THEN KILL CAPITALISM
P.S. GOOD LUCK
in our last episode... | p_i-logs | and then, all of a sudden...
I am being charged with a group of 13 other people, none of whom I know, and the charges aren't necessarily applied equally to everyone in the group. Apparently, charging the arrestees was complicated, and the public defenders had to demur due to the vagueness of the police reports, which were uninformative. Arrestees were charged in groups partly to save on paperwork, a fact I could not make up.
The group I am apparently being affiliated with is charged with:
Essentially, the charges are rioting, planning to riot, rioting without a permit, and staying at a riot, which to my mind boils down to rioting, but hey, I don't write the laws.
Because of the conspiracy charge, the judge decided that it would be a conflict of interests for any one attorney to represent more than one arrestee, and will thus be appointing private attorneys to represent the vast majority of those arrested. The first two defendants will have separate court appointed attorneys, but as there are only two public defenders in the county, the rest of us are getting farmed out. This is a good thing, since being tried in a group carries assumptions of guilt with it - it's harder to exhonorate a group than an individual. Having a private attorney could also be good, since public defenders are notoriously stressed out. I will be assigned an attorney on my new court date, which is May 21. Until then, I'll be freaking out quietly.
three (out of five) of us snickered
Not a lot, mind you, just a quick, reflexive laugh. Because his idea was so stupid and impossible as to be funny.
Now to understand, mine is a small company with a lot of very smart people in it...and a lot of openness about ideas...but people are frank about what they think. So we weren't guarding our reactions, the laughs just slipped out. But my boss kinda freaked...I don't remember if it was just a raised voice or a yell, but he made it clear that he was hurt, then angry.
I tried to apologize or make some excuse...he would not hear of this, and started raising his voice again, whereupon the most senior team member got up to leave. He said he wasn't going to sit and listen to arguments like this...then my boss said You don't have the option to leave. Well my senior co-worker has been around longer at the company than the rest of the team combined, and he figured that he had the right to leave in the middle of a silly outburst.
Anyhow, both me and the senior member tried to apologize, but my boss would still have nothing to do with this. He yelled at someone yesterday also, and ours is not a company where people go around yelling.
Fortunately, I do not depend on my boss for anything, including supervision, review, raises, or job security. He, however, depends on us for knowledge of what is going on and what should go on.
Still, a crappy situation.
The exam went pretty well. I was far from fluent, but that's not the goal of a first-year class. I was able to communicate what I needed to.
Since my last day-log, I have won a scholarship/internship with Sun Microsystems in Palo Alto, CA for 2 months this summer so I am really looking forward to that. I haven't been to the States since I was 12, I haven't even left England for 4 years. I will be working with their Java development people and it's great CV material. I don't go until July so this means that, after I finish my exams in 10 days, I have 6 whole weeks to catch up with all of those little jobs that I keep putting off since starting university. These include re-learning how to play the piano.
Look out! He's got a tomato!
I would like to share a story related to me by a housemate yesterday. I don't think it merits its own node (although the title would certainly be a good one) so I will write it here:
We were discussing Scientology and my friend mentioned a photograph of L. Ron Hubbard that showed him performing a psychology test on a tomato plant. For a laugh, he thought it would be fun to get his brother to photograph him outside the Dublin Church of Scientology (now closed, apparently) holding a tomato next to the "Free Psychology Test" sign in the window.
As they started taking some pictures, they were spotted by people inside and someone went to remove the sign from the window. As they did so, they exclaimed,
"Look out! He's got a tomato!"
Sat up to watch a thunderstorm. It is the first one I have seen in a long time and I wasn't disappointed. The lightning was particularly spectacular and the perpetual orange glow of the street lights gave the lightning a mauve tinge. The thunder was enough to rattle the windows of my room (but that might just be due my dodgy windows).
It finally passed after an hour so I went to bed.
I live in a happy house. Gemma loves me, our new puppy Paddy is getting on famously with his adoptive big sister Molly (they play fight for hours at a time and never stop smiling and chasing each other) and I'M HOME HALELUJAH.
Five bloody long days in Sydney at head office. All good. Pitched to a new telco today, who fully grooved on us. Excellent feeling, since one or two recent pitches haven't gone quite so swimmingly.
Anyway, I've only another week to work at the agency until I hopefully start at the industry association. I've met the chairman (doing his due diligence thing), and am to meet the full board on Monday night (in Syd again). They're gaggin' for me. Heh.
Shouts to my great mate break who is also having a few interesting changes in his work, and to the awesome r_p who is about to be an official teacher.
The AI game has kept me from E2 for a little while, and it is super fascinating, but when I check back in here it feels like home. I'm a lucky guy.
Thursday 22:00 Canberra
Tuesday went rather well until the end of work when I attended a meeting about the soon-coming 5S program. Just some jackass telling us the profound affects painting everything white will have on our work, and some other bullshit about what their numbers tell them we should do. The guy tried to relate to our being tired because he was hired in August and worked third shift for two months... All I could think was "um.. yeah, how many of my buddies had to be laid off so you can so you can pull this shit, and now you're gonna tell me some of them had more seniority than you." As I was leaving the meeting I realized one one my contacts was missing, but I was too tired to go back for it... I drove home through the rain with one eye closed. When I got back I threw out my remaining contact and grabbed my glasses which were broken... one of the arms was missing. As I was trying to flex the remaining arm so the glasses would sit somewhat strait on my face, SNAP... I laughed. I discovered flexing ones face to balance glasses on one's nose causes tremendous headaches.
I slept for a while, noded for a bit, and I was about to go meet zot for some coffee before work when I realized my car had been towed. Damn... second month in a row I forgot about the street sweeping (second Tuesday of every month). I decided to call off work and do some drinking... It was great. I chatted in the catbox with a glass of Jameson whiskey and played "The Happiness Boys" in the background... very relaxing. I had organized for a friend to pick me up at eight a.m. to go get my car, and we did just that ($72). I drove back home for more sleep. When I awoke I was gonna go out for smokes and realized something was wrong... my car had been towed again.........I feel like a jackass. As it turns out, the other side of the same street does street sweeping the second Wednesday of every month. Zot drove me to the impound lot after he got off work ($72). They just crossed out the first serial number and date and rewrote it a little lower on my window so everyone knows I'm an idiot. A guy at the impound lot was having problems of his own so I decided to help out and take him to a check cashing place so he could get his car out as well. I felt a little better after the good deed.
on my way to work last night my right eye started burning... After rubbing it for a while, a contact fell out... it was hiding the whole time. I am gonna get soooo drunk this weekend.
So for now on, I'm be keeping the top headlines from around the world here. If there are any sources I'm not using that you recommend, please /msg me. Do you know an english language paper in South America or Eastern Europe that updates daily? Let me know please.
Without further ado, here is today's top news from around the world:
The BBC's Top Headlines:
The New York Times' Top Headlines
China Daily (Chinese Government -- www.chinadaily.com.cn) Top Headlines
Panapress (African www.panapress.com) Top Headlines
Other than that, my girlfriend has gone back down to London for the weekend and it's the The Fantastic Manchester Booze-Fueled Britnoder Bash. Britnoders and otherwise are all invited!
Last night was not one of those times.
My fiance and I went to visit a friend of ours last night. This girl is...well, you wouldn't believe it if I told you. They were each other's firsts, in a lot of things (except possibly the marriage proposal part of it). They've known each other for about 10 years or so now. I don't know the whole story, and I don't want to. Ask him. I, on the other hand, hated the girl for a very long time. It's hard not to, when you're competing for the attention of your own first boyfriend with someone he'd never dated and probably hadn't a chance with. And then she wound up dating someone else that I had it bad for (at the time -- I still adore the guy, just not in that way), which hurt even more. Even though it was unintentional on her part. In time, I got over it. And I met her, which helped, so we get along just fine now.
Anyway, we had dinner with her somewhere in the Village or something like that. She brought along one of her lovers. Yes, I did say "one of".
I said I liked the girl, I never said she was "normal"!
We all had a good time. We had dinner, walked around the city for a while, spent some time at her place in Alphabet City, and then my fiance and I went home.
When we got home, it was really late, and we should have gone to sleep, but we stayed up and watched some porn on Skinemax instead. Got to have your priorities, you know.
So, maybe it wasn't what we did last night that would disturb onlookers. Maybe it was just the group of people. Or, maybe it was the fact that while my fiance, the other girl's lover, and I were walking to the F train stop at 2nd and Houston Streets, someone stuck his head out of a cab and asked us if we were all gay. I know I'm a little tall, but I do have breasts!
Ah well. I had a good time, and I don't care what anyone else thinks.
I work in a psychiatric hospital and so I am used to seeing blood, urine, and various other body fluids on the floor. I have found still burning cigarettes, discarded pills and personal notes. It would take hours to describe the things I have seen left behind. But until today I had never seen flowers.
Why is this so odd, so touching? The rarity of their appearance or their appearance at all?
I dream of my beer while I sit through the unbearable stack of papers at work. I dream of an ice cold Icehouse beer. I dream of eating a pizza with that beer and frolicking through some meadow with an old girlfriend, or with my bosses wife, wait he's divorced.
I dream of taking a sledgehammer to work and destroying every damn computer that they tell us to "just reboot" while at the same time executing the center manager and all the girls who turned me down.
I dream of telling my parents that I smoke a pound of marijuana every week and that I sleep with at least 13 girls a week and that I shot heroin at least 5 times a day.
I dream of kicking my brother 1 million times in the ass. Then 1 million times in the face. And finally 1 million times in his balls. (if any)
I dream of killing the following bands and musicians: Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, Brittany Spears, Christina Aguilera, Garth Brooks, 3 Doors Down, Eminem, Dr Dre and a bunch of other evil music people that make crappy music.
I dream of riding the bomb, while it falls with an unbelievable force towards the President of China. (Yeee-haaa) I dream of stealing a car from Jeff Gordon and taking it for a joy ride in down town Atlanta. I dream of breaking in to the locker room of the Pittsburgh Pirates and threatening them with an AK-47 to play better damit.
Finally I dream of going back to the woods and killing Bambi, since I already killed and ate his mom for lunch. I dream of killing some endangered spices out there that the environmental groups would get pissed about.
cue music
Last night was pina colada night at the house. No occasion, but who needs an excuse when it's a nice warm afternoon? Truth be told, I had been thinking about it overnight, and the fridge had finally done it's work on the pineapple and coconut milk. I empty the can of coconut milk into our blender and throw in some chunks of frozen pineapple, and follow that with enough rum to get the gears moving.
Two batches later, my housemates and I feel less bad about the case of pineapple I picked up at SFO on Tuesday night. It was just going around and around on the baggage carousel, utterly forsaken by the passengers from Maui who had been standing around an hour waiting for their golf clubs.
I would like to thank Lynn Thomas for the pineapples. They were quite delicious and would not have made it to Chicago with the rest of your lost luggage.
Hmm? What was I doing at the airport on Tuesday night? Picking up women; my girlfriend and her mother were flying back from a wedding in Chicago.
I find myself trying to at least attempt to finish this story in a tasteful fashion, without it sounding like some kind of Harlequin romance. Readers and friends be warned, I have no idea how any of this came about. I'm still trying to figure out if it really happened. That's my disclaimer and I'm sticking to it.
I had to get up in the morning, Chip had to get up, Grrmly had to finish his shift at work. Yet we found ourselves drunkenly walking down past my apartment to Grrmly's. We NEEDED to see the dogs, and the boys were getting on almost TOO well. It was scary, these two compact powerhouses just bursting with energy and
