The Bracks government has thrown pantloads of pre-election cash at Victoria’s utterly shitful highway system ( seriously… cross the border into ANY other state and it will become painfully obvious how bad it is ), and as such, most aterial roads are in the midst of major works. To the outsider or the uneducated, it’s hard to see what exactly what all the road crews and yellow machines are doing - but by golly, don’t they look busy?

Take a look at this picture for example. Pay attention to the carefully laid out saftey cones, the idle Caterpillar grader and cone carrying truck, and the three “supervisors” watching the lone green digger inexplicably dragging it’s bucket in along the roadside. There are also two “lollipop men” (out of camera shot) controlling traffic at each end of the “works”. I imagine at this rate the 1.56m dollars allocated to “upgrading” this stretch of road should be used up in no time!

But Mr Bracks, I am onto you. I know what this is all about. I have worked in this business, and I know a thing or two about roadworks. I don’t think you’re actually doing anything to the roads. I believe, the plan instead, is to periodically and completely randomly, slow traffic on main interstate roads to a crawl, for endless km at a time. I don’t know how many km of road I traversed that “pretended” to be undergoing work, restricted to 40km/h - with not a workman or yellow machine in sight. Trucks would pile up in long queues, puffing and hissing as they pulled up any of the breif 100km/h dashes between “roadwork ahead” signs, as impatient long distance motorcyclists screamed past.

The end result though, was that everyone had to slow down… which fought the state’s spiraling road toll on two fronts. Firstly, you spend so much time travelling at 40km/h you’ll have little trouble avoiding any collision - the impact with, say, a wayward Koala would be significantly reduced. Secondly, it’s unlikely the new evil of the “microsleep” will kill you in seconds, since you never get a nice, straight stretch long enough to sneak a quiet nap before you have to slow down for imaginary roadworks again.

In the end though, Brack’s brave initiative is doomed to fail like so many others before him. 10km out of Bunninyong a backward facing baseball cap wearing VP Commadore driver roars past me and a queue of about 20 “roadwork observant” cars and trucks at around 160km/h. It’s like his own private slow traffic overtaking lane. 200km later I notice interstate commuters, jaded by the endless hours of pointless 40km/h sneaking through roadwork stretches at between 60 and 70km/h. Pretty soon people will just ignore the signs if there’s no evidence actual roadwork is occuring.

So in addition to the hours of travel time this futile plan wastes, the whole excercise is a waste of time an money.

This week’s award for outstanding time wasting in the field of futility goes to Steve Bracks and Vic Roads!

That was time wastin’ Tuesday! How was yours?

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I have a friend who has mastered the art of time wasting. He has never worked a day in his life, and has surfed more waves than most people will ever see in their lifetime. His disconnected, maintenance free view of the world colours how he thinks everyone else lives, and he makes throw away remarks to other friends of mine, like “take a sickie… just go surfing every day instead”.

All this free time means that of course he clocks up ridiculous hours in front of his PC, playing video games all day or putting more dancing jesus animations on his MySpazz page ( when there’s no surf ). Every time he sees me he asks my opinion on some fabulous new “improvement” he’s made to it, and I really struggle to bite my tongue and not tell him how utterly unreadable and irritating it is.

The worst thing though, is surfing with him. He actually waits for the very second I paddle out, and he paddles out with me. This is often when I try to sneak in a quick surf before or after work - when time is at a premium. Nonetheless, he MUST take all the good waves in the session, and in between, prattle on and on about all the women he’s chatting up on MySpazz ( who think he must be weathly or retired because he surfs all day and doesn’t seem to want for anything ). It drives….. me …… insane.

So why am I sitting here typing this? Because 20 minutes ago he stalked me to the carpark as I checked out the surf apres work. The intention, of course, is to paddle out at precisely the same time as me and ruin my afternoon. So I told him I had to go to the supermarket, and to go out at such and such a place, and I’d see him in an hour or so.

And once he’s out there, I’ll go somewhere else. Yeah, yeah, I know… I’m a prick. But hey… I don’t wanna waste any more time today.

Now tell me about your time wastin‘ friend!!

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Once again I must aplogise for my blog tardiness of late, it’s been a fairly full on week ( most of it good… apart from a fairly expensive and important part of my stylish 1986 car karking it and forcing me to look for a stylish new 1995 car… uuuggghhhh! )  and weekend, and there’s no end in sight.

I’ve shuffled my days around again as I’ll be interstate late next week and through next weekend, so there won’t be a lot of time - even TWT will be spent working… AGAIN!!!

Anyhoo… hope everyone managed to get some goodies last week, be it a card, a kind word, something deliciously edible, or deliciously hot and sweaty.

I will try and drop by during the week to see how y’all are doing, and slip in unfunny, left field, often innapropriate comments, where appropriate. Also still hoping to wrap up “Cream” during the first part of the week, to put everyone out of their misery!

Enjoy the rest of the weekend… I plan to!

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Uggghhh… another TWT squandered on actual work, as in slaving away in my cubicle on the 9th floor for the Evil Empire. You will be pleased to know that in spite of that, some goodly time wasting was squandered on an extended MSN debate that was spawned over a chance remark regarding channel 10’s flab-o-ganza TV ratings hit, The Biggest Loser. Those outside Australia need not feel excluded from this discussion, our show is of course the franchised version of the same “reality” TV show you have.

So anyway, someone said about how they should tempt all the “Losers” with Easter eggs. I said, better still, hide all the eggs in the Botanic Gardens, set a time limit and make them all run around looking for them ( and don’t the producers just love filming the flab running around all sweaty and puffing! ). The person who finds the least eggs has to eat ALL the eggs of the person who found the most eggs. Pretty evil, huh?!

But then I pointed out, that since the show was already scripted, filmed, AND in post production over Xmas last year Easter was not going to rate a mention. Which got us all thinking. The producers know who the winner is, or I should say, was - in fact, the Biggest Loser is no doubt holed up somewhere at this very moment, working out 14 hours a day and living on a diet of compressed air to keep the weight off. This would have been stipulated in their contracts. But moreso, they must have been banned from speaking to the media… imagine what would happen if they did!? Right now the whole show revolves around the gradual transformation of breathtakingly obese frumps with zero self esteem into fit, desirable, taut and terrific go-getters. If the winner were to go public now, 10 in essence, no longer has a show.

So OK, that’s easy enough… assign body guards, minders, yada yada to keep the winner in hiding, and apart from that, they lose the cash prize if they blab anyway. You’d probably also keep their family shut up for the same reason. Their friends… well… that would be harder.. but you could always impose some sort of comms blackout. But what about other journalists? What about, Paparazzi? How much do you think New Idea would pay for a photo of the winner hanging out their washing… or worse… pulling out of Macca’s drive through with a hot bag o’grease? If I was a news hound right now I would be parked outside the house of the 3rd last finalist - they are bound to be the most pissed off and bitter.. not to mention unrewarded financially! Seriously… how much trouble must  several people be going to, right at this very moment, to get pictures or goss of the winner?

When you think about some of the incredible things that have been leaked to the media - Iran contragate, Prince Charles fantasizing about being Camilla’s Tampon, even video footage of the hanging of a dictator from which media was expressly banned, don’t you wonder? In the face of such a desire for information, how on earth could a measly TV channel ever preserve a secret like the winner of The Biggest Loser? What are the odds that some bumbling idiot won’t give it away? How could they hope to stop it?

Yet somehow they can stop it. And this troubles me. It makes me think about cover ups and conspiracies, and how sensible rational people say things like “they could never have faked the moon landings… silencing all those people would have been impossible”. Would it? What do you think?

I have wasted far too much time thinking about this today!

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It had been a long day, and we pulled into the tiny river town as the sun hovered low above the willow trees. The main street separated the town’s two pubs, and we tried out luck for accomadation at the more comfortable Exchange first. We’d stayed there before on our bi-annual maintenance trips, and it was generally acknowledged to be a better standard than the older, seedier, Crown across the road. Gary ordered a couple of schooners and quizzed the craggy publican as I pulled up a stool. He shook his head - the place was booked up by regional sales reps from Cadbury Schweppes until Friday - and we’d be long gone by then.

We finished our beers and shuffled over the road to the Crown, and found that a room with two single beds was available for the night. We booked it and paid on the spot, then settled in for a couple of hours. Around 6:30 we wandered into the dining room, and selected our dinners from the all too predictable menu - Gary going for the Pepper Steak and me opting for the (possibly) safer Chicken Schnitzel Parmagiana Being a Thursday night there were a surprising number of people eating dinner there, and a small crowd of dusty, drawling, locals in the front bar.

As Gary wiped the gravy from his chin I spied an empty pool table, presumably the “dodgy” one as two locals had taken possession of the only other for the evening, and made a beeline for it. I shuffled in my pocket for change, stuffed it in the slot and waited for the satisfying “thump” the balls make as they drop from behind the oblong window into the return tray below. As I racked up the balls Gary hunted for a pool cue that could at least pass as straight in the broadest sense of the word. We got in a couple of quick games, Gary soundly whipping me in the first two before I got my beer aim in on the third and managed a narrow victory that came down to a snooker shot on the black. I was ready for a few more games by then, so I wandered over to the jukebox and fed some change into it. The selection was the usual dreadful country pub selection - ACDC, G&R, John Cougar and Fleetwood Mac - but I found some relief as I cued up Road to nowhere and And she was by Talking Heads, then Bizarre Love Triangle by New Order.

At the end of the fourth game, a slightly butch looking chick wandered up to Gary and dropped some coins on the pool table edge. “Go ya doubles?” She asked. I looked up at Gary and nodded, sure, why not I thought - we couldn’t hog the table all night and at least we’d still be playing. I racked up the balls as Gary tossed a coin. “Heads” she barked, and as the coin came to rest Gary called her to break.

We both stood back from the table, and I had a look at her and her friend for the first time. Right off the bat I decided they were not the most attractive women I’d ever met - both sporting short hair cuts only a local barber would consider fashionable, no makeup, flannel shirts and workboots. They were reasonably young, but you could tell they’d already done 15 years hard labour - my guess was that they’d worked as station hands or fruit pickers. Neither of them had a definable shape, both slightly overweight and chunky thighed in their work jeans, the less feminine of the two lacking what would generally be described as a neck. As I lined up to take my first shot, the two of them locked onto me. I assumed it was because they were overly competitive.

We beat them in the first game but offered a rematch, and they willingly accepted. We’d been drinking for a few hours by that stage and things were getting more relaxed. As I took a shot I heard Gary telling the less blokey chick what we were working on, and she confirmed that indeed they were in town for fruit picking. I wandered back to my spot by the bar and the butch one shuffled up to me, nursing her Jack Daniel’s and Coke. “You don’t say much, do ya?” she slurred, ever so slightly. I was taken aback, ever so slightly. I mean, is there a correct answer to such a question? I paused for a second. “Sure. Sometimes” I replied, slightly dismissively. Her friend waved the blunt end of the cue in her face. “Your shot”, she said. As she took the cue she gave me this sort of look, then sidled up to the table to take her shot. I skolled my beer… and quickly ordered another.


(to be continued) 

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Sorry blog neglectarinos, the fast pace of life, juggling three jobs ( crusing one and frantically building up work in the other two ) has not left a great deal of time for blogging or doing the rounds. I’ve made a whirlwind tour but will embark on an extended visitation over the weekend ( ok at least try and contain your excitement ). In other events this week…

- I got my first emo MySpazz friend request. I am surprised it took as long as it did.

- Remember that guy that I recognised from years ago at the evil empire, the one I studied with? They sacked him last week. Yes, he was hopeless. Utterly hopeless… poor bastard…

- I realised that the sea water right now is about as warm as it can get. It’s about 23°C here right now, so from this point on it can only get colder…

- I got the chance to mix business with pleasure over the weekend, watching one of my customers play a gig. Most enjoyable, but even better after the show, when he intro’d me to a businessman freind from a particularly wealthy and well known TinyTown familly, and said “Geeb can sort you out”. Yes. Yes I can.

- speaking of people throwing money at me for no apparent reason ( it’s happened a few times in ‘07 already, in fact, I think I will refer to it as “the year people threw money at me for no apparent reason” in future years ), another customer wants me to spend a couple of days with them, for which they’ll pay me. Oh, they also want me to fly there. And they’ll pay for it. And put me up for 2 nights. And pay for that. And the do it three more times this year. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking… drugs / mafia / money laundering. Me, I’m going with “weathly philanthropist looking for tax hole”. Works for me…

- Mr Blonde is doing well, I just hope someone takes a pic of his great new haircut before his hair grows back

That’s about it really, except I have about 5 posts in draft at the moment. I might just unleash one of them over the weekend… but… ahhh…. let’s see how I go…

Hope you’re all doing well.

gb… signing off…

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 Today’s achievment award for timewasting goes to ebay Australia, for a number of initiatives including:

- delay for new listings to appear increased from 5 minutes to 2 hours

- a new improved item listing page that uses complex AJAX scripting for no apparent reason, other than to freeze your web browser anytime you attempt to scroll down the page

- a help forum studiously avoided by ebay employees

- “PayPal payments accepted” by default in listings where non-rip off payment options already exist ( nothing to do with ebay aquiring Paypal last year ), resulting in buyers sending money to non-existent PayPal accounts.

- a “Live Help” feature with a generous 23 minute delay ( no doubt to enhance the sense of “liveness” )

That was Time wastin’ Tuesday. How was yours?

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 I guess it was inevitable that sooner or later I would get a timely reminder that nothing in life is ever static. Things in general have been fairly good of late - business is going well and growing, Miss R and I are happy and have a couple of fun events coming up during the year, I’m starting to get back just a hint of the fitness I had in September, and I’ve even managed to rid my life of several timewasting energy suckers, including one inept manager.

I was stunned to get the text from Mr Blonde this morning.

He’d said nothing… we’d chatted on MSN a number of times last week… and now he tells me they are literally wheeling him into surgery. “Nothin’ to worry about” he taps out on his phone, in his trademark laid back, “everything’s cool” manner, moments before his trolley bumps its way through the OR door. It’s just so like him. But I know any surgery where they want you to stay awake is pretty serious, and if he isn’t shitting bricks by now he probably never will.

Mrs Blonde taps out a reply. “Hes just gone in. Should all be fine… hes in the best hands”.

The sensible, rational part of me knows it probably will… and that same part of Mr Blonde’s fairly brilliant scientific mind no doubt believes the same. Most likely he’ll be back on MSN laughing about it next week, and explaining how on earth he came to be in such a frightening situation.

Most likely things will soon be as they were before.

For the time being at least…

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Who’s Jodie?

There’s a special way a woman can phrase such a question, in a way mere males could never hope to replicate.

I wracked my brain. Shit. Where did that come from?

The filofax in my brain started flicking over… horse riding Jodie… nope… (years ago)… disco Jodie… no… too slutty (no threat)… travel agent Jodie ( jesus… she was just a travel agent! ) … no. Nuthin. Nada. The Jodie scan came up clear.

If I was supposed to look busted, I obviously failed to convey that in my mystified expression.

“Jodie?” I frowned.

“The e-mail in your out folder”. She did that thing women do where they pretend to be busy and dismissive, pause, then elaborate. TV soap, about to be busted phildanering husband style.

“It said remember… drop in to Archer’s and get video off Jodi“.

Suddenly the penny dropped. But her line of questioning wasn’t exhausted yet.

“And there was a smiley face at the end”. And then that look. And the sucker punch.

“Do you often put smiley faces on the end of messages to yourself?” ( raised eyebrows)

I paused for a moment, and tried to supress the smile. I held it for about three seconds.

“Not always”. And I paused again. “Only when I am taking the piss out of myself”.

She looked confused now.

“You were here you mad woman! That was Jodi on the phone this afternoon. Remember?”

“from Archer’s?”, she asked.

“Yyyyes!”, I exhaled.”From Archer’s!”.

“She tried to e-mail a video file for their website but their firewall blocked it. I said I’d drop in tomorrow on the way past and get it off her”.

“oh”. I could tell she was still not satisfied.

“I knew I’d be flat out tomorrow in the city and I’d forget on top of all the other stuff I had to do - so I just e-mailed myself at the office.”

“So why have you never mentioned her before?”

And with absolute confidence, becuase it was the utter truth, I replied “probably because she only started there last week”.

She looked a little deflated.

“I’ve never met her”, I offered ( and I hadn’t ). “That’s the second time ever I have spoken to her over the phone”.

Now she looked just a tiny bit guilty. But being completely in the right, and not out of order in any way, I just couldn’t resist. I’d almost been convicted on the most shakey circumstantial evidence. I wasn’t gonna take that lying down. I put on a smirk.

“But she sounded really hot on the phone!”.

*footnote: I did get a slap for that remark but my poor beloved was suitably embarassed!

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