MELLIPOP BIDS PERTH A FOND ADIEU

Ok, so my beloved 'puter is scheduled to be packed up, well, now.

I shan't see her for at least two or three weeks, until we are reunited in Sydney. So just to give you all the heads up, Mellipop will cease trading as of this moment, and will hopefully resume as soon as the removalists get their shit together and get my stuff back to Sydney.

It's been a sad day. Have had to say farewell to my work colleagues and a regular paycheck. I am now at the mercy of the Sydney job market and regular mortgage repayments.

Hope you all keep well. Am off to pack more crap. See you back in civilisation.

MELLIPOP AND THE JOB OFFER

Ok, so I got offered a fantastic job today, completely out of the blue, putting paid to the sinister lie that unsolicited spam is the scourge of modern mass communications.

Opening with the warm yet not overly familiar greeting “Dear human being”, I knew straight away that I was onto a winner.

Dispensing with all other social niceties, the email went all out to forward me a fantastic employment offer. I can be my own boss and work from home, for only 2 to 3 hours a day. The only requirement is that I am “smart and honest”. Tick and tick. Plus I’m an Aussie citizen, over 21 and am a computer and email user. Tick, tock, tick on the Playschool clock.

So what does this dream job entail exactly? They were a bit scant on the details, but did reveal that I will be “Fulfilling company orders until we open an office in your country” and that “Your line of work will be tied to the banking system”. Sounds pretty sweet. I always fancied a role in the dynamic yet rewarding world of global capital.

However, there is one small glitch, no doubt due to the logistical nightmares involved in setting up a completely kosher multinational banking-system order-sending-out corporation. The poor buggers are keen to open a business account, but it requires two weeks. Damn banks and their paper pushing bureaucractic ineptitude. No doubt my new employers will be kicking against the pricks to revolutionise the entire way that banking systems operate on an international scale. Once they get that damn business account open, that is.

But rest assured that some initial hassles with paperwork isn’t going to stop me from commencing employment with them, because my new bosses are a proactive bunch, stating “Therefore you will be working with your own bank account”. And it gets better - “If you don't have a bank account, that's no problem! Any bank takes just one day to open a new account!” These guys are obviously a forward-thinking solutions-oriented organisation.

Mmm…though it makes you wonder why these bastards in banking take TWO WEEKS to open a simple damn business account when they will open one for me in JUST ONE DAY. Go figure.

So anyway, here’s the 411 on how I make my dough. I’ll make a sweet 10% from every transaction made to my account - “The least amount of transfers will be 5000$, so you will make from 250$ to 2500$”. Not bad for doing sweet FA – though I’m not sure that those figures really add up. Isn’t 10% of $5000 a total of $500? Not $250. Maybe it’s those damn banks and their account keeping fees. Bloody criminals.

“Do you agree that it's good money for a job, that takes you only 2-3 hours a day?” Do I even have to answer? Hell yes! Sign me up! And boy, were they ever keen to.

“Don't hesitate! Take this opportunity, space is limited!
You must fill out our form if you are interested in working for us and meet our requirements http://spectrumdevelopments.com/info.html”

God I hope I get this one - I've got a pretty good vibe about it. I wonder if this mob are affiliated with www.nigerian-internet-fraud.com? Those guys make shitloads of money.

MELLIPOP HATES POLITICS

Ok, so I think what this country needs is some good old fashioned witch hunts to kick in.

Starting with every motherfucker who voted for the Howard Government. Sorry Mum, but my finger points first at you. But that's only because no-one else I know will come clean and admit their guilt.

You have all been part of the biggest con perpetrated on the Australian people, well, EVER. What is WRONG with you people? Give me one good reason (besides interest rates - or should that be "self-interest") that you voted for this bottom feeding ass fellating apologist for the ruling elite, not just in this country, but in the whole world ie the United States of Terror.

Good old Johnny is out there kicking goals for all of us. But he's using our heads, people. And I say "our" because presumably those most benefited by Johnny Howard's regime are all out supervising some underpaid illegal immigrant who is out buffing their Beemer ("Make it shine real good you little chink, or I'll have you shipped off to Woomera faster than you can blink") or planning their next round of redundancies ("If we cut 3000 jobs on Monday, that'll hold me in good stead for another non-CPI indexed payrise with share options"), so probably don't log on much to Mellipop.

Industrial relations "reforms" that leave the individual at the mercy (or lack thereof) of their employers, the complete privatisation of Telstra, the embarrassing toadying to the US in foreign affairs, vile and divisive immigration policies that evoke the racism of White Australia, sending our troops off to wage war on a sovereign nation that has never once threated our sovereignty, funding cuts to basic social services and education, paving the way for full fee paying degrees to give the rich a monopoly on access tertiary education, ignoring Australian citizens locked up for years in overseas gaols without charges laid against them or access to legal assistance, the constant laying of the boot into single mothers, the scary alliances with the Christian right, tax relief to the highest income bracket...

I want someone who voted for Howard to post a comment naming one benefit this has accrued to them. One that does NOT include the "Cash for Kids" baby bonus. I really want to know, and promise not to shout anyone down who has any comments to make.

Why did middle Australia vote for this ass clown in the first place? And then why did they continue to vote for him the other two times after that? I am genuinely mystified and appalled. Admittedly, the Labour party offered no real alternative or vision. But why did the working and middle classes jump so readily into bed with the Liberals?

Bah. This country is fucked. No more political posts, promise.

This is all your fault nightrider! I'm having that comments problem again. So consider this my response!

MELLIPOP HATES HER HAIR

Ok, so I toddle off to the hairdressers today, to get a fabbo new style for my impending return to Sydney. Don't want everyone to think I've let myself go since being in WA, see.

Late change of plans, but we just cannot come back to Sydney now. I hate my new hair style.

Getting a new hairstyle leads one to ponder certain questions of aesthetics. Big questions are raised. Big questions like, "Why have I not had a fringe for the last four years?".

The answer to these questions soon become apparent. Oh, that's right.... BECAUSE I LOOK SHIT WITH A FRINGE.

Seems that in living without a fringe for four years, one forgets this simple fact.

Fuck.

Plus, it's too short.

Double fuck.

Maybe it just needs "product".

EVER WONDER WHY THE REST OF THE WORLD HATES YOU?

Ok, so far be it from me to get all geo-political on you, but I read something on SMH today that rather quite pissed me off.

No, for once it involves neither the anti-tobacco lobby, nor my anti-furniture Staffys. But it does involve two of my other favourite pub-debate whipping boys - the Christian right and American foreign policy. Combine the two and you have one motherfucking dangerous ideology.

So anyway, the president of the US Christian Coalition - who we will call Pat Robertson because that is his name - has publicy called for the assassination of democratically-elected Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Who it would appear, is a dirty-lefty and a "terrific danger" to the United States. To be precise, Hugo was accused by Pat of turning his country into "the launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism" and called for some good old fashioned covert operations to "take him down", thus saving the American taxpayers the expense of another $200 billion war.

Ah, god bless you Pat, you're a fiery old coot. The communist thing is SO 1965. This is the same man who also once declared that feminism "encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians". Though he did forget to mention the greater feminist sins of unsightly body hair and criminal dress sense. Plus, the feminist thing is SO 1975.

Anyway, apparently Prez Hugo is a "dictator". One who was elected by a landslide in the 1998 presidential election and undertook social reform to bridge the gap between rich and poor. Naughty Hugo. Plus he said some nasty things about a few filthy rich oil barons and criticised the US for their war on Iraq. Naughty, naughty Hugo. Plus he's mates with bloody Castro. Je-sus! Go on Hugo, off to the corner to have a serious think about it.

Pat, our man of God, reaches an average 1 million American viewers daily. And is seemingly taken quite seriously. Though he is seemingly quite deranged.

MELLIPOP AND MARLBORO WHITES?

Ok, so the anti-tobacco lobby has struck again. Riding as high in my personal estimation as say, the religious right, these "Guardians of Public Health and Morality" have now destroyed the humble Marlboro Light cigarette, in a characteristically hubristic episode of PC arrogance.

Now, for the non-smoker, a brief synopsis. The anti-tobacco lobby have successfully lobbied (funny, that...) to have tobacco pushers change the name of Marlboro Lights cigarettes, claiming that the "Lights" moniker implies that the deleterious effects of smoking are perceived to be lessened by smoking that particular brand.

Not true, and any smoker worth his weight in nicotine knows that smoking "light" cigarettes is like eating "lite" camembert (and the ones who don't know this deserve to be culled from the gene pool for their extreme stupidity anyway). In the first instance, we know that it will still kill us just as in the second instance we know it will still make us fat.

So anyway, the upshot is that the distinctive Marlboro Lights brand cigarettes are now called Marlboro.... Well, they haven't actually replaced the "Light" with anything else. Maybe they should just call them Marlboro Death. Or Marlboro Darks, just like the inside of our lungs and the inside of our coffins, which with every cigarette we draw irrevocably closer to.

I mean, I don't care about the name change. I’d still smoke them if they were called “Syphillitic Cock”. I don’t even care that they have also changed the filter butt to yellow when it was once a far more aesthetically pleasing white, which always singled you out as an afficionado of the Light - or the menthol smoker, but that’s a different story. Even us smokers revile the Menthol set.

The problem is though, THEY TASTE DIFFERENT NOW.

To be more precise…. THEY TASTE SHIT NOW.

What was once a smooth and delicious tasting cigarette, is now an experience to rival that of smoking fucking Longbeach or Holiday 50’s. There is a harshness and a cheapness about the flavour that is completely alien to what the Marlboro Light once stood for.

And I’ve spoken to other Marlboro Lights connoisseurs about this. I’ve done my research. Each and every one of them has noticed the difference. For a while there I actually thought that I kept being sold cheap Asian knock-off Lights - thinking that they had flooded the Perth market - until informed about the recent PC-hysteria driven change.

So I don’t know if the manufacturers were also forced to alter the delicate balance of carcinogenic toxins that made the Marlboro Light the king of cigarettes, but it would seem that way. Either way, the Marlboro’s loss is mourned here.

Are you happy now, anti-smoking lobby? Now we can’t even enjoy the experience of killing ourselves slowly. But the thing is, shit or not we’ll still smoke them. And you know that, don’t you? Miserable bastards.

But you know what? I buy rollies now anyway because I'm poor, so this is not the catastrophe you think it is. Stick THAT in your ass-pipe and SMOKE it.


P.S. Geez... You guys know that I'm seriously taking the piss here, right? I don't want to come across as some crazy cigarette apologist/fundamentalist. Cigarettes are bad for you. Don't smoke. See you on the other side of hell (no, not the Perth side - the OTHER side).

THE MELLIPOP COUCH : PROGRESS REPORT

Ok, so from the "If You Don't Laugh, You Cry" files, I thought I'd post a progress report on the state of our Staffy-mangled couch, for lack of anything else much to report right now.

And I am posting this because I'm not quite sure that my friends and colleagues can really envisage the level of devastation I refer to almost daily on an anecdotal basis.

This is our couch. Nothing short of MONUMENTALLY EMBARASSING - I am painfully aware of that.

Note that one of the cushions is missing. No, not missing. Eaten, to be precise. Note the painstaking craftsmanship that has gone into stripping both armrests of all material and padding, and the delicate decorative nibbling work that has gone on at the front.

My two Staffy's are slowly destroying my life and my property like a pack of crazy fucking furniture piranhas. As each day passes, more and more of what is left of my couch disappears.

And may I just say that NONE of the breed-specific literature we consulted before initially welcoming Staffies into our household refer to this particular quirk of character.

Ok, so that rather feeble excuse only holds up on acquisition of Staffy Number 1. Why we got Number 2 I will NEVER fucking understand...

Oh that's right. Because they love us. Unconditionally. And because they teach us about love. Unconditionally.

Fat lot of good that'll do me when I'm sitting on the fucking floor.

MELLIPOP STEADY AS SHE GOES

Ok, so I really need something embarrassing, unusual or infuriating to occur this weekend.

ANTON THE BUTCHER BITCH

Ok, so life in Perth just gets better.

Anton got a PAY CUT today. Seems as though once you've managed to endure three weeks at the meatpacking plant, your employers reward you by compulsorily classifying you as part time and dropping your pay from $17 an hour to $13 an hour.

Same hours, less money. Striking a blow for industrial relations everywhere.

So Anton engaged in a little bit of "enterprise bargaining" and managed to negotiate a whopping $14 an hour instead. Plus benefits. Company car, personal assistant, generous superannuation package, pair of overalls, a shred of personal dignity (up from a smidgin) . That kind of thing.

MELLIPOP THE BUTCHER CHICK

Ok, so can anyone get me a cool full time job in Sydney?

I'm already starting to practice intuitively weighing out half kilogram parcels of mince.

HOW A BUNCH OF MILD MANNERED MIDDLE AGED MEN MAKE MELLIPOP FEEL LIKE AN OVER-EXCITED TEENAGER AGAIN

Ok, so it's official. I am in the deepest throes of neo-teenage obsession with a band.

A band made of mild mannered, normal looking middle aged men.

Wilco.

It's really quite refreshing that at the age of 28 - a good ten years after the tenure of my teenagehood had already expired - I can still get that head-over-heels excited about anything.

I want to put their posters up on my wall, and write their names all over my pencil case, and start up a pen-pal fan club of like-minded obsessives. Though they aren't exactly poster-boy pin-up material and I don't have a pencil case. Plus I don't even know all their names. Though I bet they don't have names like Jordan, Jonathan, Joey, Danny and Donnie (or NKOTB, an acronym well-known to those of my generation). The lead singer of Wilco is called Jeff (seen here in red shirt). That's a Wiggles name... And he is only marginally more sexy than "Wake Up" Wiggle Jeff himself. Actually I lie. He is rather sexy in that "I'm really quite smitten by your genius" kind of way.

So not since my serious adolescent dalliance with Guns n Roses have I been this into a band. I'm playing their albums non-stop, with the kind of overly-dedicated obsessive compulsive glee that only self-absorbed teenagers have the time for. And counting my pennies to buy up the rest of their back catalogue. And praying that they decide to tour sometime in the near future so I can squeal and scream and wet my pants somewhere in the vicinity of the front row.

All normal fan behaviour.

Now for the obligatory plug. These three albums are currently responsible for my excess gushiness…

A.M.
Summerteeth
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Sigh…..

And in summing up, I feel it appropriate to quote verbatim from the NKOTB website: These good-looking dudes have good tunes with the right moves.

MELLIPOP: HOW NOT TO BE POPULAR IN PERTH

Ok, so I think I pissed off a train carriage full of Perthites today.

So the whole city is in a heightened state of parochial fervour. It's the "local derby" today. Both WA-based AFL teams are going head to head down at Subiaco Oval. Perth vs Fremantle. This is quite a big deal, apparently, and was enough to inspire a tiresome round of at least 20 internal staff emails in the office this afternoon. The question on everyone's lips is: "Who is better? WA or WA?". The answer to this question pleases everyone in WA. Whichever way you look at it, WA is the winner. WA are the champions of the mofo world.

But all this has nothing to do with me placing myself at acute risk of being lynched by a packed carriage of afternoon commuters. It does, however, illustrate the theme on which I was expounding to one of my colleagues, whom I had the misfortune of sharing my train ride home with because a) I am in the seriously deep throes of an obsession with the band Wilco and wanted nothing more than to strap on the iPod and unwind after work and b) I really don't find this particular colleague to be of any interest whatsoever and had all but exhausted my stores of polite social chit chat for the week.

So my colleague is not a Perthite either. Like me, he is an intruder - a painful reminder to the good people of Perth that humankind exists outside of Western Australia. We threaten the sanctity of the tribe, see. They don't like facing the realisation that they are not, in fact, the centre of the known (and unknown) universe. This was the essence of my drive-time lecture, as I explained to my colleague the reasons why I was moving back to Sydney. And the reasons why I wouldn't miss Perth.

By this point I was really quite enjoying the collection of judgemental stares and rolled-eyes I was attracting. Then the lady sitting next to me was so moved to object that she sought to interrupt our conversation, leaping to the defence of Perth and seeking to justify the insularity of the tribal mind on the pretense of Perth's geographic isolation. To which I replied that Perth wilfully reinforces its own sense of social and cultural isolation, which is not so much a function of the external pressures of geography as it is an internal function of a collective masturbatory geo-centrism. Or something. And then promptly dismissed her without another word.

I need to work on my attitude, see. I'm back in Sydney in three weeks.

It's nice to know that I've still got the goods.

MELLIPOP IS BORED AND INARTICULATE

Ok, so I'm meant to be doing a whole bunch of writing (paid - yay) for the glossy lifesyle mag. I'm being coy and non-specific about specifics, see, because I read an article today in the SMH. It was one of a rash of articles I have noticed recently, meant to serve as cautionary tales to us incautious Bloggers.

Blog and thou shall be sacked.

Blog and it may come back to bite you on the bum one day if you ever become Prime Minister or the President of the P & C.

Blog and thou life shall be ruined.

The commercial media backlash is in full swing, see.

I work in the commercial media. I write for commercial media. I'm supposed to be doing that now. But I'm writing for this blog instead.

Have you noticed that this blog post is incredibly boring? And my sentences are really short. And unimaginative. This, my friends, is what re-writing press releases does to the human mind.

I was thinking about Tolstoy today. The mind of Tolstoy. Tolstoy wrote in the pre-TV era. I'm currently reading Anna Karenina. I chose Anna Karenina over War and Peace because Anna Karenina is 800 pages and War and Peace is 1200 pages. It's all about Time and Investment. Who has the time to invest in 1200 pages of the same book? Where all the characters are called Alexey Ivanov Something-or-other-ovitch. Why can't he just call them Mike? Or Jeff? Or Bec? Or Lleyton?

And as much as I am loving Anna Karenina, it's 800 freakin' pages long. Here I am thinking that an 800 word blog post is a fucking epic, which it is by Mellipop standards. Tolstoy is churning this brilliant stuff out, page after page, and I can barely string at least one coherent sentence together. Tolstoy didn't have one eye on the clock and one hand on the remote control, waiting impatiently for Lost to start on Channel 10.

Tolstoy was a great writer. How many great writers of our generation have been lost to press releases and niche-marketed television programming?