of T-shirts

Yesterday I finished work at 3 PM, and wandered along Oxford Street, killing time.

I stopped in at a sushi place and got one pounds worth of Teriyaki Salmon (one piece), and was temporarily startled when Japanese Man behind the counter yelled 'Zen!'.

'Your shirt! Zen!'

I looked down and realised that he was pointing at the single Kanji character on my black T-shirt.

'Oh yeah. My mother got me this shirt in Japan. I wore it to work today because I figured I could use some Zen.'

Today I am writing and taking care of stuff.

Tomorrow I'm working again.

Over and out.

-J

Hey All

Hey,

Worked today. I'm working tomorrow (a shorter shift). I've nearly finished reading Snow Crash. The thumb seems to okay for the time being. I'm having it x-rayed next Friday instead of this friday because of a work/appointment scheduling clash (I'm definitely not working next friday).

I'm feeling pretty tired.

Over and out.

-J

Hey All

Hey Everyone.

It's Sunday afternoon.

Work is still work, and I worked yesterday. The thumb is still slowing me down, but I'm trying to work around it.

After work some friends of mine from Brisbane were drinking at the Crobar (across the street), and while I was talking to an MA holding Canadian who is currently working as a receptionist, I got a call from the Ed asking me if I wanted to cover a pretty big show in South London tonight. Since I'm not working on Monday I jumped at it.

A note about MA's working as receptionists: when I was younger, it seemed to me that all the people who had degrees were working the same dead end jobs that you could get without degrees. I didn't realise at the time that it's often the degree that determines how dead-end a job is to be for you. Of course, there are always people like Gus, who just thrive and prosper regardless.

Anyways, I've got a few things to do here before I run away to the metal show.

Last night I discovered that the boss had inadvertantly scheduled me to be working when I'm supposed to be reporting to the fracture unit at the University Hospital. Guess I'll have to make some phone calls tomorrow morning and move one thing, the other, or both.

Over and out.

-J

Hi Ho

Apologies for the lack of bloggage lately. I've been busy working, thinking, catching shows, sitting in emergency rooms and other malarkey.

Grab Bag Update:

I'm still working at the cafe. It is hard work, but I'm filing it under character building.

Last saturday I was being talked to by my boss at the top of a flight of stairs, where I somehow fainted and fell down said stairs, managing to sustain no more injuries than a couple of bangs to the head and what was later revealed to be a fractured thumb.

Thumb is currently strapped up decrease movement, and I am still at work doing the best I can with my remaining nine fingers. Showering is a real bitch, because I have to wrap up the strapped hand in plastic bags until I'm satisfied that no water will get in, then try to scrub as much as I can reach with only one hand.

In case I didn't mentiont it, I didn't get the library job, and I have asked for a feedback session to find out what I could do better next time etc. That should take place some time next week.

Tonight I'm staying home, finishing off a review and getting to bed early. Tomorrow I'm working from 1130 to 1930.

It's probably going to be cold tomorrow, but probably not as cold as last Sunday.

Also: the situation with my old phone had become untenable because the three button had all but stopped working. So I went to a mobile shop on Oxford Street and bought the cheapest phone I could find. To be honest, I find the interface a little weird and the features are a little lacking, but all the keys work.

Weirdly, up to the last my old phone showed T-Mobile on the screen even though I have a Virgin sim-card.

In any case, this new phone gives me time to sock away some cash to buy a better phone, as well as do enough research into all the utilitarian issues that surround such a purchase.

Other news? I'll add it as it comes to me.

Over and out.

-J

Day off

Hey all,

Since I'm working part time hours while they train me up, I actually have the day off today, which is good, since last night my shift ended at 2130.

Today I'm taking care of some stuff (throwing clothes in the washer etc), but I'm also prepping to interview a band at about 1700 today. A band that I gave a rather non-commital review in the last AM issue. Should be interesting.

The job is proving to be rather challenging and most interesting, if for nothing else the sheer range of people that come into the caff by virtue of its location.

Other news: Tuesday night I saw The Raveonettes with Kapital K and Geoff, as well at an old school friend and his girl (both now living in London). The support bands were dull as, but the Raveonnettes were atmospheric good fun.

Using the Amazon Voucher that Kapital K gave me for my birthday last year I ordered a couple off books just before my birthday this year, and they arrived last Monday. Yay! So I'm currently chugging through Stephen King's On Writing, which is proving to be really interesting.

In the meantime, I had better get back to the prepping.

-J

Hey All

It has been a while between drinks, I know.

Truth is that I've been on a kind of rollercoaster for the past week and a half, so I haven't had much time or headspace for blogging.

As such, I'm going to give you the whistlestop tour of what has happened lately:

Went to Amsterdam. Flight was as expected, train ride into Centraal was delayed. The Hick had to cancel Utrecht because of illness, so I had 24 extra hours to kill in Amsterdam.

Nearly got pwned by three bicycles and on tram while crossing the street in the first five minutes. Found Die Walle after ten minutes. Wandered around. Marvelled at the wonky architecture (like it was straight out of a Tim Burton movie), the cobbled terraces, the lazy density, bicycles instead of cars, canals everywhere, half naked women in windows within earshot of church bells, English Language bookshops, a shop seeling nothing but brass fittings, tulip bulbs etc.

And that was just the first day.

Everything in Amsterdam was at once alien but strangely familiar, like this was the city I always imagined that I would live in one day. Then again, I haven't been to Berlin yet : )

General faffing about meant that I was too late to book a hotel on Saturday, so I milled around trying to avoid drug dealers, beggars and hypothermia, eventually hunkering down in Centraal train station, waiting for the temperature to rise or a cafe to open. At about 7 in the morning a pack of Dutch Gabbers arrived out of nowhere. For those who don't know, Gabbers are best described as Ravers Gone Bad. They listen to Gabba (hardcore techno) and they wear black trainers, urban camoflage trousers and black fight jackets. And they cut their blonde hair short. They are also renowned for abusing the dirtiest amphetamines and having possible right-wing associations.

And when a pack of twenty of them get of a train, all with murder in their eyes, they can be scary as hell.

Fortunately they took no interest in me.

Sunday:

I wandered about, got some food, did some basic washing and booked into a hotel for one night, determined not to spend another night in the cold in a strange city. Ever.

After five I caught up with Kapital K and headed down to the Hick Hotel, where I chatted to the hicks drummer before we all went for so Thai. I'm not big on Thai, but the Thai here was fantastic, almost making me want to explore Thai further.

Onto the venue, band bumps in, we all chill in the bar. It looks like it is going to be a fizzer, but it turns out that a crowd of people were really just waiting for confirmation that the show was definitely on, because news of the cancelled Utrecht show had put Amsterdam in doubt. Crowd arrives. Hick rock out. Nuff said.

Afterwards kick around folk, people go to bed, I wind up in a gothic club that's closing, I ride on the back of a girl's bicycle having to jump off and run alongside whenever we hit a bridge, I don't get into the club so I head back to the hotel and collapse into bed.

Monday: Wake up too late for Breakfast (d'oh!), wander out, meet K and G at a patisserie, train station, airport, passport control, train to victoria, home, sleep.

Still reading?

Okay, this week:

Tuesday: Do the trial at the cafe. I've been out of the game for a while, so I struggle a little bit. The boss is uncovinced either way, so he offers me another trial on Friday. Giving me feedback, he tells me that from the interview to the trial I was like two different people. I think to myself that I am always two different people: the person I want to be and the person I am.

Wednesday and Thursday I catch up on sleep, finish reading Invisible Monsters by Chuck Pahliunuk and wait for confirmation about the Library Job. Thursday I get the letter: I didn't get it. Damn.

Friday I pull myself out of bed and head to the second trial. The cafe isn't so busy, I make sure that I'm on top of both the kitchen and the floor and I make an effort to move faster. And I smile more.

The boss puts me on some more shifts to train me up.

Saturday: get food, see Planet Terror, sleep.

Sunday: another shift, I clean and reload the drinks fridge (restocking as needed), cover the tables and get started on learning the coffees. Then I'm shown how to close.

After the shift I find a pub for pre-drinks for the Raveonettes show tomorrow night.

Then I go home and collapse.

Today: the books I ordered on Amazon finally arrive. On Writing by Stephen King, Writing for Video Games by Steve Ince and A Theory of Fun (for Game Design) by Ralph Koster. Yay.

Tonight there is a work related function that I'm going to.

That's enough for now.

Over and out.

-J

Hey All

I'm going to be blogging more one the subject at some point in the near future, but for now I have to say that Amsterdam is a brilliant city and that SixFootHick rock like motherfuckers. That and Dutch Gabba kids are really scary when you see a dozen of them turn up at a train station first thing in the morning.

Tomorrow I have the trial for the coffee shop job, so I'm going to rest up tonight.

I'm making a list of questions to drop in to conversation, like 'What is the capacity here?", "What coffees do people usually ask for?", "What are the house specialities/idiosyncrasies?" etc.

Should be fun.

I'm still working out what I should wear.

Over and out.

-J

This is the end...

of a crazy week, and probably the start of a crazy weekend.

Life throws you ups and downs, and some of my friends catergorise these under the headings of Things that Grind my Gears, and Things That Lube My Gears. The gear grinding concept was lifted from an episode of The Family Guy.

Anyways, here's incidents from my week in terms of Gears Ground and Gears Lubed:

Tuesday I received a call asking me if I wanted to come in for an interview at a coffee shop on Charing Cross Road on Friday.

Gears Lubed.

Yesterday a washing machine was delivered (gears lubed), but the blokes that delivered it discovered that there was a leaking valve behind the machine (gears ground). My landlady tried to get on to a plumber, but for whatever reason I didn't get his call (gears ground even more).


Come evening, one of my flatmates was beginning to have kittens, because when the washing machine had been pulled out of it's nice it had released a puddle of fetid water that stank out the kitchen (gears shearing great splinters of steel).

Skip forward to today: my landlady is calling around for another plumber to come around, but he might not be able to make it in the morning. This is a problem for me, because I have the library interview at half one, and the cafe interview at four (not wanting to miss the cafe interview because I was stuck in East End to West End traffic, I had asked for it to have an hour as margin for error).

About quarter to one I head to the train station across the street from my block to take the train to the library where I was to be interviewed. When I get there a chap explains that because of industrial action, the trains going east from that station are erratic to say the least. The next one will be 1320. That doesn't leave enough time to get to the next station then get to the library.

Gears spraying sparks and threatening to shatter under the force of grindage.

I head down to the tube station and take the central line to Stratford, hoping that the action is just one this particular trainline, not all trainlines running in East London. God smiles on me, because the train I need to take from Stratford is running (if I had wanted to go to Highbury and Islington, that would have been a different matter...

I get to the interview, with five minutes to spare.

Gears... turning okay.

The interview goes okay, but I have no idea if I got the job. I get the feeling that I connected and communicated well enough with one of the managers, but the other one might not be sold on me.

Gears happy enough with the result.

I head into the West End and kick around until the interview. The cafe interviewer is really nice, and he tells me to come in for a trial next Tuesday.

Gears pretty damn lubed.

I call home. The plumber hasn't been. I hurry home, getting caught in rush hour tube-age. I get there to discover that the minor leak has turned into one that fills a bucket every half an hour. My flatmate (who works night shifts) is bleary eyed and about to pass out. Still no sign of the plumber.

Gears grinding to a shredded metallic stump.

Plumber arrives, fits new valve. Connects washing machine.

Gears Lubed.

But before he goes, he mentions that there was a lot of water on the floor, and perhaps I should check with anyone who lives downstairs that none of it is coming through their ceiling. I figure that since the leak had been going all afternoon, if any had I would have heard about it by now.

Half an hour later there's a knock on the door and a rather surprised, slightly distraught Irish woman tells me that there is water leaking into her bathroom.

Gears go beyond my capability to describe the damage.

I calm her down, tell her that there was a leak but it has been taken care of, and give her my number to call if there is any more leaking this time tomorrow.

It entirely slips my mind that this time tomorrow I'll probably be at a punk-rock show in Holland.

I take a look behind the washer, try to make sure that nothing is leaking. Then I turn on the washing machine again and go down to them below to ask them to tell me if any leakage is occurring at their end.

So far so good.

Anyways, tomorrow I fly to Holland, Monday I fly back and Tuesday I have the Cafe trial.

Hopefully there will be no more insane gear-grinders for me in my near future.

Kapital K was right. In my life it never rains but it pours.

Over and out and apologies for the long post.

-J

Hey all

Hey Everyone:

A bit of a frustrating day.

The washing machine was finaly delivered, but when the delivery blokes pulled the old washer out, they discovered that there was a loose, leaking valve. IE the kind of thing that needs the attention of a proper plumber.

I called up the landlady to see if she could get a plumber around, but despite her best efforts she couldn't get one this afternoon. She is going to try to get one around first thing tomorrow (it needs to be in the morning, because I need to run away to a job interview at 1230, and I have another interview after that at a coffee shop on Charing Cross Road).

Saturday I need to be out of the house by 0630 in the AM, because I am going to be flying to Amsterdam before taking a train to Utrecht, and I won't be back in London 'til Monday night. Ergo the next time a plumber can deal with the valve is Tuesday.

Meanwhile, rancid water spilt from the old washing machine means that the kitchen currently smells like an open drain.

This isn't good.

Anybody have any ideas about how to unstink a kitchen?

Over and out.

-J