brb

Going to Central America for a month.

Be right back.

A tag of sorts...

It seems I've been tagged again, although this one is quite different from anything else. The lovely, and potentially charming Auburn tagged me by writing 50 things that she wants. Without checking the source of her taggedness I jokingly asked if I was supposed to write 50 things about her also. Actually I'm not sure if it was 50, like her I'll just keep going till I run out of brain workingness. I have decided in my continuing effort to eventually write something entertaining to give this a shot. This is a list of things I reckon Auburn wants but may not have covered yet. Don't be looking for Adamness in these words. I haven't read her blog in the last while or studied her old posts. I don't know if she actually wants these things, I guess time (and possibly the young lady in question) will tell:

I want (read 'Auburn wants(maybe)') to spend sometime with good friends drinking champagne in a life drawing class.

I want to spend a good portion of a day reading books in borders.

I want random acts of funness.

I want to dance the best dance with a random boy and never know his name.

I want a stranger to come up to me and declare I have lovely titanic hair.

I want to have hot chocolate in Melbourne with a surprising entertaining young man.

I want to illustrate a childrens' book about a grandfather clock that watches the generations go by.

I want to go back to Nice.

I want someone to hold me while I watch lightning strike the water.

I want to race through the streets of Tokyo on a sports motorbike.

I want to make tea in a mountain shack that can only be found after days of hiking.

I want to have a cafe where everyone knows my name.

I want someone to give me a knowing insight to where my life is headed.

I want to find myself in a little village in Scotland that no other traveller has visited.

I want to find breakfast made and ready when I get out of bed.

I want to rest and get my mojo back stronger than ever.

I want a random travelling stranger to take the best photo of me ever and show their friends and family in their own country.

I want one deep soulful beautiful song that I can kareoke out better than anyone else.

I want to be stood up by a friend at a bar and be completely adopted by the fun group at the next table.

I want to have old vinyls that someone searched a city for.

I want a peach.

I want to go to someone's house and play on their slip 'n' slide.

I want to go to an art gallery and have an artist explain the emotions behind his work.

I want an excuse to tease my hair and pull out all the awesome daggy dance moves of the eighties.

Freakin' smart alecs

A couple of my "friends" from Sydney got wind of that website thing I finished, here, for your reading pleasure are their completely unprovoked e-mails:

"

Hi Adam. Hi.

I'm weighed down by the weight of my work (and a fat-a-gram that I got from the Salvos downstairs). But I thought I'd check in and say hi.

hi.

I'm sending this email via your hot website. Its so hot, i burnt my clicking finger just perusing through its graphical interface.... (Is my nerd showing?) I'd better tuck that away. I trust melbourne is somehow satisficing you and your raging, nay violent, erection for the southern metropolis is so hard that Lend Lease have commissioned you to dig the foundations for a high rise.

I'd better get back to it, but know that my eyes are glistening like so much glycerine just thinking about you (and Pluck-a-ducks corageous battle with beak cancer)"

---------------------------------

Hi,

I am Freida, a 15 year old female farmhand from khazakstan, I have recently fled my opressive regeime and am in need of some work. Whilst searching for some information on Funky Towns I stumbled across your website. I am in dire need of money and would be prepared to pose for modelling photos for your site. I also posess skills in hay bailing, ploughing, shaving oxen, animal husbandry, yak herding, yodelling, knot tying, clog making, mud piling, coal lumping and carrying things on my head. I am 6 foot tall and quite developed for my age. I am not afraid of hard work, but I am afraid of tadpoles and Gary Glitter. I am willing to work for food, clothing and shelter, and my only dietry requirements are that I am a lactose intolerant, coeliac vegan on a liquids only diet. My religion prohibits me from eating during waking hours, and I dont like apples.

Please Please Mr Adam can you find it in the goodness of your heart to help me?

I also have a price on my head, and a band of ruffians from the Khazakstani hill tribes are trying to find and kidnap me.

Please send your reply to: goodsort@refugee_shack.com

Thank you

Freida"


See what I have to deal with? Freakin'!

Home

Why Adam, I do believe you are on holidays and seem to be enjoying the world as it was meant to be enjoyed. That's excellent. I would like to ask, however, have accomplished anything in your time away from the working world?

Why Internet, how lovely of you to ask.
Yes, I have been enjoying my time on holidays - I do find life is so much more productive when not restricted to a single brain-deadening workplace. I have done many things, but accomplished not much. I have been preparing for my little OS jaunt which is at the current countdown of 11 days.

Accomplished not much? Surely you've single-handedly achieved something?

Um, I bought some malaria tablets today, does that count?

Hrrump! What about that website you were working on?

Oh yeah, I actually just finished that moments ago, and I forgot already. The website is here would you, dear internet, like to check it out and let me know if it's bodgy dodgy?

Fairies

This is my cute little friend who is quite a successful childrens entertainer in Melbourne. She has only recently started her small business and loves her work. I took the photo of her that she then got a friend to add the twinkles and mushroom and happiness and joy. She was totally fun to work with and a total perfectionist, so it took us a few shots to get everything good. She's amazing with kids, which I secretly think is because small children are the only people shorter, cuter and littler than her. She always pulls out magic tricks and I always always spend freakin' days trying to figure them out.

Now, she is good at what she does and she's booked out months in advance, all her competition is similarly cute and good with kids.

Wait. Hold up. Did I say 'all'?
Check out what I found when I was researching ideas.
My friends, I give you, prominent childrens entertainers in Melbourne:



The scary fairies?

The cleavage fairies?

The skanky hoe fairies?


'Available for under 5s birthday parties/Bucks nights'

James

We caught him.
Actually, we caught both of them.

I was holding down the one from next door, I don't even remember his name. James was held down by his brother, my best friend, in the hallway of their house near the bedroom the boys shared.

"Why did you do that?" I asked the little kid from next door.

"I felt like it." Bang. I knocked his head into the carpet. Hard.

"Why do you always have to annoy us?" Daniel asks his brother James.

"Why do you have to annoy US?" he retorts. Daniel grips his neck and squeezes.

I don't remember what they did, or what we were doing. I remember that they were bored and we were aggressive teenages, and they got in our way as little kids do, and we tried to control them by inspiring fear. It didn't work. It never does.

I knocked the kid's head into the carpet a few more times. I even felt like I was being mean but we were trying to teach them a lesson.

I held James while his brother pulled his pants down. Their sister came screeching in and yelled at everyone. She always did completely overreact. James pulled his pants back up. I looked at him and his eyes were so angry and hurt and embarrassed.

The little kids ran off.

Months later, we moved away to another suburb. We tried to organise funness with the kids we spent everyday with, but we needed to be driven around and it was all too hard.

James died in the age of eight.

He collapsed in that hallway of a brain aneurism.

We found out about it months later, my Dad told us. Later still, we organised bowling and movies with them. I expected them to be crying in our arms, I was emotionally ready for it. They were normal and fun, James had been dead for 8 months.

Gone was the bunkbed, the room converted into a single bedroom. A huge picture was placed into the family room. James really was a happy kid.

A couple of years later I hung out with Daniel again, we went to the sychronised music/fireworks thing they used to have. The fireworks never quite matched up to the songs because light goes way faster than sound.

He had grown up much faster than I, he had been in fights and kissed girls and teased me because I hadn't. I was in highschool, I didn't know any girls.

Now, I wouldn't recognise any of the family if I passed them in the street. I look out for the sometimes.

I regret not being there at all for my once bestfriend and I regret the only real memory I have is the one above - we spent everyday for years together. I always wonder, would I remember James at all if he lived happily ever after, and if that were the case, would I need to?

Bloggolympics Event 3

Okay, so I'm aware that Bloggolympics Event 2 hasn't happened yet, I'm saving that for when I have another incredibly boring desk job where no one can see my computer. We have completed, though, the Bloggolympics Event 3 which was not a competition but rather a collabrative effort from many very excellent bloggers.

And without too much further ado more than necessary any more:

The Story.


Two or three days ago, a bus was motoring along the long straight road in the desert on it's way to the red centre of Australia. Uluru was the ultimate destination, still a couple of days away. Quite strangely the bus was filled with a high ratio of attractive people, who did not know each other, but, quite amazingly knew of each other via the internet. At this
point in the story, that little truth had not been realised by any.

After hours and hours of the flat landscape, Adam found himself no longer interested in looking out the window. He turned to the young lady two seats down and asked "Hey, how are you? Where are you going?".

The young lady stared blankly at Adam. "How are you?" Adam asked again. The lady dropped her head and looked at her feet, embarrassed. "I'm alright." She replied. "So, are you heading to Uluru?" Adam asked. The girl nervously tucked her fringe behind her ear and replied "Yes." An awkward silence fell between the two and Adam begun to regret choosing this nervous girl to alleviate his boredom. Yet, she seems interesting Adam thought. Why was she going Uluru? Who for? Adam could tell she had a story to tell and Adam loved stories.

But lo! Before he could find out any more about this intriguing young woman, he was struck sharply in the side of the head by an apostrophe, which clattered to the floor by his foot. "That's strange," thought Adam. "Who's throwing punctuation around?" It turned out to be two individuals sitting four seats back and on the opposite side of the aisle, who were now watching him and sniggering to themselves like mischievous school children; a strange looking man wearing a Muppet tee-shirt and an American woman who appeared to be quite discontented. "Hey dude," said Adam, not wanting to start anything, but feeling that the rather surreal choice of projectile needed to be addressed, "What's up?" Suddenly, the quiet, shy, reserved young woman Adam had been talking to startled everyone on the bus by standing up, grabbing her blouse, and tearing it open. When she was sure she had everyone's attention (which she surely did), she yelled the following at the top of her lungs:

"I am Queen of the World!" Immediately, the typically genteel Adam hit her in the head for quoting such a horrid movie. He then, because he had to regain genteel status, covered up her exposed chest to keep the muppet man from ogling her too ostensibly. "Well, that was quite entertaining!" the muppet man exclaimed. "I wonder who she is and what possessed her to show her assets to the bus at large?" pondered the disconcerted American. "In my country, you don't show any goods that you're not willing to sell." Adam, still alarmed beyond reason at the horrid movie quote, moved to check on the girl who had so intrigued him. "Thank you for whopping me, the silence on the bus was too much for me to handle, we needed an ice breaker, no matter how atrocious!" Suddenly, a woman with the most amazing jewellery stood and rushed to her side. "Do not thank him for whopping you, give him a good whop of your own! You're allowed to make inane movie references! It's a free
world." The girl could not speak. Though the hit had taken her aback, she was breathless at the beauty of the jewellery the woman was wearing. "Where did you get such an amazing necklace?" "I made it myself." said the young woman proudly. She then shrank from her commanding 5 foot plus height to a mere 2 feet. Before her moan of horror had faded, her features solidified
and her breathing ceased. She had turned into a doll.

The girl was slightly horrified by the doll lying on the floor in front of her, but the jewelry was still life-size and as beautiful as ever. The girl reached down to pick up the doll and she turned it over in her hands several times. She wondered if it was all a cruel joke, planned out by Adam, the muppet man, or even the doll-woman herself, and she waited pensively for
someone to yell, "Gotcha!" She looked around the bus and realized that no one else seemed bothered by the woman's sudden transformation to a doll. In fact, it seemed that no one else had even noticed. As she waited for the next stop, she looked at the jewelry more closely and became mesmerized by its beauty. Each stone was cut and polished to perfection and the shiny
silver setting reflected every ray of sunlight. The bus was slowing down and the girl made a quick decision. Just as the doors opened, the girl grabbed the necklace from the doll's neck and shoved it in her purse. She ran off the bus, leaving the doll behind.

Quick decisions, it is often said, give us time to repent at leisure - or something like that. This case was no exception. Two hurried steps off the bus and the girl ran into a pretty pair of transvestites of the genus so commonly found in small towns along bus routes in outback Australia. 'Ran into' is something of an understatement. She bowled them, and herself,
over. Never had there been such a proliferation of fake boobage and startling jewellery littering the streets [well, not since before the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras went broke, anyway]. As a hiccough to her plan to find the nearest ladies, which, in a sense, she had, and privately peruse her recently acquired bauble, she knocked herself out in knocking the
trannies over. By a twist of fortune the second person off the bus was Adam, self-consciously carrying a largish doll, who, in his kind way immediately set out to help the trio but mostly found himself awkwardly picking up fake breasts. The third person off the bus was somewhat more practical and, with a muttered 'dumbarse' in Adam's general direction, went to help the poor inert girl who was looking all modern art on the pavement.

After doing all the pragmatic pulse checking type things she moved the girl into a sitting position and lightly slapped her face. Surprisingly, the girl came to murmuring, 'oh no, not again' and something about petunias. Pragmatic woman (because she quite obviously was) then called out to Adam,'hey you, dumbarse, let go those tits and gimme a hand', which he did.

However, just as Adam was about to go to the aid of the indolent young girl on the sidewalk the doll reclaimed her life force and became all legs and arms shooting out like GoGoGadget. In an instant she was far too heavy for the tenuous Adam. As he stepped backwards to try and regain his footing, his heel landed on one of the silicone breasts and both he and the non-doll went crashing into the gutter. The Muppet man, who had been watching the chaos unfold through the bus window, had seemingly been waiting for this opportunity. The effervescent Adam, was down and out. Muppet man leapt off the bus, clearing all three steps in one flying pirouette. He reached into the side pocket of the dazed Adam's tweed (yes, tweed) jacket, and plucked a
black trapezoid-shaped electronic device from it. "Haha!" he cackled.

Meanwhile, the pretty transvestites had managed to find their feet and were truly affronted by the tacky green colour of the Muppet man's t-shirt. As he straightened up holding the trapezoid and feeling victorious, he was crash tackled back onto the bus in a flurry of feather boas. The Pragmatic woman moved to intervene on the Muppet man's forced make-over leaving the young girl alone. She took her wide-eyed chance and grabbed both the necklace and the trapezoid and sprinted off down the dusty road.

She ran until her legs could no longer carry her and she was so hot she sweated profusely out of her cooch. The sweat ran down her legs, flowing like a tranquil mountain stream towards the handsomely decorated Evian bottling facility at the foot of the mountain. Legs-a-quivering, she took a brief respite on a large boulder protruding from the barren desert sands. She passed the trapezoid and necklace back and forth in her hand, in an attempt to feel their significance. It reminded her of when she would run through the suburban Sydney streets, looking for items that other people had discarded or lost. These trinkets became her treasure and took pride of place on the shelf next to her bed. She would lull herself to sleep every night in that tiny terrace house in Willowdale, staring at the items on her shelf, imagining histories for them all. Sometimes she would see these items in her dream, in the possession of other people. She wondered if the people were the real owners of the items and she had, some how, channelled them or maybe even taken a part of them along with the item. She passed the trapezoid and necklace back and forth in her hand one last time before placed them in her pocket, wiping the sweat from her brow/cooch and heading back down the desert road to her destination. She knew where she had to go.

But where she had to go and where she wanted to go were two very different places, and so far apart....and as she walked she pondered, as one does in stories as such...

To go to where all things were fabulously fruity, Omni was always on sale and life had a comforting familiarity...or to continue down that desert road, into the unknown.

So she stopped...to flip a coin that had amazingly appeared out of nowhere. It flicked up into the air, catching the sunlight as she watched and smiled...then squealed as she forgot to move out of the way and it hit her square on the nose.

Tails.

Except she had actually forgotton to define which place was heads and which was tails. She sighed, one of those big deep sighs that belongs in angst filled soap operas and lined the coin up to flip it again when that familiar jingle filled the air and a cloud of dust rose up along the road.

Could it be?? Well not entirely, because moments like these you always need Minties, but the next best thing was always - Mr Whippy!

In her need for a sugar fix it didn't occur to her that it was perhaps a bit strange to find a Mr Whippy truck on a desert road, not until she had finished her clown face chocolate dipped icecream, complete with a free flake because she smiled nicely at the man.

So she widened her eyes and made the appropriate 'silly me what was I thinking...I should have got a banana milkshake as well' gesture with her hands and ran towards the SAS helicopter that was just touching down over the other side of the road (checking both ways for cars first of course).

Unfortunately in her very literal run-in with the transvestites, a fake breast gone awry had caused her to lose some of her peripheral vision (as they sometimes are known to do), and she didn't see that the Mr. Whippy truck had turned around and was heading right at her. BAM! In one second, she was off her feet, flying through the air until she landed with a thud near the helicopter. She lay motionless. Is this how it would end for her? Death at the hands of a fake boob and a smiling ice cream cone? And with no banana milkshake to speak of? But wait…who was that getting out of the helicopter? No, it couldn't be. She rubbed her eyes and suddenly she was looking up into the face of…

A very plain looking male, you would swear that, if you did not see him with your own eyes, he was completely invisible … "I do apologise, but….. aarrrh what's wrong with your …. Ooooh sorry I don't mean to stare but is your, you know, boob, supposed to look like that … I don't have a great deal of experience with these things, but.. sorry, sorry, sorry I've digressed … you see, I've just hijacked this SAS helicopter and well don't have the foggiest idea how it works".
Could it be that this bumbling fool could be pathetic as he appeared, surly not. With head flicking from side to side between the pretty, albeit somewhat misshapen and well, let's face it apparently doomed girl and the Mr Whippy van with it tempting treats which caused the girls potentially fatal injuries, our antihero lightens the girls load to the tune of one pretty necklace that will surely attract the females of the opposite sex to him (if he were ever to meet any) and an odd looking trapezoid that may well come in handy later. He orders a banana milkshake, which he suddenly felt an overwhelming desire for, from the Mr Whippy van, abandons his stolen SAS chopper and toddles off down the dusty road, in the wrong direction … obviously.

He walks off at an uneven pace, much like the way this story was told. Before his figure disappears he stumbles a few times. Each time it looks like me may fall but something keeps him upright. I know what you're thinking here: God, right? But you're wrong. God doesn't exist in a place like this. It's not that it's harsh and unforgiving. Far from it: God doesn't exist here because it isn't possible. He might exist in a place LIKE this, though. How can I explain it? Don't you hate it when you read a story and the narrator has no idea about what he's saying and the plot is all jagged. You wish that halfway through you could take him back to the store and exchange him for someone like Morgan Freeman. But we're almost at the end so I guess I should finish.

You see, the trapezoid is the key here. The trapezoid links all the different worlds together. There's the world where God exists--your world--and there is this world. While it might be similar, the trapezoid holds the minor differences. I'll pause for a moment because I know--I know because I was in the same position once--that you're asking what the point of all this is. Well, the truth is there is no point. The trapezoid just gets off on power.

Next time you see a trapezoid don't just pass by. Snatch it. Look deep into it. Deep into it's core. You just might see a dusty desert road, a disgarded helicopter, and a bus carrying people to no real destination. They think they know where they're going. But the trapezoid knows the truth. The trapezoid holds their fate. It holds their world; their lives. And who am I? I guess you could say I'm the one who holds the trapezoid.

Quotes from the weekend

Helga: "Rachael and I are going on a 5 hour hike tomorrow morning."
Adam: "Whoa, we should do stuff like that too in preparation for our trip."
Helga: "Then come along."
Adam: "We would but ahhh..."
Helga: "Are you doing anything tomorrow?"
Adam: "Um, I'm not."
Cara: "I don't have anything planned."
Helga: "Then come along."
Adam: "Okay cool. We will."

7 hours later.

Cara: "What are we doing? We must be idiots."
Adam: "I've got everything, let's go."
Cara: "I'm scared."
. . .

Rachael: "Good morning."
Adam: "Good morning."
Helga: "Good morning."
Cara: "Can I use your toilet?"
. . .

Helga: "Whooo! We're here."
Rachael: "Yay!"
Cara: "Where is the nearest toilet?"
. . .

Cara: "That last hill was a killer."
Helga: "Why aren't you puffing?"
Adam: "I'm a boy, I can't believe you are doing the Oxfam 100km walk again this year, that's so freakin' hardcore."
. . .

Adam: "How come I have to put on a million miles of sunscreen and long sleeves and pants and you just get to swan around in a singlet and shorts?"
Cara: "I can't believe how uninvinceble to the sun you are!"
. . .

Helga: "Here is the halfway point."
Cara: "That wasn't so bad."
Adam: "Man, I can feel it all in my calves."
Cara: "I need to find a toilet, I've been holding on for the last hour."
. . .

2 hours later.

Adam: "Are you okay honey?"
Cara: "Yeah, I just want to get there now."
. . .

1 hour later.

Cara: "Oh my god."
Rachael: "I think I'm going to throw up after that last hill."

1 hour later.

Adam: "Whoa. That bit was tough."
Helga: "Let's wait up for Rachael and Cara, I can't see them."
. . .

Adam: "Are you okay? I'll walk with you now."
Cara: "My god, I don't think I can go much further."

1 hour later.

Adam: "I don't remember this fork in the road, where are Rachael and Helga?"
Cara: "Rachael's phone is out of reception."
Adam: "Excuse me, did you see two young ladies walk this way?"
Random old ladies walking past: "Yes, they must have gone down that way, towards the carpark."
Adam: "Thank you."
. . .

Cara: "I don't remember this hill being so steep coming up."
Adam: "Actually, I think I do remember this bit."
Cara: "I remember this hairpin."
. . .

Adam: "What the hell, where are we?"
Cara: "I'm calling Helga."
Cara: "Uh. We have to go back."
Adam: "Whoa."
. . .

Cara: "I don't think I can make it back up that hill."
Adam: "Take your time."
. . .

Cara: "I just can't.."
Adam: "It's just up there, have a rest."
. . .

Adam: "We made it! Now, we have to keep on this track here to find Rachael and Helga."
Cara: "Oh my god, look how steep this hill is!"

20 minutes later.

Adam: "There they are."
Helga: "Cara, are you alright?"
Cara: "I just can't...."
Rachael: "We're nearly there."
. . .

30 minutes later.

Adam: "Cool."
Rachael: "Yay!"
Helga: "Wahoo!"
Cara: "I need to go to the toilet."
Helga: "I'll be doing this again next week if anyone wants to come along."

The next day.

Cara: "How was your day?"
Adam: "Not bad, got some new lights, got freakin' stood up again by some model chick, went to the gym."
Adam: "How was your day, lady?"
Cara: "It was good..... except everyone was teasing me because I can't freakin' move."

Event 3

Who wants to finish off the Bloggolympics Event 3?

How about that Adam?

So kids, I am back.

"Back from whence you came?" I hear you say, dude that doesn't make sense. Speaka the english.

I am on holidays, and people on holidays try not to touch their computers, hence my deadness.... but, because I missed you all so, I am back. Funner and more awake than ever!

The countdown to the overseas funness is 23 days and counting. I've had shots and way gross medicines, I've bought travel pants and long sleeve breatheable wicking tops so that I might look exactly like a backpacker no matter where in the world I might be. I've forgotten all the Spanish I learnt and I'm getting excited.

Christmas was actually funner than I thought it would be. I got Cara a piano and a camera and some travel stuff, she got me some DVDs and whatnot. One was Nepoleon Dynamite which I could watch a fair few times and some Astroboy cartoons and stuff. We had an orphans Christmas lunch/dinner at our house which was crazy fun and involved no family. I gave my family 1 hour on Christmas morning which actually turned out to be fun too and Cara's big mammoth Boxing Day thing was pretty alright too. All my Christmas hangups and dislikes were completely unfounded this year. Go away Christmas Baggage! I bequethe thee!! P.S) I don't actually know what that means.

New Years was New Years. It was fine.

I am on the computer now to start making a photography website. I did one photoshoot on Wednesday and have 3 more booked next week. That is, if I don't accidentally get a 10 day contract which I don't really want to do, but should be professional and actually do it.
Here is a couple of the shots:





I may disappear from time to time, but I really am fond of you crazy kids. Peace.