Mmm. Azukar has learned an important life lesson today. He made a rash decision, and is, even as he writes, feeling the heat of the consequences. There is always a part of any person that feels embarassed and awkward to be taught a lesson, so in the interest of humulity, I'm presenting it to the world for all to see. All who actually read this thing, anyway.

 

Dear readers, never, ever, try to microwave apple pie. Even if the packet says you can, it's not an option. Especially do not try to heat an apple pie when the instructions tell you that it's only really defrostable in the microwave, and that post-defrosting it must be ovened. Everyone's favourite neighbourhood assassin tried this just now, and the results were nothing short of a localised disaster.

 

Firstly, the pie began as a nice, deep, well-filled piece of work, and yet by the end of its brief trip in radiation Hell, it managed to morph into a shrivelled, flat triangle of pastry, leaking apple sauce out in all directions. Said sauce was also melted, as if by powerful heat, to the plate, and was quite hard to get off.

 

No apple pie, moreover, should ever be chewy. And yet, this deformed monstrosity of a dessert had chew in vast quantities. Nor, in a recipe that contains no brown sugar, should there be a taste of brown sugar. Any actual semblance of actual apple chunks had more or less vanished, which was just odd. Even the might of the radiation of a microwave oven should not have causes whole pieces of apple to simple disappear...

 

And finally, although the pastry was a delicately warm temperature, the devastated remains of the filling were in fact scaldingly hot, leading to much mouth-burning and similar effects of poor ol' Azukar.

 

So lesson learned: No Microwaved Apple Pies.

Yes, it's a Blog entry in code. And it's almost definitely more complex a code than you think it is. Yes, I'm tired. Yes, I'm delirious.

 

Oh Fish, dear Fish, what am I to do?

Where are you? I'm looking for you (or am I?)

When do I know if I've seen you, how do I find you? What do I do when I find you?

Part of me wants so badly to see you, part of me hates what would happen if I looked for you and couldn't find you.

Part of me is terrified to find you: what if you're not the little fish I thought you'd be?

Part of me is horrified to find the most of me even looking.

And you know what's worse, dear Fish?

As it turns out, all this time I thought I was staring you in the face.

Oh the irony. Talk about funny. Big belly laughs all round.

Which now begs the question: ...

...

Oh, wait. I just answered it (again) didn't I. No, that wasn't a question.

And you know what? I just realised it myself. If I'm going to look for you, then I'll do it my way.

Like I do everything. Because if I'm not doing it my way, then I'm not me? Am I, Fish?

Where are you Fish? (Here)

Where are you? (Waiting)

Where? (Behind you)

Huh? (Yep, really)

I didn't see you there. (But you did turn around...)

 

 

To the rest of the world: you can safely ignore this. I'm tired and delirious. Here, fishy fishy fishy...

So my other Space now has this bloody long exposition on various cognitive theories and how maybe they work, maybe not. By the way, add the address

which is linked to said Space. You might never see me online as that email, but at least you'll know when I update.

 

...

Notice how I haven't said anything about my week so far? That's because I'm not going to. On Friday I probably will, so sit tight until then.

 

WINDOW SHOPPER: These (usually male and young) shoppers have no money. They're just here to observe our toys and/or chocolate selection. Or to steal. Admittedly, wannabe theives are pretty rare. And, much like the Lecherous Lurkers and the Teen Hopeless, there' a particular line of thought that follows seeing a Window Shopper trying to exit the store. Sorry mate, but bulging pockets, where no pockets bulged hitherto, are not subtle. Nor are your furtive expressions in my direction, figuring out if I've figured you out. Yes, I have figured you out. Put the Mars bar back and we'll say no more about it.

 

LUCKY DIPPER: We have created our own worst enemy by putting the whole selection of Chupa Chups on display. Children get so damned picky, that they will dive through the whole bloody barrel of the things to find the one elusive flavour they're looking for. Strangely, 90% or so also need to get one for a sibling, which means even more deliberating over which one will be best received by said child. Which in turn means more wait-time for the other poor shoppers. Honestly. They all taste like sugar and little else, just pick the closest handful and move along.

 

THE ROOMLESS: Aww, young love. I'm all for it, good for them, but I have to say it's going a shade too far to start the foreplay while you're still in the shop. Okay, so maybe that's too extreme, but any shoppers ascribing to this description will almost certainly be joined at the hip, at the very least. If I ever see a Roomless/Teen Hopeless, or a Roomless/Cash Amnesiac, or even (shudder) a Roomless/Shopper Au Naturelle, or any other such combination, I will be giving out some very flat looks, believe me. Relieve your condition: Get A Room.

 

PATRONISERS: Not merely patrons of our fine supermarket, these are those patrons who go one step further and patronise the employees. Their hunting cry varies depending on the quarry, but ones I have been unfortunate enough to hear include "Sonny", "young man" and "boy". Admittedly I can handle "young man", but not in the way Patronisers say it. Most of them tend to be aged males (or should I retalitate and call them old fogies?) and they probably (possibly) think they're being friendly. Or even (gasp!) "hip". Overall, these shoppers are only a Low on the threat level.

Okay, so everyone knows by now that anyone who works in a supermarket for any length of time develops an irrepressible hatred of customers. Apparently normal, apparently sane, as soon as anyone apart from an employee sets foot in a store, they transform into a one-person mob mentality, intent on tearing apart the fabric of the universe and patronising everyone in sight.

 

Personally, because I've spent far longer working on the floor than I have on checkouts, I don't mind serving people. Mostly. It's the customers drifting at barely-walking pace through the aisles that irritate the hell out of me. And Saturdays at work are slow to start with, so in between slicing meat, re-stocking milk fridges, admiring our shiny new produce section and serving people, I developed a few "types", if you will, for customers. Of course, committing one's self to any given customer type does not preclude you from signing up to a second, or a third if wanted.

 

MILK MINERS: Out to "crack the system" at any cost, these vicious customers will dig and dig to the very back of the milk fridge, to find those elusive bottles that are dated to the 24th instead of the 23rd. Like many amateur mining attempts, this invariably leaves a trail of devastation, untidy rows of bottles, and completely mixing up the use-by dates. And that behaviour leads to me finding a bottle of milk many days past its date, at the very back corner of the fridge. Yuk. Produce Miners and Grocery Miners also exist, though slightly less commonly.

 

AMNESIA SHOPPERS: These people inflict equal pain on both us and other customers. They trawl the aisles for a time, come to the register, then it's, "oops, I just forgot! Let me go and get some more things..." at which point they wander away to do the other half of their shopping. Of course, by this point I've already scanned half of their groceries, so I'm stranded, standing there as the line before me grows longer and longer, and all I can say is "I'm sorry, I'm just waiting on a customer". At least half of the time, the Amnesia Shopper can't find the item(s) he or she is looking for, and will require me to help him/her look for it/them.

 

BLACK MARKETEERS: Sure, there are plenty of people who base their shopping on what's on special. That's fine. But... Buying out the entire store supply of Coke, just because we shaved three cents off the price? That's either insanity, or they're buying it up while they can so as to sell it on the black market. I must admit, in my latter school years I did a bit of Black Marketting; serves the teachers right for implementing the highly ineffectual "healthy canteen" system anyway, as all it did was encourage people to fill their bags up with chips, lollies and soft drink from home and sell it at school.

 

SOCIAL SHOPPERS: Generally middle-aged and female, these customers consider that aisles are a sort of café, only without a waiter bringing out two cappuccinos on soy. Each with a trolley, they will meet at the middle of an aisle and stop dead, conversing about the most menial of things, and effectively stalling anyone else trying to get through. Sometimes they will continue shopping in tandem, moving at a speed equitable to that of continental drift, so that they can multitask shop and talk at the same time. Irritatingly, they will often glare at you if you even so much as try to squeeze past them, no matter how polite you are.

 

GERM WARFARERS: Bristling with disease and all manner of plagues, Germ Warfarers enter the shop (usually to buy one or two items) and proceed to cough, splutter, shed vital organs and limbs over, and generally try to contaminate the rest of the in-store population. Most are indiscriminate between customers and staff, though a choice few reserve their displays of volcanic coughing for employees only. Is nobody safe from their evil advance? I am afraid to take their money half of the time. A variation of Germ Warfarers bring their similarly plague-ridden children into the store, and let them pick at or touch everything they see.

 

AROMATICS: This is the polite term, others might include "Pongers", "Stinkers" or "Stench Hounds". The precise nature of the odour varies from shopper to shopper, whether it be incontinence, alcohol, overpowering tobacco, overpowering perfume or some sort of embalming fluid, but evidently the shopper has either lost their own sense of smell, or simply doesn't care anymore. One of these hanging around the front of the store is very likely to detract other customers from coming close.

 

TEEN HOPEFULS: Oh yes, we still get a few of these. Me even more so, because I'm comparatively new. They generally come in packs, but only one enters the store. He (they're mostly guys) approaches me warily, trying to size me up, and then asks in a well-rehearsed and fluid way, for some form of cigarette-y product. You can always tell a Teen Hopeful from the way they ask, even if not by the crowd of pre-pubescent fellow Hopefuls waiting outside. To tempt them, I generally scan the cigarettes, and only then ask for ID, which of course they never have. Bad luck kiddo, go back to school. Even if I thought smoking was a good idea, I don't have $5000 to spare, which is the personal fine for selling tobacco to a minor.

 

TEEN HOPLESSES: A variation on the theme of Teen Hopeful, these customers also seek me out, but in this case because I'm youngish, and male. They tend to buy a few inconspicuous items, like Coke or chips of lollies, but somewhere in their purchase will invariably be condoms, lubricant, soft-core pornography, or some other item of a similar nature that would cause the buyer to die of embarrassment should their sale be detected. There's no law against buying such items so I have to let them through (And I don't think I'd stop them if there was a law), but I still make them damned sure I know what they've bought. I'm just not so cruel as to ask another staff member to go and get a price check.

 

ASIAN TEAMAKERS: Odd name, to be sure. A traditional meal in many Asian countries often consists of many tiny dishes, you see. Teamakers come mostly to the deli department, and proceed to ask for, say, one slice of devon, one slice of shaved ham, two sticks of cabanossi, a small tub of pasta salad, one piece of salami, 5 grams of diced bacon, and so on. Lots and lots of items, but only a tiny amount of each. The net effect being, it takes ages, and really, what have they got to show for it? Practically nothing. And because I get picky about hygiene at work, it means I've gone through a dozen gloves and plastic protectors.

 

SHOP SOCIALISERS: Not to be confused with Social Shoppers, although they are similar, these shoppers think that you are genuinely interested in every aspect of their lives. Having (in truth) only a very small social network, the weekly shop has to include a large amount of inane dialogue between the customer and me, before said shopper will be satisfied. This also ends up disrupting other shoppers, simply because the poor Socialiser just won't get the hint and go home. Honestly, I'm starting to get a good idea of the social outlook of the area I work in, just from this type of shopper.

 

MISSIONARIES: The very opposite of a Social Shopper, these guys have one thing in their mind and one only: get in, get out, and make the time between as brief as possible. They power-walk from aisle to aisle, picking up the few things they are looking for, then practically sprint to the register to get their goods processed. By some twist of fate, they often tend to buy obscure fruit and veg, that take time to look up on the monitor, or else pay by credit card, which takes ages to be cleared. Sometimes they get a little... impatient, at which point I just put on my sweetest smile and say, "I'm sorry sir or madam, but there isn't anything I can do about it". And quite rightly.

 

CHEAP SKATERS: Customers who have the hide to complain that our prices aren't lower than those of, say, Aldi, or the giant Woolworths down the road. To put it in perspective, we are essentially a corner store, albeit a pretty darned big one. We are the smallest supermarket in a city that has Coles, Aldi, Woolworths, Bi-Lo, another (bigger) IGA and innumerable fresh-produce stores. We work with the tools we're given. And as the proverb goes, if you're worried about the price, why are you in the shop? I love how literally that applies to Cheap Skaters. One customer of note complained that our cordial is more expensive than the cordial in the mammoth IGA in Cremorne, Sydney. Unsaid in my mind was the screaming thought, "Then go down to Cremorne and buy it there!"

 

NET-PROFIT BUYERS: People who tend to think of us as something like a giant ATM machine. Admittedly, we have an ATM in the shop, but these guys tend to split into one of two categories. Either they buy a 40c chocolate and ask for $400 cash out with their Savings card, or else they buy nothing at all and ask for $4.55 cash out. Personally I think we've left ourselves open to such buyers; we have no Minimum Spend for EFTPOS, and we give out any amount the person wants...

 

PRO-LIFE HENS: Ah yes. Most of them are female, though I do see Pro-life Roosters too. They generally bring between two and fifty children into the store with them, on a mission to get nothing more than, say, milk and bread, but then spend three times as long in the store trying to control the little brats. And some of those kids are real shockers, although I can understand when most of the parents of said kids tend to scream at them "Billy, you getcherself down 'ere roight now or I'll give yer sich a smack!" And other similar threats, though most with more verbal abuse than that example. I tell you, it's hard to keep track of three or more pairs of hands touching every colourful thing they see in the store...

 

ANGELS: These shoppers are as rare as their namesake. They come in alone, pick up a few things, place them on the counter, pay with a crisp clean single bank note, take their groceries and leave. Maybe they smile and say a few words to me on the way through.

 

SPACE-SAVERS: These poor shoppers have only very minimal space for their money, and so must fold or otherwise scrunch up their bank notes to make them fit their shovel purse. Of course, that means that when the money gets to me, it looks like it's been the victim of a fall from great height. Imagine trying to put that in your draw. Often as not, when I have suffered a Space-Saver, I have to resist the urge to see what they would look like after a fall from a great height.

 

TECHNOPHOBES: Customers with no grasp of fisco-technical matters. They are capable of swiping a card through an EFTPOS machine five times or more in different orientations and it still won't read. Or they hand you their card and say, "My pin is 1-2-3-4, and I want $100 out". Wow, talk about trust. Or they try to get money out on a Credit account, or put in every four-digit string of numbers under the sun, trying to find their PIN... Admittedly, these customers are more short-term annoyance, but they are still not to be underestimated: they often ascribe to the Pro-Life crowd, or the Shop Socialiser crowd as well.

 

CASH AMNESIACS: There is a human skill called Extrapolation, which is basically the idea to see a little way into the future by looking at what's happening now. Most babies acquire it between the age of six months and one year; those that do not grow up to be Cash Amnesiacs. They will put down their money on a conveyor belt, and then blow me down if it doesn't vanish down the crack, sacrificed to the hungry souls of all those who have died in long supermarket queues... Whose fault is it? The employee's, of course! Now dig through all that muck and fetch it back out!

 

CLAYMORES: Like the bomb of the same name, these highly deadly customers draw you in and then spray you with a terrifying amount of shrapnel. You can tell these shoppers by their mating call-slash-hunting cry, "Oh, let me just get rid of some spare change. You don't mind, do you?", and then procure around $20, usually in coins no greater than 50c. Ten minutes later, you're still reeling from the shock. Horrific. Just horiffic.

 

LECHEROUS LURKERS: Trust me, customers like this one aren't here to shop, except maybe for eye-candy. No, they're really here to leer at all the females in the supermarket, whether they be staff or fellow shoppers. And that's bad enough; if they want to look at girls they can turn Teen Hopeless for a minute and buy Zoo magazine or something. Of course, what's worse is they often feel like giving you, the male teenage checkout guy, a running commentary of their point of view. Yes, thank you, I can see her too, but you don't see me staring, do you? Now take your tictacs and go away.

 

SHOPPERS AU NATURELLE: These guys shouldn't be seen outside a Nudist Colony. This term describes a customer, male or female (though more likely male) who comes into a supermarket wearing the barest minimum of clothing legal in public. They seem oblivious to everyone pointing and laughing, but continue on their shopping trip regardless. Often, Pro-Life Hens and Roosters bring their Children Au Naturelle, which is more than a little unnerving. It's s shame, because most of these customers could otherwise qualify as Angels, were it not for their excess body hair threatening to engulf me from over the counter.

 

Yep, I think that about does it. I could go on, and maybe some day I will, but for now that list should prepare you for any encounters in future. Just remember: don't be afraid to use lethal force.

That's right, sinjoroj, everyone's favourite assassin is priming himself for prac. Four solid weeks of in-school experience, with plenty of added weirdness. And when a university lecturer says to you, "we're trying some different things in this prac; we want to shift the focus of it a little" you can be sure that it translates into StudentSpeak as "Buy up the forests while they last kiddo, because the paperwork is going to cripple you! Bwahahahahahaha!!"

 

But first, the school. I've got a year one class, twenty-one students in the class with, apparently, "only" two students with "behaviour problems". Hmm. Well, let's wait and see. Oh, and there are twice as many boys in the class as girls, which is going to prove interesting.

 

Everyone says it's such a wonderful school, with some amazing views of the surrounding natural features, and my associate teacher (the woman whose class we're invading for the prac) is just lovely, a really lovely woman. Yay. I can't give out names, of course, but with a name like hers, you'd think she should be living in a convent or something. Still, the name doesn't make the person, so I'm postponing judgement on that, too.

 

But the paperwork, oh boy, the paperwork... Honestly, Greenpeace activists and so on should stop protesting outside Parliament House, they should really be outside my window... And at the window of every other student undertaking this prac. Seriously. Trees shake at my passing by. Bushes outside my house are trying to grow legs and escape me. Even the Esoteric Origami-ists' Association have sent me a ten-page letter saying "please stop it with this senseless and obscene use of paper", along with half a dozen origami models of me dying in painful ways because of the destruction I'm wreaking on the environment.

 

I won't bore you with calculating how many pages I might be printing in the course of this prac, but let's just say that I'll be creating a two to four page plan for every lesson I teach. At three to six lessons per day, and about ten days' full teaching by the end of the prac, you can work out the subtle factors. Oh, and we were in fact told by our lecturer to bring a ream of paper to the school and do all our photocopying on that, because this woman wants to see lots of photocopied teaching resources. And there's a whole lot of non-teaching analysis we have to do, on top of that.

 

Now times that by 80-something students in our course, 160 or so in the years above us, and dozens doing various double-degrees (like teaching/psych, or human movement/teaching), and that's a whole lotta paper.

 

Anyway, that's my ecological gripe for the time being. I'll be working to school timetables for the next four weeks, so I'm seeing the end of staying up past, say, 7pm. Except that I'll be up well past midnight, making lesson plans, and evaluating old ones, and working out all those other bits and pieces that need to be done over the prac. Lovely. Wish me luck, ladies and gentlemen.

Okay, here's the deal. From now on, all my Blogs that act like essays go Here, so that I can save my main Space for more mundane writings. I'll post some kind of warning here everytime I update over there, so you know. Listen to Vox Azukar, marshal your opinions, then come and debate/discuss them with me. That's what they're there for, that's what I'm here for.

 

http://voxazukar.spaces.live.com just in case you don't get the prospect of an embedded link.

 

In other news, I got a haircut. It's... short. Very short. The guy just kept on cutting! And then he had the hide to say to me at the end, "now that's good. It's shorter, sure, but I've left you with a bit of length to work with."

 

Sure. If by "length" you mean about three millimetres of red fuzz. I exaggerate, of course. But it's still short.

Okay, so I could've done this blog, say, three or four months ago. But three or four months ago I wasn't procrastinating about doing my stupid, stupid PLT or studying up for the stupid Ed. Psych test on Tuesday. Our lecturer really is a daring one... We don't do exams, that's beyond doubt. But still he gives us a test, hmm... Be warned, doctor... We're watching you.

 

Ahem. Anyway, my housemates and I, since moving in in early February this year, have come to the conclusion that this is a very strange house, in many ways. Or possibly just had some particularly home-improvement-mad owners in the past, who simply lacked a sense of purpose.

 

Let's start with powerpoints. Given it's not a hugely new house, it seems to have a disproportionate number of the little blighters. My room has six, for example. For a slightly-aged house, that's quite a lot. Hell, it's a lot even for modern houses... What's stranger is that four of them are on the one wall, which happens to be blocked by my bed. That's okay though; I've got at least three bed- or bedside-related appliances to use up most of the sockets, and the other one runs a powerboard across to the stereo. Oh, did I mention that one of those powerpoints is actually at about groin height, meaning it is actually visible above the bed? Odd, though maybe not totally random.

 

Actually, the designers of my room must've had me in mind when they dealt out the powerpoints.  Despite the seemingly odd number of powerpoints to use, I'm still employing three powerboards and a double-adaptor, as well as two extension leads, just to keep all my electricity-guzzling beasties happy. And it's not like I even have that much electronic junk to start with...

 

But onward we go. There is a powerpoint within, say, five inches of the handbasin in the bathroom. I'm not too big on house design, but I'm pretty sure that's illegal, which caused so many problems when we wanted to renovate the bathroom back home. Oh, and there is a double powerpoint outside the master bedroom door. That's just weird. It's not as though the hallway is really wide enough to accommodate, say, a lamp, or a flat-screen plasma television just outside the bedroom, so it's not for that... It could be just for the sake of convenience when vacuuming, but a double powerpoint? Maybe we just had some really over-zealous former occupants, who felt that one vacuum just wasn't enough? Of course, it could be that the really did want the advantage of having a tv right outside their door...

 

And the kitchen. There's a powerpoint in the kitchen with a built-in automatic timer. What's with that? So you can get the powerpoint to switch on or off automatically at any time of the day... Maybe you can preset it with a blender there on the bench, and time it so that you can walk in to the sight of a freshly-blended vegetable juice just as you get home? Perhaps the last owners were a bit miserly, and figured it would be safe to have the fridge automatically shut down at night, to save on the electricity bill? We just don't know.

 

And then there are the doors. These doors actually reach all the way up to the ceiling. Okay, so maybe some really tall people lived here once. But the doorhandles, level with that mysterious powerpoint in my room, lie at waist height. So maybe the tall person was married to a midget? It certainly makes for an exciting exercise in archaeology, looking at the design of the house. Tall doors, low doorhandles. And speaking of doorhandles, many of them have this annoying tendency to only open if you turn them in one direction. Both of my housemates have nearly trapped themselves in the toilet not realising this quirk of design, and while I've been spared that so far, I'm sure my time will come. I figure that maybe the doorknobs are all a little awkward with their sexuality, and are trying to tell us, "Dude, seriously... We just don't swing that way". Though they will open either way if you know how to jiggle them right, but after the past couple of days I've had enough double-entendres to sustain me for a while, so don't read anything into that.

 

Oh yes. There's no light switch at the front door. The main light switch is at the other end of the living room, outside the hallway. We don't know why. Maybe our enigmatic house-builders had good night vision, and didn't need to turn on a light as they came through the door. Or else the giants in the household (see above re. door height) also had really long arms, and could reach across to flick on the light. It's odd.

 

Now, I'm all for hanging pictures and so forth on the wall, but these guys must've gone nuts! There are picture hook-hole-thingies EVERYwhere! Try this: six holes, in a rough oval, on one wall of my bedroom. About a metre or so across, longways. What did they hang on them? Nobody knows.

 

Hallway: A hook outside each bedroom. Just one, mind you. Maybe they let each occupant of the house have a little sign, saying "this bedroom belongs to so and so, and incidentally, mind you don't knock the plasma tv when you come in" or similar.

 

Lounge room: I can't even describe this. Take a look at the picture; if you can find ANY reasonable reason why these hooks are here, then I'll give you a prize. Chocolate may be involved.

 

And finally, my room seems to be soundproofed. It's uncanny; you can hear things through any other wall in the house, if the noise is loud enough, but not through the walls of my bedroom. If my housemate has her music up loud, I hear it more through my door than through the wall adjoining our rooms. And that's with me sitting at the computer, probably not two metres from being in her room. And yet she can hear far too much through the wall between her room and the third bedroom of the house.

 

Weird doors, soundproofed rooms, inexplicable picture hooks and way too many power points; whoever built this house was weeeeird.

Gah, I wasn't planning on writing a Blog today (in fact I wasn't even planning on turning on the computer at all - uni work, don't'cha'know) but some really unexpected things happened and I felt it deserved a post.

 

And then I got to a point in writing the Blog and thought: I haven't written a blog with even a trace of fun or humour in it for far too long. Is something wrong with me? Am I depressed? I don't feel depressed... Hmm. Anyway, I'm abstaining from writing any more Blogs until I can write one with wit and humour in it. So, instead of what I'd planned to write, here's a very brief summary of the unexpected things that happened to me today:

 

 - Unexpected conversations about religion from unexpected sources.

 - Random magazines appearing outside my bedroom door unexpectedly (very auspicious in fact - remind me to tell you sometime)

 - Randomly and unexpectedly rearranging the loungeroom (looks much better now - roomier and brighter than before)

 - Woman in my course nearly died (allergic reaction or bee sting, we don't know for sure. But we're pretty sure she's all right - medics arrived fairly quickly)

 

Ouch. So out of context, so devoid of explanation. Maybe one day soon I'll be online and can explain those in more depth..

Quote of the day: "I just want to put her head in a vice, and paralyse her face."

 

No, I'm not sadistic. Though as touch masochistic apparently, as the following tale may show.

 

We went for the annual Durham on George challenge today, and man am I feeling seedy... For the many many readers who don't know, Durham on George (DoG) is a burger joint that does some of the best burgers you're ever likely to taste, at very reasonable prices. As well as all the normal burgers, these guys also have two "specialist" burgers; namely, the Mighty Mick, and the MotherClucker. They're big. Very big. So big, in fact, that even for finishing one you get your name and a photograph up on the wall, and a can of drink on the house. Given that they apparently sell up to twenty each day (they open late at night too), there aren't all that many photos on the wall... Here's the picture, while it's still searingly fresh in my mind:

 

You start with a bun. No regular buns these, they are just over 20cm in diameter, and maybe just under 5cm thick (each half). Between these massive slabs of bread lie about 500grams of prime mince, about half a large beetroot, lettuce, tomatoes, pineapple, mountains of fried onion, two eggs, and your choice of sauce. As they say: double everything on a giant bun. The record for eating one of these mother-sized burgers is about four and a half minutes; most people on the wall seem to manage somewhere between ten and twenty minutes at full gallop, or up to an hour if eating normally.

 

And then there's Clay, Adam and myself, three average Joes who every year, around about this time of year, head down to the DoG to see if we can't beat our time for the previous year. It's a fine tradition, stretching as far back as this time last year. I'd forgotten how big it was up until you see them put down the buns on the breadboard, and pile up, no joke, well over 20cm of fillings. And then it's wrapped in paper, delivered to the table, and the timer starts...

 

I managed an even seven minutes this year, thus equalling my time from 2005. Adam didn't finish last year, and while he very nearly brought the whole thing back up twice, he downed the mammoth burger in a shade over 20 minutes. Clay shaved about a minute and a half off his time, finishing the last soggy, beetroot-flavoured mouthful of bread in around eleven and a half minutes. So it looks like I've got some training to do for next year.

 

It does feel a little bad to devour for lunch (and dinner and probably breakfast tomorrow) enough food to keep all the children of World Vision happy for at least a week, but it's Traditional now, and if you stopped doing pointless and irrelevant traditions, you're just being "merely practical". Oh, and the MotherClucker burger is even bigger - two whole chicken breasts (and whole breasts are a lot bigger than those breast fillets you get in supermarkets), with all the same salads as the Mighty Mick. Not many people have photos on the wall for finishing one of those burgers...

 

I got an email yesterday from CSU (the university). Not uncommonly, it was advertising one of their specialist a Diploma course. This one was in, wait for it... TEACHING! It starts: "By attending the information sessions, presented by Course Coordinator Zeffie Nicholas, you will discover how you go about becoming a teacher and the benefits gained by studying the Diploma of Education."

 

Wow, I'm so glad they told me about this course... I mean, my whole career path has just widened out! I could decide to be a teacher one day! But wait, there's more... It's the Graduate program, so that if I graduate from me degree, and then decide I want to be a teacher, I can do so :D It would only take my ten semesters at univeristy to see the whole thing through, too. I'm so glad to see CSU helping me keep my options open...

So having pilfered the rarely-if-ever-used digital camera from it's dusty repose at my mum's house, I figured it was about time I made a more substantial photo album. And, of course, a Blog entry to go with it; not to stop you going "what the...?" at every second photo, but at least so that you know a little more about the situation before you go "what the...?"

 

The first few photos are a choice few of the photos from our road trip to Orange. At about 1am. Yes, we were very, very bored. No, we were not drunk, high or in any way on drugs of any sort. It was a pure act of spontaneity and randomness, even more so because none of us were wearing overly warm clothes. The actual event was months ago now; there's a Blog entry about it somewhere in my archives...

 

The middle photos were taken at home (Blue Mountains home), and mostly involve my dogs. There is one photo in there of this really beautiful scene - I've got no idea where it was taken, I just found it on the camera and thought "why not?"

 

The next photos were taken just now, when I got home (Bathurst home) and decided to just go snap-happy. They're not great, but they're only the first. I've got the camera now for about five weeks...

 

The last four phots are of the Tissue Box of Life, one of the products to come out of my friend's 20th birthday party the other weekend. I offer no further explanation or apology.

 

Watch This Space.

Hmm. Don't get too excited, it's just another "funny pictures" type of album, and some of them are dumb. Have a geezer at them anyway, you might not live to regret it.

 

In other news, I've got a new CD. And a lot of new clothes. Yes, dear readers, Azukar is indeed going out of his mind. I've never spent so much in clothes all in one go... EVER. I think it was about $120 (I love sales), money I technically don't have but hey. Clothes are kinda important. Mmm, more specifically, lack of clothes is an important trait to avoid, for those living outside high-walled enclosures with many volley-ball courts and other spots for engaging in healthy exercise. <ahem>

 

Anyway yes, I went on what is for me a huge, unrestrained shopping spree. And, like all my "shopping sprees" where I go looking for something specific (clothes) and invariably come back with something else, I, would you believe, went looking for something specific (clothes) and came back with something else. Namely, a Sufjan Stevens CD. Good man, very different style of music. But at least I got clothes too. I forbade myself from buying anything blue, because most of my tshirts at the moment seem to be either white or blue/bluegrey/navy/whatever. There was a very nice red tshirt, but apparently with the new hair and all, I have to abstain from red clothing. Otherwise I'd look like a cross between a strawberry and... well... Something else red, anyway.

 

Oh, and I've begun learning Esperanto. This book I've found is an absolute gem, but it's unhelpful that I've got nobody to actually speak it with. Maybe I'll find another Esperanto-speaker at the uni and arrange a coffee-and-Esperanto-chat session sometime. So far I can do a few prepositions, and simple particular words like "is", "of", "and" and so on. And vocabulary is going to be a stickler, like it is in any language. And the book seems to assume that it's for an Esperanto-speaking teacher to use, so a lot of vocab seems to be assumed. But I'm working through it, bit by bit. It's surprisingly intuitive, and apart from the terrible "J is pronounced Y" which leaves me confusing the two letters both in writing and speaking, it's going well.

 

I'd finish the Blog with some witty sentence showing off my Esperanto skills, but I don't have any yet.

Revenue-raising readers, Azukar is getting old. And, as one does when one gets old, one starts to do things that appear just a little bit irrational. Only this very minute I took a sip from my (full) glass of water, hung some freshly washed clothes in front ofthe heater, then went and got myself a glass of water. So now I have two full glasses of water sitting atop my computer.

 

Speaking of age, a friend turned 20 the other day, meaning he is no longer a teenager... It's a sombre transitional phase in one's life, when a person realises they can no longer be the heady, reckless, impulsive, nay, psychotic person they once were, but instead must melt gently into the apathetic grey fog that is adulthood. Case in point: his party started to fizzle at a mere 3:30 in the morning... It's a sad sad state of affairs really. To battle this, one partygoer brought fairy bread to the party. When my 20th rolls around, if I can still remeber what it's like to be a teen, I'll be sure to have a party with a very childish theme. Maybe pirates and princesses, or perhaps we'll play pass the parcel, or something... I don't know yet, but I'm open to suggestions that might help stave off the mental aging process. (If only Oil of Olay made a product you could use on the brain)

 

While on the way to said party, I encountered a group of youngish school students from the same year and school as my little brother. And, wouldn't you know it, I got talking with one of them, and it turned out they're going to a party too. Listening to their conversation, it just brought back so many memories... We were all so innocent then... I had to repress the urge to go "aww, how cute" when one guy got me to sample his oh-so-alcoholic home-mixed beverage, some cocktail of Midori and gin and lime flavour. I wouldn't have guessed it even had alcohol in, but okay. It's all a learning process, right? And the levels of excitement they barely could restrain gossiping about who had "apparently" been with whom, or had threw up x number of times in one night, and so on and so forth... Poor kids, they've got it all to come. I hope they make the most of it and don't do anything too stupid.

 

And we've shaved a number of years off our lives, my hosuemate and I, but the internet is, finally, up and running in full-speed capacity. The resistances have been met and matched, plugs compressed and inserted, and all those other niggly little DIY things that need to be done when Doing It Yourself. No sick thoughts people, all I'm talking about is an incredibly long cable. Nothing suss.

 

And all that experience would surely have given me a few grey hairs, but NO! Because I have, on the spur of the moment, decided to dye my hair red. It's... different. Really different. And I'm trying out a messy sort of hairstyle to go with it, but I'm not sure I like it. But the colour is good.

 

And my prac placement has arrived. I won't name the school, but I have YET ANOTHER year one class. Not that I dislike the age-challenged half of the school population, but after so many pracs and placements with young kids, I'd like to vary my experiences a little.

 

And another milestone is reached in the life of a family member, as the next one turns 18. The birthday party is this weekend coming, so between that, working, and heading out to visit my grandad I'm going to be one busy chap come Friday. Oh, and I'm starting learning yet another language on said weekend.

 

The final point of order had nothing to do with age, but I think I've finally got the motivation up to keep writing. I will indeed keep you posted, although the number of people reading this who have read my manuscript(s) is very much in decline. tempus fugit , ladies and gentlemen.