my dad said "be an actor my son.. but be a comical one!"

gosh, blog. you know something? we haven't spoken since last year. i'm jittery just thinking about all that time that's flown by! haha. but seriously now, i think i owe you a proper post. it's half past 2 on the first of january, 2011! and what a loooverly mornin'!

instead of a static new year's resolution, i've devised a table of goals i hope not to abandon two weeks from setting them. ladies and gentlemen, my resolutions.



my first goal is to clean out my entire room including the infernal mess which is my wardrobe. i'm gonna go right through and cull the lot. old makeup, shoes, stationery, posters, clothing, books, you name it. i'll put some things up on facebook as a giveaway to see if anyone else can find use from my olds, but everything that doesn't find a new home is going to lifeline. as an extension to this goal, i'm going to replace a lot of things with new, revamped versions. my pillows are getting a bit old and gross, so woo! and with the back to school sales starting soon, i should be able to get away with a new hoard of books, et cetera, for under $20. i want more room to display my halo figurines which i've stuffed in the wardrobe for lack of space. i've spent so much money on them, they deserve to be displayed goddamnit! and it's my room, funk you, i don't care if you don't approve. get off my blog.







oh hush, cartoon personification. i'm not replacing you. my second goal is to save $4000. typical money saving resolution goal, i know. but i really want a new piano. i've got roughly $500 now. which is 1/8th of the way to my goal, so that's a good head start right? and i've got a whole day of work coming up in merely seven hours from now so it's somewhat realistic. i aim to have $4k by christmas 2011. i hope to have it by then anyway. i'll have to draw up some kind of saving plan or schedule based on how much money i earn and the rate at which i earn it. fun times.
















aw, now aren't you sweet? alright then fine, i'll stick with adobe. anyway, my third goal is to see how long i can go without eating junk food. the conditions of this include: the goal shall forfeit if i buy myself junk food, or willingly consume it upon my own accord, as well as if i ask for it. this does not apply for when others buy it for me as a kind gesture, or when there is literally nothing else i can afford and i really need to eat something. last time i tried this, i lasted three months. three months is a quarter of a year. let's see if i can beat my record! and the obvious extension to this, is the goal of losing all this shit i've put on over the last couple of years. and what better way to justify buying myself a new kinect peripheral for my xbox? i can't wait.

and now my lovelies, i shall brush, mouthwash and floss, clean my bed and head off to sleep so i can start this day on a little more than two hours of sleep. happy new year. <3

new year's eve.

it's cruel cold on the water-front, silent and dark and drear;
only the black tide weltering, only the hissing snow;
and i, alone, like a storm-tossed wreck, on this night of the glad new year,
shuffling along in the icy wind, ghastly and gaunt and slow.

they're playing a tune in mcguffy's saloon, and it's cheery and bright in there
(god! but i'm weak - since the bitter dawn, and never a bite of food);
i'll just go over and slip inside -- i mustn't give way to despair -
perhaps i can bum a little booze if the boys are feeling good.

they'll jeer at me, and they'll sneer at me, and they'll call me a whiskey soak;
("have a drink? well, thankee kindly, sir, i don't mind if i do.")
a drivelling, dirty, gin-joint fiend, the butt of the bar-room joke;
sunk and sodden and hopeless - "another? well, here's to you!"

mcguffy is showing a bunch of the boys how bob fitzsimmons hit;
the barman is talking of tammany hall, and why the ward boss got fired.
i'll just sneak into a corner and they'll let me alone a bit;
the room is reeling round and round.. o god! but i'm tired, i'm tired.

roses she wore on her breast that night. oh, but their scent was sweet.
alone we sat on the balcony, and the fan-palms arched above;
the witching strain of a waltz by strauss came up to our cool retreat,
and i prisoned her little hand in mine, and whispered my plea of love.

then sudden the laughter died on her lips, and lowly she bent her head;
and oh, there came in the deep, dark eyes a look that was heaven to see;
and the moments went, and i waited there, and never a word was said,
and she plucked from her bosom a rose of red and shyly gave it to me.

then the music swelled to a crash of joy, and the lights blazed up like day,
and i held her fast to my throbbing heart, and i kissed her bonny brow.
"she is mine, she is mine for evermore!" the violins seemed to say,
and the bells were ringing the new year in - o god! i can hear them now.

don't you remember that long, last waltz, with its sobbing, sad refrain?
don't you remember that last goodbye, and the dear eyes dim with tears?
don't you remember that golden dream, with never a hint of pain,
of lives that would blend like an angel-song in the bliss of the coming years?

oh, what have i lost! what have i lost! ethel, forgive, forgive!
the red, red rose is faded now, and it's fifty years ago.
'twere better to die a thousand deaths than live each day as i live!
i have sinned, i have sunk to the lowest depths - but oh, i have suffered so!

"rouse up, old man, it's twelve o'clock. you can't sleep here, you know.
say! ain't you got no sentiment? lift up your muddled head;
have a drink to the glad new year, a drop before you go -
you darned old dirty hobo.. my god! here, boys! he's dead!"


by robert william service.

cadbury survival instincts.

hiatus? what hiatus?

christmas to me, usually involves the painstaking consumption of roughly 20 litres of water to encourage my poor bowels to shift me to a rapid state of consciousness at 4am so i can inspect my hoard of christmas presents left by santa. this year was different. hi, i'm yvette and i'm eighteen now. my childhood is officially dead, and this christmas couldn't have said it any clearer.

so i went to sleep at 8:19pm christmas eve after a full day of work at crazy clarks being fucked around and having my patience tested to the bone after several stuffups involving the counting of the registers, leaving me to walk home in the rain two hours after my shift was meant to end (fortunately a kind soul picked me up and dropped me to my house, cancelling out the depressing end point there which makes for somewhat bland storytelling but i'm not gonna lie to you, c'mon). semi-soaked yvette walked into the freezing airconditioned house she takes permanent residence in, blasts a burning fireball of rage at everything and everybody in her wake, and falls asleep straight after.



and that's where my day began today, at 10am. not even realising what my little brother was yelling at me about, i fumbled in my interrupted sleep for my phone to no avail, and it wasn't until i looked at my door that i realised the deflated santa stocking hanging from the doorknob. it's bloody christmas day. what in the hell?

so i attempted to stir up some childlike thrill and happiness over the fact that the day which comes but once a year is upon us, and i have gifts to rip open like the nintendo 64 kid, yelling at all and sundry about how goddamn happy i am to be alive. open stocking:

- twilight laptop bag
- blue and black swing bag for like, the beach and stuff
- adorable little plush teddy sitting in a red bean bag

i just imagined the whole santa scenario in my head.


lol. presents were really, really light this year compared to over the years, mostly because of U2. with santana next march we won't have an easter. gotta love the westernization of the jesus story. presents when he's born, chocolates when he's dead. sweet. anyway, i got a graphics tablet from dylan (who has instructed me that i best be inserting how much i love him, roughly around here) which i'm totally loving. it's wicked. and i realised earlier that i'd forgotten to send off the christmas cards i made for people, which is just like me tbh but oh well. my bad. i'm a terrible terrible person who forgot it was christmas on christmas morning.

aside from mourning the death of my childhood, i did manage to do some constructive reading towards applying for my queensland learner driver's license. nope, still don't have it. will i ever? probably not. so i'm pretty much sitting here munching on chocolates like a fat slob and wondering how my day is going to pan out tomorrow now that the roads are closed and my planned trip to cairns (and associated days off work) have hit the dust in the box of my ruined intentions. i'm probably going to spend money like a maniac, but i'm hoping i'll be better this year. i'm planning on having my digital piano by next august. that's like, seven months to save up $4000. i won't be able to do it, but if i tell myself that's what i want enough, maybe i'll get like halfway there before i blow it all on xbox games again.

so, you're most likely wondering what was with the extended absence? i've taken a break from fivetune thoughtvine simply because i realised how how little privacy i've got. i believe certain individuals to be common viewers and so i figured roughly two weeks away would deter them from stalking me like crazy loons and i reckon it's worked. so here i am, back again. it's been difficult to resist just jumping back on here and bitching about work, but there you go. i saved you the angst. and now i might as well catch up on some sleep. and if you own a graphics tablet, the first thing that usually comes to mind when somebody says they've got one is 'i wonder what their first picture was!'

gosh, would i be right?
my very first ever picture EVER on my new tablet was of a banshee, and i did it in three minutes exactly. it's crap, and so very evident of what little skill i possess. here's my crappy picture.

MERRY CHRISTMAS! xxx

gonna take her for a ride on a big jet plane.

hey there blog. it's currently 1:39am saturday morning. i've got a little notepad scrap here with all the things i wanted to tell you about my day yesterday since i didn't have access to a computer and my phone's gone (i'll go into that soon), so i'll chop out a small chunk of my sleeping time to update you before i forget everything haha. no pictures this time around since i'm on my father's laptop and i don't have the right software, but i'll chuck in some photos to make up for it.

so, here i am. rendezvous hotel, brisbane. the day after the concert. yesterday was friday. i didn't get any sleep over the night and into the morning as you may recall, but got all my things packed into a little suitcase and we made our way to townsville airport at roughly 7:30am. super reluctant about leaving my pets alone, gave leo a big hug and kiss on the forehead before i went. anyway we went through the security at the airport and into the shops where my brother found tiny halo collectibles so we spent $26 before even boarding the goddamn aircraft. eventually we made our way through gate 2 and hopped into row 7 seating on a virgin plane. enough details?

plane food is always so goddamn expensive but i was hungry, so i had my pringles and $8 wrap while james and i compared our halo figures. man, i went to the airplane toilet for the first time ever and those things are so scary to flush. i can't really describe what it sounds like, but it's kind of like.. a big instant vaccuum being turned on. you can hear everything just whoosh below you and into oblivion, or wherever the sewage goes. so yeah we eventually touched down in brisbane airport and grabbed our luggage (which arrived the moment we got to baggage collection, awesomely enough), and made our way to the airtrain station. they've jacked the fees right up, it was $84! and there was a big picture of bono at the train station booth captioned "still haven't found what you're looking for? catch the train!" which i grabbed a photo of but forgot to upload, haha.

the train was so silent. we jetted right into central station and headed across the road to the rendezvous hotel. the lady in the concierge told us that we weren't able to check-in until 1:30pm which was an absolute pain in the ass (it was 11:30am at this stage) so we left our bags at the hotel and headed towards queen street mall. dad, james and i split from mum and shopped around. we headed towards myer to look at the electrical section (but never actually found it, the place has no signs), and coming out of level 2 we decided we'd ring mum to tell her where we were. at this stage, the indiana jones logo caught my eye in the window of a toy shop, so i went to have a look at it. i swore for a split second that i'd seen "rapture" in the bioshock andes font, and i flipped out in my head thinking.. no way, lol, wtf.

sure enough upon closer inspection, there staring me in the face were the bioshock memorabilia figurines i'd been e-chasing for the past three months. can you imagine? i was like a kid in a candy store. yvette in a gaming memorabilia store is the happiest yvette possible. i tried to absorb everything around me and holy crap, i've never been more excited. i had to have it all. since i've been practically chained to crazy clarks like a dog whose owner lazily tied it to the pole outside the shopping centre, i've stacked up a fair amount of money over the last couple of months. let's just say, it's a good thing i hadn't spent it. $150 later, i left the store absolutely beaming. i'm going back tomorrow morning for more.

so then i rung my mother and we met up outside myer and travelled to my intense protest to the woolworths supermarket to buy food and things. we then made our way back to the rendezvous with all this stuff and checked in around 3:30pm. inspected our double room and sat down for a bit watching 'that 70's show' on the tv (which is actually not that bad) with james asleep in the other room. eventually 4pm rolled around and we walked from our hotel to the train station and headed to milton station which is a little walk across the bridge to suncorp stadium (the concert venue). there was some crazy bitch in the train some carriages down who the entire goddamn vessel was getting an earful of (sounded just like the crazy cat lady off the simpsons). so then we walked to suncorp stadium with the big crowd over the footpath, signed various petitions to save all kinds of things and bought a program. $30, pretty steep for a picture book but anywho. then we checked out the merchandise stall and i got myself a t-shirt ($50, even worse, but you gotta get a shirt), scanned our tickets and went through the turnstiles. i then headed to the ladies' to put it on.



we then got our lanyards and programs, and headed to the members lounge for dinner and drinks (shit yeah VIP privileges!), where everybody challenged me for being underage. i was literally tapped on the shoulder and asked to leave by the security as 'no children are allowed in this area'. if only i had ID, i could've shut them up, so i said to the guy 'fine. i'll go and rot in the under twelve corner over here.' and stood with my brother. bastards, they just have to have their little bit of power, don't they? ah well. father brought over a beer for me anyway. i felt weird drinking it, and got about halfway through it simply because i felt like i wasn't allowed to drink it. i still see myself as being underage and not mature and all that crap. so i gave it to dad and he finished it off, when i decided i'd go and update my facebook status from my phone.

but where was my phone?

no, i swear it was in the bag with the programs, because it was with my camera whe-



.. fuck, i put it on the toilet paper dispenser when i was putting on my U2 shirt. you know that mad rush of fear you get when you realise you've left something of value/importance behind? my phone is everything. i bolted back downstairs to the ladies' toilets, ran into the first cubicle where i'd put it down, and guess what was waiting for me in all its black, red and silver buttony facebooky glory? nothing. my phone was gone. i had my dramatic moment with mother, and we headed to the nearest security people, who told us to ring the number. why i didn't think to do that i have no idea, but i borrowed mother's phone and: SOMEONE PICKED UP. she told us to meet her at the entrance to seating in row 301. it was another lady in a security outfit, holding my big red phone. i had to stop myself from hugging her, kissed my phone, and we went back to members. ohhh god. so lucky. so i did get to update my facebook status after all.



bet you didn't see that one coming? lol. we then decided it'd probably be best to go find our seats, so we walked over to where our ticketed seating was meant to be when security stopped us and told us we'd been upgraded, swapping our tickets over for some more fancy looking tickets and redirecting us closer to the stage which was awesome. we eventually found our new seats which were being closely guarded by a tough looking security guy.



the view from where we sat was spectacular, you could see the whole centre stage plus a sweet full view of the claw.



then a clock appeared, signalling a fifteen minute countdown coupled with no sleep til brooklyn, viva la vida, and some rap song (which was a kind of random countdown playlist but anyway), and i got a few photos of it as it made its way to 00:00.







and jay-z came out after that. god his set was loud, my eardrums hurt and i wanted to cower in the corner for a while. watching mum's face was pretty hilarious, she hates rap.



wish i'd brought my iPod with me (i still haven't found the bitch), it's photo quality is far superior to my phone.. anyway. soon after jay-z's show was over, an analog clock appeared (with the wrong time..) and counted forwards at a rapid rate of knots, which was confusing.. eventually ground control to major tom started playing (?!) and the clock's arms and points and stuff started randomly flying all over the place, like the thing was melting. any photos i took with my phone from thereon weren't properly uploaded to facebook so i'll have to go and post them when i get home.

and then U2 walked out onto the stage. ahhhhhh. i died. they sounded so great, it was such a brilliant show. two of my photos managed to make their way to facebook:





i also got some video footage on my phone towards the end, but its sound quality won't be great so i'm not sure what i'll do with it. i rung dylan and jarman a couple of times during streets & with or without you, but i'm not sure if they heard anything with any level of clarity.. also mum lost her glasses during the night but we eventually found them when the lights came on after the concert. we waited for the huge sweaty mob of people to start moving through the doors and eventually got outside and followed them to the train station. getting on the train was ridiculous, like being in japan during peak hour. everyone crammed right in, and i had like five different armpits in my face and people trodding on my feet and stuff. it was pretty awful. after what felt like half an hour of that, we got off at central station and grabbed mcdonalds. mum and i had some deaf guy beg us for money, it was really friggen creepy. i told dad i hated where we were, and we left for the rendezvous across the road.

i unloaded all my stuff and immediately fell asleep.

i found myself being shuffled off the couch and into my bed in the other room by mum at roughly 9:30am, as mum got james ready to go to the airport (he was leaving the morning after the concert because he was getting a tennis trophy this evening) but i fell asleep pretty much straight after i'd relocated. time passed very quickly after a random ass dream about stuff i can't even remember now, and i heard the door to my hotel opening. freezing in my bed thinking it was a terrorist, i made sure not to move until the door had cloesd again and i checked the clock. 4:30am. shit, i'd wasted a day. oh well. i got up and opened the door into the next room to find a note saying my parents had gone out, next to a note from housekeeping saying they didn't make the other room up because there was a guest in the bed. that was nice of them.

i inspected my reflection in the mirror of my bathroom and went to make pasta. wondering why the hell i couldn't find my phone anywhere, i gave up and switched the tv on and watched max for a while, hearing a screaming ambulance go past many floors below every so often.. i contemplated what i'd do if my parents had been killed and i'd been orphaned while on vacation, but thankfully enough they eventually walked through the door with a bunch of shopping bags and wind-ruffled hair. i asked them whether or not they'd taken the bags from my room as i had noticed they were missing, and dad said he sent them back with james's luggage to save us carting it all back when we left. my phone and camera are both in one of the bags. so i have no phone or camera for the rest of the trip. joy.

the rest of the evening was spent eating, raging and watching television. they have pay tv here for free! how cool! so now it's 2:39am (wow, an hour since i started this. what a life i have) and i'm really missing having my phone with me. my father's laptop is at 17% remaining battery so i guess i'd better wrap this up. tomorrow i'm going back to the toystore to buy more bioshock/halo figurines! i'm gonna be broke by the end of this shindig. i'm so happy i've seen U2, i feel fulfilled. i'll be in platinum aspiration for some time yet. bring on the 15 hour days at crazy clarks if need be, i'm on the moon.

you might hear from me again in the near future, stay tuned! much love, yvette.

i feel possessed when you come round.

it's technically the ninth of december right now. midnight. well, half-past midnight to be more accurate. so going by these specifications.. i'm seeing U2 tonight. you really don't have any appreciation for just how stoked i am right now, to have the privilege of seeing U2 live. ohhh my god, blog. i don't want to get all fangirly on you, but i thought i'd sooner die than get an opportunity like this. my parents raised me on U2, this is huge. so why am i sitting on the internet, in townsville, at midnight without packed suitcases?



bet that one wasn't hard to figure out. lol. so i'm basically procrastinating from packing my goddamn suitcase as long as i can before i start to get tired/the time lingers closer towards 7:30am (when we leave for the airport). ahhh! well, since i have absolutely nothing to talk about aside from the fact i'm super excited for a concert, i'll tell you about how my day at work was.




that about sums it up. so i rocked up to the shopping complex at 1pm - a nice late start, to find the temperature outside something like 35 degrees. ridiculous. walked inside expecting a nice cool rush of airconditioned freedom and received:

nothing. same temperature indoors. i feared the worst as i approached my workplace and queried them on the temperature and my fears were realised as i was told the airconditioning system had shut down in our store and the management was waiting for someone to come and look at it. of course i'm on registers, sweating my ass off whilst we lose most of our customer business due to the fact that the store is a fucking oven. to make matters worse, the eftpos system ran through like four separate errors throughout the day and it was at the stage where my register backup person and i were swapping customers over between us for cash/card sales respectively. it got busy at times, and i got really snappy.



the airconditioning was shut off until our regional manager came in to inspect stuff and was turned on again around 4pm. while it may seem like not a lot to put up with, crazy clarks brings out the angry sociopath in me and no airconditioning to make my useless presence there worthwhile just kills when you're dealing with shitty, unfriendly customers all day smelling like a greasy locker room. so i made my way through the day and eventually left.

that was my day at work today. interestingly enough, the big poles that separate the roller doors that i have to drag out to each individual spot were excellent today. they slotted in first time every time, and the third roller door next to the florist (which is broken and requires a ladder + careful fiddling with to pull completely down) descended right to the bottom on its first try. i actually patted it and told it what a good job it did. customers must have thought i was nuts.



guess i'd better start packing since i've managed to waste an hour here already. eep, i'm so excited for my show! i hope my pets are okay while i'm away.. my fish should be okay, budgies and finches should be fine, i'll leave an instruction leaflet for my grandfather to tend to the parrots, and i've prepared food for him to give leo so there shouldn't be any dramas. i hate to leave them though. well, i'd best be heading off to fill this infernal suitcase with items of clothing and toiletries and crap you take with you when you go on a plane somewhere. catch you later blog. :D

waltz into the moonlight.

i've been delaying the inevitable for about an hour and a half. i don't want to go to work today, at all. completely unmotivated. at least it's only a 5 hour shift and not a full day. but still. i just want to go and pack my shit and hop on that plane to U2. i'm leaving early tomorrow morning, ahhh! i'll take my phone with me so i can update while i'm away. i'll be back on tuesday of next week. how exciting! no pictures until then, i'm afraid. not that you probably care, because they don't really add much anyway. but yeah.

last night my younger brother graduated from primary school. he's thirteen next month, and officially my height now. i'm afraid. the graduation ceremony was painful to say the least. it started at 5:30pm with a dinner in aqua restaurant (the lower level of jupiters casino/the old sheridan hotel) between three or four other families.. they raised the price of the bar from $30 to $45. i'd only finished work half an hour before arriving, so i had to run home, shower, jump into whatever clothing i could find and run into the car. since i looked like utter shit i decided it was more economical to just not eat dinner at all because i figured my mother would've argued with me about not looking decent and forced me to pay for my own food and i really can't afford $45 for sub par seafood and starch overload. they don't even have chocolate icecream there anymore. so i sat on facebook under the table just to get in mum's grills a little more, and we left for the ballroom.

fifteen gazillion rows of chairs inside, and a really crappy looking stage backed by chickenwire. yeah, chickenwire. the walls looked like someone had ripped out the roofing insulation and shoved it along the sides of the building to look semi-artsy. u so art deco, j00piterz. anyway, the predictable "we're so proud of everyone" speech from the widdle school captains, collectively around half an hour of really bad solo singing and ~orchestra, a slideshow of "highlights" (which consisted of kids jumping into pools, kids climbing out of mudslides and kids running a cross country track.. thutch great memorieth), and certificate distribution. WOO. that went on for three hours. after that, everyone bolted for the doors and we didn't escape from the place until like ten minutes after it finished. it was almost like a concert merchandise rush, it was mental! by this stage my stomach was trying to make its presence known, and we raced home. 85c pack of pasta and a dish of mashed potato later, and i was feeling fine. you really don't need to spend that much money on food. then i jumped on here, and pretty much fell straight asleep after a panadeine to relieve the migraine that tends to loom whenever i'm forced to sit politely and quietly for any lengthly period of time.

work wasn't even worth recounting, though it was a pretty wickedly fast shift! i spent most of it doing paperwork, which was awesome. i'd love an office job. well, i have to clean my infernal shitstorm living space now, and get ready for five hours of voluntary slavery. see you around, blog.

an instructional guide to maintaining your birdcage! EVOLVE TODAY!

there is nothing i hate more than cleaning bird cages. it brings out the true rage i know lies deep within my psyche in every possible manifestation of how my day pans out. say, blog, ever owned parrots, finches or budgerigars? they're lovely. truly. cleaning up after them, however, is not.

the moment you realise it's time for you to clean out the bird cages (which generally happens once a week with someone like my mother in the house), your descent into seemingly perpetual anger begins. EVERYTHING becomes difficult, frustrating and seemingly pointless. your cat will definitely want to play with you right now, there won't be any more garbage bags, you're out of coffee.. you name it. it's all out to bite you, and it will where it can.















you will need:
- sunlight
- unsoiled newspaper
- paper towels
- replacement bird food
- a hose
- a scrubbing brush and/or tough-backed kitchen mit
- patience
- adequate space

first you need to take everything out of the cages (excluding perches, those can be done at the end) like food and water dishes, toys, etc. wheel the cages out onto the grass, so that any organic stuff like poo and old food shells/fruit scraps that may unintentionally fall out the bottom of the cage don't end up sandwiched between the bricks, growing new plants. i'm serious, you wouldn't believe how fast those seeds begin shooting. we didn't realise that under the finch cage there was a mini ecosystem going on.

so after that's done, you want to go get your hose and give your birds a very light misting so they don't overheat while you've got them out in the sun. it helps their feathers too, and encourages preening. okay sweet, now take out the bottom tray where you lay your newspaper to catch bird-cage debris like crap, feathers and dropped food and roll the old newspapers up and chuck them in the garbage. take the garbage well away from your birds, and douse it with flyspray so any lingering fruit flies will die instead of just come back when there's more food. then chuck out the bag and re-line the bins. don't ever take that shit back inside with you.

now take the trays to where you're hosing down and grab that mit or scrubbing brush, and remove anything that may be stuck to the cage like food or poop. don't worry about changing your newspapers just yet - you need to clean the grills as well and you don't want your birds escaping, so go chuck those trays in for now and take out the grill that sits directly above the tray. go grab your scrubber and scrub all that poo off the grills.

if you're trying to do this while dealing with a psycho raging parent in tow, whose only main function at times like these is to clean every conceivable thing, a quick tip: you want to try and channel that rage into getting your jobs done more quickly. for example, get angry at something "not working", and it'll likely result in said parent adopting whatever job you're doing and the 'rage' personality trait will result in your job being done at 2x the speed you were doing it. fast, efficient, and minimal effort on your part. side effects of this method however may include the heightened rage in your parental figure being now focused upon yourself as it has nowhere else to travel (and it must leave the body), so try and utilise this method where and when you can to avoid this. if unnecessary rage persists, you probably shouldn't be living with the crazy fool and should consider moving out with your birds because putting up with it for 18 years is more than enough.

so where were we.. ah yes. clean tray and grills? sweet. go get some paper towel and dry the trays and grills and chuck the grills back into your cage, take the trays out and re-line them with fresh, unsoiled newspaper. if your perches need a scrub, do that too. okay sweet you're almost done, now you gotta wheel your birds back into the shade and put everything back inside the cage like your birds' toys and stuff. go replace all the water, seed, fruit, millet, etc.. whatever you're feeding your birds. hose down the area where the cage may have let any debris escape onto the ground, and you've got yourself some clean birdcages and probably happier birdies.

dust from a distant sun, will shower over everyone

*post was done at 11am, but my computer dictated that i post it six hours later. okay then, computer. you just keep doing what you're doing*


ugh, i have finally awoken from my slumber and cracked myself out of my tired stupor. guess what, y'all. it's sunday! i'll tell you about my shift yesterday.

since my brother goes to tennis on saturday mornings, we had to leave at 8am and get me to work about 20 minutes before my shift started. which meant that i was up at 5:30am to allow myself the time in the shower, time to eat breakfast, and time to get my hair dried and straightened out that i need in the morning when my reflexes are about 4x slower than usual. so i rocked up to annandale central at 8:10am feeling like crap. i didn't have any sleep the previous night because i'm an idiot, so getting out of bed wasn't the issue. it was fighting the urge to not just drop.

so we opened up the shop, and 8:30am rolled around fast enough. it was then, that i realised: 20% off storewide. 50% off christmas ware. 30% off toys.



needless to say, my dreams of a nice quiet saturday with minimal customer traffic were smashed in front of my eyes when i saw the sign out the front. it was one of the busiest shifts ever. we made almost $11,000 in sales yesterday alone. halfway through the day, we ran out of the 7ft christmas trees and the one that was on display was the only one left. of course a lady wanted the display model because it's easier to buy the one already assembled with all the lovely decorations, tinsel, fake snow and lights: collectively a 2 hour effort last month by yours truly. so that was another hour of my day, disassembling it and breathing in ten tonnes of false snow (to give you an idea, its just like sticking your face in a box filled with glitter, sneezing in the box and having to inhale all of it again, rinse repeat) so by the end of it i looked like i'd been rained on, or i had really bad dandruff, haha. so i ran out the back and grabbed a flatpack trolley, wheeled all this lady's stuff to the registers and sculled the rest of my waterbottle.



that was memorable customer number one. she thanked shantell, said her girls were excellent, "this little one in particular" (moi ;D) so that boosted my mood somewhat. i then went on my ten minute break and went to investigate what was left in the lighting section. obviously this is completely impossible when i'm in my work uniform, every fucker wanted a price on something. then a lady asked if i could take down one of the moving reindeer displays instead of her buying one in a box to save having to assemble it later. asked manager, received negative response. so she asked if i could assemble one for her. asked manager, received mixed negative response. i did it anyway, and that was another hour of my shift gone. those things are so much harder to put together than they look. so once that was done, i brought her things to the registers once more and helped her to her car. she tipped me $10. that put me into platinum mood, and i finally went to go on my break. good timing too, my parents happened to stroll into crazy clarks so i got to lose the professional attitude and browsed the lights with them, pretending i was helping them out so people wouldn't attack me for more prices.



dug out three packs of blue icicle lights and the inflatable santa chimney display that i wanted, paid for mum's stuff, grabbed two bags of bird seed and ended up only spending $75. wicked. grabbed a waterbottle with $5 cashout because i'm poor as christ and had lunch. then i was back on the registers and i had a lady come through with a stroller and a naughty child. she looked at me, looking as stressed as possible and said "autism. attention deficit disorder, sensory disorder".. and seriously recited about ten different disorders.. "..you name it, he's got it. VICTOR STOP, COME HERE NOW." paid for her stuff, and walked out. i gave her half a smile and told her to try and take the rest of her day easy. she left her credit card in the EFTPOS terminal in a swarm of anger and that parental rush that just spews "i'm busy today". fortunately the next lady in line was a nice enough woman, and offered to chase her down. i set the sale up so she could just pay by debit card and grab her things and leave, took the previous customer's card and chased her down.



god, i don't think i've run faster in my life! she moved so fast, i had to sprint to catch her before she drove off. poor thing, i felt bad for her. so i ran back to crazy clarks to deal with the fifteen mile long line of angry people banked up behind register two for the next half hour.

the rest of the shift flew so fast, it was incredible. closed it down, counted the registers, and got right out of there. i then met up with my family and we went to coles to grab a few groceries. we then headed home and had dinner, and dad had three one-nighter movies for us to watch last night but i fell straight asleep when i sat down to watch them. i felt terrible, but really i was running on empty and would've fainted either way. that was the end of my saturday.




sunday started with me being forced awake from where i'd fallen asleep on the couch last night at roughly 9am. i was completely immobile; my body just wouldn't move from where it was. i was stuffed from yesterday, and it took my dad physically pulling me off the couch and a hard landing on the floor that i swear nearly cracked my teeth to get me to move. so i wobbled around vacantly trying to figure out what i should do, thinking i'd slept until like 4pm, when i realised what time it was and felt better about the fact i hadn't wasted the whole day as i'd previously thought. work is great like that, it makes me sleep in regular patterns, just like normal people!

i can't believe i've worked a collective 24 hours this week, that's awesome. i'm feeling it though; i'm not used to work having money for me. it's kinda ridiculous. i love the current management layout though. i must have done something right to be getting more hours than most other crazy's casual people at the moment. ahh. well, i might let you know how the rest of this day pans out if i have time later. for now, i must depart. mother's been screaming at me to tend to my birds for the last two hours. au revior!