This Day is an Earful

or blogfull.

Hello family and friends and family of friends and friends of friends (and maybe friends of family?) all of whom I feel are quickly becoming my friends. This is Brian again. I might make a blog one of these days and pretend to be Taylor just so you all hear a little more about what he is up to. But for now I am just plain ol' B, me.

It's Thursday night here and I finished work for the week. All nine hours of it over at Pizzaria del Elvis (I like that more than simple ol' Elvis Pizza). I am spending a fair amount of time these days trying to find more work but am torn between being very picky in the places I look for a job and possibly not find a job for a few weeks, and being not picky at all and work wherever they need people who speak the native tongue for whatever price. The last couple days I investigated bookstores in the area to see if they perchance needed extra helpers during the busy summer months. My searching did not yield much. I found 3 bookstores on googlemaps within walking distance of Rose Bay. 1 place didn't need any help, and the other two don't seem to exist. One address on googlemaps sent me to an apartment complex down by the beach one neighborhood over. Unless there is a bookstore hidden in unit C on the 4th floor of 8 Mervyns St...well I don't know what the internets were thinking there. The other address I was pointed to took me up one of the main roads into Double Bay around here. I found the address I was looking for and the bookstore revealed itself as an Oporto's burgary. Once again, good work interwebs. I would blame Google specifically but I love Google. Speaking of, Google just released a video chat feature for gmail which I hope to use with anyone who wants to talk sometime soon.

So after searching for imaginary bookstores and before waitering for a party of no fewer than 4 Elvis impersonators, I went down to central Sydney to see if I could clear up a little $40 mystery that is appearing on my bank statement. I received a large charge on my account and there is no explanation as to why and rather than fighting through long call times and frustrating customer service reps on the phone I thought it would be less stressful to just go talk to someone in person. After explaining my problem at the branch office, the person behind the counter promptly informed me that their computer-programs-servers-world-wide-interwebs had just crashed/stopped functioning. He was happy to give me a phone and dial customer service for me. I proceeded to wait the obligatory 10 minutes for a customer service rep to become available and after another 10 minutes of discussing my problem and giving her all the necessary account numbers she informed me that their computers were down and I should try back another day.

So all around success on my missions out today. Walking back to the trainstation from my waste of time visit to citibank some peppy solicitor asked me if I was yet a proud owner of an amex card. I had a lot of choice words I considered sharing with the man in his suit about my lack of amex pride these days, but I refrained. I did give him one of the more nasty glares I have ever given anyone as I walked by, and then summoned up some angry music on my ipod to match my black mood. By the time I had finished an album's worth of bitter angry yelling which I like to think of as music by Simple Plan I was feeling considerably better. Then I realized I had listened to an entire album and was still waiting for the final bus to get me back to my home. That did not sit well with me either.

After a workout and a shower I felt cleansed of my day of not finding what I wanted, and I was ready for my evening at work. About half way through the shift a man walked in huge chops for sideburns and all dressed up in a suit. Rather than giving him the usual song and dance about his seating options and the proffering of a menu I figured he was here to see the owner. The owner of Elvis Pizza is himself an Elvis impersonator and seems to be friends primarily with other Elvis impersonators. Once all members of the King's council had arrived, there were four of them including the owner comparing their Elvis voices and singing along to the perpetual Elvis soundtrack in the restaurant. Having not worked during an actual Elvis performance I was eager hear what they got. It really seemed like a lot of fun and quite the spectacle and I enjoyed it as much as I could while trying to handle the Thursday rush during which we ran out fax paper and couldn't find our machine that handles bartercards. So in the end an eventful evening made up for a slow day. Also I won $2.60 off Jesse at poker after I got off work. Most of it was luck I think since I kept getting aces on the river. I'm not a big poker player and am still not completely sure how to use the term 'river' in most cases but I still felt pretty lucky tonight.

To finish up here I want to give a shout out to my Dad. Always ready to impart some spiritual wisdom on anyone who cares to listen. Some people change what they say and how they sound when they put things in writing and are half a world away. Not my padre though. And I love you for it. But if you even think of trying to sing a praise song when we video chat later this week I am hanging up right then and there.

Good Night from down under,
Brian the nerd