MUM: Do you know the South Park characters?

ME: Do I!

MUM: …

ME: Yes I do.

MUM: What’s the, er, magical poo called?

ME: Mr Hanky, the Christmas Poo?

MUM: Where can I get some t-shirts with this Hanky character on it?

ME: T-shirts, plural?

MUM: They’re for our colonoscopy patients. The carers need a way of knowing when the patients aren’t to be given meals prior to a colonoscopy.

ME: So you put them in the christmas poo tshirts …. bwahaha-

MUM: Its not funny Daniel. We had a patient die last week due to a mix up.

ME: -hahaha… oh. Sorry, thats terrible

…you wake up all sweaty from a nightmare in which your Bangkok office has sent you a new WSP code package to deploy, but it won’t install to your test environment… no matter… what… you do!

Even better: after it woke me up and I couldn’t get back to sleep, I decided to take advantage by getting into work a few hours early. How excruciatingly Dilbertesque.

J: I have a memory like a fish

D: I think you’re mixing your metaphors dude.

J: What do you mean?

D: Well, you drink like a fish. Memory is some other animal. Like an elephant?

J: But goldfish have a really short memory.

D: Yeah, you’re right, makes sense. Maybe elephants have good memory?

J: Yeah, like “an elephant never forgets”

D: Bingo.

J: So how do they go about testing the memory retention of an elephant?

D: I can think of several ways.

J: Such as?

D: Well, you bring the elephant into a room, right? And then you show the elephant a peanut. Then you hide the peanut, and make sure he watches you hide it.

J: Uh huh

D: So exactly one year later, you bring the elephant back into the exact same room. And the elephant straight away, like, sticks his trunk out behind the couch and finds the peanut. Ergo, they have good memory.

J: Well, that doesnt make sense.

D: Yes it does.

J: But where do they get the peanuts? Am I to believe there’s peanuts just growing wild in Africa?

D: O_o

A sad yet fascinating domestic dispute outside Central station, Elizabth St side, last week. I, and dozens of other commuters, only caught the tail end of it, as the woman was walking away, across the big intersection. But I’m sure you’ll get the gist of the discussion.

HOMELESS MAN: You’re nothin’ but a spent cartridge!

HOMELESS WOMAN: Get lost, pin-d**k!

HOMELESS MAN: My next woman will have teeth!

In the words of some guy… love’s a crazy thing indeed.

I was on the bus to work when the driver started doing commentary, in a thick and halting Greek accent.

“Good morning, ladies and gentleman, and welcome aboard. This is your Captain, George, and I’d like to thank you for leaving your cars at home in order to ride the bus. Its a beautiful day in Sydney, temperature around twenty degrees. I regret that drinks will not be served on this particular journey. Our trip takes us through Enmore, Newtown, Darlington…”

At first I thought it was a one-off joke, but he just kept on going and going, pointing out historic landmarks, etc. A little annoying when you’re trying to read, but you can’t help but smile.

Or, maybe not. On the way down the hill on City Road, a middle age woman suddenly pipes up in a shrill voice:

“Enough, driver. The commentary isnt necessary. Its not your job to narrate the trip. We are entitled to some peace and quiet, you are invading our privacy.”

Everyone on the bus exchanged looks, is she serious? The guy’s just trying to give you a smile to start the day. Just tune it out. There are worse annoyances on a crowded bus ride.

Even the words she used seem so pompous, so class-conscious. You’re just a bus driver, not a tour guide, dont go getting any ideas. How un-Australian.

So I shouted “hey, who crapped in your cornflakes, lady?!” OK well, that is the clever line I thought of later. But I did shout “Geez, relax!” and the other passengers nodded at me in encouragement.

The bus driver says “I believe this is a free country, ma’am, with freedom of speech, and I believe you are out of touch. Now, if you look to your left, you will see historic Sydney University….”

She kept her mouth closed for the rest of the trip. I wondered if its OK to tip your bus driver.

So, to anthropomorphise somewhat, Google makes considered opinions on your search queries, and then refers you to what it believes to be the most relevant site.

Unbeknownst to you, when referring your browser to the site, Google includes a “referral header” which tells the site’s owner exactly what you were searching for when it referred you to their website.

Now, I have to wonder what kind of psycho meth bender Google was on when it referred the following search phrases to xxxdan.com:

• fairy floss pussy
• virgins get popped
• dj scotch egg torrents
• jehovahs witness news 2007
• “shitty tuxedo”
• move pixel chick from house to car
• 500 nerdnirvana games
• “talk to me german” & torrent
• nin condom
• original + london + nerd

So there you have it. Google considers my site to be absolutely the last word on shitty tuxedos, jehovahs witnesses, and fairy floss pussy.

“talk to me german” & torrent? That person was, without a doubt, looking for some nasty porn.

Thanks for your high opinion of me Google. What did I ever do to you??

From an ATM in a pub in Balmain:

For me, new years resolutions are like like sunglasses, I never manage to keep them for very long. But I must say I’m kicking butt on this smoking thing. 4 weeks on the patches and I havent cracked once.

Speaking of patches, an odd side effect of transdermal nicotine delivery is, as documented in the information leaflet in the box, “occasional vivid dreams”. If you forget to take the patch off before you hit the hay, you can expect some pretty spectacular action, courtesy of your subconcious.

This used to bother me but now I’m used to it, and actually quite enjoying it. Its sort of like that Masters Of Horror series where each week the show is directed by a different superstar director. One night you might get Brian Singer directing a moving action piece involving flying naked through your third grade classroom, the next a Wes Craven slashfest where you are being chased by a hideously disfigured monster with blowtorch fingers, who has the head of your boss from your video store job 10 years ago.

Last night was co-directed by John Landis and John Carpenter. I was much younger, and my little sister was having a birthday party. My Dad seemed really eager to help out with the preparations, and offered to do the catering. He laid out a big table with a giant silver serving dish. Curious, I took a peek while everyone was getting ready.

I was surprised that as a pièce de résistance, he had seasoned and cooked the little girl from next door. I knew it was the little girl from next door because she calmly explained this to me, covered head to toe in paprika and oregano. I expressed my dismay and she said we may as well go ahead with the dinner seeing as she’d already been stuffed and roasted.

I called the police and tried to explain to my bemused Dad why this behaviour was unacceptable, he still had a smile on his face as the police took him away. Then we all sat down for dinner!

Overall I give it three and a half stars. I’m hoping tomorrow night I get something a bit lighter, hopefully a rom-com or something.