Story of a scary weird guy

What I'm about to tell you cannot leave the Internet. This is just between you, me and the select group of people online or who may ever read archive.org in the future.

Note: the majority of the rest of this rant is diffracted through the lens of an achewood-ometer

So I'm chillin' with my homie Scroop in our pad, checkin' out a Family Guy DVD. I think it's yesterday afternoon. Scroop's just made sandwiches (vego, but more than palatable). I'm on the lounge chair with a glass of nice whiskey in my hand, sandwich in the other, switching a bit of quick banter, when this guy knocks on the door. Scroop is all like "WTF?" and peeks around the door frame at the front door, and sees this shifty looking derro guy with his hands in his pockets.

I'll take a quick moment to describe what I could see of this guy - he had a bit of a pre-mullet going on; close undercut but short and curly on top (I wasn't witness to the back). He's young, but kinda friendly looking, though he's obviously got something on his mind. I assumed this guy was one of our neighbours come to complain about something.

Scroop struts up to the front door, plated sandwich in hand: "Hey man, what's up?". The dude kicks in with nary an intro: "Hey. I have a huge favour to ask man; could you give me a lift down to the Fresh-Stop?" Without hesitation Mr Pass-The-Buck turns to Mr Eating-Sandwich-Watching-Family-Guy and says "I got no time. You feel like giving this guy a lift to the deli, Paul?"

I'm sure this is betraying some level of trust between friends, or at least undermining some foundation of flatmate-hood. I have to say I hesitated, friendly guy that I am. As unlikely as it seems, for a moment my mind ran through best and worst case scenarios where I give this guy a lift to the deli.

Derro jumps in to fill the temporary silence, perhaps sensing my hesitation: "I really gotta pay my rent today, and I've got no money," he explains. To say this sentence seemed a non-sequitur would not be doing it justice. It becomes immediately obvious that he's got money on his mind, so I made up mine. "No man, I got stuff I have to do. No time," I say, guiltily shifting my sandwich off my lap.

The dude, thankfully, makes no more of it and leaves after a quick "thanks anyway." Scroop and I sat in silence for a minute exchanging incredulous glances before going back to our sandwiches and Family Guy. We kept an eye out the front for a while after that though. I don't know how this guy was expecting to be able to pay his rent after a trip to the Fresh-Stop (he didn't have any goods in his immediate possession) but I sure as hell didn't want anything to do with it.

Note: I'll put an image into this post at some stage. The move has temporarily deprived me of an Internet connection. Hence my recent lack of rant updates.

The problem with memories

In the process of organising the material components of my life for transportation, I happened across my box o' shit. This is the big box in which I keep the evidence that I have a past, in the form of letters, notes, postcards, newsletters, sketchings, etc.

Until recently I've not been keen on taking photographs. I have a single album full of snaps from the four years of my life I spent at University, but its a small album, and I recently lost it anyway. What I do have though, is letters. It is anathema to me to throw out anything that someone took time to create specifically for me. Looking through my box o' shit revealed not only letters from my then girlfriend (including my first and only ever hope-we-can-still-be-friends letter,) but a plethora of postcards, scrapbook papers, birthday cards and drunken scrawlings.

Reading these old letters does little more than make me sad and nostalgic. That I'll probably never see some of these people who used to mean so much to me is a bit of a personal tragedy that can't really be shared with other people. I feel so separated by time from the person who owned all this stuff that I find it hard to associate those sketchy memories with my own life. Why then should I keep this stuff lying around, if every time I look at them I get melancholy? Why indeed...

The next day: one of my flatmates finds my photo album. Looking through this is far more rewarding, though I can't really say why. I think it's probably the entertainment value - looking at photos doesn't provoke the kind of deep introspection that reading letters does.

One last nugget, to end this rant on a high note. Staff from my first workplace will recognise this licence as the one Noodleboy rips out a picture of every now and then to bring me down a notch.[1] It's mullet-tastic.

Footnotes
[1] My innocent youth led me down many stupid paths. This particular time resulted in Noodleboy having posession of my licence.

I don't want it - I just need it.

My name is Paul, and I am a technology addict.

I have come to this realisation over the last year or so, and I find it extremely perturbing. I used to pride myself on my utilitarian independence, but somewhere along the way I developed an insidious technological dependency.

This weekend I was dismayed to discover that I'd left my mobile phone recharger at work. The full repercussions of not having a functioning mobile may not be immediately apparent, but they quickly become obvious when such a situation arises.

I completely take for granted the fact that I can immediately contact, or be immediately contacted by the people in my social circle. I actually harangued Schmee until he got one for himself because the fact that he didn't have one was a discordant note in my personal sense of harmony.

This evil device has me at its mercy. It is some Machiavellian puppet master, and I the soulless marionette, dancing to the monophonic notes of its somber cadence. When I don't have a functioning mobile in my possession I get sweaty palms worrying about my car breaking down, or wondering if someone is right now trying to contact me for some important reason. Being dependent on a piece of machinery really emasculating.

It will be the death of me, I can see. It rings at exactly the wrong moments - usually when I'm about to negotiate a nasty bit of traffic, forcing me to scramble around in my jeans, groin in the air and right leg as straight as possible so I can squeeze it out of my pocket. I must do this because I cannot leave its siren song unanswered.