Yeah. I realised that I made the title "Milk Inhumers", and then the entry had nothing to do with milk, and almost nothing to do with inhuming. Well, apart from the fact I'd like muchly to inhume certain lecturers.

 

So now I've bowed to popular pressure and am starting my list of Employee Types. Much like with Customer Types, which I one day will pull together into one list, remember that a staff member can belong to many of these categories at the same time - they are by no means exclusive.

 

MILK INHUMERS: This is the Employee Type that was spawned by some dark evil god so counteract the scourge of the Milk Miners. Milk Inhumers, as their name suggests, prefer to bury old milk rather than sell it, and this put the freshest milk at the very front of the refridgerator, meaning that the first few customers get the superfresh milk, but invariably there is always a bottle or two left for me to find at the back of the fridge, on or just past its date.

 

RETROHYPOCHONDRIACS: Sound the word out if you're having trouble - Retrohypochondriacs are scared witless that their customer may catch some evil disease from purchasing deli products. The most common result of this is that they start a new pair of gloves for every item in a customer's order. A good rule of thumb is to change gloves every time you handle a new kind of meat, else every three or four items. But no - the common Retrohypochondriac needs a new pair even if he's moving from shaved ham to shoulder ham.

 

SOCIAL STAFF: Staff who took a wrong turn on the way to the hairdressing trade. These (mostly young, female) employees consider the workplace to be an extension of their social life, a place to discuss the forbidden fruits of drinking, smoking and boys away from prying ears. I guess all people have to be introduced to workplace politics sooner or later...

 

TABULA RASA: In fact, this is less of an employee type than it is an additional quality taken on by some employees while working. The basic tenets of the Tabula Rasa include: I have no opinions save those which you express to me; I am intensely interested in any subject you bring up: I don't mind that your children are slobbering all over the merchandise; I don't mind you giving me $20 in ten and five cent pieces; there is nothing better I could be doing with my day than processing your groceries. Every customer has met one of these, but the best ones are undetectable.

 

LIMPET MINES: The internal equivalent of a Claymore: these employees like to share the love so much that they want you to have their change. "Uh, Joel, do you have any $50 notes in your cash drawer?" "A couple, yeah..." "Oh good, can I give you $50 in ten cent pieces for one of your notes?" Cue me using my cash drawer as a personal weight lifting accessory, and having to devise new Calculus theorums to figure out how much change I end up with at the end of my shift.

 

THE BROKE UP: Personally, I don't like the idea of dating within the workplace. It's like dating your neighbour or something... Too close for comfort. The last time I tried it, the deal lasted a whole one month. And yet some people seem to thrive on it, but when it fails, they end up Broke Up. If you're ever in a supermarket and see two staff being icily, viciously polite to one another, assume that they are among the legions of the Broke Up. Luckily, me ex and me worked in very different ends of the supermarket, so we avoided this pitfall.

 

FATAL FEMMES: It seems to be a requirement of every workplace to employ exactly one older woman, who despite her age can lift weights that would make Superman's chiselled jaw drop, and work her way down an aisle faster than any two other employees in the shop. The only explanations I can think of are either a) they're all on speed or b) they carry thermoneuclear generators in their hip pockets that provide them with the extra energy. Maybe I should ask to borrow one of these generators to get my assignments done?

 

TEAROOM GOURMET: The common or garden variety Tearoom Gourmet is among the staff who like to parade their holier-than-thou status, in this case by carefully preparing and bringing to work the most extravagant meals they can manage. Now, there's nothing wrong in my books with bringing a nice sandwich or something, but actual meals are stretching things a bit far. Just buy a pie like the rest of us folk.

 

Okay, so that wasn't as extensive as my list of shoppers. I'll pay more attention next time, and get back to you.

 

Actually, I thought of one more customer Type to round off my list:

 

THE ANCIENTS: This is a shopper Type that goes over the top of other Types, effectively adding to them. An Ancient basically means that they do whatever a normal shopper would do, only at half the speed. So we get Ancient Milk Miners, digging into the strata of bottles at minimal speed. Or an Ancient Claymore... Admittedly these Claymores don't have the same deadly force as younger ones, except the consistent fear that you'll be dead before the slow cascade of loose change finishes...

What a mixed week... Ups and downs to make your head spin. Actually, come to think of it there were a fair few more downs than ups but hey, that's life.

 

Tuesday involved a scene of me getting more or less verbally assaulted by one of my tutors in front of the tutorial group. Well, not in front of all of them per se, because they were meant to be doing work, but plenty enough heard him goign off at me. Very, very unprofessional conduct on his part. The whole scene actually stemmed from a conversation (read argument) he was having with another guy in my class. Don't even ask me how I got dragged in, because I have no idea.  One second the good doctor was raving about the student not putting in enough work, the next he's slamming into me... Bizarre.

 

Word must get around quick, because I was contacted by Student Services today, and asked if I wanted to make a complaint. I'm still not sure if I want to follow it through, but if I feel the mark for my final assignment is affected because of it then I will for sure.

 

Tuesday also saw Latin returning in a new form: Latin dancing! Yep, that's right, your Simple Impartial Azukar stepped out in style on Tuesday night with his housemate to learn about, in no particular order, the Jive, Rumba, Foxtrot, Quickstep, Cha-Cha, Waltz and Tango. All these, we did in the space of three hours. The experience wasn't bad, nothing to write home about really. But for $5 it was nice cheap entertainment, and a way of getting out of the house.

 

Wednesday was... Hmm. Did I do anything on Wednesday? Probably. Not much worth talking about obviously, if I can't remember it.

 

Today I got what must be the dodgiest comment on one of my assignments. Here, I'll write it out the part of it that raised my eyebrow:

"I would have liked you to comment that the teacher wanted to do what was equitable (And best) for his students (including Joseph) but that the system (school bureaucracy, education department) prevented him from doing so".

 

Maybe you see nothing wrong with this. I'm certainly not complaining about my mark - anything above a Fail would've been great in my mind. But think about it: the lecturer is effectively saying 'this is what I wanted you to think, in order for you to get a better grade". And in such a vague subject as the one the assignment came from, can she really say that? Scrap that - can a lecturer say that in ANY subject? Yet more unprofessionalism, but this time from a tutor I didn't like in the first place. Incidentally, the assignment totalled 1000 words, in which there really isn't much room to go into depth. I'll read through the in-essay comments later.

 

And tomorrow, we have the 21st birthday of my housemate. This should be fun; it's at a swanky restaurant and there's drinks and dancing and stuff afterward. And we all have to wear an item of pink. Now, I have no pink shirts, and surprisingly I'm short in the pink pants department too, so I'm wondering what to wear. Maybe I'll use a handkerchief (pink) and put it in my shirt pocket, suit-style. Yeah, that'll do.

 

And so the week goes on. No doubt you'll hear about my experience trying to fit the Rumba to some kind of Hip-Hop song before too long... Wish me luck readers.

 

-Azukar

So now my housemate tells me I can, in fact, put all the photos from my phone up on the net for FREE because I'm with Optus. Go figure. And here was me making up insanely complicated plots and plans to try and do the deed, when in reality all I needed to do was move them to something known as a ZooBox. For FREE. Meaning NO COST. Which is pretty darned good, if I do say so myself. Stand by for some new photo albums over the weekend.

 

Update: It actually stopped working for some inexplicable reason, so the photos you see uploaded now are all there will be until I can get it figured out again...

 

Oh, and I resubmitted Degrees of Honour on the Vox Azukar site, so anyone who hasn't read it yet can take a look. It's a short story I cooked up based on a noun-verb-adjective combo given to me by Lloydo, but read more on the site.

 

Oh, and what's the best news I've heard all week!? I have NO assignments due this week! NONE! Which means my options are thus:

a) get ahead in my assignment schedule, by completing the Action Research Project this week and the MLE essay by next week, leaving me more or less home free, or

 

b) bludge.

 

Guess which one?

 

-Azukar

Proof if nothing else that, no matter what role Keanu Reeves playes, he can still use one expression for every scene in every movie in which he appears.

 

So yeah. Thumbsucker is a movie. One of those ones I can't easily classify, which isn't hard given that my repertoire of movie "types" basically goes Scary, Gunsy, Twisty, Funny, Dumb or Other. This one's an Other. With slight Funny undertones. It's a teen "coming of age" film, but in no way is it cliché or dramatised. Actually, apart from perhaps the Love Interest and the cigarette-smoking, wisdom-dispensing dentist, it's really pretty real.

 

As a matter of fact, the One plays only a small role in this film, as a dentist. Personally I'd love to have Neo as my dentist - if he can reach into a person's body and remove a bullet, he can probably just as easily brush all those hard-to-reach places for me, and may even be capable of picking out that last troublesome piece of food that evades my toothpick for hours on end.

 

But enough about the all-powerful hippy dentist. It's a story about a boy. 17 years old, and he sucks his thumb. This may go some way to explaining the title of the movie. As it so happens, said boy (Justin) wants to stop sucknig his thumb, for al lthe social benefits it may bring. In fact, the "problem" prevents him from getting laid in the first fifteen minutes or so of the movie. Go figure. Aside from this habit, he's a little introverted, a little snappish, and has trouble applying himself in class. His position in the Debating Class is in jeopardy, which, given that it is one of few areas of life he really enjoys, is worrying.

 

Justin's actor is pretty good, as actors come. He does look pretty young for 17, but we can let thato ne pass. Oh, and it's got Vincent D'Onofrio (Detective Goren- Law & Order) as the dad, and Tilda Swinton (White Queen - Narnia, Elf Queen - Lord of the Rings) as the mum. She's not much of a queen in this movie though. Actually, I liked her best for her oh-so-short role in Constantine, so let's scrap the LotR reference altogether. And, hehe, the little brother's name is Joel. He's cool.

 

Overall, not exactly a typical story. Not your typical family. Certainly not your typical Love Interest. And the ending, well... If you watch it, or have watched it, and can explain the ending to me, I will give you chocolate. It's worth seeing, if you like this genre of movie.

Whoah, deja vu... If I didn't know better, I'd think I'd written a Blog like this one before. Oh look, in fact I did. Here. That was such a good night. So good, in fact, that we decided to repeat it. Hell, we even brough more people along for the ride! And like usual, we brought back a few souveniers, and a whooole lotta photos. Oh, and a few movies. We like movies.

 

So. What were the highlights? Well, the security guard was a good one. He's such a nice chap, we liked talking to him. He probably liked talking to us, too.

 

The high-velocity stunts we managed were just plain cool. I just needed some kind of drink in my hand to top it all off.

 

Oh yeah. Adam killing the car was funny, in its own way. He did a pretty good job of it, all things considered. I just... Didn't like the thought of calling up NRMA and saying "Hi, we're at the top of a mountain with a dead car. Come get us." And yes, I would have smield like that into the phone.

 

People vanishing into the long grass was a bit freaky. But we liked it all the same.

 

Let's just wrap up by saying two of us sisn't even wake up until, say, 1pm today. And the other two, fools that they are, went off to the Mountain to see Ford take out their first Panoramic victory since 1998. I guess we have to let them win once in a while so that they don't get too disheartened and stop competing.

 

Nah, 's cool.

 

-Azukar