Krazy Korean Kulture

First Impressions ...

You know you're in Asia when the name of the suburb you need to remember is called Gangnam-gu, but nowhere in the pronunciation does the letter 'G' take effect.

You know you're in Asia when the breakfast buffet involves eggs being cooked with chopsticks, with a side of cabbage and seaweed

My first impressions of Seoul are of a massive, modern Asian city nestled amongst some beautiful mountains. Seoul somehow blends tradition with modernity, with the contrast of ancient Buddhist temples visible next to towering skyscrapers, nestled amongst bustling local markets. All in all, an incredibly cosmopolitan city with better than expected coffee and every food you could imagine.

The food...

Let's just say dinner was still moving when it went down. I hate to think what dinner cost, especially when our hosts kept saying things like "Abalone... very expensive..." Also, everything is medicinal in some way... "This fish, good for your heart. This soup, cancels out the effects of alcohol. This fruit, good for your blood. Raspberry wine... good for making you piss and break the urinal"

I'm completely stuffed, which is impressive, although after 9 courses, you'd expect to walk away full... - they left some sushi rolls on the table pointed at me, which was cue for "You have to eat this or the chef will get offended"... I got a round of applause when I finished it, quickly followed by rounds of laughter as I realised that the joke was on me. Nonetheless, training for the last 28+ years with my Jewish grandmother on Friday nights has come in handy once again.

To my knowledge, I haven't eaten dog yet, but am looking forward to it...

To be honest, after a few days in Seoul, my guts are in trouble and that's really saying something. I survived anal bullemia in South America, I survived battery acid burritos in Mexico, I survived the worst bout of food poisoning ever from a Pakistani guy in Cambodia and the second worst bout of food poisoning during the marriage proposal paella incident in Spain, but I may have finally met my match in Seoul.

Dinner last night consisted of Oysters, chili and beer. They segment their restaurants here by animal. Lamb, cow (dinner tonight was cow heart, stomach and intestines), octopus, prawn and oyster.

Dinner the night before consisted of oyster chili salad and a couple of Cass beers (or Ass beers as we like to call them.) Interestingly, their slogan is Cass... the sound of vitality, although I can't understand how a beer has a sound and I've been putting my ear to the bottle for hours now. It sounds like the ocean and I guess the ocean sounds like vitality.)

In summary, there are finger marks on the porcelain and I am Johnny Cash reincarnate.

The work/work balance

Work is interesting. I'm busy pretending, sorry, presenting all day and the Koreans sit there and nod. You know how everywhere else in the world, you can pause and usually someone will fill in the silence? Well, in Korea, that someone is me, because g-d knows if I was waiting for one of the locals to actually talk... um... they wouldn't...

I thought I actually did business today, but then I realised I didn't. Meeting culture here is incredible. It becomes an exercise to see how many individuals you can pile into one room who have no ability or permission to contribute in any way, shape or form to the actual meeting. Chairs line the perimeter of the room and are full of doting, silent note-takers. Meanwhile, a seat at the table means that an opinion is mandatory. Of course, none of the opinions are ever offered in English, meaning that my participation in a meeting is to ask a question, wait 15 minutes as the 12 people around the table debate in Korean and the 20 people sitting against the wall studiously take notes, finally to get back a response:

"No."

Business in Seoul is a 24 hour a day proposition, not including the fact that people sit in the office all hours of the night. Business is actually what happens in the hours that occur after 8pm and before 6:30am. 17 year old bottles of vintage scotch, served by girls of the same vintage, with elegant fruit platters accompanying any deal you want to make.

The culture

I've got to give it to the Koreans - they know what they want. They want what we want. And if what we want changes, then they'll want that instead. To understand how Korea works, you need to understand how Japan works. Post World War II, the Japanese economy grew incredibly due to their ability to copy things - mostly things that were made in America. Korea figured out that copying was the way to go, so they copied the entire Japanese model and learnt how to copy better than anyone could copy.

They may not even like it or know what it is, what it does or what it's meant to do. Scotch, clothes, perfume, whatever - it may taste, look or smell like ass, but if it's a brand and it's the "best", they want it.

The street life

I've now seen everything. Racing Model Billiards on TV, wedged in between 4 golf channels. Out of a total of 20. There's a massage parlour here with the Ferrari logo, one for Bentley and another one that claims to specialise in school girls.

People exercise weirdly here. They walk like my mum (as in, with 2 legs oscillating and generally one in front of the other in fairly quick rotation), but imagine my mum with a designer surgeon's mouthcap and walking backwards and you're starting to get the idea. I saw a guy barefoot crawling through a park for exercise. The hotel I'm staying in has a little park (10 metres by 10 metres) outside and Asian businessmen walk laps for exercise.

The night life

A travel blog to Korea wouldn't be complete without mention of Karaoke - the national pasttime, performed in private rooms with people who take themselves it as seriously as the Indians take the cricket. Which is alarming, especially considering there's no Barnsey here... what am I meant to sing?

The national drink is Soju, which tastes kind of like liquid ass, only not as strong. Soju must be poured by someone else at all times (which means you have no opportunity to regulate / restrict your intake) and

Our client is HEAVILY connected - the kind of guy who wears a dark suit and has a massive posse. When he coughs, 75 people get assassinated, when he has a cold, whole villages get wiped off the map.

He took us to a nightclub tonight where he knew the owner... it was its opening night, so of course, Brand New Heavies were playing for about 200 people. We, of course, were in the VIP balcony section... which of course was not good enough for our hosts, who took us into the lounge VIP section within the VIP section, where we got to rub elbows with the Bland New Heavies

Then they took us to a sports massage bar. Who am I kidding... it was a brothel. We got driven there in the black car and dumped off and were forced into dressing gowns. How the fark are you meant to handle that situation? You KNOW there's cameras recording...

Anyways, so after I f*cked her... hmm... I knew I was going to push the boundary in a travel email one day, and there it is. Is that what it looks like? I was expecting something more...

Ok, I'm sloshed and off to sleep... more again soon...

My Catalan Marriage Proposal

Last night was the most romantic night of my life.

Even if it was a little unorthodox. How you ask?

Well, let's just say that most people get down on one knee to propose.

Pete was down on both.

As was I.

I then realised it was true love ... when you've shared this experience with someone, nothing else can ever tear you apart. Let me explain...

It was a romantic evening. Having just arrived in Barcelona, Pete and I decided to stop for a quiet meal... a seafood paella. From a Chinese restaurant. Nothing unusual about that.

After dinner, we took a stroll through Las Ramblas, found a quiet little bar, stopped for a couple of cervecas and were home and in bed by 4am.

Fast forward until about 430am, when I wake up and think ... "Hmmm... something´s really wrong here." My stomach was completely cramping. I remember thinking "I hope it´s not the alcohol. Wait a minute, I only had 2 drinks ... Wow, what if someone spiked my drink... Maybe if I just lie here, the pain will go away."

And of course, the pain didn´t go away, in fact, it just got worse... Finally, I get up to go to the bathroom. The closest bathroom of 3 which were attempting to service the 100 or so people in our immediate living quarters. Which was of course locked. I knock on the door and hear a familiar voice.

A voice that reminded me of Pete's, except in far more pain, saying "Yeah, waddayawant?"

At this point, I'll relay Pete's point of view, as he words it far better than I ever could ...

"The first 2 minutes was spent trying to shit it out...unsuccessful...then the captain yelled down periscope, we´re surfacing, I grab the edge of the sink and proceed to expel the first third of my seafood paella,...sink just under half full...then I hear a knock on the door and a muffled groan¨"Pete is that you"...its grunners and he sounds like he is in as much pain as I was in. Then I hear him run to the next bathroom...then I decide it would be a good idea to lock the door and pull my pants up from my ankles.

The next half an hour or so would prove to be one of the finest tandem spews in history, I was lead guitar to Grunners rhythm guitar...if i may I want to just paint the picture for you all...the hostel floor is shaped like a square with a smaller square in the middle where all the windows pretty much face each other meaning sound pretty much travells everywhere....needless to say grunners and I woke up the ENTIRE FLOOR.

I could hear the poor bastard dry wretching and knew he was shoving his hand down his throat...about 15 minutes later groon knocks on the bathroom door again and in another painfull groan "pete give us the bog roll"...big mistake...after I exhaled round 2...the biggest of all...sink full...then I needed to crap, so went on a mission to the free bathroom to procure the only other bog roll on the floor...then went back and produced what can only be described as the most rotten thing that has ever come out of me...it smelled of rotten seafood...another knock on the door and a french accent "pissss"...my reply "fuck off mate i am spewing"....then I felt round 3 wanting to surface ... lucky for me and the cleaners it was small (but the most painfull)....surface tension of the spew holding it in the sink...here comes the most disguting bit, its 530am and I am wading through a sink full of chunder with my bare hands trying to unblock the fucking drain...throwing bits into the toilet...finally unblocked the thing and dragged myself out of the bathroom to see heads peeping out of all the doors along the corridoors...I went to find my new spew brother on the other side of the floor and this american dude goes to me "your buddys finished barfing"....then went to bed..."

Ah, love at first spew... Photos to come

Croatia - Don't mention the draw

Croatia. That should be Croatija. If Scrabble exists in Croatia, the scoring system would be completely backwards and the letter 'j' would be worth 1 point. The Crojat languaje usjes the letter j likje it's goijng out of fashijon. Policia becomes Policija, Popeye is Popaj, Hero is Heroj, there is a freaking brand of shoes here called "J".

As we pull into the absolutely stunning Adriatic port of Split, we cant wait to get off the boat and explore. Partly due to cabin fever, mostly due to the fact that we've been made to feel extremely unwelcome on our ferry ride from Ancona, Italy.


So, we've been in Croatia for a total of 5 minutes and have already been accosted. Our crime? Approaching a street vendor selling soccer jerseys, bargaining over the price of a hat and asking if he had any Harry Kewell jerseys . A brutal looking street-worn man cum-moustache, he mumbled something angrily in Baltic tongue, leaving us very sure of the translation by finishing his sentence emphatically "F*ck your mother."

Moustaches are the new black here. Or the old black that never went out of style. Long, bushy and stereotypically Eastern European.

Croatia is at first glance an extremely unfriendly place. Customer service at cafes consists of little more than the stunt double for Drago in Rocky IV barking "Vot do you Vant?!" as though your presence is a massive disturbance. Perhaps a lesson there for the Sydney barristas who get annoyed when people ask for double decaf soy lemon cappucinos - intimidation can go a long way to making your life easier in the customer service industry.

As expected, the coffee is atrocious. It tastes like someone burnt toast and then evacuated the contents of their stomach onto it. Everyday sets a new standard for the worst coffee I've ever had. If you ask me on a given day in Croatia "Was today the worst coffee you've ever had?", the answer would invariably be "yes".

Unnervingly efficient in their grasp of the Engligh language language, it is not uncommon to hear Croatians come up with expressions like "Put girl on phone", replacing normal sentence structure and tone with deliberate, military precision.

One can't help but feel that these guys are geared for war. Tensions run high in this alpha male dominated society. The training grounds are evident in everyday social interactions, from the cafes, to the driving, to the beach. Pedestrian crossings are merely target practice zones and are to be avoided whenever a car is in the vicinity.

Like a young brother and sister who niggle each other into a submission point when either or both start crying, the young males of Croatia rumble at the beaches with a policy of brinkmanship. They grab clumps of dirt and mud and throw them at each other with force, then gracefully await retribution. They crash into each other, driving each others faces into the dirt with the subtlety of a rugby league tackle.

The little ones get picked on first, the irony here being that the little kids are larger than most of their Australian counterparts (except those of Croatian extract). A fight breaks out in the water as one adolescent clocks another in the jaw with a roundhouse haymaker. Things only settle when the older brothers and cousins come across to sort out the commotion.

And all the while, we can't help but feel that these antics are for the benefit of the groups of girls who gather and occasionally get involved in flirty mock fights, giggling as they feign anger at the male attention thrown in their direction.

The one thing that this trip has affirmed is the need for an International Beach Commission. Not to regulate the behaviour at the beaches, but to regulate what is and isn't a beach at all. I feel like the term 'beach' has been thrown around way too much, to the point that it has completely devalued the word.

I mean, surely there's a few things that make a beach a beach. If a beach didn't have water, would it still be a beach? No. It would be a sandpit.

So, surely it must apply that if there is no sand, there is no beach. This would automatically eliminate 98% of the beaches in Croatia, where locals are content to set up shop anywhere (on a rock, on concrete, on a patch of dirt).

There is no classy way to enter the water, as one stuggles to step over pebbles and avoid sea urchins (which sting like a b!tch, trust me), but the worst is that there is no coordinated way to exit the water. No standing buff, no jogging out, no spraying the hair... but rather a look that is more akin to what it would look like if you rolled your ankle while trying to cross a bed of hot coals.

Truly, we are blessed down under.

And so, we find ourselves in a trendy bar in Split. The remains of a 2000 year old palace form the nerve centre of this Adriatic port, as modern commerce and a modern lifestyle have been completely enveloped within the antique rooms, punctuated by a labyrinth of cobblestoned streets.

We wander through a back alley and find a trendy bar built on an ancient staircase. As the drinks flow, we get a bit rowdy with some of the locals and the conversation inevitably twists towards a common point ... football.

Now, for those who don't know or remember, the history of Australian-Croatian relations began in June 2006, when Australia unexpectedly eliminated Croatia in the World Cup, with Harry Kewell snatching a late draw with a contentious (read: offside) goal with minutes remaining.

So, it's around this point of the story where we commit a cardinal sin, by striking up the chant...

"Harry Kewell, Harry Kewell, Harry Kewell, 2-2, 2-2, 2-2"

Now, it's important to recognise that at first the singing was in good spirit - solid, drunken banter.

However, out of no-where, we heard a deep gutteral rumble that was the unmistakable sound of swearing in a foreign language. One again, the rough English translation:

"Shut... your... f*cking... mouth"

The bartender goes over to settle things down. Realising he was unable to do that, he did the next best thing

"If you guys leave now, you'll have a 3 minute headstart"

We didn't need a 2nd warning and we evacuate our seats, turn completely the wrong direction and spend the next 20 minutes attempting to navigate the labarynth, finding several dead ends and having to hide around a corner when we saw our mate with a couple of his friends, a mob of hooligans intent on some alcohol fuelled ethnic-based football violence.

Welcome to Croatia ... don't mention the draw.

How to for Girls and Boys - Volume 1

Somehow, our species has survived millions of years of emotional incompatability.

All too often (in fact, universally ... literally every relationship I've ever been in) I've been accused of not being in touch with my emotional side. I don't know how to "relate" to a girl.

Whereas, I always thought I knew how to "relate" to a girl. Apparently, a girl's definition of "relate" and my definition of "relate" are completely different.

This situation is exacerbated, because I work in a team full of girls, none of whom have patience in my abrupt nature and all of whom are susceptible to periodical emotional swings, often lasting days at a time, which incidentally seem to occur around the same time each month.

Anyways, the girls at work seem to have had a bit of an effect on me, so I'm publishing a preview of volume 1 of my love life guide for all the single people out there in the world. All care given, no responsibility taken.

Chapter 1 - Mark promised me (Laura) a date, but then never got back in touch

Mark,

Just so we're clear, I never thought it would work between yourself and myself - relationships precipitated by random pashes seldom do.

However, I am interested in knowing the cause of your lack in interest as I am gathering data for statistical purposes. I am writing a book called - "Men and why women would be better off as lesbians"

Please tell me why you didn't call me back after agreeing on Friday to a date with me

a) You met a girl last weekend. Did you sleep with her? I'll never forgive you if you slept with her.

b) You're trapped under heavy machinery, in which case, never fear - I will continue to care for you even if you have been horribly mutilated.

c) You're afraid of committment, yet can't reconcile this with the intensely strong and strange feelings you have for me

d) I made you realise you were gay.

Please don't hide in your emotional coccoon. You need to connect with me, Mark. Please get in touch soon.

Lovingly yours,
Laura.


- The important thing to remember here is that Mark IS actually waiting for your email. He's testing you and your resolve to see if you're the kind of person who has the character that he is looking for in his child bearer.

Chapter 2 - You are Mark and receive the email above.

What you should NEVER write back.

Laura,

How about option (e) None of the above?

I've felt really bad for not calling, but my grandmother's been ill all week and I'm been behind the 8-ball all day at work. I was literally about to call you when I got your email.

How about we meet up for dinner tonight? I know a great Italian place...

Mark xo

- This is a weak response. It shows that you have no strength of conviction and that all she has to do is send you a pitiful email for you buckle at the knees and come crawling.

2(b) - What you probably should write back

Laura,

Hey, you know those shits where you have a big fruit brekky with muesli and a large coffee before going to the train station and you just miss a train and you're sitting on the train platform for like 10 minutes needing to explode, trying to think of anything else, and the train finally comes and you're holding it and sweating and finally get to Town Hall and walk to work, struggling, and you walk in and drop your bag and try to run, but someone walks to talk to you and then finally you get to the bathroom and rip your pants down and let rip a massive explosion and it stings on the way out and you completely destroy the porcelain and stink out the room and come out covered in sweat?

Well, I had one of those this morning, but I'm fine now ... wanna meet up for a root tonight?

Mark.

- This response is 2 things: confident and honest, and we all know how much girls love confidence and honesty in a man.

CHAPTER 3 - Mark calls for a follow up date, only to be told by Laura "It's complicated"

Complicated means different things to different people and it's important here that Mark translate the situation correctly. Spoken by a girl, "Complicated" is girlspeak for "My wiring is incapable of handling this situation". From a guy, "Complicated" is more likely to mean "I'm seeing three girls this weekend and can't remember which one I had the booty call with last Saturday night." You'll notice that the Facebook phenomenon of the relationship status "It's Complicated" will never be mutually agreed to by a guy and a girl who are technically in "Complicated" situations with one another.

Mark should partly blame himself for all this, because it was unfair to assume that as far as girls go, there are emotionally stable girls in the stable. Laura will blame herself, because, let's face it, it's "Complicated".

The important thing here is to learn a valuable life lesson ... and lengthen your disclaimer. The reason disclaimers are so long is because lawyers learn from every bad experience and add another paragraph to the disclaimer.

In the laws of love, you need to do the same. My disclaimer now reads "yeah, from what I know of her, she's a cool chick but she's been in at least 2 prior relationships and could be related to one of my sister's friends. so I make no emotional stability guarantees"

Conclusion

Stay tuned for further Laura and Mark chapters, including:

I like you, but I can't stop flirting"
"The perils and pitfalls of double dating"
"Why blind dating should be exactly that... blind"

and more...

Why bring flags when you can just sell drugs - Big Day Out 07 Part 2

Lily Allen – Boiler Room –3:00pm

I’m getting nowhere and must stop rambling at some point if I’m to maintain any hope of finishing this piece of writing. Next time I forget what I was trying to say, can someone please stop me from breaking off into a tangent? This task is enormous and hard enough to finish without so many non-sequiturs invading my head. I need to resist stopping my writing, because clarity and freshness of the day is key to communicating it effectively. This is as intellectually drained as I’ve felt for a long time.

OK, so it’s really dark now. Dark and loud, but a really crisp loudness. The only sources of light right now are the strobe flashes and lasers shooting out from stage. It must be dark, because my notes have begun to take on an air of unreadability, if that’s a word. For some reason, I started to think everything was moving in slow motion at this point.

The Boiler Room is a massive cavern and the stage seems miles away. As I drive through the crowds, I feel like something strange is happening. The crowd at this BDO seems to be different to events of yesteryear. It’s as though the bogan element has diminished or disappeared.
Bogan. What a great word. I must do research at some point to discover the origin of this word.
It seems like BDO has attracted a slightly classier crowd this year. Everywhere I turn, I see packs of made up girls, with expensive haircuts and pretty dresses. Clean cut is the new grunge.
Wait a minute? Is that the girl from outside?

To my left, I spot a skinny girl sporting a black singlet and short black shorts who looked remarkably similar to a junkie girl from outside the event at the entrance. If it was the same girl, she had come down and calmed down immeasurably, because the girl outside was a fiend and an animal. Desperation was etched across every line in her face, a contortion of evil, random and assorted drugs pulsing through her system. All of this swelled into a liquid emotion which passed upward through her body and out from her throat in the direction of any security guard willing to listen.

“My fucking boyfriend stole my ticket! I can’t believe it! He ripped the ticket straight out from my pocket, look! I paid $120 to stand outside here looking like an idiot! I’m going inside to call him!”

This girl in the Boiler Room certainly looked like the girl from outside, but much, much calmer, as though she’d taken some kind of tranquiliser. Maybe all she needed was a dose of happy music. Lily Allen were certainly providing that. A unique blend of funk, dance and cheese, it was good to see a horn section once again at a Big Day Out.

Years from now, historians will look back to study what we call modern music and ask the question, where did all the horns go?

Such a bad idea, taking notes on the back of my programme. Why do people who actually care what is on next not have programmes? I can understand people who want to wander around and make discoveries not carrying a programme, but for people who have a vested plan for the day, you’d imagine that a programme is a pretty fundamental element when executing the plan.

Of course, now I need to explain what I’m writing on the back of my programme. My explanation was that I’m a Rolling Stone magazine reporter, trying to write a story on the effect experimental drugs have on the experience of the average concert-goer. Of course, this was the explanation I came up with hours later when no one was asking.

When the couple standing next to me asked, I mumbled a fairly incoherent response that only drew up more questions that it answered. Caught in a web of white lies, completely of my own creation.

This is hard work, taking all these notes. You become a complete outsider, stuck on the inside.
It’s contradictory to the intent of my day. The idea was that a certain experience would occur and I would be able to document it as it happened. The problem with this logic is that while documenting my experience, I was stepping outside the experience of being part of the BDO and into the role of a journalist, observing the BDO occurring around me. It’s an uneasy feeling and I resolve to minimalise my note taking. This project is doomed for failure.

Time to move on again. People, people everywhere.

Outside the Boiler Room, there is an ice cream truck with a Caribbean guy on the roof with big dreadlocks. Is Caribbean the correct word? Is Rasta a politically correct expression? I was originally going to write Jamaican, but what if he was from Trinidad and/or Tobago? Surely, he’d get insulted.

More to the point, why was he on top of the truck? There are girls up there with him, who look more like crowd members than musicians, and one of them has a microphone, and…

OW!! DEAR G-D!!!!! MY EARS ARE BLEEDING!!!

This would honestly have to be the worst cameo performance in the history of mankind. Someone must take the microphone away from this girl immediately, and preferably have here removed for a savage beating.

It’s at this point that I notice something else different about the crowd. There are breasts absolutely everywhere. OK, not whole breasts, but cleavage. The suggestion of breasts. The promise of more breast.

And large breasts.

Girls have been cheating a lot more in recent years as breast technology has improved and become more accessible. Push up bras, clothing designed to amplify breast presence and surgery have created a generation of breasts. Breasts are the new black.

I inform Boogie of this insight.

“Breasts are the new black”

“What!?!?!?”

Obviously, Boogie wasn’t on my wavelength. I explain that breasts are everywhere, a sentiment he concurs with.

All of a sudden, Boogie turns to me.

“Healthy is the new black”

Now, it was my turn to draw a blank.

“What!??!!?”

“Dude, when you said breasts are the new black, I looked around and the first set of breasts I saw was wearing a t-shirt that said ‘Healthy is the new black’”

Coincidence? I think not. The universe works in strange ways.

WHOA! Who is this monster in my face? She looks like a girl, but a lot shorter, heftier and far too proximate to me for my liking.

“Yeah! Someone spilled on me!”

I pull away. Who knows what kind of venom this creature is capable of spitting out of her mouth?

Boogie is starting to feel a certain edginess to the crowd at this point.

“I can feel a fight brewing”

I have to admit, there is a certain electricity in the air at this point. Volumes of trashed people are wandering in every direction, floating around like random molecules. Electrons and protons, forces of attraction and repulsion. It’s true. A fight could break out at any minute here and over nothing. The day is nearly over for some of these people and it’s not yet 3:15 in the afternoon. Hard, fast and early, like a heavyweight boxer who’s thrown all his haymakers in the first round and completely exhausted himself. Fools! This is a 15 round boxing match and the only way to come out alive is to be dancing as hard in the final round as you were in the first.

Boxing? How did boxing come into this? Where will it all end?

Expatriate – V Energy Local Produce –3:20pm

My notes list this band as being called Expatriot. Whoever they are, they were easily an early highlight of the day. The stage is intimate, which is another way of saying small with a crowd to match, but as can often be expected by the smaller stages, they pulse with an energy that is seemingly unmatchable by crowds exponentially larger.

There’s something else about this crowd. They seem on average, much cooler than the rest of the BDO population, as though everyone present is a member of a secret organisation. Even the mandatory girls in team uniforms seem much cooler than other teams – each girls is beautiful, decked out in bright yellow 80’s gear – midriff tops, cut off at the shoulders.

Anyways, Expatriate are going off and everyone in there knows it. And everyone knows that everyone knows that the few people in there are the cool minority. Especially the band. They remind me of a super-band that hasn’t quite made it big yet, or hasn’t quite yet been discovered by everyone, but surely will be soon. The sound of New Order with the stage presence of U2 spring to mind as analogies. The lead singer doesn’t disappoint, pulling out his best Bono impression by leaning over the first of three rows of spectators and getting intimate with the crowd.

My Chemical Romance – Main Stage –3:45pm

The day is moving thick and fast at this point. My Chemical Romance are belting out their brand of rock and roll, which is proving to be a little to heavy for Boogie and Diana, so they move on in search of greener pastures. My mentality at this point is to ignore my instinct to follow them and to instead counter with logic. The logic being, that someone has gone to all the trouble to fly these guys out from far away and at some point they would no doubt be playing a local gig to a few thousand mad fans, with tickets costing a day’s earnings. As such, they must be worth a listen.

First things, first though. Getting to a bathroom is, at best, a mission at the BDO. It usually involves negotiating some stairs, which only fulfil the role of speedhumps to all human traffic flow. As such, I put it off for as long as possible, but with my bladder at bursting point, I decide to venture forth and empty my bladder.

There are 3 truths of all bathrooms at music festivals.

Truth 1. No matter what time it is, all bathrooms will have scungy floors, with some kind of viscous matter that is part dirt, part water and part caked urine or other matter.

Truth 2. You will never see more than 1 person wash their hands

Truth 3. There will always be girls in the male bathrooms.

One thing I have always had universal thanks for is my male bladder. Male bladders must be several times larger than female bladders. This generally means we can wait a longer time between drinks before we have to discharge. Regardless of this size difference, the process for a female to empty her bladder is, time-wise, several times larger than that for the male.
I’m not sure if the process itself requires more steps, or the same steps are more time consuming. After all, I’ve never experienced the joys of being a girl.

What I do know is that nature has played a very cruel trick on women, for not only do they take longer to partake in the bathroom process, but they have further been cursed with the universal truth that girl’s bathrooms will always have longer queues than boy’s bathrooms. There are no exceptions to this rule, including the modern traditions which dictate that the queues to the cubicles in the men’s room will always be longer than the queues to the urinal. Thank g-d for party drugs.

The thing that very few females actually get to realise as a matter of experience is the pure brutality, the masculinity, the hormonally charged atmosphere that is the men’s bathroom. There is a certain amount of shame that a girl needs to sacrifice to succumb to the temptation to alleviate the suffering of one’s bowels through usage of a men’s bathroom.

After all, it’s not often I find myself nodding in agreement with a drunken yobbo screaming out “Show us your dick, or fuck off”. Not only that, but looking around the cramped restroom, I see the rest of the room nodding in silence. This moron hasn’t just shown off his own low intelligence – he’s achieved consensus. Somewhere, at some similar music festival long ago, a creature crawled out of this primeval soup and became a modern day politician. How does such nonsense rule supreme when we are reduced to the mob?

OK, remember what you’re writing about – GET A GRIP, MAN!!!

My Chemical Romance are energetic, and I use that word simply because I struggle to find a compliment. What they possess in energy, they lack in originality. They are a symptom of music as a consumable item – they fit a certain image and target a certain demographic. I can’t figure out what they are doing at this festival – apart from the fact that they add a certain international flavour.

Australia suffers from a cultural cringe at the best of times, the prevailing attitude being that if it’s foreign, it must be superior, with the most superior force being that of anything produced in the U, S of A. Therefore, an American band imported into our clearly inferior Australian music festival must be, well … better. After all, we’re paying more for the privilege … they MUST be good.

Unfortunately for the organisers of the festival, I see through their clever ruse. This band has been brought out specifically to fill the bill – a big name act to draw in the punters. Surely they realise that the rest of the audience is as cynical as I am? Or is this just my marijuana-induced paranoia speaking through my head again?

Speaking of which, surely it’s time to catch up with my mates. After all, Boogie and Diana have all of the supplies for the day and supplies are crucial for pacing oneself at a music festival, especially one that prides itself on being a Big Day Out.

TO BE CONTINUED

Why bring flags when you can just sell drugs - Big Day Out 07 Part 1

It’s at least one and a half hours after the fact now. There is a serious premise to this story, namely that of one man’s Big Day Out. There were about 60,000 other people who will have their own completely unique stories. Some stories will be similar, many will not. Some will share parts of the story that is my story and some played a unique role in ensuring this story.

Right now, I’m completely overwhelmed with the task at hand – documenting the 12 hour mayhem that is the carnage of the BDO. I have to admit, I’m feeling extremely negative about this project and part of that has to do with the quality of my note-taking during the day.

My pages of notes range from meaningless to indecipherable. Quality of handwriting, detail and general note-taking is completely dependent on a number of factors, including

1) my general state of mind at the time,
2) my environment, which was often squashed mosh-pits, and
3) general surroundings, which included the people I was writing about.

Combining points 1) and 3) and giving an example from the day, let’s imagine that I wanted to document the grotesque couple standing next to me who were clearly experimenting with mind altering drugs and who were consequently doing what is known in the trade as “getting onto each other”, clearly a sickening, disgusting act. Now, bearing in mind that my brain was in a marijuana-induced paranoia frenzy and that for all intents and purposes in my head, they were reading every word that I was writing as well as the unwritten ones. You can imagine, my note-taking became slightly less accurate.

Wait a minute, note taking? How did that happen?

I’ve been meaning to document a BDO for quite some time now. The sheer volume of people of all shapes and sizes, the colour exploding in conjunction with a cacophony of noise… the parts of the day that pictures and film cannot possibly begin to capture. The dark corners of a back-street that few will ever wander down.

This story starts at the International Human Rights tent.

Well, not really. My note-taking started at the International Human Rights tent. I think it’s fair to say that a BDO is one of few occasions that I will converse with people who actively work for International Human Rights. The rest of us, myself included, are content to do our bit by generally not breaching any Human Rights. Only a few will actually go so far as to become active in such an organisation. Why is this? Are the majority deluded into thinking it’s not important? Are the minority deluded into thinking that they’re actually making a difference?

Who could say?

The point is, I needed a pen and paper if I was to go about documenting my day. Some authors would say you don’t need even that. I know of stories where a writer only had a pen and ended up scribbling his notes all over his body. Every limb was covered – arms, legs, torso, nether regions.

But I digress, yet again. I feel like this won’t be the last time I do that.

The point is, for a gold coin donation, I managed to obtain a pen from the International Human Rights tent. I further managed to avoid signing their petition. I’m happy to support International Human Rights, but apparently not so much as to put my name towards them. Who knows what dodgy schemes I’d be petitioning in favour of?

My notes were written on any piece of paper I could gather my hands on. As I sit here trying to decipher my illegible handwriting, I count no less than 7 sheets of paper – 1 concert programme, 2 notepad sheets ripped out of a notebook, 1 pink post-it note, 1 restaurant pad, 1 raffle ticket and the receipt to my BDO ticket. Not to mention the text messages I sent myself when I ran out of paper.

The worst sheet to write on was actually the largest sheet of paper, mostly because it happened to also be the copy of the programme. Not a smart idea, taking notes on a programme. Especially when people are constantly asking to borrow the programme so they can see what band’s up next. You never know where your notes will end up. All you can guarantee is that the sheet will have crease marks over words that are key to the structure and meaning of the sentences that you have jotted down, scrapping any message or story you wanted to capture and condemning them to the pits of writing hell.

Evermore – Main Stage – about 2:30pm

My first sight at the BDO could not have been more symbolic or appropriate.

A teenage girl, probably about 16, although maybe I’m being generous. Barely clad in an Australian flag bikini, with a matching temporary tattoo on her stomach. She was heavily armed, with a UDL in one hand and her mobile phone flailing about in the other as she attempted to sing the words of her current favourite song to an unfortunate friend who either didn’t have enough money or didn’t get their act together quickly enough to attend the day.

BDO is a mecca for many people, no doubt the highlight of the year. For some reason, the music festival scene has over the last few years been attracting young, generic tourists – people intent on capturing the moment on behalf of others, at the cost of what would seemingly be their own personal enjoyment. Except, enjoyment is clearly obtained by the mere presence at a festival such as BDO. Experiencing the moment is secondary, the main priority being establishing one’s presence at the enent.

I fear for concertgoers of the future. Rock and roll is dead. Not the music – that’s alive and well, but the attitude that came with rock and roll. The lifestyle. People tend to forget the reason why music takes on so much significance – that is, the relevance of various forms of music to the social surroundings of the day. Rock and roll embodied a lifestyle that began with rebellion. Modern day rock and roll encourages conformity and is continually blighted by thousands of youngsters who have lost the rebellious streak and come to a rock concert to … behave.

I feel like I’ve started to lose the plot here a bit. I had several points I wanted to make in that last paragraph and they’ve all jumbled together. I’ve also just noticed that the “last paragraph” I’m referring to was actually 3 paragraphs ago. I’m rambling.

OK, I’ll start with my first point. The overwhelming presence of Australian flags.

I really have to congratulate Ken West on this one. Paris Hilton wearing an Aussie flag would not have created the fuss that the BDO organisers managed to, ensuring that the number one worn item of the day was some form of Australian flag.

I could never have written this story without at least paying mention to the controversy that unrolled over this BDO. It’s funny to think how the fashion statement of the day stemmed from a race-oriented brawl at a beach in Cronulla in December 2005.

It’s true, at last year’s BDO, there were racial tensions between Aussies (white people) and Men of Middle Eastern Appearance (MOMEAs). For this reason, the organisers decided that they didn’t want people appearing with Australian flags, because they were said to incite racial violence. The theory being – ban the flag, prevent the incitement.

Incitement, which was small in comparison to the nationalistic fervour incited when news of the ban arose.

The stupidity was mind numbing. Surely, the organisers weren’t attempting to control the behaviours of an alternative, rock and roll audience, which, although it has lost its rebellious streak, is still cheeky enough to treat any orders with the disrespect they deserve.

I wonder if the organisers of the BDO bought shares in a flag production company before kicking off the controversy. Australian flags dominated the day, appearing in every form imaginable. T-shirts, tattoos, headbands, bikinis, ‘We’re number 1’ giant inflatable hands, there must have been more flags than people at the BDO.

Before yesterday, the Australian flag at the BDO was a fledgling tradition. Now, it’s an institution. It’s gone mainstream.

Flags aren’t the only thing to have gone mainstream. The mandatory tennis team has arrived in uniform and I’m sure they won’t be alone today. Forget attempting to stand out as an individual – this festival is full of freaks. The only way to truly stand out is to make it a team effort and the tennis team has not disappointed. White headbands, white polo shirts, each one 1 size too small, which shorts matching in both size and colour, calf length white socks and white tennis sneakers. Are they enjoying the music? I can’t tell for sure, but I can guarantee that they’re enjoying their experience.

Let’s get back to the music. Evermore are belting out a cover of “Stand By Me”, a brave move for any band looking to establish itself as one of credibility. They seem to be doing OK, with their unique brand of slightly whiney Urban pop-rock. It makes for easy listening and at worst is inoffensive. At best, they have the potential to grab an audience and hold on to them for dear life.

Scribe – Main Stage –2:45pm

TRANSITION!

A massive human wave brushes past me. Exodus, as far as the eye can see. The design of the main stage is key to this flow of bodies, mostly because the main stage is not one stage, but two. Bands alternate from stage to stage and the resulting changes throughout the day create a ripple effect that seems more like the largest tennis match in history, with the mass of thousands of people playing the role of the ball flying back and forth.

Hip-hop largely originated from the poorer suburbs of New York, where poverty and an oppressed lifestyle, coupled with the relative affordability (when compared to musical instruments and amplifiers) of turntables (formerly known as record players) and records, bred and nurtured a generation of inspired people who improvised over pre-existing songs with spoken word.

Scribe has launched into his set of New Zealand brand hip-hop. White Australian kids throb from side to side, making gangsta symbols with their hands.

Truly, this crowd is the globalised generation.

Wishing to explore further, I undergo the difficult process of untangling myself from the web of people and extracting myself from the stadium that encompasses the main stage arena.

JESUS!! A giant monsterous contraption appears out of nowhere, spurting forth indecipherable phrases. Why is this thing here? Is its sole purpose to freak out the stoners? Did someone plan in advance to have obstacles dotted throughout the event grounds to slow the stoners down? Or is this just more paranoid thought?

Move, move, gotta keep moving. There are people everywhere, massive queues of people lining up. To my right, I see a massive queue lined up next to the dance arena, or the Boiler Room as it is so appropriately named. What are all of these tortured souls lining up for? Access to music? Hopefully not. At a music festival, the one thing that should be accessible at all times to all folks is music. Queuing up for music at a music festival must be a sign of the end of our society as we know it.

I walk past the queue in despair, knowing that when I get to the front, an abrupt U-turn will shortly follow. As I get to the front, I quickly realise that the queue was for absolutely nothing. Incredible! An exercise in conformity, an imaginary bucket of gold at the end of a fool’s rainbow.
Wait a minute! Where are my friends?

This is probably a good point to introduce Boogie and Diana. My partners in crime for the morning and early part of the day, Boogie and Diana are built for this festival. Boogie is full of insight as we walk through this thronging mass and his efforts from the morning are largely responsible for my current state of mind. Diana, meanwhile, is highly personable and excitable at all times. Her most striking features are surely her big brown eyes, which constantly take in the world around her in awe. Certainly, I have been blessed for the day with this choice of accomplices.

Crowds are captivating, that much is certain. Cafes in Europe place all of their seats facing the street, with none facing towards the restaurant. This makes absolute sense – the highlight of going our in Europe is seeing what everyone else is up to. People are beautiful and dress sense is eccentric.

Even an amateur people-watcher such as myself, or perhaps due to my amateurish people-watching skills, I’m constantly distracted as I walk through the mob. Chaos rules supreme, with people of every flavour moving in every possible direction. Focus is an expensive commodity and mine trails at the best of times.

Where was I going with this? Oh yeah, I lost Boogie and Diana at this point. I thought for a minute that they were standing next to me. Then I realised that I’d actually lost them. Then I thought I saw someone who looked like Diana, so I started chasing after her on what turned out to be a wild goose chase. I looked left, no sign of her signature green t-shirt, or Boogie’s black and white stripes for that matter. Nor behind me. And I was sure that they hadn’t gotten that far ahead of me. At least, I thought I was sure.

A thought which was soon proven correct, as I noticed the pair of them standing just to my right, scouring the crowd for me. The throng of the Big Day Out human traffic cannot be described in a word other than carnage.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Customer Service - I salute you.

ShtineTime officially has a nemesis. Nemeses, actually. Three of them. All good things happen in threes. Three blind mice, Three wise men, Three-some … to quote De La Soul, 3 is a magic number.

Do you know what nemesis means?

Nemesis – “A righteous infliction of retribution manifested by an appropriate agent. Personified in this case by an 'orrible c*nt... me.”

The beauty of a nemesis is its ability to extract the most rampant uncontrollable of human emotions – revenge.

In this instance though, my nemeses are companies. Companies with what amounts to, essentially, monopolies. Due to the nature of the industries within which they operate, these are companies that, through no choice of my own, I will be forced to do business with for the conceivable future. So, not only am I pissed off, but I can’t exact revenge through conventional means of not using their services in the future.

No, revenge will need to come in another form… poetry. And in honour of St Patrick’s Day coming up … limerick.

Virgin Blue (by Shtine Time)

An airline called Virgin Blue
Messed up my flight, it’s true
When I caused a spill
They offered goodwill
And to them, I say “F*CK YOU”

It must be bad karma to bag an airline whilst on one of their flights, but ShtineTime is now officially mobile.

Let me explain. On Sunday morning, I flew from Melbourne to Sydney. I had a return flight booked back to Melbourne on Monday morning, at 6am, but on account of the public holiday in Melbourne, I decided to spend Monday in Sydney, then return to Melbourne on Monday night.

It was 7am at Melbourne airport and I was being served by the lovely Vanessa. Virgin Blue have an unofficial policy of only hiring hot people – this would actually be an official policy, except they would no doubt get in too much trouble if they wrote it down anywhere. Instead, Virgin are happy to implement the policy for our aesthetic benefit and let’s face it, who am I to complain? Certainly, Vanessa was no exception to the policy.

One thing apparently missing in the policy is an assumption of competence.

Vanessa changed my flight to Monday evening and I was good to go.

Or so I thought.
See, it turns out that something went wrong. Somewhere between Vanessa telling me she’d changed my flight in the system and my next communication with Virgin on the phone at 4pm the next day, the change hadn’t gone through. I was classified as a “no-show” and had lost my flight.

I demanded to speak with someone who could deal with this and was presented with a very gay-sounding American. (Can you even say that these days? Mental note: write a blog discussing if one can use the expression “very gay-sounding American”) This guy was flaming.

So, the conversation goes as follows:

ST (Shtine Time) – “What are you going to do about this?”

(annoying American voice inflections are in bold)

VGSAPL (Very Gay Sounding American Phone Lackey) – “Well, I’m thorry, thir, but there’th not much we can do becauthe you’ve mithed your flight. The betht thing I can do ith to forward you to our ethca-lation department, where you can leave a methage. Al-ter-na-tive-ly, I can book you on another flight right now. What would you like to do?”

ST – (voice dripping with sarcasm) “Well, what I’d really like to do right now is leave a message on an answering machine. I mean, obviously, right now, I can think of no better way to resolve this than by talking to a machine. Can you?”
* Sound of brain breaking *

VGSAPL – “Tho, does that mean you want me to tranthfer you to our eth-ca-lation department?”

ST – “Can I ask you a question? Do you call yourselves Virgin because when you fuck your customers, it hurts like it hurt the first time?”

* Silence *

VGSAPL - “OK, I’ll forward you thir. Thankth for your call, have a good day.”

What’s more annoying? That the poor bastard on the other end of the line has done absolutely nothing to help me or that the band of misfits that he works for doesn’t give him the ability to?

As far as I could tell, this guy’s job is to be the person who the phone call is escalated to when pricks like me ring to complain. He doesn’t have the power to actually do anything – all his job description entails is receiving abuse, then forwarding people to an answering machine.

In the times of the Roman empire, his job would have been Christian.

“What do you do with yourself?”

“Oh, I’m a Christian. I spend most of my time getting thrown to the lions. It’s got some great perks – I get to spend my time outdoors, meet all sorts of interesting people…”

Anyways, I leave my message on the answering machine. First thing the next morning, I get a call back from a girl, voice sugar coated and dripping with honey, who explained to me that the situation was clearly my fault, because the PROCESS dictates that I should have received a confirmation.

The penny dropped. OF COURSE!! It was my fault because I didn’t understand Virgin Blue’s internal flight changing process. It’s not enough these days to merely tell a company what you want from them – these days, you need to understand their internal PROCESS.

To Virgin Blue’s credit, they did credit me with the cost of the flight, minus $15 for every subsequent flight that I would book with the credit. This, the girl explained to me, was not because Virgin thought they had done anything wrong, but as a gesture of goodwill.

Silver Service Taxis (by Shtine Time)

For a taxi, I was in need
To get to the airport with speed
Silver Service was looking
But they stuffed up my booking
Because f*ck ups are part of their creed

So, finally, I manage to book a new flight with Virgin leaving at 10:15 the next (Tuesday) morning. No dramas there, I thought, I’ll book a taxi to pick me up at 8:45. That should give me plenty of time to get to the airport.

Apparently not.

The taxi industry in Sydney is predicated on an inability to actually catch a taxi at a time when you’re likely to need to catch a taxi. These times include, but are not limited to:

- Getting to work
- Getting from work
- Trying to get home on a Friday or Saturday night
- New Years Eve
- When you need to catch a flight

or any other time when you could conceivably need a taxi.

As a general rule, taxis will always be available in a window between 5:16am and some other ungodly hour when you will never need a taxi. The system has never failed me at this time.

So, when I call back at 9:07am to check on where the taxi is, I’m not surprised to be told “5 more minutes”

And when I call back at 9:20 am to check on where the taxi is, I’m told “it’s on its way and should be there shortly”

Finally, I call back at 9:35. “Oh, I can see you’re waiting for a taxi. Can I please put you on hold?”
At this point, the receiver is inundated with porn music.

Chicka bow chicka wow wow.

“Your call is important to us and you have advanced in the queue. Please hold”

Wakka wakka wakka. Boom chicka bow … wakka wakka

Finally, a new, dopey voice comes on the line

DV (Dopey voice) - “Good morning, Silver Service, how may I help you?”

ST - “Um… I’m still waiting on a check for my taxi”

DV - “OK… oh, you’re still waiting for that taxi to the airport? OK… there should be one there in 5 minutes.”
ST - “Don’t bother … I’ve missed my flight.”

DV – “Oh. So, do you still want the booking, or should I cancel it?”

I felt like saying “What do you think?” but the very question is redundant. That’s the point. She’s not paid to think. She’s the paid representative voice of an organisation that couldn’t care less.

How do I know this?

This is a company so resigned to its own ineptitude that it’s willing to settle for “Silver” Service. Why be number 1 when you can settle for number 2? Gold Service? Gold is for losers who try too hard. Let’s be mediocre… and while we’re at it, let’s corner the incompetent market and start a spin off brand called “Bronze Plated Service”

Ticketek (by Shtine Time)

There once was a bloke named Fred
Who took a bad hit to his head
Once good with tools
Now he sits and he drools
And works in a Ticketek outlet

So, I give up on any ambitions of arriving in Melbourne before evening and head into the Sydney office. It’s hard to get too angry with the mouthpieces I’ve interacted with over the previous 24 hours – after all, they’re just doing their job. It’s far from their fault that the companies they work for choose to not empower their employees to use their brains.

These organisations are merely a symptom of the unfortunate, yet endemic consequences of a world that values process more than it values people. After all, Virgin Blue phone staff don’t make the ticketing rules and aren’t allowed to make the changes. Silver Service phone staff aren’t responsible for the appalling state of the taxi service in Sydney. They are merely actors in a far greater saga of clumsiness.

Where my patience begins to wear thin is when someone actually has a choice, between making my life easier or making it more difficult, and chooses the latter option for no other reason other than that they are clearly miserable about the fact that the highlight of their day is that they are given this choice in the first place.

Allow me to explain. A few months ago, I purchased tickets for a band called the Mars Volta (highly recommended if you’re into something a bit different). Late last year, the show was postponed and I receive an email saying:

"Existing tickets remain valid for the new concerts and do not need to be
exchanged. Simply rock up on the night and present your original ticket to
gain admittance.

Fans unable to attend the new concert dates in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth
can secure a refund from their original point of purchase."

With the concert being on Thursday night, I went into the Ticketek office to get my refund.

Old miserable lady (OML) – “This was announced late last year. You were meant to either take the new tickets or get a refund”

ST – “Yeah, I know. I’m here for the refund.”

OML – “Well, why has it taken you so long to come for the refund?”

ST – “Is that relevant? I can’t get to the new date and I want a refund”

OML - "Where did you get the tickets?"

ST - "Online or Elizabeth St, can't remember"

OML - "Well, you need to go back to the original point of purchase"

ST – “Are you really going to make me walk all the way across town just so I can get a refund?”
OML - "Let me check with my manager"

Here we go again. Another manager called because another foot solder didn’t have or wasn’t allowed to have the mental capacity for independent though. Now, her manager, who is sitting next to her, is also an old miserable lady, but, to paraphrase Hunter S. Thompson, she looks a lot more like what a ticketing lady would look like if the Nazis won the war.

At this point, the little Nazi commences her cross-examination of the witness.

OMNL (Old Miserable Nazi Lady) – “So, you can’t attend the show on Thursday night?”

ST – “No”
OMNL – “Do you mind if I ask you why not?”

ST – “(thinking yes, I do mind) I’m going to be in Melbourne”

OMNL – “Did you know that the show was cancelled?”
ST – “What, when it was postponed in November? Yes.”

OMNL – “When did you find out that you couldn’t attend? How come you’ve waited so long to cancel? You know, you’ve known about this for a very long time.”

ST – “You know what, you’re right. What I should do now is apologise for my terrible behaviour – after all, it’s me who’s inconvenienced you here. I didn’t mean to disturb you from sitting behind your booth all day – I’ll tell you what. As a gesture of my goodwill, I’ll let your company keep the money. That way, they’ll think you’re a model employee.”

Ok, we all know I didn’t say that. But, what possible answer could she have been expecting from me? What difference did any of this questioning make? Surely, it wasn’t written into Ticketek’s refund policy that in order to obtain a refund, the customer must be subjected to dumb and pointless questioning from a Nazi she-male in the hope that they get intimidated and walk away?

The point is that the Nazi chose to flex her muscles for no reason other than to try and annoy me. After all, she knew what I knew - were I not trying to get a refund, I could have cold blank refused to answer these questions. Where is the relevance? How could any answer to those questions led to me not getting the refund? Surely I could have answered "I now have plans to sit at home, turn on some dirty movies and have relations with myself on Thursday night" and they would have to give me the refund.

Finally, after waiting a few minutes, the Nazi puts on her most robotic voice and, through an anguished face and clenched teeth, spat "The money will be in your account within 48 hours." It actually physically hurt her to say it.

Salute to Customer Service, otherwise known as Dumb companies work in threes (by Shtine Time)

If you’re a dumb, bald, fat, ugly slob
And you find you’re in need of a job
Don’t feel alone
Just get on the phone
And go work for Ticketek, Silver Service or Virgin Blue. You’ll feel right at home.