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If you met yourself from the future, what would you ask your future self?
What if they wont tell you anything?


Pleasant Thoughts make Pleasant Lives

Fuck you multitrip, you're going to have to try harder than that to make your price rise palatable.

a Brown Day

I'm now back to working five days a week, what with my university adventure becoming nothing but a twenty grand debt statement.

To celebrate working more hours I bought myself a new work outfit, ironically during an extended lunch break. I got some brown pants which I saved until today.

I've never worn brown pants to work before, to me they symbolise a massive change. They are much warmer in contrast to the stark, business black pants I've previously worn. There's more creativity woven into these earthy tones. The shirt is nice too, white with brown lines written down the front, back and sides.

Something else I've been buying during lunch breaks lately is books. I've gone spastic on them lately. I don't know if this is some sort of aging milestone that happens around 22 but it's happened to me.

Have been doing a lot of writing too, in brown pants and in no pants.

I have also enjoyed having my hand on my keys in my pocket and pretending for strangers that my central locking is voice activated.


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Acceptable in the 90's

I get worried when I start noticing signs in my life. Last week it was a year. 1995 to be specific. I picked up a copy of Microserfs by Douglas Coupland at Borders on Thursday. By the train ride home on Friday I was 114 pages in and wondering if the prologue titled 'Fall 1993' wasn't actually a prologue at all! Checking the published date confirmed it was a 1995 publication.
'How strange!' I thought. 'And how the IT industry has changed since then.'
The line between real people and nerds have almost completely blended since then. Everyone has a PC.

I had to put the book down eventually, as the train pulled in to Blackwood and I walked into a weekend and towards my car, which had Triple J's Hottest 100 volume 4 installed into the CD player. I can't recall what prompted me to pick that off my shelf earlier in the week, but obviously the double up of the date prompted some severe introspection. Obviously fate was trying to teach me a lesson.

Life was a lot simpler in 1995. Guitar riffs were simpler. Everything had way less buttons. As far as I can tell, people talked a lot less shit. But that probably depends who you were listening to.

So I make it my vow for this week. Live life like it's 1995. Will report back with findings.

It was Acceptable at the Time

I set my alarm this morning for 8am. That's what time I used to get up in 1995. Just enough time to get ready for school and eat breakfast before I ran down the hill to class.

Then I changed it to 7:52 because I did not have to shave back in 1995.

I got to work. For future reference - perhaps when I am reliving 2007 in a dozen years - the drop 2 implementation did not go so well during the weekend. Lucky for me everything I'd contributed was working fine. Serendipitous. So as my work was done, or still done, I didn't have much to do. Even appealing to managers for jobs to do was fruitless. Eventually I was told to take it easy. This was about lunchtime, so I microwaved my spaghetti, grabbed Microserfs and headed down to the river to read it, 90's style.

The morning had dragged on, and I'd been looking forward to this moment. In fact I've been looking forward to a lot of things lately, like Splendour, birthday parties, writers week, the end of the project (is that possible?). To Summer. Definitely looking forward to Summer.

image 290 from bradism.com

But as I sat there, on the grassy bank under that cold, blue sky that shows up on days when the sun is out but the air is icy, I realised how ironic it was that in 90's week all I could think about was the future.

It was the middle of winter. Exactly! The fact it was this sunny was downright suspicious. I shouldn't be dreaming of warm mornings, nights in town without a jacket and eating a plate load of chicken in china town tomorrow. I should be shivering under a pergola, trying to avoid drizzle and coming up with jokes about revolutionary operating systems. I smiled to myself as I learnt what life was teaching me. I needed to stop focussing on the future, live for the day, today and every day.
'That is so 90's.' I thought to myself. 'Radical.'
Now that I'd adjusted my focus I realised that this whole month was pregnant with possibility.

Seeing a pregnant woman may have influenced this epiphany.


image 291 from bradism.com

Stick it in my Pig

I went to the gym last night so I went to the central markets today for a plate of chicken. Wet Ho Fun costs more than Dry Ho Fun.

image 292 from bradism.com

This is one of those little events where the enjoyment of the first experience builds the anticipation for the second. After Friday's lunch I was really keen on some chicken. Today just wasn't that nice. It was disappointing. But I was just glad to be out of the office. Still nothing for me to do this week.
In 1995 I came to that same food court one Friday night. My family used to combine grocery shopping with family outings. It was very efficient. Not very I.T., it seems, judging by this week.
I read recently that grocery shopping is a great first date activity. Apparently in the new millennium the traditional date is now dead and you have to show girls that you like them, but you're also a busy person with goals and shopping lists. No time for a quiet drink or to take them to a movie. You were even supposed to consider bringing friends to catch up with at the same time. The more social functions you can integrate into an hour, the more attractive you are to the opposite sex. Very Steve Jobs, not very 90's.

After lunch Josh and I walked through the markets looking for a Maneki Neko statue for a bargain price. He told me his business plan to assemble an army of beckoning cats on his desk which would elicit loose change from everyone else at his office. I think he's bored at work too. He did seem committed though, we checked out five stores before finding the best price.
While we were looking for the cat I found a little green pig statue, tennis ball sized with a coin slot down its spine. He was perched on a shelf, standing out against a crowd of yellow pigs. So Josh bought his beckoning cat and I bought a green pig. His name is Green Pig.

image 293 from bradism.com

Josh went back to work but I was still hiding from boredom after lunch so I took Green Pig for a walk down Rundle Mall to see if I could get money from strangers. I got no money. I was hoping to at least collect enough to cover the cost of buying him. I only felt awkward at the end as I walked down a Hindley Street alley back to work and a scruffy youth came up to me and asked if I could spare change for the bus. I said I couldn't, and shook my empty pig for emphasis.

It's been exactly one year since I bulged my disc today. Happy anniversary, year of constant pain. I'm very glad that year's over. I think I've been suffering from the Anniversary Reaction. I read about it during work on Monday.

When I was back at my desk I sat Green Pig up on empty box of paper reams in my cubicle. I stuck a Post-It Note under him saying "Pat green pig, 20c." I now have forty cents. I wonder how profitable one of the yellow pigs would have been.

I feel a special bond with the green pig. We're both the independent type, but with fucked up backs.

Sitting and Reading

After my shower this morning I stood on the scales. My weight's in the 90's. I was happy with this.

I drove past the primary school today and it reminded me of the last time I was there, voting in an election. I voted for Howard. I had this feeling that Howard was first elected in 1995 and as I drove up the hill I felt this comfortable wave of constantness. No matter what changed or was invented or exploded between the 90's and today, there was always Howard.
When I got back to my computer I checked Wikipedia and he was elected in 1996. I felt ripped off, like my identity had paid for twelve years of Howard and only got eleven. Then I remembered I was supposed to be living in the 90's and there was no Wikipedia. The only way to find things like this out was to check an encyclopaedia at the library. And you had to hope no one had the letter you needed out on an overnight loan.
Wikipedia was created in 2001. I wasn't supposed to know that.

After lunch I decided to go shopping for a new office chair, because I am totally over my year of back pain and ergonomic kneeling. I spent most of an hour sitting in chairs, thinking about how they feel. They all feel pretty much the same. After picking a chair I had to decide on a fabric, and I was shown the most captivating colour chart. Every colour was named solely based on the functional purpose of the colour. There were dozens of layerings with no layers of complexity, language or features. The display book's copyright date: 1995. Hell yes.

image 295 from bradism.com

Practical seemed like the obvious choice, although I may change my mind and go with Versatile if a few things change.

The ads for House tonight tempted me to watch the repeat as it's a good episode. I miss House, but I try to avoid rewatching episodes on my own because if there's one thing I know about women it's that they all love House. It's incredible. Once they find out you have them on DVD they start getting clucky. I've had so many defining moments with women, juxtaposed with house repeats, that I'm conditioned to get aroused when I hear the theme song. Also House is basically my hero so that may be a factor as well.
I don't know who my television hero was in 1995. Probably William McInnes, as Blue Heelers started the year before.
I wasn't supposed to know that either.

Suffer for Fashion

There was so little work to do today at work that I didn't go. I took the day off for sleeping in and shopping for jeans. When I woke up at 11am and checked my inbox I hadn't received a single new email in almost 24 hours. How... 80's.

image 297 from bradism.com

So I went to the outlet mall to try and find some jeans. I was surprised to see so many people at clearance stores at the middle of the day, The car park was completely full. Most homosapiens really are scavengers. There are probably some alpha-males out there, hunting and gathering. I'd like to be an alpha-male, I think. It would be better than being a vulture.
Vultures are the bargain hunters of the animal kingdom. I can imagine a mother vulture bringing back scraps of meat to its younglings and saying to the father 'You would not believe how much I got this for! They were just throwing it away.'

My primary goal was to get jeans. My secondary goal, an overarching concept, was to get 90's jeans. I don't really know what would classify jeans as 90's. Bell-Bottoms were the jeans of the 70s. Rivets came in during the 50s. I wasn't supposed to check that out.
In fact, the fashion industry has been distressing jeans by hacking, smashing and scuffing holes in them in the past decade. Trendy, but primitive. Jeans as a technology are going backwards.
I got a pair of Levi's 538s. That was after I tried on a pair of 501s. Jeans have version numbers!
Jeans West did not supply me with a supple pair of Jeans, despite my best efforts. I left their outlet store with several pairs in the "maybe" pile. But I would never see them again.
At the Levi outlet store, Dimitri helped me choose a new pair of jeans. And flirted the shit out of me. I suspected he was gay once he'd placed his hand on my arm and laughed when I'd told a crappy joke, about jeans having version numbers. He continued to hit on me, but I endured it as a road to scoring a good pair of jeans. I tried on five pairs before buying the jeans he recommended me. They were button fly. So I now have jeans that have extra buttons. It's oxymoronic, the button fly was invented before the zip. As jean technology increased the number of buttons decreased. And now here I was wearing 90's jeans loaded with buttons. Jeans transcend generations.
Dimitri gave me his number and said if I ever felt like going shopping I should call him. I don't think I will call him, but I probably did enjoy the confidence boost of being hit on by a gay dude maybe a little too much. I don't think he could spot me, benching 70kg. Oh God, does that mean I'm thinking about it!? Also he drives a beat up VL Commodore. Selling distressed jeans from a distressed car, that's fine but I'm looking for something classier. I've still got his number. Did people have mobiles in the 90s?

Life as Nouns as Verbs

Words that I use regularly, but didn't exist in 1995


  • Google
  • LOL
  • youtube
  • bradism
  • iPod
  • SexyBack

Too Much Music to Make Entries

Someone give me a concept, theme or idea for how I should live my life next month and I will use it for August.