This has just occurred to me. We have been using the auto-towel-machines in the wrong way. I’m sure you know the ones - where a roll of towel hangs down so you can dry your hands off without faffing about with hot air blowers? They’re a great invention, and here’s how to use them properly:

1. Wash your hands. Lots of people skip this step, but it’s really important.

2. Approach the handtowelamajig. Place your feet a shoulder-width apart.

3. Dry your hands on the exposed bit of towel.

4. Then, and only then, pull the towel two or three times to bring down a new fresh bit for the next person.

I can’t emphasise enough how you need to do it in that order. You don’t pull the towel first and leave a big wet patch for the next person. If you did, they would have to touch your wet handwater to get their new bit. It’s just not fair.

I hope this will serve as timely reminder for everyone to use the towel-o-matics in a reasonable way. I want to see a big bit of fresh white towel next time I go to the lav. Thankyou.

Oh, and as for you non-handwashers and yellow-mellowers - you can all fuck off and die.

She was wearing a neat old ladies’ coat that must have been a hand-me-down or a chance find at Good Sammy’s. It looked great with 501s. Then after lunch I’m walking through the med building and there’s the same jacket. The jeans are nu-skool now. It’s a different person. Do you see? That same jacket is everywhere. It’s taking over the world like sartorial kudzu. Except - and this is the ironic bit - it was meant to look like something you dug out of mum’s wardrobe. As in, why has it suddenly multiplied? It was a rare and precious moth-eaten flower, now it’s clogging and polluting our waterways. It’s overshading crops and destroying native habitat. This jacket that we once loved so dearly is a menace.

Like there was the story of the orchid that only grew on the side of a parched, rocky mountain. But mutated cloned copied and exploded out of all proportion (whether by the sun’s heat or by terrorist cadres) is now clawing its way up through every crack in the city’s pavement. Subsisting in the dark recesses of showers and beneath six out of ten household refrigerators.

You can no longer tell the genuine article from the reproduction. Even grabbing this girl - this woman - by the collar and questioning the label will not be conclusive. The fake has made every original into a fake as well. If, once upon a time, someone pulled a dusty coat out of a closet somewhere and tried it on, we don’t want to know about it. Random act of retro, that. We have teams of technicians pulling everything they can out of a thousand closets hoping to find something that looks just as good with 501s. We will copy down the pattern when we find it, toss the old material. Then manufacture them pre-stressed.

Everything feels like a copy of a copy of a copy.

The world is not safe for your eyes.

An old dude beneath a huge dead tree at Sandringham Gardens

‘Eternity’, platform 1, Town Hall Station. It’s a Sydney tradition to graffito ‘eternity’ on things. People do it to remind you that eternity awaits in heaven. This time it reminded me that the next train wouldn’t be coming for 25 minutes.

…from a country as far away as health.
(That’s Sylvia Plath, though I don’t think she was talking about lettuce.)

Mark says: Is this a House of Pancakes? Because I seem to have been served a whole load of WAFFLE.

Mark says: You’ve obviously mixed up your scrapbooks. I bet there’s a page in your diary with an essay on it.

(Note: these are not real comments. Just random thoughts, k?.)

Seriously, this is the last time I stay up til 3AM to watch Stripperella. Especially if they’re not even going to play it because the Late Show runs over. Okay, second last time. Maybe I should just tape it.

Descend Here say: ‘I wanna rock and roll all night - and part of every day!’

Let’s face it - Gene Simmons is a crusty old tool who makes rock and roll look tired. His put-on bad attitude is as confronting as a KISS song, as in not very. His teaching technique mostly revolves around traumatising the students. And on top of that, he seems to have no idea of what rock and roll actually is. In other words, just about anybody could do a better job. Here are a few suggestions:

David Bowie - intelligent and personable, although the producers would probably make him do a ‘let’s all try on wigs’ episode.

Courtney Love - just as transparent as Gene Simmons, but used to be a in a pretty good band. And you would probably get to see her tits at some point.

Bono - the nearest thing to Jesus in the 21st century. If anyone could convice people that rock and roll is a good thing, it would be him. Then again, he is a bit of a tosser.

Ice Cube - not technically a rock and roller, but I’d like to see the eipsode where each kid gets a .45.

Also try: Beck, Prince, Michael Stipe or Bjork. In any case, watching Gene Simmons tell kids that rock and roll is all about being a foul-mouthed poser is a complete pain in arse. I sympathise for the kids that would rather stick to their violins that learn from this gangrenous zombie.

Next week’s class topic? Fallacies. Whenever someone says something is ‘fallacious’, I always think of fellatio. As in:

Man, that argument’s fallacious.

Yeah, it totally sucks dick.

I’m done for. I’ll be giggling like a schoolgirl all day long. I’ll have to tell everyone I’m stoned or something.

Some notes on the past week. a) GOULD’S SUCKS. I don’t know about the records there, for sure, but the books bit is a complete heap of trash. The little place across the road is a goldmine by comparison. Constalk is also good. b) Trolls suck too, but it’s business as usual thanks to some updated blog options. Any nasty commenters will be forced to eat a whole bowl of dick before their comments appear. New commenters will also be moderated, but that’s life.

Now:
Can someone help me with the correct pronunciation of ‘pide’, that Turkish pizza thing that I’m now addicted to? I’m fine when I can just order a ‘Special #6 with hommous’, but someday there won’t be a special number six and I’ll be standing there all like, tounge-twisted and shit. How do you say it?

As for the weekend:
Boring. Sometimes I wish my apartment block would catch fire just so I’d have a reason to get up and do something. And then I would get to meet the neighbours, for what that’s worth.

Hmm… nah

Probably has a downside I can’t see.

Today I was waiting for the bus and someone asked the time. She had come from anatomy class, and started talking to me. I have to tell you she was pretty and she certainly did seem to like me. So - for sure - I was flattered and did my best to make conversation while not relying on the usual ‘what’s your major?’ type of question that doesn’t distinguish you from any of the other people a person might meet. It was easy, too, because she had just come from dissecting a corpse.

Anyhow, she didn’t ride the bus for long and no numbers were swapped or dates made, but I have made up my mind to feel good about the whole situation. Or at least not bad about it.

I often can’t tell the difference between things that are actually good and things that I simply don’t need to panic about.

(Some links added, some respectfully pruned. Enjoy your day.)

I emerged from my office in the fake-looking twilight and made my way to the nearest ATM. Took out a fresh, uncrinkled lobster to pad out the wallet situation, and found that my account was somewhere in the order of two grand bigger than I had been expecting. Unusual. I chalked it up to a malfunctioning cash machine or perhaps to my job suddenly paying me a lot more than it used to.

I proposed (to myself, because there was no one there) to blow it on an electric guitar. Yeah.

Then I realised - it was my tax return money. Or was it just my tax return, which was incidentally some money? I couldn’t remember the correct terminology. Either way I had worked for this return, and it suddenly didn’t feel quite right to waste it on a hundred and thirty kilos of re-packaged Mars Bars.

Wandering off deflated into that ersatz night, I thought of all the things that would be worthwhile spending tax return on but would make me feel too guilty.

>>Mark’s Top Ten of Useless Crap to Blow Your Tax Return On:

1. The back catalogue of Talking Heads records
2. ‘79 Toyota Celica
3. An iPod for every day of the week
4. Original ‘Desert Storm’ battle dress uniform and helmet
5. Shetland pony
6. Night with Gillian Anderson
7. Hang gliding lessons
8. Attempt at world domination
9. Shares in that company that bleaches peoples’ butts
10. Anything from Paddy Pallin

Any other ideas?