Santa Hat Update - December
Arriving at work tonight Kylie, previously immune to any feelings of distrust towards the Santa hat, decided that I wasn't allowed to wear it. This was apparently because Dragan had told her during the day that I wasn't allowed to wear it. Which means they'd talked about it during the day. I told her that Dragan hadn't forced me to take it off on Tuesday, which is technically true because he said 'take if off' but I didn't and then he never said anything after that. Then some checkout manager told me to take it off as well and I said the Dragan thing again. She said I had to ask Dragan if I was allowed to wear it. So I said "OK, I'll check with Dragan next time he's here and until then I'll wear the hat".
Then I told nearby friends that if they forced me to take it off then I would take my story to Today-Tonight and get Aussie Battler justice. I think Kylie may have overheard this, because she came down my aisle later and said that she personally had no problems with it and that it was all Dragan's fault.
She must of told the Checkout Manager too, because she came down and said she liked the Santa Hat and asked why I wanted to wear it. I thought saying "to piss off Dragan" would be a bad idea so I made up this story about how the first Christmas I worked at Woolworths all the checkout staff got Santa Hats in December but I never got one until Christmas Eve and I got so much enjoyment from wearing it that one day that I decided I would wear a Santa Hat all of next Christmas season. She was like "awwww" and it made me feel better about the people at Woolworths (except Dragan) and made me want to be passive-agressive less.
So I got home and then emailed Today Tonight and A Current Affair about my problem. Then at 10:30, watched Arrested Development which was great.

Update: Apparently Today Tonight and A Current Affair don't feel quite as passionately as I do about me not getting to wear a Santa Hat.
Apparently, judging by the last few entries, if I didn't go to work then I would have nothing to talk about this summer.
I'm going to stop starting each entry with "Update" too, no shit it's an update. How Redundant, like my plans to do stuff. I AM GOING TO WRITE UP A LIST OF THINGS TO DO TOMMOROW I PROMISE.
(The list will force me to do things I swear.)

Well I am a little worried that we've already had 10 days of holidays, they've gone very quickly.
Today I had my post-uni binge as usual, here's the spoils. I do not know if this bodes for a good summer or a bad one...
Whilst in JBs at the mall today Sam picked up the Garden State soundtrack and wouldn't you know it later that day we were watching Garden State and drinking a lot of juice. Garden State was good. Someone told me it would be the Fight Club of my generation but I don't think it is. It did make me remember those things were you have to tilt them to get ball-bearings into little holes, they're cool.
It was weird going to the cinema to see a movie, I haven't done that since I became single again. I suppose the Internet really is the tool of the single man. Good old Internet.

No Update: Dusty's party, which still didn't shed any light onto if that booze bodes for a good summer or a bad one...

I think I'm getting far too accustomed to getting home smashed. It used to be that when I looked at the floor after I woke up the morning after and saw my shoe laces were still tied together that I'd know it'd been a big night. These days I get home wasted, untie my shoes, set my phone a-charging, clean my teeth and shut down my computer.
When I woke up this morning my phone's outgoing call register was a veritable who's who list of people that I shouldn't call when drunk. Even though I'm a hilariously (relative) annoying drunk, one of my (only) saving graces is that I'm not a drunk dialler, so I knew that shennanigans had gone on the night before. Unfortunately I didn't remember them, or pretty much anything that happened the night before, after some point. I think I probably passed out for a while towards the end because I had one of those 'deep-breath-of-air-a-you-surface-from-the-murky-depths' moments in my memory where I start remembering things clearly again.
Dusty's party was a night of ha's, good ha's.

• Hats
  
• Ham
  
• Halfwits
  
• Hahaha's
  

And yeah there were probably other ha's in their too but I don't remember at all . Trying to piece back together what happened last night is made difficult by the unfortunate sober-people exodus of around 3am. I don't know why but sober people always leave early, right before things probably get interesting and that i need to be told about the next day. Still usually finding out what I got up to isn't that hard but today every question just leads to more questions, which lead to more questions. I'm not even sure how I got so drunk in the first place. So, like in all puzzle games I play, I gave up and played Snes Cricket instead.
I did learn some valuable lessons this weekend though, so the experience wasn't totally wasted. Lemon gelati ice cream is weak on it's own, and kinda bitter. I added some milo to it but it didn't help very much at all. Also for some reason women don't like you to yell "Burrett" at them everytime they make eye contact with you. Poor Burrett :(.
I also walked to Dusty's last night, Wizard of Oz style. And then Steve gave me a lift home. Today I worked, and it was a day of only one Ha:

• Hangover
  

Mmm, sobering. Also, in anti-climatic news I think the only reason Dragan didn't want me to wear the Santa Hat at work is because he thought I was using it to cover up a bad haircut, and not because he's Scrooge McDuck or anything. He's still a tool though.
And Saturday itself was a day alright. We played basketball and I won the game for us. I came on the court with 48 seconds left and we were only up by 1 point against a team of little kids who were sharp shooters from "downtown". Steve then went to the hoop and scored the winning basket, adding to his points total of about 75% of our teams total score. Then I intercepted their baseline pass and laid up in a far more aesthetically pleasing manner than Steve to score a redundant second winning basket.
Oh yeah here are some photos from last night:

Ham | Hats | Haha Sam

Seriously that ham was like the size of a basketball and that's the only thing I'm left caring about from that party.

Cleaning Day today, and so I cleaned, dusted, vacuumed and sheened my room. At least it's nice to see that I can stick to one of my repetitive goals this summer. Actually, walked to work and jogged back too, so that's two.
After getting back from work, where new guy Daniel alternated between helping me out and doing my bidding, I tried to do some writing, but I'm blocked. Creatively constipated. I got nothing. Too many distractions probably, like, Internet. I don't know how I'll resolve this. Until then apologies for the lackadaisical update. Hey, yesterdays update was pretty long? I knew I should've saved some content for Monday.

I had a five-hundred dollar day today, mainly car.
Something else that will be costing me money in the coming months will be Burrett. In light of recent drunken events I have decided to, instead of becoming more responsible, drinking in moderation and being less of a sloshed retard to, instead, hire Burrett as my drinking caddy. He'll be responsible for staying sober and documenting everything I do while drunk and then driving me home. The next morning he will tell me, hopefully through a nifty powerpoint presentation or something, exactly what I got up to the night before. In return I will pay for his World of Warcraft account. Although I think he should do it for free because me drunk is entertainment on its own. I make some great jokes when I'm drunk. I often make the same joke nine or ten times, so logically that's nine or ten times the funny. I'll resist the urge to write that line another eight or nine times and instead just be satisfied by the fact that eight or nine is about the number of commas I used in that previous sentence.

Well look at this, how's this for progress?
bradism prototype
I worked on this between 11pm and 4am, before that I worked from 7. Earlier than that I honestly can't remember what I did this afternoon. Oh wait, I just had a hazy memory, I woke up, showered and then sat down to eat breakfast and the cricket was on. Woah and Cowan was here too, I forgot about that as well. I must have watched cricket until Work. Wow, cricket is like alcohol for me this week.

Today was a... quiet day.
It was Steve's birthday today and it was raining all througout, with rolling thunder and low hanging, grey skies. I think we switched birthday weather, because on my birthday in August it was a warm 30 degrees and very sunny. I made that interesting comment during dinner. In fact if I was to rate all the mild chatter that I partook in at the Duck Inn during that meal I'd say this one was the most impressive, as far as mild small talk goes.
After that I played Basketball and we won. That was quite fun.
Also the prototpye for bradism will now work in internet explorer now.

I spent most of my time today working on the site. And from there I got a pretty reasonable skeleton up which I liked. According to pretty much everyone it's too green, too simple and too amatuerish. So I am going to do more work on it. At least I'm enjoying it. I'm getting some books for Christmas on CSS, PHP and MySQL which I'll read and use to boost my knowledge to new levels. I'm just glad I've found something I like to do in IT, what with me doing a degree in it and all. My plan is to completely nut myself out in web creation, and then use that as a platform for my voyages into writing and comedy. It's like in movies where they're trying to get to the asteroid so they go to the moon and slingshot to the asteroid using the moons gravity.

No Update: Relieved.

Ah it's good to be back. This weekend was average in that it wasn't bad but wasn't great. Basketball on Saturday was quite fun. Then on Saturday night I went to town and met up with, well, pretty much everyone. It was basically like Town is supposed to be, where you go to some place, you see people you know, you go "hey!" you all have a few drinks, then the groups divide and go to another place and there you meet other people you know and you go "hey!" and etc. Not that this is the greatest or funnest thing to do in town it just seems right. Being right is always good.
But anyway.
Today I worked an almost four hour sunday shift, the length is important because I get paid time and a half on Sunday so it was quite pleasing to go 50 minutes over. I got to help lots of people find things out the back that weren't on the shelf. I felt like doctor who was constantly performing surgery because usually I would come back with the thing they wanted and give it to them and they'd be happy but then occasionally I wouldn't and I'd have to go back to them and see their expectant faces and go "I'm sorry..." and watch their face fall and it was kind of depressing. Then tonight I did some writing so that was good too. My plans for Monday are to continue doing beneficial things for my future.

Lately I have been trying to improve my mental-social abilites by decreasing the amount I overthink and therefore overcomplicate situations. This includes, but isn't limited to, improving my ability to say hello to someone I know when I see them, instead of trying to avoid them. Yeah, I suck at initiating conversations, but every day I make progress.
Today while at Dads house digging a retaining wall I was pushing the wheelbarrow back to the dig site and looking down the hill I saw the neighbour, who I don't know, walking towards his shed. Without thinking, and I mean spontaneously, I lifted my hand and waved at him. Then I quickly faced forward and didn't look for a reaction. But I was friendly to a neighbour! Later I remembered that Dad had been reporting him to the council for noise complaints and stuff and they were effectively mortal enemies but I still felt a little more self-assured.
Thing is, I've always been prone to seriously over-complicate things. I'm constantly mentally arguing with myself and lately its gotten worse and it's starting to get more agressive. I hope that they can get along soon because it would be a messy divorce for me and I already went through one of those!
I was thinking today, overthinking as usual, and I figured that considering the amount of mental aerobics and fight-dancing that goes on, my brain must be very unique. I wonder if I have a tasty brain.

Today was a expensive yet productive day. After waking up at 11 and then snoozing three times through haze, I got up at 11:30 with plans to do more digging at Dad's. Fortunately yet unfortunately it was raining, and right when I was going to leave it started pouring down. It seemed that digging would not be on the cards today, so I set about organising how I was supposed to enrol for uni next year, what with facing the double degree and the associated overlap dilemma I was in over my head and I didn't want to do any work myself so I got down to uni, found someone to find the right person for me, found him and asked him to send me an email with specific instructions as to what I need to do. In amongst doing that I went to Marion and paid for my rego, worked more on making Bradism look better (and in actual fact made it look worse though arguably niftier), worked at Woolworths where some kids in costume talked to me for a while and gave me a flower which actually turned out to be a cut up silk hanky or something. I also filled up with petrol, wrote a little and finally wrote a very boring journal entry.

I got a blister on Monday from using the splitter at Dad's house on a stubborn stump. I tried to take it like a man, and it didn't actually hurt. However last night I noticed that there was a bit of liquid still under there. So I decided to cut it completely off, and dug a huge hole in my hand to remove a tiny, practically healed blister that wasn't causing me any discomfort in the first place.
I did it because I have been watching Stargate Atlantis and I wanted to find out if I have above average powers of re-generation. I did this as an experiment and I was hoping that I would awake and find a fresh, new layer of skin over it. Instead, I kept waking up during the night because my palm was trying to open up completely for my hand to straighten and it was hurting the wound because it is right below the middle finger. And it didn't heal, then I couldn't find any band-aids that would fit in such an awkward position. And I don't have alien like regeneration powers, how lame.
I was woken this morning by the window cleaner that replacement dad hired to clean all the windows of the house. I don't mean I got woken up when he was splashing and wiping outside my room, I mean he opened my door, popped his head in and said "Hullo!" Disturbing indeed (no pun intended), but it did get me up at 11am, which is the earliest I've been up these holidays. Maybe he could become my permanent alarm clock.
I also got uni results today, which I'll copy and paste now.

COMP2007	Systems Programming	DN
COMP2100	Info Technology Applications 2	HD
PROF2902	IP Communication Skills	DN
COMP2004	Computer Organisation	HD
PSYC2005	Industrial & Organisational Psych	DN

Ah, lectures, words can not express what a slight chuckle accompanied by a lowered-head, closed-eyed, head-shaking from side to side in bemused dissapointment can. I actually have a positive correlation between lectures skipped and positive results. For IT Apps 2 I didn't even go to the tutorials or effectively participate in the subject at all for nine weeks of the semester around the middle bit. The only result I haven't got back yet is comp org. It's probably not up yet because Amos is lazy and is probably drunk, or maybe crunk? I don't know, I could imagine Amos doing something like that. He seems like kind of a wild guy.
I bought some expensive clothes yesterday too. On top of my car rego that was what made it quite the expensive day. Fortunately I have more than one job to work in the coming week, and I'm work 40 hours at woolworths alone next week. Unfortunate though, because every day is a bubble of possibilities for me where not a moment is wasted. And I like it, and I could go to the beach.

While I didn't go to the beach today, or, in fact, anywhere else (except Old Reynella Town accidently), today was still an excellent day. I didn't do much, at all, other than accidently ending up in Old Reynella Town in a 60 minute detour on the way to basketball in blackwood. Today I enjoyed doing nothing, and it was, enjoyable. However boring again, so I'll dot point what I did so you can go "mmm, ah..." and then move on.

• Woke up in time for Family Guy for the first time and watched it as it was the only episode I hadn't seen yet.
  
• Played Max Payne 2, for the sake of playing a computer game, and enjoyed it. Ah, a linear first person shooter adventure. Good to play every now and again.
  
• Lay on the couch and alternated between napping and watching the cricket
  
• Played and won basketball, then worked out
  
• Had some cold BBQ chicken, salad and a corona whilst watching Arrested Development and then Stargate
  
• Lost starcraft, fortunately, in about 20 minutes, which saved a lot of time considering how long those games can go for.
  

And that's how I spent my 23rd day of holidays. Already 3 weeks of holidays have gone past and it's scary yet predictable how quickly time passes when you have nothing pressing to do. Holidays are a strange beast. I've been playing Spider Solitaire a lot lately. I don't know why? It's a stupid game and even though I win half the time (on two suits, fyi) I don't actually want to play it. I'll be sitting there, playing, winning and going "this is boring and I don't want to do it". Summer is weird.

Well this weekend can basically be considered a total write off.

I got up at 4:30am today, which provided me with enough time to let the Internet teach me how to make scrambled eggs, make scrambled eggs, eat scrambled eggs and drink orange juice and watch an episode of "House" before work, at 8. The scrambled eggs were very nice, so I think the Internet is a good cook.
I'd also like to take this opportunity to say "Thank You" to Cricket. Cricket watched over me and kept me safe yesterday, and I know owe it a debt of gratitude even deeper than I did before.

When Woolworths say there will be Christmas lunches at midday and three for day staff, and then at six for Nightfillers, what they mean is that there will be Christmas lunch for day staff at midday and three, and then at six if there is anything left that has not gone off or gone cold since then, nightfillers can eat it.
Dragan also provided every staff member with a Cadbury Christmas stocking. I asked him if they hadn't been selling well, but he said they were, and that in fact he had been visited by three spirits the previous night. To further prove this he then ordered fresh pizzas for us, despite the fact that only three nightfillers had actually turned up the hour early for the Christmas lunch, and two of them were by accident. So instead Christmas lunch was spent learning that the new nightfill manager doesn't like to eat meat, and then trying and failing to think of a way to use that fact to improve our working relationship (because I think she's a bit weirded out by me). I was unsuccesful, and I do believe my suggestion that "lunch meats like ham and salami count as vegetables really because they are cold" was rightfully unappreciated.
The other guest at this dinner was the Checkout Girl who will from now on be known as 'talks with her mouth full'. She talked a lot, and I don't think she said one thing when she wasn't in the process of chewing. Not just once or twice, but it was as if she had to micromanage some concurrent flow of food to words in order to participate in conversation. In the time sheet page where she signed out there were crumbs on it. It's possible that, if we were to ascend to some higher level where interpersonal communication was possible via telepathy, thoughts from her would still be accompanied by munching interference.
Also the girl with no inner-monolouge said "Far Out, Brussell Sprout" to me in a completely non-sarcastic, legitimate fashion. I was shocked, it really was a far out, brussel sprout moment for me too after that.

Well this week can basically be considered a total write off.

I was sent home from work at 5:30 today because Woolworths said I couldn't legally work anymore hours this week. I assumed they meant "unless we pay you extra" but left it out. I was dissapointed, because I hadn't worked a nightfill load all week and Christmas Night Nightfill is kind of a tradition for me because it's a festive load. Nevertheless, 40 hours of wearing a santa hat that week was over, and although I feel I would've been fine to work the extra five hours to make it a 12 hour day, Woolworths may have been justified in sending me home before I cracked. As it were I did yell Merry Christmas at everyone in the store as I left the break room, found some bean sprouts in the fruit and veg section, and then left. Other than yelling "Merry Christmas" I also told the new checkout girl from uni to smile more, because she looks kinda grumpy. Then I walked to my car, which was actually parked in Coromandel basically because supermarkets are kind of busy around Christmas. As I carried my bean sprouts to my car, under a cloudless sky, I was smiling because I like Christmas, I really do. And I won't and can't qualify that.

You can tell Christmas is a completely man created event, devoid of any relevance to a higher power. It’s the animals that give it away. The animals don’t get excited. They don’t send Christmas cards to each other in November. They don’t treat Christmas Day differently to any other day.

The implications of knowing this, though, are less easily distinguished. I mean, it would be very hard to prove that everything man has created is bad, quite the opposite. Christmas is more than just a day, even more than an event. It’s a mental finish line for consciousness. You have to stop thinking sometime. Christmas is an annual life goal that helps keep time in perspective. Christmas keeps things interesting for people to prevent them from going insane. Interestingly though, animals also work every day of the year without any future holiday to anticipate.

After you leave childhood it’s hard to tell whether or not Christmas is that great though. When you hear the first Christmas carol on the shopping centre sound system in late October, and find Christmas decorations dangling around the products on the shelves, it’s difficult not to want to conform with the non-conformists, discard your plans for the holidays and announce that Christmas is too commercialised: the true meaning is lost on the ignorant saps; and it’s only purpose is to make money for big businesses.

I’ve been there; I’ve struggled with losing hope for humanity. I’ve wiped my arse with toilet paper that is printed with colourful Christmas emblems on it. If I wanted to shit all over Christmas I’d buy Marilyn Manson CDs and copies of the Koran for the people I’m obligated to buy gifts for.

But Christmas isn’t that bad. Sure it’s heavily commercialised, but seriously, what isn’t these days? It’s a time when humanity is nicer to each other and says “Merry Christmas” instead of goodbye. Like a disease, the Christmas Spirit, be it goodwill towards mankind or Jack Daniels at the workplace Christmas Party, brings people closer together.

Ah, the modern day Christmas. These days I spend them with family, sort of. This year, after gifts and breakfast, I went to lunch in the Royal Botanical Gardens with my Step-Mothers family. Ah, it was nice to meet them all finally. I mean, nice to meet them finally again, because I meet them every Christmas for the first time. As I walked towards our picnic spot, carrying a few chairs, I passed my step-grandmother and, as it was our first intersection for this day and year, I smiled and said “Hello, Merry Christmas, how are you?” because I am courteous and polite.
She hesitantly replied that she was ok, then, as it became apparent that we were both approaching the same picnic spot, it dawned on her that I was actually there to have lunch with her and she apologised for not being more personable. I said it was alright, because I am courteous and polite. I understand it’s confusing, Christmas is a time where, when your extroverted father starts friendly small talk about weather to the people he parked next to in the gardens’ car-park, it is hard to tell whether these are friendly strangers or interconnected family members with whom you are about to share a meal and eventually a game of cricket with.
So I could excuse this behaviour, even from someone who had the effrontery to give me a gift with the tag “Love Grandma” on it. I mean she did give a gift after all, a similar one to my gift box of chocolates that confectionary companies sell as nice gifts you can give to people you don’t know or really like.

Then we had lunch, and it was quite nice. I had pork, chicken, ham, turkey and some roast-beef. These foods were all of course accompanied by sidings of salads, sea-foods, condiments and the like. It was quite a delicious, sunny meal that made small talk easier because you were allowed to fill the awkward pauses with eating. Then I went home, somewhere after finding out that the laundry basket of random groceries that I carried from Crazy Step-Auntie Debbie’s car was actually her gift to five people, including me. And there was a crazy free for all as five of us harvested the basket for takings, passing over water crackers, pasta mix and dried fruit to find some good stuff. I was satisfied by the amount of intrigue that present gifted my psyche.

Once home I was faced with another onslaught of people who are family of the person who is married to my parent. Within hours the house was filled with Wellingtons, and they all brought food. And so I ate lamb, pork, chicken, ham and more potato salad and vegetables while discovering that pretty much all of Marks family look identical except they all have varying levels of baldness. It was like that episode of the Simpsons where Flanders has that barbeque with all his relatives. Except instead of all the different social stereotypes it was, yeah, the baldness.

Finally I escaped the throng of people and got to Josh’s house, where eating all day, kicking arse at Jenga and hitting my head twice made me sleepy. And as I lay there, with practically the cooked contents of a children’s petting zoo in my stomach, I realised why it was that the animals don’t like Christmas, and why I do.

Well I regret yelling Merry Christmas at everyone at work last week. I used up all my extroversion, and now feel pressured to say hello to people who's names I now know. At least people have name tags. I wish people had name tags in real life. I have two name tags actually because Dragan ordered me one when I already had one, because I didn't wear my nametag once and he assumed I didn't have one. So one night I wore two. That was a good night.
Today I worked 8 hours straight. When I close my eyes, I see boxes of drinks.

While I struggle to succesfully make small talk and greet my peers, I do notice, and theoretically in fact am trained to, when people struggle to talk back to me. And it's interesting, because when I notice people are uncomfortable around me, are struggling to decide if they should say hi to me as they walk past or not, or are considering making small talk but then decide to and then stall and just murmur something under their breath. When I see these signs, I actually become more confident and socially agressive. I don't know what this indicates about my submissive/dominance stance in relationships, but it says something. I prefer for others to be in control of the communication, because I feel inferior in the communication arena (possibly due to continual over-analysis of communication). However, when it becomes evident that I'm the superior in the situation, I became more friendly and outgoing. In conclusion, it appears I am deep and when people don't know whether to make eye contact with me and then they start to say hi but stop, I will say hi to them.

At the strike of midnight, as the new year came to pass, I was in the middle of my two shots in pool. This might be symbolic. Maybe this year I will have two shots, two chances, and if the first chance doesn't go so well I'll still have another chance. What this chance could be I don't know, it may or may not have something to do with Josh fucking up, because that's why I had two shots anyway.
Sam had a BBQ, and we played backyard cricket, swam, played pool etc and it was a good night filled with good areas. Then the time came to leave, and I decided to walk home instead of accept a lift. This was a good decison, because along the way I encountered many drunk people who entertained me to the soundtrack of Mint Royale which I had put in the discman accidently.