It’s been quite a while since I last posted anything on my blog. There are some very good reasons for this, which I will now explain to you.

Work

Work has been stupidly busy over the last few weeks. There are plenty of lowlights. Dance schools, corporate work, and days of paperwork that backs up on my desk while I work on shows. These are just a few of the annoying as shit jobs that have been taking my time.

There was one highlight that became a lowlight. We had Dr Hook, the hit makers from the 70’s at our venue. I was looking forward to that show. It’s not often that I get to mix for honest to goodness legends of Rock and Roll. It’s also not often that I get to really crank up the volume of our PA system and really put on a Rock show.

I received the tech specs from the promoter and it was a big show. Seven sends of foldback monitors, requests for extra subwoofers, the list goes on and on. Unfortunately the promoter didn’t want to pay for any of the additional equipment that was required to meet the spec. I told them that a dedicated monitor engineer was needed to cater for the performers needs during the show, they told me I had to do it from the front of house position.

Now this is fairly normal for smaller shows. On this show however, we were talking about a lead singer who is in his 60’s, has spent the best part of 30 years in front of very loud bands, has two, count them, TWO hearing aids, and requires extremely loud monitor volumes to be heard over the drumkit and band amplifiers that are no more than five feet from him at all times.

Add to that the fact that my console is up three flights of stairs at the very back of the room and there are 800 people between me and the stage and you can start to get a picture of the problems that can occur.

And of course, they did. Part way through the show, Ray Sawyer’s foldback wedges start to cut in and out. He complains to me over the PA, but I can’t fix it. I send my guy on stage to go and figure out the problem. He can’t find it. It seems to be an intermittent issue that he can’t track down easily.

The show went on but it suffered, and I got the blame, even though I said it could happen and said they should have had a monitor engineer on stage to do it. Sometimes it sucks being right.

Games

I’ve been playing a lot of Eve:Online lately. It’s a space based MMORPG and is possibly the most addictive game I have ever had the fortune/misfortune of playing. This game sucks me in for hours at a time, and, although I know I should be writing a post on my blog, I always forget until midnight when I must sleep in preparation for work.

Sleep

The final and possibly most important reason for not writing. Any spare time that I can find between work, Eve, and general personal maintenance (food, bathing, toilet stops) is filled with sleep. That doesn’t mean that there is a lot of it going on, but all spare time is definitely being occupied by it.

And now, the weather.

While the Northern Hemisphere sits wonderfully cool and wintery, we here in Australia are one day away from the official start of summer.  For those of you who have never experienced and Australian summer, here is a brief overview.

By mid spring we have reached daytime temperatures of 30 degrees celsius. Night time temperatures are starting to rise and blankets and heaters have long been traded for a single sheet and a fan or air conditioning. (If only I could afford air con I’d be fine)

By the end of spring, such as today, we here in Ipswich have hit a midday high of 38 degrees celsius. You walk outside and the heat hits you like a giant wall of warm molasses. You sweat. Constantly. The breeze is hot, even in the shade. Tonight it will probably only get down to 22 or 23 degrees.

I’m sitting here on my lounge, with my laptop burning my legs, a fan on high pointed directly at me. I probably won’t move for the next few hours because to do so would mean more sweat.

I can’t wait for my holidays to start in a few weeks so I can go home to Hervey Bay and sit in cool ocean breezes while I drink on the back patio of my Mum’s house. Until then, I actually look forward to going to work, just so that I can sit in the air conditioning.

I know that I haven’t posted here in a while. I’m busy, I’ll get to it soon. I promise.

As my last post said, I went to a housewarming party last night. Nothing strange there, just your average get together, a few friends, a few beers, lots of chatter. It got strange when, due to a mainly male party population, the conversation turned a little raunchy. We’re men, we do that. We like to talk about disgusting or rude subjects. I’m sure that every woman in the world has overheard these conversations at some point and shaken her head in disbelief.

Last night, the tables were turned. There we were, speaking your average level of male bullshit, when a quiet voice from the girl’s side of the party said, “My boyfriend slept with a midget.” Stated as pure fact, no story to go with it, no real link to the conversation we were already having. Just, ” My boyfriend slept with a midget.”

To say it piqued our collective male interests would be an understatement. In an instant every guy there was staring at her, pleading for the details. Because, that single statement was a Gold Medal, Judges Choice, People’s Vote winning entry in the almost exclusively male game of story telling one-upmanship. We all do it, all the time. Any story told is a challenge to take it one step further. Each subsequent story gets another white lie closer to the ultimate ending, which is where everyone calls “Bullshit” on the story. It’s a man thing.

But this story floored us all. You see we had no come back to midget sex. In fact, we had no knowledge of the subject apart from the wonders of internet pornography, and even then it wouldn’t really be considered as knowledge. We begged her for details. How did he meet her? What position? What did he say it was like? She became the centre of attention for a good ten minutes as we lavished in every erotic, comedic, and politically incorrect detail. It instantly became a story that will be told at every party. In fact, every party will now be compared against that story. It won’t be a great night until someone has attempted to beat the “Sex with a midget” story.

Is there a moral behind all of this? I really don’t know. I guess I just wanted to have the best story today.

Actually, no, there is a moral. Ladies, we know that you have seen, or done, or heard of things that are guaranteed to at least place highly in the Bullshit Challenge. Next time you see the game in play, join in, we don’t mind new competitors. You will probably win and then you become a legend.

By now I am sure that any regular readers will be aware of my relationship nightmares. In fact it’s something I have almost exclusively blogged about over the last few months. What can I say? I say what’s on my mind, and relationships have been on my mind.

Well, today it got even more intriguing. We had a dance concert at the theatre today. Not an uncommon occurrence for this time of year. So, there I am standing on the stage, attempting to get through the blinding hangover and lack of sleep caused by a friend’s house warming party that finished in the wee hours, when a face from my past stepped out of the wings. (It’s all wonderfully theatrical, isn’t it?)

There standing in front of me was Karina, the first girl I ever kissed. At the tender age of seven, I had lived next door to this girl and her family in a town called Madang in Papua New Guinea. We had played together every day, went to the same school, basically we were best friends as kids.

One afternoon, while, and I can’t believe I’m admitting this, playing with her dolls (what can I say, even at that age I knew it was better to do what the woman wants), we kissed. Of course, before we did, we had to hide in a cupboard. The last thing we wanted was to be caught!

Six years ago I moved to Brisbane to study and she contacted me out of the blue. She had visited my mother and Mum had given her my number. We went out fairly regularly, just hanging out as friends. She had a boyfriend, I was single. That sucked.

Over the next  five or six months we spent a lot of time together. I fell for her, she still had a boyfriend. Things just weren’t working out in my favour. Then another girl that I knew expressed an interest in me. We started dating and not one week after that relationship began Karina called me and told me that she was single. GAH!!!

Not long after that I moved away for work. Whenever I was in town I called her to catch up, but by then she had a new boyfriend.

I think I had a shot back then. She was gorgeous, I was timid. That has always been my problem.

Anyway, I’ve got her number again. She has mine. If she has a boyfriend this time, I think I might just scream.

All in all, it was a great day.

It seems that I have become the target of comment spammers. In fact, in the past three days I have received over 180 spam comments. Most of these are getting caught by my spam blocker Akismet but a few are sneaking through. Unfortunately, even though I can delete the comments, once a comment gets through it seems to increase the rate that they turn up.

To attempt to reduce and control this shit from turning up on my blog, I am switching to moderated comments, at least until the spam flood stops. Hopefully this won’t affect too many people.

If anyone knows some relatively foolproof methods to stop spam on Wordpress blogs, I’d love to hear about it.

How not to rob a liqour store

This has to be the funniest robbery video I have ever seen! I really love watching the desperation as the would be thief realises that he has no chance escaping.

Remember, crime doesn’t pay.

Following the lines of my last post, I have decided to post a list of things that men will do prior to a date.

• Wash the car. We don’t want you to see the bird crap and rubbish filled car that we normally drive. We will wash it, polish it, vacuum and throw out all the fast food containers and drink cups. The last thing that we want is for you to have to sit in filth. We do it because we care.
• Find our newest/most presentable clothes, wash them, iron them and make them look as good as possible. Sometimes we will even buy new clothes. We know how much pride you take in your appearance and we don’t want to drag you down from a 10 to a 7 just because we look like a slob. If there was a particular clothing combination that we met you in, and it is appropriate for where we are going, we will replicate that combination. It won’t be the same combo, we aren’t that stupid, it will be just close enough that it should remind you of the night we met.
• Take notice of the actual scent of our deodorant etc. Let’s face it, men get smelly. It’s a fact. We sweat more, we often work in manual labour oriented jobs and we stink. Women on the other hand, do not smell. They go to great lengths to smell great at all times. Men own deodorant purely for the purpose of not grossing out their dates. Before we go out we will actually smell all of our deodorants and attempt to find the one that smells the best whilst retaining a manly vibe. No flowery scents of course, but we actually will take notice.
• Shave and a haircut……two bits. Yes, we actually will groom ourselves. I know that I can go for months without a haircut. It just doesn’t bother me that much when it gets long and messy. The day before a date is almost guaranteed to send me to a hairdresser for a trim. The beard is also likely to get trimmed or removed completely. We know how much you hate spikey stubble. Plus, we also secretly hope that our chance of getting a goodnight kiss or more is enhanced by smooth skin and well manicured whiskers.
• We research where we are going. Be it a restaurant, a beach, a park or whatever. We have put more thought into this one location than the Allies did while planning for D-Day. The date location is our Omaha Beach. We want to know every nook and cranny. In fact, rumour has it that D-Day was actually put into action because Churchill wanted to take his lady to a little bistro in Normandy.
• We plan the drive. If we are picking you up, we have 4 different routes to your house, all mapped out, in order of their likelihood to suffer from traffic congestion and the potential for a late arrival. From your house to the location we will have done the same. We have pored over the maps, committing to memory the route, so that we never have to suffer the indignity of asking for directions, or even worse, pulling over to read the map.
• We budget for the evening. History has taught us nothing if we haven’t learned that we should be prepared to cover every expense of the evening. Sure in the politically correct, equality driven world that we live in, a woman can pay for dinner. We would like that. But odds are that we will pay. We like to pay. It makes us feel important. Failure to budget makes us look like fools. We don’t want that, and so we have paid all our bills, put away the money for our car payments, and sacrificed the carton of beer and men’s magazines that we normally buy each week, just to ensure that we have enough money to pay our way. And all of that happens before we even ask you out.
• We clean our house and wash the sheets on the bed. Well, we all know why we do that, don’t we? There is no way that on the off chance we get lucky, we will be bringing you home to see 3 old pizza boxes, a pile of dirty clothes in the corner of the room, and sheets that appear to have been last changed in the last decade. If we don’t get the chance to do the housework and we do get lucky, we suggest that we should go to your house.
• Almost a subset of the last item, but worth mentioning anyway. Our pets get cleaned also. If we have a dog, it gets a bath. A cat gets thrown out because no self respecting man owns a cat. Snakes and spiders are locked away tighter than political prisoner in pre-glasnost Russian Gulags. Nothing will offend or surprise our lady.
• This is probably the most important one. We have spent the entire time that we have known you collecting tidbits of information like a spy. We know your favourite drinks, your favourite food. The internet has been scoured for music that you like so that it can be in the CD player in the car. Even if we hate the music you listen to. If you once mentioned that you really like a particular deodorant or cologne we have bought it, tested it and make sure that we are wearing it. We have a mental list of things not to talk about. An even longer list of things that we shouldn’t do. Don’t be surprised if we remember things about you that you have already forgotten. If it is even minutely linked to you, we remember it, just in case.

Of course, once we are in a long term relationship, most of these things will disappear. But while we are on the courting trail, we work hard.

Ok, it’s time to lay out some ground rules. No one ever seems to want to set out the rules of dating. People seem to want them to be a mystery, an unknown. I think it just makes it easier to change the rules on a whim.

So, here are some rules that I present for inclusion in the public record. No more hiding from these ones.

1. When a man calls to aks you out on a date, if you don’t want to go out, say so. Don’t accept the date, and then wait till after lunch the day of the date and cancel. You see, we are probably looking forward to it. Odds are that if we asked you out, we might even have adjusted our entire schedule just to make time for you. In fact, we would likely crawl over broken glass while being showered in vinegar just for the chance to spend a few hours in your company.

2. When you make a date and then cancel, do not have plans with friends on that same night. Strangely enough, we won’t mind as much that you cancelled if you spend the night working, or sleeping, or preferably pining away in your bedroom wishing that you were with us. What is guaranteed to piss us off is a cancellation at the last minute, only to find out that you went out anyway, just not with us.

3. Please try and remember that we have made you our first priority. We spend extra money, shuffle our work schedules around, blow off friends invitations to go drinking, and quite often the most important thing, we miss TV programs that we would normally have watched were we not spending an evening with you. Is it too much to ask that we get the same in return?

And now, on a wider note. Avi posted a list of reasons to date a geek. Not only did I laugh as I read the list, but I identified with each and every point. You see, for years now, I have developed a hatred for those pretty boy, different woman every night, use them and abuse them assholes that populate every nightclub and bar in the world. And somehow the women continue to fall for their lines. They fall for the “bad boy”, get crushed by him, and then cry on the geek’s shoulders at the end of it all.

If they really paid attention they would see that the geek, although not covered in muscles and expensive clothes, knows how to treat a woman right. We will respect you, treat you like a queen, and never cheat. We know what it’s like to be alone. We are in it for the long haul, not just tonight.

So ladies, next time you are looking for a date, try your local geek. I’m sure you know him already. He is probably the guy who fixed your laptop last month, or came and hooked up your home theatre system. And he did it all for free. No games, no debts, he just did it because he likes the gadgets and he probably likes you.

That’s right, it’s dance school season at the theatre. What does this mean, you ask? Picture this.

10 local dance schools
Multiplied by
an average of 100 kids between the ages of 4 and 16
Multiplied by
one rehearsal and one concert each
Multiplied by
the 10 or 15 Top 40 songs that will be overused by each dance school

What does it really mean? It’s the nightmarish screams of small children running (or attempting to run) riot in a theatre full of  dark corners, small hidey holes and things that if the wrong lever is pulled can kill you. It’s a run of shows where the teachers (for the most part) have little or no concept of how to present a quality performance.

Little things like accurate cues from a stage manager disappear completely. In professional theatre, cues are generally called in a specific manner. e.g.

“Standby CD Track 12″
“Standby Lighting Cue 15″
“Lighting Cue 15….GO!”
“CD Track 12…GO!”

It’s simple to follow, it’s very specific as to when the cue actually is meant to happen (in fact I once got yelled at by a stage manager for going on the “G” in go and not waiting for the “O”) and there is prior warning so that everyone is ready.

Instead with dance schools we get the following.

“Music……..”
“Music…….”
To which I reply “Is that a go?”
“YES MUSIC GO!!!!”
“Bring the lights up! Pick up Sarah in the followspot!” (Remembering that we have no idea who Sarah is, and if they mentioned that she is the one in the pink leotard while everyone else is in purple it might be easier)

And so on, and so forth, for the next 4 weeks.

Now, while some male readers might be thinking, “Wow, hot girls in lycra who are so flexible that they can bend over backwards and lick their own ankles. That sounds great!”. Take a second to really think about what we watch each night. First there are the dancers who are obviously too young to look at. That’s easy. Then the senior classes come up. Now you have 10 to 30 girls on stage. Some may be old enough, some aren’t, most of them you can’t tell either way and therefore end up avoiding looking at any of them lest you be considered some kind of pervert.

And just when you look on the run sheet and see the adult class coming up, you realise the true disappointment that awaits you. You see, when young girls really want a career in dancing, they tend to stay fit and trim, and they also go and find jobs as showgirls, professional ballet dancers, or strippers. (Don’t say that strippers aren’t talented dancers, they work hard for the money)

Meanwhile, back at the dance show, the adult class is populated by middle aged women who, lets face it, have had a few kids, are not quite the gorgeous young things that they were 15 - 25 years ago, and are really only dancing for something to get them out of the house one night a week.

And so, a potential hottie fest is quickly reduced to the 3 girls that you know for sure are over 18.

Yes, the truth hurts. My job for the next 4 weeks is to not look at women, listen to music that I generally hate, get frustrated over every missed or miscalled cue, attempt to show amazement at the terrible attempts at scenery that the schools arrive with, and to dream of the Dr Hook show that I am mixing mid way through the dance season that will get me my rock and roll fix.

I would still rather be doing this than working in a bank, though. I can take some solace in that.

One of the great things about website statistics is that I can see who is checking my blog, where they are coming from and what they are reading. I know what country the readers are from, what browser they use, what time they read my blog. It’s very cool.

It also shows me how few people are actually reading my site. That doesn’t really bother me. You see, I scan through the logs fairly regularly and see a few entries recurring through the records. And so, here is a short thank you to those who keep coming back that I recognise in the logs.

Lily - you were the first person ever to comment on my blog. You always seem to show up when I am feeling down and cheer my right up. Thank you.

Grumble - a buddy from Frugal’s World. You stick out in the logs as the only person from Japan who visits here. You are a link to my other internet life. Thanks for coming round.

Fatman - you haven’t commented yet, but, your IP is the only hit from Canberra that shows up. I wish we could catch up this weekend when you are up here.

The strangest thing for me is that I am slowly coming to terms with the idea that people I actually know in real life might be reading this blog. I say things here that I probably wouldn’t say face to face. But, I am also getting things off my chest, and that has to be good in the end.

I’m still not sure if this blog will ever have a theme. My mind is just too random to follow one style, or subject for very long. My posts aren’t regular, and don’t have a strict format. I just write whatever is on my mind, whenever I get the urge. Maybe that’s the theme. My blog is my scratchpad.

I’m tired, stressed and pissed off. I haven’t slept more than 4 hours a night in the last week and a half. I’m waking up every morning feeling like death warmed over.

Work isn’t helping. Every day I go in to deal with clients who can’t get their shit together enough to tell me everything that they need for their show. Or, they ring to make a meeting with me, and then don’t answer their phones or the messages that I leave when I try to return their calls.

The office staff still ring me at 8am on my days off. They apologise first, and then ask me questions that they should already know the answers to, leaving me wondering why I even bother.

I feel like I want to stand in the centre of the foyer at the theatre and scream obscenities. Not at anything specific, just a long list of expletives that could be applied to any of the issues that I have to deal with on any given day.

I took the day off today, because if I turned up to work I think I would have lost it completely. For the first time in 2 years, I couldn’t face going in to do my job today. I love my job, I really do. I love doing sound, I love making an event come together without a hitch. But I couldn’t face it.

All day I have been watching my Scrubs DVD’s. That show is almost always guaranteed to cheer me up. Today it just reminded me that I am alone. Ever heard the saying that you feel “alone in a crowd”? That’s me right now. Work isn’t enough to fill the gaps. It doesn’t matter how many people I see on a daily basis. I miss having true conversations about real subjects instead of mindless smalltalk or work.

I haven’t written anything substantial in a while here. Once again, work is getting really busy, in fact, life is just really busy at the moment. At the theatre, currently, we have 45 days straight of events, rehearsals and performances. The end result of that is me working longer hours, lots of nights, and every weekend until the 15th of December.

On top of that I have friends staying at my place. They have come down from Hervey Bay to work on the U2 concert in Brisbane tomorrow night. I have been living alone for the last month now and it’s taking some getting used to having people in the house. I have to close the bathroom door when I have a shower. I have to wear clothes when I walk around the house. (Sorry for the mental images. I don’t pay psychiatrist bills)

My friends in Brisbane keep calling me. There’s a party on this night, we are going to the pub on that afternoon. I have to say no every time. What really kills me is that hanging out with my friends means getting to hang out with Girl A. (A visit from Girl A, A surreal evening, Isn’t it supposed to get easier?) I’m finding myself missing her more and more each day. I miss her matter of factness. I miss just sitting in silence, not needing to talk. I miss her smile. I miss how I feel when I am around her.

I guess all that I can do is wait until the 15th of December.

The Story - By Neil from Citizen of the Month

I love a good story, and this one touches on two of my very favourite things in the world. Magic Orbs.

Read it, love it, tell it to your grandkids. It’s a classic.

Two days off in a row. A luxury in my line of work. So, I spent last night drinking with friends who are down here working on the U2 concert in Brisbane. I got to bed around 3am, looking forward to a nice long sleep in this morning.

7:15am - the trainee from work rings to check what time he needs to come in to work today. I ask him if he checked his voicemail for the message telling him not to come in today. He says he has no credit on his phone so I get pissed at him and hang up.

7:21am - had a smoke and went back to bed

9:06am - office girl from work rings, apologises for calling me on my day off. My brain says, “Well why the FUCK are you calling me then?” Someone from Council needs a portable stage for an event at 6:30am on Saturday morning. I tell her all my crew are working from 10am to midnight on Saturday and there is no way I am calling them in at 5am to lug 4 stage modules to a cemetery in the middle of nowhere, for a 30min ceremony, and then have them work all day.

9:15am - had another smoke and went back to bed.

9:30am - it’s now too freaking hot to sleep so I get up and lie out on the couch and watch TV all day. A few beers, some nice food for lunch (Reheated lasagne), and a good fan and my day is improving. Now I can look forward to another night of beer and bourbon and tomorrow I am definitely sleeping in.

Ok, I have mostly fixed the issues with the webpage that IE was freaking out about while Firefox and Opera displayed it perfectly.  The main page works as expected in IE now, although the individual post pages for some reason show a horizontal and vertical scrollbar.

You know what? That’s good enough for me right now. I mean, surely everyone should know by now that IE is the largest piece of donkey turd ever and should have switched over to Firefox or Opera. So come on people! Get out there, download the excellent alternatives and see my page as it was intended

Or at the very least, reduce the security issues that you get with IE and be safe on the ‘net.