Phony phony

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The past two days, Life and I have had a bit of an ongoing quarrel. As much as I love her, I sometimes get really fed up with the crap she throws at me regularly, and these past few days have been a perfect example of the type of shit I wish she would just stop handing me.
Because she believes I can’t be happy unless faced with some sort of annoying predicament to sort out on a daily basis, she makes sure to provide me a bounty of sticky things to deal with when I’d much rather just kick back and take it easy for a bit.
Let me explain what I mean:

I bought a cell phone in a Vodafone store last week, and chose a simple, cheap one, since I don’t want the camera and GPS-functions anyway. To buy a new cell phone without at least a crappy 1.3 megapixel camera in it seemed impossible, though, so I didn’t manage to circumnavigate that feature, but at least the chosen phone seemed OK in other regards.
(When I say “seemed”, I mean that by merely looking at a plastic replica of the actual phone, it looked like an alright product. In the Vodafone stores us customers can’t be trusted with a real display phone, even though they’re tied to the counters, equipped with alarms and most likely locked internally in numerous ways. Instead of the actual screen, you get to look at a sticker of what the screen may or may not look like when turned on, and you have no way of knowing how the menus work, or anything else for that matter. Based on this flimsy piece of plastic, you’re supposed to make a decision on which phone to buy.)
Feeling patriotic that day, I rejected the LG’s and Motorola’s, and narrowed it down to a choice between a smart-looking yet affordable Sony Ericson, and a Nokia that reminded me of my first phone back in -96, but somehow managed to cost more. I consulted the salesman, who recommended the Sony Ericson because of its battery-life and other vague perks. It was a flip-model, which I prefer, and it had an exterior display, which is nice when you use your phone as a clock, which I do, so I went with that one.
I went back to the hostel that I was staying in during this time, and charged the battery. When the phone was ready to be used, I instantly realized the gross mistake I had made; the outer display didn’t show the clock. In fact, as I started using the phone, I had a hard time comprehending what that display was even there for. It did tell you that someone was calling you, but until you flipped open the phone, it remained a mystery as to who. It also informed you when you received a message, but only for 5 seconds. After that the text message-icon couldn’t be bothered anymore, and again you’d have to flip open the damn thing to find out whether there were any text messages lurking about in there.
In short, the phone was a complete piece of crap, which begs the question: why does one of the most profitable mobile phone makers in the world create such a monstrously poor product? Is this really the fruit of Japan and Sweden in technological symbioses?
Preposterous.

But at least the thing worked, until a week after the purchase, at which point the godforsaken shit-product refused to charge anymore. Somehow I had magically saved numerous used train tickets, but not my phone receipt. Sigh. Such is the life of a backpacker, I guess.
Instead of buying a new charger (which costs about as much as the phone did), I decided to try to find a decent used one on Gumtree.com.au.
After browsing around for a while, I ran into an ad for another Sony Ericson, this one a well-known model (K800i) with all the “hip” features as opposed to my Z320i (no, seriously, that is the model number). This used phone was only $100, which I thought was a good price for a quality phone. I got a hold of the girl and found out that it wasn’t locked to a certain network, and it only had a few minor scratches, no more than you would expect from normal use. She had had it for a few months, but got a new phone from her boyfriend, so now she wanted to sell it.

To make an excruciatingly long and painful story short:
I got stood up three times, ended up paying $40 for what turned out to most likely be a stolen phone, and the whole thing was wrapped up by me making empty threats about police reports, claiming I had taken down her license plate number (which, come to think of it, why the heck didn’t i?). This bluff made her testosterone-boosted boyfriend ring me up to aggressively spit something loud, angry and probably intimidating into my receiver.
All this commotion because I needed a new phone. I'd say it is a rather farcical outcome considering I was attempting something as simple as a mutually beneficial transaction.

I did manage to get some good stuff done, too, though. I met up with a guy named Diego, who now has promised to help me make my web page, which eventually should result in some sort of income or other for me. This will be important, as I'm pretty damn skinned by now.
I also met up with a French girl over drinks the other night, in effort to extend my small circle of friends a bit. I figured I will meet one new person off Gumtree’s platonic personal ads every week, and eventually I ought to stumble into someone who can become a really good friend.
I'd love to have a Harald here, but good people don’t get replaced easily, so my hopes of finding someone to substitute for my homeboy while in Aussie-land are low.

After having stayed 4-5 nights with Lorenzo in Dee Why, I decided to try living by another beach before moving in with the family, which will happen this Saturday, by the way. This time I'm staying at the world renowned Bondi Beach, since my mate Jett (you may remember him from such films as “Body Carving Is Fun!” and “It’s Good To Be Insane”) recently moved into a place there, and thus offered me his couch. As the freeloader I’ve become, I accepted immediately, and so yesterday I found myself falling asleep in their living room while Jett typed away at some environmental audit he’s been working on.

Jett, as I’m sure you’ve all gathered, is a most peculiar character, and in many ways deviates from what the rest of us consider the norm. I like this about him.
To spice up his persona a bit, Jett has a plastic jar in his room, containing a Sydney Funnel Web Spider (or Atrax Robustus, a name that pretty much says it all if you ask me). It’s one of the most venomous spiders in the world, and kills a human in 15 minutes after injecting its poison.
Jett feeds this little bugger rat-infants that he buys at the freezer counter in the pet store, and last night I had the privilege to observe this feeding session. Although fascinating and compelling to watch, it was nothing short of disgusting when the spider jabbed the already dead baby-rat in the brain, which I believe signifies the beginning of the feast, which apparently can last for a couple of days if the Atrax feels like it.

When I first landed at Jett’s place, I collapsed in his couch while telling him all about the maddening ordeal of trying to buy a used phone, and instead of responding with sympathy, he replied by throwing a brand new Sony Ericsson W200i in my lap. I threw it back and said I didn’t respond well to jokes including cell phones right now, but he just threw it at me again, grinned like an idiot and said it was for me. I threw it back at him and asked him to stop being such a tease, but once more the phone landed in my lap, this time with an explanation; his mom had sent it to him from the UK, but since he didn’t need another cell phone, he gave it to me. “Look after it for me”, he said, and I said that I would be willing to do him that favor.
Granted, the phone didn't work with my Australian SIM-card, as it’s locked to the UK, but this can apparently be taken care of fairly easily, which I’m planning on looking into tomorrow. Now I’ll just pretend I paid $40 for this phone and not the stolen one, and assuming I can win the Vodafone battle and get it to work, that's a darn good deal. And even if it doesn’t work, it’s nice to see first hand that there are still nice, generous people milling around this planet. Better yet that they’re in my circles, where they belong.

This morning Jett and I headed down to the beach, where the surf was better than I expected, as it’s been pretty poor at Dee Why during my days there. It wasn’t spectacular here either, but it was good enough for me to really want to get in there, and so I tried to come up with ways to get my hands on a board without having to rent one.
Two lifeguards walked by, and I half jokingly asked them if they had a surfboard to lend me. To my big surprise they said that they probably did. I went with them, picked out a board, and jumped into the water to enjoy the waves. The board was long and good, so I actually got some decent surfing done during the hour I was tumbling around out there. I hadn’t brought my boardies, though, since I didn’t expect I’d be surfing, which means that now all of Bondi Beach has seen my butt-crack, and then some. I really need a new bikini, the bottoms I have now just won’t stay up when I’m hit by a wave.
The hour of surfing also served me with my most frightening water-experience as of yet, when I got caught by surprise by a big wave, and found myself under water, unable to get up, for a little longer than I was comfortable with. I couldn’t tell what was up and what was down, whether the board was about to hit me in the head or whether it was safely in front if me, and there was nothing but foamy, roaring water around me. But eventually my feet located the bottom and I managed to push myself up to get a gasp of much appreciated air.

Somehow Paul the A-hole found this blog, and sent me an email regarding the entry that mentioned him. He left me his number in the email, and encouraged me to “stay in touch”, which I thought was a pretty odd response to my very forthright account of how I felt about that night.

Paul, if I failed to make myself clear in my previous post, I’ll do a better job in this one;
I don’t like you. Making me feel uncomfortable about sleeping anywhere but in your bed was a really shitty thing to do, and the fact that you’re now emailing me your phone number, as if I would actually call you, does very little to improve my image of you.
Please just accept that not everyone is going to like you, and that I’m one of those who don’t. I don’t want to be mean, but I simply have no interest in having anything to do with you. Thanks for understanding.

There, that ought to do the trick.

I now have one single day left as completely unemployed in Australia, and then on Saturday begins my life as a nanny. I think it will be good.
My address from now on is 20 Burke St, Chifley, NSW 2036, Australia, and I do accept donations and various kinds of packages at this point.

By way of welcoming me to the Maroubra neighbourhood (or so I like to think of it), the guy who I had emailed about beach volley sent me a message inviting me to fill in for a player in a game on Saturday morning. Since I’m a stand-in it’s free of charge, which sits very well with my deflated budget. I don’t pay to play a sport that’s essentially free anyway. Plus, it’s my strong belief that girls in bikini never should have to pay for anything. Especially not someone who so charitably shows large parts of her butt while surfing.

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Photos

Lorenzo (or Paris Hilton with a crew cut?)
I'm going to do a series of people wearing my huge sunnies. First up: Lorenzo!

Politics
This refers to the first ever apology from the government to the aboriginals, made by Aussie Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

What the snap?
A freakishly long hair on my arm.

Prince look-alike
Jett is #2 in our Big Sunnies-series

Imperial College in London
Don't ask me why, but Jett wanted me to pose reading the monthly magazine from his school in London.

Jett sporting Simpsons boxers
He claims his swim trunks were in his sleeping mate's room, but I see through the BS. He just likes these boxers. It's OK, Jett, come clean.

Comments

[potato]

the string bikini theory of global warming
My classes have their presentations this week and one group had the most creative idea about a positive feedback loop for global warming that all begins with girls in bikinis. Feminine exposure leads to lustiness, lustiness leads to increased population, increased population leads to industrial development, industrial development leads to greenhouse gas emissions, greenhouse gas emissions lead to global warming, global warming leads to feminine exposure.... and the cycle repeats Save the seals, wear a mumu

[Mama]

Be careful
Love to read about all adventures....worry about You as always but that´s my job...Take care...Mama loves You