I am in Melbourne. (I will write you all next week).

I know you’ve heard it all before, but Melbourne is goshdarn cold.

I know you’ve heard it all before, but Melbourne girls are prettier.

As I lay there sleeping last night I wondered. Where does the word ‘PEZ’ come from? Then I realised: it’s code! See, PEZ is a secret acronym for ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’. The book that contains the hidden Zionist plans to topple all good Christian societies and enslave the white race. Don’t believe all this mumbo-jumbo about a German breath mint that became popular with children - it’s a conspiracy!!

So THERE. YOU. HAVE IT. - Pez is part of a secret Judeo-Fascist plot to take over the world. They’re using the Pez to distribute hallucinogens to the population. Confusion and disorder, that’s the plan. Wait until the authorities are too wacked on this shit to know what’s going on citizens in the street eating each others’ brains flocks of vultures circling over the insane nearly dead and then when everything has gone permanently fucked up and haywire walk in and take over. They’ll enslave the rest of us for their zombie hordes too high on Pez to realise that we’re covered in human blood and flesh. HUMAN BLOOD ya hear? It ALL GOING DOWN. We gotta stop em crazy mad bastards before its too late. Yeah, we’ll stop em. Take all the Pez away.

Where’s the shells? Where’s yer 12-gauge?

Today I was followed up the street by two men carrying a coffin. I think that must be a bad omen.

There were two sweaty builders on the bus home from work today, who had this conversation as we were coming up King Street:

Sweaty builder 1: We were in Newtown to see this play the other day. Had free tickets but we didn’t know what the play was until we got there, and it turned out to be this gay play. We walked in and there was this naked guy on stage.

Sweaty builder 2: No fuckin’ way!

Sweaty builder 1: Yair, strewth.

Sweaty builder 2: Did you stay and watch it?

Sweaty builder 1: Oh yeah. In fact it was quite good…

WTF?

*      *       *

So yesterday night I went down to Leichardt for the Philosophy Cafe, which is where a bunch of old farts gather in a fashionable bookstore slash cafe (Leichardt is the home of the bookstore slash cafe, it seems) and hear a talk about philosophy. With the five dollars entry you got a free hot chocolate with two marshmallows. The Main Geezer there gave a half-hourish talk about John Stuart Mill which was the night’s topic, and then gave the audience a bunch of questions to think about over their second round of cafe nibbles.

I was quite happy with the talk but the group discussion at the end kinda sucked. Although it was meant to be a debate about the speaker’s questions, the discussion was basically a chance for everyone in the audience to get up and say what was on their mind, relevant or not. In fact, most of the hardcore crackpots had two or three goes just to make sure they’d gotten their fortnightly load of nonsense off their chests. Had to sponge the urine out of my ears afterwards, if you get my drift.

Now say what you like about MY students - that they’re illiterate, lazy and not just a bit stupid - but at least they know when they’re unclear on something. Those Philosophy Cafe folks are permanently stumped and don’t realise it. Perhaps I’m being a bit harsh but I was taken aback at how immature people can be (older people especially) when they get the idea that they’re big shots. I’ll be there next fortnight, but I may have to smite someone with the spoon from my cup of cocoa.

Deciding on a roll of the mental dice to get up on Saturday morning, I went to the discount outlet centre at Birkenhead Point in the hope of adding a few tasteful polo shirts to the wardrobe. It was complete waste of time, on account of everything there was more expensive than usual and pretty tasteless. (For the most part, I only wear black, navy and grey clothes with nothing written on them - clothes that don’t stand out and are neither in fashion nor out of fashion.) You’d be surprised how hard it is to find stuff like that. Then, on the way back, I took the train and the conductor called out the wrong stops I think so I jumped off in Redfern and had to catch a bus.

Forest Gump was on the TV Saturday night and I feel I need to say publicly that FOREST GUMP COMPLETELY SUCKS. Really. It’s easily one of the most annoying films I’ve seen.

Sunday James invited me out for Yum-Cha which is Chinese that comes on a cart in a big noisy restaurant. It was my first time and I totally recommend it since everything’s tasty and usually fried. Mmmm. James’s friends are alright too, although they automatically assumed I was gay since they all were. Afterward, we walked up to Pitt St and I bought a copy of the Violent Femmes’ Add It Up compilation at a cheapo CD store James showed me. I realise now why I hardly ever buy CDs, since what I really wanted was a Jesus and Mary Chain record that they should have had but didn’t.

At the bus stop there was a girl who looked just like Liv, complete with English accent. Goshdarn jailbait.

This Latham thing. Everyone just says what you think they’d say. If there were a grain of truth in circulation, you wouldn’t notice it.

So why the excitement? Isn’t it just to maintain the illusion that what people say has a meaning?

While I’m being useful, I would like to increase the use of the word ‘ingress’. It means ‘to go in’, and can be a noun or a verb.

The cat flap allows for the ingress of my cat.

It being late, I decided to ingress my bathroom.

Bugs, insects, spiders. When we step on them, they appear to be filled with nothing more than a brownish goo. Do they have brains? Do they have guts and stuff in there? We don’t know, but it keeps us up at night. So, to save you all from many sleepless nights and weary, restless days, Papertrap dot net presents a special feature where we peer into The Inside of Bugs!

Here’s your average honeybee, a common bug:

The industrious European bee is thriving in Australia, meaning the laconic native bees will soon be extinct. Hooray!

Here is a diagram of a typical honeybee, showing the major organs:

Bee organs.

As you can see, there is no label saying ‘brown goo’. A bee, like any insect, has a complex internal structure with organs similar to ours. Note the brain - insects have simple nervous systems, with small clusters of nerves called ganglia throughout the body and usually a large cluster in the head. There are no lungs because bugs usually breathe through holes in their exoskeletons. (Spiders are one exception - they bellows-shaped lungs.)

The malpigian tubules, by the way, are the bee’s kidneys.

So, next time you step on a bug, look at the sticky brown goo and think of all the fascinating and intricate organs you’ve just crushed. That’s what’s inside of bugs. Seeya!

Meanwhile, all I was thinking about was, well; I’ve often suspected that there were lots of interesting things like parties going on that I didn’t know about. Hearing my workmates talking about their barbecues and so on on, when we were over at B’s place watching videos Saturday night, I realised that this was true for the people at work. I guess they do plenty of stuff, while I do my own stuff (see the rest of this diary, or just defrosting the fridge or something). So I was mostly bitchy about not being invited to everything. And then there was this Moroccan (ie. French) guy who kept ignoring / insulting me even though that wasn’t what he would personally count as insulting behaviour. Like correcting my pronunciation when I haven’t been able to contribute anything for ten minutes anyhow because he’s been holding forth about how Canadians live underground and you can’t get into Harvard library without a student card (see also, my intense hatred of travel stories). What an annoying night…

I think I must be a bit strange. To all those who are thinking ‘duh’, I say: I didn’t mean to be. I was only trying to be like everyone else.

If I were like everyone else, I wouldn’t be happy but I would know where to start.

I don’t know what to do. I guess I want a tattoo. It’s a nice, warm night and tomorrow I’ll defrost the fridge.

The tattoo will say: HERE TODAY