Oh. Great.

My one sensible flatmate, the one I wanted to keep, has had the bad timing to fall in love and wants to move in with her boyfriend… this is going to make what was an already difficult situation impossible. Imagine showing people around a flat… in the middle of winter… with another flatmate on the way out, and not quietly. At least I know when this one is actually moving, so I can start advertising.

The really annoying thing is that this is taking up most of my time and energy, and I have a lot of other things I need to be doing. There’s a conflict between short-term survival and long-term survival.

I was buying some cleaning products from Karori, and the Woolworths was trying to get rid of old pre-shrinkage blocks of Cadbury chocolate, the Creme Brulee flavour. Poor thing, lying there in stacks, thinking “How can I be the least popular flavour? What about Fruit & Nut, no-one likes that sucker!”

A brief dip into normality

It may be only 6℃ in my room, but I’m in a good mood. And why not? I’m on a temporary break. No more starving in my room because I don’t want to go to the kitchen and be yelled at. No more abusive e-mails accusing me of terrible and ludicrous conspiracies. No more tiptoeing around in the evening like a sandwich ninja to avoid waking a super-sensitive sleeper who refuses to wear sodding earplugs. This must be what normal life feels like.

I should enjoy it while I can, because after next week things are going to get very unpleasant. Most people, when asked to leave a flat, do so in a manner which preserves their dignity. That’s not on the cards here, folks.

New bits of graffiti

This rather hamfisted piece of graffiti has gone up just around the corner from my flat, on a busy road in a location where no-one will see it except pedestrians. There were big incriminating footprints in the mud, so nice one, Banksy.

By contrast, this interesting paste-up (click for larger image) was on a wall just before the entrance to the Mt Vic tunnel. It’s a piece of creative writing by someone called “Schlott”. A day later it had been torn down, but sometimes that’s the point of this sort of artistic expression.

The energy drink of Sisyphus

I found some on-sale Relentless, which is on the way out, and tastes the same as its replacement, Mother. Thankfully the branding isn’t as gynophobic, although the labelling warns:

It’s goodbye to the shortcuts, hello to the grind. Nobody said it would be an easy ride. Suffer for your art.

Which is a cheerful way to start the day, isn’t it? That deathless paragraph also has a TM sign on it, although I’m not sure why you’d want to legally protect it. Maybe it’s to stop Weta Workshop from engraving it above their main entrance.

Amusingly, although the can is 440mls, you’re advised not to consume more than 500mls daily. Which means you can drink 1.12 cans a day. Although the second can might’ve gone flat by morning.

I feel sorry for the impersonators

Like everyone else who lived through the ’80s, I felt a jolt of surprise when reading about Michael Jackson’s death. The coverage has been painful to follow, because a lot of the news is a self-generating loop about how people are reacting to the news. That, and his most dedicated fans, the ones they’re interviewing for context, are barking mad. When Tori Amos dies in about 40 years there will be small, sobbing crowds of poets with names like Trixie Peablossom Spacedog, wearing pixie wings and clutching copies of Little Earthquakes.

Anyone under the age of, say, 25 would be unable to remember a time when Jackson was actually relevant to pop culture. They must be wondering what the fuss is about.

Another view

Drypnz, a.k.a. Wellington’s only good graffiti artist apart from bmd, has an exhibition opening at Manky Chops Gallery, 166 Cuba St, on July 2nd. Should be interesting. The flyer is, of course, printed on a big ol’ sticker.

Another jaunt over Mount Victoria – this view is of Kilbirnie and Rongotai from a solitary picnic table where literally hundreds of bogans must have been conceived. I started picking up litter, but there’s absolutely nowhere to put it until you get to an exit!

The Sophie Elliott murder case is appalling, isn’t it? How much provocation does somone need to even try justifying stabbing an ex-girlfriend 216 times? I also feel sorry for her poor mother being quizzed about her daughter’s past relationships… there’s something inherently base about any defence argument that implies the female murder victim deserved it.

Illegal in Tasmania

Indulge me for a second here, and read the sign on this barrier quickly:

I’ve been walking past these roadworks in Mercer St for a month now, and I’ve always thought it read “Morepork Frenching”, which I believe is illegal in Tasmania. It took someone smarter to me to point out this mistake, but as Gestalt psychologists and Paris Hilton’s paparazzi know, once something has been seen, it cannot be unseen.

The final straw

Right at this moment I am literally shaking with anger and stress, but many of you will be pleased to hear that tonight I finally took a big step towards improving my quality of life. Unfortunately it’s something that won’t come into effect for a while, and until then things will be needlessly stressful and horrible – but how different is that from how things are now?

Anyway, let me know if you know of anyone who’ll be looking for a flat within the next month… the flat is cold and falling apart from the outside, but the room is nice and the rent is unusually cheap for Kelburn, and it’s located handily for both the Northland and Kelburn shops, and for Vic University. It’s also on several major bus routes. Preference will be given to easy-going people who enjoy life and are not consumed with anger and bitterness towards the entire world.

Tedium averted… or merely delayed?

Righto, I didn’t do a Jitterati about the smacking referendum (although I wrote an okay script I might use in a few weeks) but I did one about Chris Knox instead. I also had an idea for a project which involves… stickers.

It’s Late & I’m Tired Soundtrack:
Submarine Bells ~The Chills
Circa Scaria ~An Emerald City
Free Fall ~Jimmy Giuffre

Here’s one I prepared earlier

I’ve been meaning for some time to draw something for Brent Willis’s Bristle collection, but although I got around to writing something, the deadline is imminent. It occurred to me that I haven’t done anything with The Expat’s Progress I wrote last year (and drew in four hours!) for that cartoon talk, so I’ll lay it out in two pages and give him that. The hardest part will be turning the full-colour low-contrast pictures into something that can be photocopied.