captlychee

I have come into some government office to see a woman about a podcast that I think I'm going to be appearing on. The woman concerned is simultaneously of Indian descent and appearance, and she's sitting at a huge desk which is completely bare, with three chairs in front of it. She has the windows behind her, and I can't see her face clearly.
"I'm here for the podcast," I say.
"No."
"Can I sit in on the podcast?"
"No."
"I'll just leave my script and paper here, then," I say, putting said items into a desk return that is next to her desk.
I walk off, and when I look behind me, she's talking to another Indian woman and they're getting ready to start their podcast.

As I look around, I see that there are a dozen or so chairs in a circle, and I sit down in one of them. Then all these people come around and one guy announces that this is a 'collaborative editing meeting' and that everyone is welcome. They all sit down on the chairs and look at me expectantly. I say that I'm just here for the podcast, pointing to the two Indian women talking away (in English). Nobody in the circle has a clue who she is or what she's doing. Then they all get off their chairs and come over to me, and start to stroke my hair and pat me etc as if I was a panda they were getting to know.

There's too much money in the State Public Service. We Federal employees have always said that. Not only was I done out of my podcast appearance, but all these artsy types were treating me like some kind of furry omnivore—which is, to some extent, true—and doing it in work hours. Were they going to get any actual editing done during this collaborative session? Probably. These sort of committee things do get things done from time to time. Still, it isn't how I think of editing.

And what about the script and newspaper? It's been ages since I read a newspaper—and nearly as long since I wrote a script. Perhaps the script, podcast scenario and Indian women can be blamed on this week's episode of The Drunken Odyssey but is that really fair to the gang over there? The collaborative editing might come from my desire to produce a collaborative novel like Atlanta Nights with Laura, Turnip and Laura's friends. So we're reading through Atlanta Nights collaboratively to get a feel for it. At least, that's my plan. They may not want to waste time trying for a crap collaborative novel.

On to more interesting things in the next post.

captlychee

In 1990, I was helping out with the production of the second Visible Ink annual effort out of RMIT. When I say 'helping', I mean that I was slowly typing out a manuscript into some God-forsaken publishing software on an Apple Macintosh. Said Macintosh had a ten inch black and white screen, pretty good graphics for 1990, microscopic icons that made less sense than an emoji-filled text message and the keyboard from Hell. I swore then by all that was then holy—the World Trade Centre in New York, the colony of Hong Kong, and apartheid—that I would never use a Macintosh again.

Flash forward thirty-two years-odd to yesterday. I had, in November last year, made the case that a Macbook would be a form of visual aid to help me live a more or less normal life, and that therefore the NDIS could pay for it. They had allocated $10220 for me to spend on visual aid equipment, and I had spent around $640 on computer repairs between November 2019 and November 2021. I hadn't spent any more because I kept getting knocked back on computer expenses, and they wouldn't go for a large screen TV, either. So, I finally convinced them of the utility of a Macbook and got a quote from JB Hi Fi on November 13^th.

Then, by the time I'd forwarded the quote on to McCallum Financial Services so they could pay JB, my plan had expired and the new plan only had $5000 to spend. (Explaining these plans and why we need them I may do some other time.)

On January 7^th this year, McCallum ring to say they'd paid the quote but the money would take a few days to reach JB. I gave it four days, and trotted down to JB on the 11^th. After a bit of finagling with quote numbers and some ID on my part, they gave me this box:

There's no doubt about it. The unboxing process on Apple products is something of a delight, and I was sitting here with such expensive (or dollar-intensive) machinery that I felt like putting on a suit and tie.

After the delight of taking the thing out of its paper wrapping, I was even delighted to find that it even smelled nice. This was in stark contrast to the smell of my actual desk which had become a bit putrid over the previous week what with spilled tea and biscuit crumbs. In honour of this new machine, I cleaned off the desk using Windex and a Chux superwipe. Meanwhile, back at the box, I unpacked the charger and charging cable.

As you can see, the charger is about the size of an actual Dodge (or Valiant) Charger, so I had to unplug the Lenovo and the CZUR camera to plug this thing in. It was, as you would probably suspect if you've been following my journal for a few years, the work of a moment to plug the thing in. When I opened the lid it gave me a nice 'tada' sort of sound, the original 'tada' from the earliest days of the Mac if memory serves. Then the screen came on:

You can see the bottom of the monitor from an actual computer there. I was Googling like a mad thing to find answers to setting up a Mac.

After that there came a few hours of absolute Hell while I set the thing up. I won't go into that too much because the pain is still present and the wounds raw and bleeding, but fuck this thing was a pain where you simply don't expect pain to be, even at my age. snaky_poet once said that the good thing about Macs is that 'things just work'. I can now appreciate what an utter torture chamber the rest of her life must be. If she thinks things 'just work' on a Mac, she must turn on the lights by cramming coal into the loungeroom generator and strangling a kitten to propitiate the impedance gods. Nothing 'just worked'. The keyboard was easier to use then the one on the 14" Macbook that I had tried at JB, but not much easier. And I had to keep squinting at the dark screen to find the mouse cursor. It was tedious to follow the pointer across the screen until it was on the correct clickable bit, which I had to do because I was using the goddamned trackpad which, incidenntally, only works if you use one finger, but I kind of managed it. By 11:15 on Saturday night I was exhausted and resolved that everything I hated about Macs hadn't changed and that I w3as going to kick some obedience into the bloody thing on Sunday morning.

As gorgeous as the Macbook's packaging was, I had eschewed the very expensive Apple mouse in favour of a Logitech Pebble.

On Sunday I arose from the procrustean bed, if I may so call it, full of vim and vigour and, after tackling that morning's Wordle, cracked the old knuckles and…had a shower and got dressed, then had a cup of tea and, fortified by the morning's routine and the sustaining powers of tea, settled down to have another go at this stupid machine.

I got my darling Kelvatari on the ol' Skype because she had one of the damn things and could probably help. She got me through most of the process. At least to the point where I could fire up Safari, a browser I had previously only used on my phone, to try and install Microsoft Office on the Macbook. This process, very easy on a computer, is yet another arse-reaming on this thing. After five attempts to download the installer, each download taking approximately forty-five minutes before mysteriously halting, I finally got a complete file. I was able to install it just in time to head over to Write Club.

I still haven't been able to get the mouse to work. It's a Bluetooth mouse, so it should work without having to plug in the wireless receiver, which is impossible anyway because there're no plugs on the thing that the USB dongle from the mouse will fit into. I've got the thing connected to the network via WiFi, which is good because there's no Ethernet plug on it, either, and so far the only thing it's found is my Kindle Fire. It kept searching for the mouse for four hours before I was finally able to make it stop. But by 2:00PM on Sunday it was time to go over to Write Club. With a Macbook.

Now—even though I haven't written anything on it—I can say I'm a real writer.

captlychee

We're on a W-class tram, the old wooden ones with the nice seats that were comfortable in the heat and whose brakes didn't seize up - but let's not get into that. You could still get on these things and do a tour of the Melbourne CBD on them before COVID struck. Anyway, there's me and Mum and incredibleloon (whom we'll call 'SuperJase' for the time being) and a white German Shepherd that is gallivanting around on the empty seats.
"Don't touch that dog," says SuperJase. "It's very important."
So I just let the dog go about it's business until ti says; "The weather's getting worse."
Mum then collapses. I leap to her aid, and get her head up so I can hear what she's saying.
But it's only a whisper that I can't hear, and she dies in my arms.
SuperJase looks on in shock. The white dog is gone. The tram keeps rolling along.

Well, after that, I rang Mum to see if she was alright, which she is. I took it on faith that SuperJase is alright, he being younger and fitter than me, and the last time I saw a white German Shepherd in real life was in a past life, I assume. Therefore, I don't know whether it could talk or was a portent of anything, let alone death.

I can tell you that that dream was had under the influence of four pints of cider and a Murphys burger from Irish Murphy's, after watching the new Ghostbusters movie.

Said movie experience was had at the Regent Cinemas in Lydiard St Nth. The cinemas themselves were nice and convenient, and the staff very helpful to a blind guy who couldn't find his way around at all. They took me to the box office, I paid $15 for my ticket, then they took me up to the cinema and came to get me at the end of the picture. The start time for the movie was 2:50PM, so the 'feature presentation' proudly announced—through a very mediocre sound system by cinema standards—started at 3:07PM. I won't spoil any part of it if I say that it's a good tribute to Harold Ramis and has revived my interest in the first movie, but it's also good evidence that it's possible to parlay a fanfic piece into a real script. What evidence do I have that it started as a fanfic? None. It just felt that way. The important thing is that it isn't 'written by numbers' and the writing is far better than Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull—but then, what isn't?

It was probably visually interesting, but the sound in the cinema wasn't great, and the screen is so dark compared to a TV that I could barely see what was going on. It also had the reverse of the bit that totally confused me in Jurassic Park 2. In that movie, white Jeff Goldblum had a black child; in this one, the black sheriff has a white daughter¹. Are we supposed to ignore this? But at least all the female characters were played by cisgendered woman, and the males by cisgendered men, so no annoying chunks of political correctness to distract you from the actual narrative.

Prior to going to the movies, I took the vacuum cleaner in to The Good Guys in Mair St to get it serviced under the warranty. Under the fucking warranty. The shop lady was very nice about, took it away to check whether it needed repairs and turned it on. You could hear it across the shop. She brings it back and says:
"OUr store manager and I agree that all it needs is a new filter and new bags."
"You think it's normal that the thing is so loud I could hear it over this half acre of floor space?"
"See, the filter needs replacing and the bag needs to be changed."
$88 later I haven't had the thing serviced and I've got a ne filter and bags. Why fucking argue with me? It's not your money that will be spent fixing the fucking thing!
You may ask why I put up with this shit. Because we're not armed is why. Why do they even go on with this shit? Because they can, because we cant' shoot them. And don't get me started on Qants…

This is hardly a new rant for me. But now, With fewer people on staff because of the COVID, more and more defenceless consumers have to put up with this crap. Avoidance may be the best strategy. Don't buy a Miele vaccumn cleaner, and don't buy from The Good Guys.

1. Or so it sounded to me. The picture of the actress on the IMNDB shows that she is black. Her non-blasck accent may be explained by her being born in Kenya.

captlychee

Laura, Peach, Dave and I are floating around some medieval landscape in a hot air balloon. A man on a chestnut mare is on the ground watching us as we come in to land. He then rides up to us and tells us that 'King is in trouble'. There is then a series of disjointed images which might form a story one day.

What the hell does this mean? The four balloonists are people I know, though I don't know Peach or Dave well enough to know their web presence. For the moment, let us consider them to be persons of mystery in, respectively, New York and New Jersey. Laura is the pretty and famous Laurasauras, of whom I have spokne of elsewhere, and to on Discord and in the throes of face to face conversation in these infected and paranoid times.
Is there, for example, any significance to the man on the horse, the colour of the horse, where it falls on the equine gender spectrum, and most importantly the lack of an article in the man's report that 'King is in trouble'? Which King does he mean? A king in a medieval dreamscape seems reasonablr enough, des rigueur one might call it if one were more confident of their French, but why treat 'king' as a proper noun? John King? Some movie?

In dream 2, my darling Kelvatari and I are at the Capitol in Washington DC. We're both following Senator Seager there. He is a Democrat from some state or other. Everyone is being scanned by wands for COVID. People are wearing various types of mask. I have forgotten mine, so Kelva runs back for it, and for my cane. Senator Seager says that no blind or vision handicapped person be scanned, so they refrain from scanning me. Seager walks into the main room of the building, while I wait for Kelva. Eventually, I walk out of the building and as I'm walked along I feel someone brush against me. I move away to give them space and they press against me. I keep moving until I hit the wall of the Capitol. I turn to see who this shoving arsehole is, and it's Kelva, with my mask and cane. She is very snarky.

Capitol? A Democrat senator? I prefer the Democrats tothe Republicans when I think about american politics at all, because Lincoln was a Republican, but what significance is al the mask and scanning etc. Perhaps it's a subconscious anxiety about travelling to, and getting into, the US in March, becauase, after 39 fucking minutes of clicking away on the goddamn Sodomite qantas website I was able to use my flight credit from 2020 that ScoMo so gladly first created and then fucked up the arse for me Alan Joyce style.

It is important to note that these dreams were had after seven cans of Jamesons, Lime and Dry during a six-hour marathon conversation which was to try and mediate a dispute occurring on the Larry Niven chat.

captlychee

So, today, as it should appear to be whenever you’re actually reading this, marks what would have been the culmination of three and a half decades of service to the Commissioner and, more by tradition than fact, the Commonwealth. In real life, however, it’s December 31^st and it has taken me more than a month to sit down and write even this small paragraph.

Why?

It certainly isn’t the relentless grind of making fifteen excuses an hour for why people don’t have their money yet or explaining ad nauseam that just because we sent the money doesn’t mean your bank has to let you have it. Goodness knows, it isn’t that. Anyway, those two things are part of the ol’ durance vile.

The elephant in the room, which nobody can shut up about, is the COVID. We have now been at this prevention idea, with its ramifications for personal freedoms, or at least what were perceived to be personal freedoms, the gradual arrival of a combination nanny/police state as we have to identify ourselves everywhere we go, advise the government of when we do it, and can’t even flee the country even if we’re not citizens. That was all 2020’s thing. This year, now that vaccines are ‘available’, we’ve been handing executive powers to unelected officials, letting the State government call things pandemics without having to show any evidence for doing so, and realising just how dependent we are on tourism in Victoria. Hospitality is a fine way of generating GST for the Federal government, but if nobody’s working in it because everyone is under house arrest for fear of passing the disease on to an already highly-vaccinated population, there’re no wages or GST for the Feds to tax, and no payroll taxes for the State. When I was actually part of an inquisitorial system that could and did pry into people’s lives daily, I used to dread the approaching Orwellian state, but thought I wouldn’t live to see it. Now I’m not so sure, and my life expectancy is not what it once was, due to a bloodstream that’s 7% fairy floss and 3% alcohol most of the time.

It’s the rapid onset of the thing that’s scary. No anonymous purchases, house arrest on suspicion of having the virus, the use of the information gathered by the State government in administering Federal law (not to mention what commercial concerns might get it—remember how quickly the ‘No Call’ register details were sold to American Express?—and now the new ‘emergency‘ powers which allow the Premier to declare an emergency before it’s even arisen. The important thing is that people now know that what they thought were their freedoms actually aren’t, and in a plague, you can kiss any of your rights goodbye, provided you let the government know where you were when you did it.

People have often said that if we had a Bill of Rights, just like the Americans have, in our Constitution we could solve these problems, just like the Americans have. But that’s a Constitution their Supreme Court says can be waived at any time, such that your right to bear arms doesn’t include the right to carry them. Although, that appears to be changing.

But of course, a Fascist state wants to see human rights codified so that they can produce exceptions to them. When I was at the ol’ workplace I used to say that ‘it all goes out the window when there’s money involved’. That’s also true where there’s a virus involved.

Which is what the ‘rise of neo-Nazis’ is all about. The swastikas on the Shrine of Remembrance aren’t about the rise of neo-Nazis. Neither is this thing Richmond got all upset about. The conditions that allowed and promoted the rise of Nazism just aren’t around anymore. Fascism had such control in Italy in the 1940’s the Nazis had to invade the place to get a foothold. But here the State government, and the Federal for that matter, can create a similar Fascist state that would crush the neo-Nazis once it took them even slightly seriously. The Victorian Constitution guarantees our right of free association, but if there’s a virus on? Forget it. What the swastikas are about is warning us that we are perilously close to a Nazi state from the government we’ve elected. Don’t rely on the Federal government for help, either. Not once they realise the value of the jackboot economy.

But there are more interesting things going on than a medieval terror of a virus that is so far less effective at killing people than heart disease and breast cancer. On June 6^th I got an email from the good people at Mystery Weekly saying that they loved my story, ‘The Purloined Pachyderm’ and would like to publish it in their anthology Die Laughing. They paid me $AUD58.47 for it. My first ever sale! (The money came via PayPal, so as soon as I got it, I found that I couldn’t sequester it away, and thus immediately blew it on pizzas, but I did declare it as income and then deducted the cost of the software I used to write it.)

The story itself came from an analysis of “The Purloined Letter” by Edgar Allan Poe. After analysing that for a week or more as part of my never-ending course at Fed Uni, I vented my spleen and wrote a humorous (well, they bought it, right?) story with every Romantic reference I could cram into it. The actual anthology is not yet available on the Kindle, and I didn’t get a contributor’s copy, but I will patiently await its Kindlisation and get it then so I can read the competition. I can now say I’m a writer and at least have something to back that up. The next stop is a novel, which my darling Kelvatari and I are currently working on, and for which she has an in with a legitimate publisher. In the meantime, subscribe to Mystery Weekly and tell ‘em I sent you, so they will buy my next story.

Ballarat continues to be increasingly expensive, but it has had a pernicious but good effect on my social life. I went down to Melbourne for the Beakmeister’s birthday, and I realised then that most of my social circle consists of people from Ballarat Writers, that excellent Victorian incorporated association that seeks to and succeeds in promoting the interests of writers in the Central Highlands. Ah, well, for less social occasions with friends I have Facebook, but the main point of contact now is Discord, on which I can be found most days bitching about something or expressing the ennui that happens when people get near to being within a decade of the ol’ Biblical threescore years and ten.

Indeed, for those of you who’ve been following along, the threescore years is coming up. I hope to hell that I can get to Orlando in time to celebrate it with the aforementioned Kelva, and her birthday, too, but that all relies on the viral panic that COVID has not so much caused as justified.

And what for 2022? Well, it’s the 100^th anniversary of 1922, so that’s something. We have a Federal election somewhere between March and May, the possibility of yet another form of ID being brought out to keep those safe for the Gesundheitspolizei (Health Police) and the general public, and then a Victorian one in November if it can’t be shut down because of the Pi variant, or what4ver the fuck we’ll be up to by then.