids, electro pill-poppers and techie nerds - a product of the pop culture around us, and certainly not around in our parents' days. We do not hero worship celebrities, we watch and judge.

And now I can tell my grandkids that I was there when John Howard was voted out and Kevin Rudd said sorry.

SEX! Now that I've got your attention....

Let me set the scene for you.

It was 3am. I was lying in a strange park, alone, where my supposed friend had left me to go have sex with a stranger.


"It's 3am. Do you know where Ellie is?"
"I told you for the last time, no!"

I wish I was making this up, or it was a scene in an American frathouse comedy, where we all laugh at the girl being left behind in the park as her totally hot and popular friend gets it on with a football player and they find true love.

Since then, I've been feeling hurt, angry and a little lonely. Mainly, I've been completely disgusted with humanity in general. Myself and some other people I know have lost good, potential life-long friends... through sex, and the drama that follows it.

It's usually the "I'm really drunk" or "I'm just really horny" sort of sex. I personally don't understand that sort of thing. The times I've had sex were in relationships. There have been times where I have had the opportunity to have casual sex, but refused. I'm not comfortable enough with my body to show my nudity to many people. I also have a habit of getting a bit too attached when somebody shows interest in me.

Basically, I'd be the sort of girl who would cuddle after sex, ring them the next day and hold their hand in public. Then it would inevitably end in tears, with me sobbing "Why don't you LOVE me? WE MADE LOVE!" and him screaming "STOP CALLING ME, YOU STALKER". Yep, casual sex isn't for me.


Me: The Bunny Boiler.

But that's not really where my disgust lies. We are all human, after all. I could really care less about other people's sex lives.

My disgust lies in the way that casual sex seems to be prioritised above so many things in people's lives. As mentioned before, it has destroyed some good friendships. Nearly everybody has had that one (or two) friends who have pursued their ex, who still has a place in their world; or more seriously, the person who agrees to helping their friend’s significant other cheat.
I just don't understand how these things happen.

I was once in a relationship where due to various circumstances (mainly, both of us being completely dysfunctional), I barely saw my friends and my boyfriend was put above everything else. It wasn't healthy and I was extremely lonely. After the ex and I broke up, I methodically went to get my friends back. I was much happier. I learnt my lesson - that friends are far more important than being able to kiss a boy, any day.

And so, I thought, from the nagging I had gotten from my friends when I came back to them, I supposed that everybody else knew this as well. Everyone needs friends. Part of friendship is looking out for each other and, well, not hurting each other.

How is it okay to prioritise getting some cock over considering your friend's feelings and safety?


I'd rather go hang out with my friends than get intimate with a cock.

The aforementioned friend in my horribly ridiculous tale claimed that I spent time with my boyfriend when I should have been spending time with her. Yet, I got in trouble for not entirely supporting her when she went to go have sex with that fellow.

Has humanity really gotten to a stage where a drunken shag is deemed more significant than a healthy, long-term, romantic relationship? Have the single people vomiting upon the sight of a couple finally won out the competition of “What is the status quo”?

I'm beginning to feel like a freak. We’re told to “have fun” because we’re young so we’d better go out, get paralytic-drunk, take lots of drugs and go have sex with everybody. Because we only live once, and live fast die young, etc.

I don't see the appeal in that lifestyle. Moreover, I feel like what I believe in is right, in some vague universal way. But at this moment, in this generation and while I’m at this age, it’s not.

But I’m sure that as ambiguous as moral values are now, it’s still wrong to leave your friend alone, just so you can go be young and have the drunken, sexualised mess that constitutes as “fun”.

I recently quit the newsagency to work at the bar. To celebrate this milestone, I found a retail rant in my old livejournal. I shall repost it here in its slightly edited glory.


HOW TO PISS OFF A SHOP ASSISTANT


1. Meeting and Greeting

- Make sure to ignore all social niceties displayed by shop assistant. It is preferable to make eye contact for long periods of time to give the impression of boring your eyes into their soul. Grunting is a great way of communicating too! If anyone doesn't understand it, they are clearly stupid or foreign.

- How DARE that shop assistant say hello to you when you're looking at something! They usually ask devious things like, "Hello, how are you? Can I help you with anything?" but they really just want to sell things to you. Selling things, in a store! How perfectly horrible. To fend off such barbaric approaches, it's best to screech, "I'm just LOOKING" before they can launch their evil plan.

- Plastic bags are destroying the environment! It makes Greenhouse Effect stronger and the whales explode and Nazis take over the world. If a shop assistant is offering you a plastic bag, you must realise that they are actually offering the destruction of the natural world. Not to mention fascism.
This is why a suitable greeting is screaming hysterically upon first sight, "I DON'T WANT A BAG!!!!"

- It's a good idea to pick whatever it is you want to buy when the shop assistant serves you. They really don't mind when you stare straight ahead with your mouth open and say, "Uuuhhhh" for a few minutes while you're thinking.

2. The Transaction

- Throw or thrust your purchases at the shop assistant. After all, you are the Customer. You are being served by an absolute scum of nature. It is advisable to think of the shop assistant as a form of vending machine - cold, mechanical, devoid of human emotions and social contact. They are your bitch. Thrust away.

- Make sure to pay for EVERYTHING separately and sound disgusted at the very thought of all your purchases being efficiently put through as one transaction. Also, after you have made your purchase, randomly find something nearby that you want to buy too. Repeat several times.

- After waiting patiently for the shop assistant to process your transaction, randomly offer the remaining change of your purchase. This apparently makes the shop assistant's job easier, but we all know that all it does it make sure your wallet is a bit lighter.

- If the register decides to freeze randomly and the EFTPOS machine isn't working, you must always remember that it is not because the register computer is old and the EFTPOS machine won't accept your credit card with a bite taken out of it. It is definitely the shop assistant's fault because they are obviously making the machines break down out of pure spite. Accusing glares and impatient sighs are recommended.

- Assume the shop assistant is a mind reader. When they ask, "Is that all for today?" and you have not mentioned that you would also like a pack of ciggies and a $5 Instant Scratchie, they are obviously inept at reading your mind, which is a virtue that shop assistants should not lack. You have every right to be angry that they cannot read your mind, so feel free to be abuse them. A disdainful, "Uh, NO" is most suitable.

- This is a good time as any other to get rid of unwanted change. All those 10c and 5c coins that have been accumlating in your wallet for the last few years should be used to pay for a $10 purchase right here and right now. Even if you have been waiting in line for a long time, do not use this time to actually count the coins. This is where the shop assistant comes in. Dump the coins all over the counter and say, "I THINK it's $10, but count it for me." This works well especially when the shop assistant is the only person at the register and there are 8 other impatient people lined up.

- If the shop assistant so much as hands you 5c less change than what they're supposed to give you, go absolutely ballistic. After all, they are trying to rip you off. What if you were abducted by Communists, tied up and left hanging by a rope over a pit of poison-tipped shards of glass and forced to watch "Norbit" on repeat for the rest of your life, and the only way they would let you go is if you gave them 5c?
They are obviously part of a secret communist conspiracy. Ignore any apologies and attempts to ratify the situation. After you have flown into a rage and righted this severe injustice, disgusted sighs should signal your departure.

3. Socialising

- Respond to everything the shop assistant says with your life story.
eg.
SA (shop assistant): "Would you like a bag for those?"
You: "Yes, I have to go to Woolworths later, I completely forgot to buy a leg of ham and I have a dinner party today where my relatives from Melbourne are visiting..."
SA: *brains leak out ears*

- Tell the shop assistant hilarious jokes.
eg.
You: I would like a lotto ticket.
SA: Sure, which one?
You: The winning one. HA HA HA HA HA HA! *slaps knee* I bet you get that all the time.
SA: Trust me, sir, I do.

- Ask the shop assistant if a certain item is in stock. eg. "Do you stock any butt plugs?"
If it isn't, describe the item in great patronising detail. "You know, they're plugs, about this big, and you insert them into your rectum?"
When the shop assistant says no, keep asking. "But do you have them? DO YOU?!!"
All stores also have a tendency to hide any product you actually want in the mystical realm of Out the Back. Make sure you ask them if it's there. Oh yeah, and all shop assistants are lying when they say no. You'd better ask their boss as well.
Then compare them to another store to make them feel guilty. "Well they sell them in the Butt Plug store, I just THOUGHT you'd sell them HERE!" Shop assistants care so much about your purchasing habits that this deeply offends them. Teenage part time workers have taken to sobbing into their pillows late at night over things like this.
Continue to ask them if they stock the item. Unless your excessive questioning causes the item to magically appear, walk off in a disgruntled huff.

- When your child is throwing itself on the ground, screaming, it is definitely a good time to take them into a shop. Make sure to buy them lollies. Sometimes it's best to buy them a big chocolate icecream or milkshake beforehand. Melted icecream handprints on the displays? Spilt milkshake? Psst, who cares. The shop assistants have to get paid for doing something!


SHOP ASSISTANT WEEPING FOR HUMANITY OR YOUR MONEY BACK!