The Jamjar

GPS

Oh, did I tell you I was going to Melbourne? Yeh, not only am I going to Melbourne, but, i'm actually *here*.

I even caught a bus. This whole public transport thing seems to be catching on - everyone's doing it! Here in Melbourne - where I am. If you didn't know - you do now.

Oh wow, saw the BEST movie on the plane. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang - yeh I know I'm late to it, but I missed it at the Rialto - it's screening fell somewhere in those dark times when the Rialto was being renovated and so I missed it. So, so funny - so, so good. I was barking out loud laughing at times and making the guy next to me wish he hadn't selected The World's Fastest Indian (what was he THINKING?). And Serenity, which I've seen before but like enough to see again (and again?) even if it got cut short by the landing preparations.

Right, I'm off to buy pyjamas because I have sneaky feeling I didn't pack any - i have an early morning memory of throwing them off in a fit of dressing and don't think they landed in the bag.

the bag i packed to bring to Melbourne.
cos I'm here.
in Melbourne.
in case you didn't know.

Dear Santa,

I know it's early, but I'm nothing if not organised.

Late last year I wrote suggesting a deal whereby you deliver Matthew McConaughey as my Christmas Gift, I would not ask for anything else of you for the rest of my life. As my gift failed to arrive by the due date, I assume we've returned to negotiating terms for my 2006 Christmas Gift.

I would like to suggest that, instead of delivering such delectable individuals such as Mr McConaughy to my door, it would make more sense for me to have a little "work" done so I can attract such visitors under my own steam. The major benefit of this solution would be a reduction in your delivery workload, while giving me more ownership and responsibility in the relationships I form.

This weekend, my line of thought resulted in a solution: Please Santa, could make it so I look more like Judi Dench and less like Roseanne Barr. Times are a'changin' and i'm nothing if not progressive.

I had the occasional pleasure (I watched the entire movie, but the pleasure was not consistant) of seeing Mrs Henderson Presents last night - and while one might initially think that any movie showing Bob Hoskin's penis might be worth $15 - at this juncture I have no comment on that matter. All I'm saying is I'm glad Judi Dench was in the movie as she was worth a solid $12.50 in all the pleasurable bits. Beyond the intial cash transaction, the revelation that I in fact want to be Ms Dench, was simply priceless.

Please consider this a serious request. I look forward to hearing from you, or failing that, to wake up on 25th December 2006 with an uncanny resemblance to one of the most attractive, enduring actresses of our times.

yours faithfully,
Michelle.

Pod on Tour

Michelle *watching Jo make a cup of tea in the kitchen* well I'm pissed off with tvnz for moving the grand prix from channel one
Jo *making a cup of tea* where's it gone? pay for view?
Michelle *watching Jo make a cup of tea in the kitchen* yeh, it's on SKY now. And it's just too expensive to pay for SKYSport just to watch one hour of racing once a fortnight for half the year. bugger it.
Jo *picking up her cup of tea* the way we use our SKY is that my husband'll watch the Discovery Channel downstairs and i'm such a sad fart these days I'll be upstairs asleep in bed
Michelle *walking back to our desk* and he's down stairs watching the Discovery Channel hoping against hope there'll be some Tribal women with no tops on
Jo *walking past the big meeting room with approximately 20 Team Leaders and Redcoats sitting around the table with the meeting door open* *gruff and caveman-like voice* BOOBIES
Michelle*walking past the big meeting room with approximately 20 Team Leaders and Redcoats turning around to look out the open meeting room door* Thank God for National Geographic!
Jo *groan* they were all just looking at us
Michelle who?
Jo all the team leaders and redcoats in that meeting room we just passed
Michelle *sag* *groan* damn
Jo I'll just tell them it wasn't *me* who said "boobies"
Michelle and they'll believe you too. god no wonder everyone knows me.

Typo?

Rat Arse Monday Bastards Bollocks

I didn't even want to get out of bloody bed but I did. I didn't want to take the bollocky car either after all my sterling public transporting of late, but I had to because of an appointment this evening. So I drove through the typical Auckland traffic to the Wakefield Street Car Park and then behind wankers who can't drive quickly up *any* of the carpark ramps without stopping at the top of each and every frigging one of them. Then, after parking my heap-of-crap car, took the lift back down to the pay machine on Level 3.

I knew as soon as I opened the door - the fucking machine was not working again.

There were about 5 people waiting with one self-appointed spokesperson who gave me the news that the machine wasn't acknowledging Early Bird options. I was informed that the carpark people had been phoned and we were now waiting for them to get their useless asses to the building to sort it out.

And we waited and we waited and the spokesperson told each new arrival what was going on and with each new person the stories of how pissed off they were with Wilson Carparks grew and grew. I'm not one to complain so I stood quietly, serenely, patiently (because i'm all those fucking things) waiting for the Carpark representative to come fix the machine.

Meanwhile, not ten feet away from where we were gathered, awaiting ticket valadation, a young Japanese girl in an overly large car called me to her. She was having a problem of some kind and apparently, amongst all the milling people, I'm the one voted Most Likely to Work for Wilsons and went over to see what the heck she wanted. Her English was limited but I figured out she wanted the barrier arm up so she could leave, and suggested that she tried her Wilson's Car Park card instead of her Hotel Key Card as she that she was presently using.

Her liberation meant my return to the milling mingling wait. And wait. and Wait because, you know, I have nothing better to do in my morning than stand around with a bunch of whingers in front of a borked ticket machine for 30 minutes.

Finally a representative arrived from Wilsons to help us out. Our spokesperson told him what the guts of our problem was and he put his Universal Parking Ticket thingie in the slot and pushed the Flat Rate (early bird) button and, naturally, it didn't work - that being the problem and all. So he pushed it again. And again. Then he pounded on the thing and guess what? it still didn't work. Cos 25 people (by now) might be wrong, right? wanker.

So he opened up the office and turned on the til and started validating tickets by hand. And it got to my turn. He looked up at me standing there with my ticket and my $20 and said "Oh." I said "don't you dare tell me you don't have change." he apologised and said he didn't have change. "cunt" I said because I only had $12 in change and not $14 and yes, I should have made him take that for wasting my time hanging around the bollocky parking building. I had lost my place in line after walking the several blocks to find one more two dollar coin to pay the stupid wankering arse of an Early Bird payment. He apologised for the wait, and he apologised for the inconvienience. And he's just the wanker that works for The Man so I didn't rip his head off and kick it over the barrier arm - this time.

When I went outside to actually go to work I was accosted by an old duck who couldn't find the building we were standing in fucking front of. Dumbasses everywhere, I swear to god.

Do I LOOK like a fucking people person!!

Conversations from the Pod

Stacey: I've never been as sick as I have since I started working here. It's the fucking air conditioning, I swear.
Braden: Next thing you know we'll have an outbreak of Legionnaires
Michelle: ooo I like Legionnaires - with their little hats with the flaps and their white uniforms and their rifles and stuff
Stacey: so what, I don't get it, why are they coming?
Braden: to fix the air conditioning you see, Transfield is really bad at fixing it so we get the French Foreign Legion to come over and sort the air conditioning out.
Michelle: see? he's way meaner than me.
Stacey: so what, is Legionnaires the 'flu or something?
Braden: yeh, and if you had it, you'd be very sick.

God I hate the New Zealand Herald

[link to article]

Lifting the load, and raising the game

The Rugby League started for me again today. Arriving with Sonja to pick up our pre-ordered tickets, we spotted the ever-lovely Jack and the usually-lovely John getting their tickets too. It was good to see Jack seems to have survived the Bird Flu from last week with enough energy to make it to the game.

We like both those guys, don't we my precious.

Eriksson Stadium had a goodly 10,000 Faithful Fans (lets face it, i can't tell the difference between 8K and 16K in the stadium - it always looks like a big crowd to me but then I'm quite short sighted) cheering their 2006 (mighty) Vodafone Warriors to a 16-22 defeat at the hands of the Melbourne Storm.

We hate those Melbourne Stormers, my precious.

As a rule of thumb, we here at thejamjar.com hate all Australian Rugby League teams - except for maybe the Tigers (go Benji Marshall), and maybe, somedays: if you're lucky - we can kinda like the Brisbane Broncos (Karmichael Hunt, you little legend / coddled brat) but that's about as far as we're prepared to bend in that direction.

Best line of the day - amongst so many great lines - from a guy bellowing behind me as the kicker (who cares who he was) for the Storm was teeing up his conversion "YOU SUCK, YOU'VE ALWAYS SUCKED, YOU'VE MISSED ALL BUT ONE, AND THE ONE YOU GOT: IT WASN'T EVEN YOU"

All and all it was a good day though - sunny and warm and sitting in the West Stand for a change - which has some very obvious perks as Wairangi jogged back and forth warming up to go on the field.

A moment's silence in respect for Koopu's thighs please: thank you, my precious.

Then, of course, our favourites out on the field in their 2006 strip (jury is still out regarding the high-gloss shorts): the aforementioned Wairangi "I look soooo good in a ribbed jumper" Koopu, and the scrumptious Brent "go spidey" Webb, Clinton "who cut your hair" Toopi and of course Awen "my name's not steve" Guttenbiel.

We love them all, yes we do my precious.

Speaking of precious things, I have decided I need Reece Witherspoon's eyes - to be noted: as a transplant, not just to have in a jar like a crazy person. But as a replacement for my far-too-small eyes in the sockets in my skull, okay?

That didn't sound demented at.all. my precious.

So yes: that brings us to Walk the Line. Long movie - running over 2 hours I'm not sure it needed to really, wasn't exactly deep, you know? or particularly passionate - and considering their attraction, I am thinking there was quite a bit of passion goin' on. Phoenix and Witherspoon didn't have much of a connection on screen so Cash's outbursts when he couldn't get Carter's attention / affection seemed disjointed and over the top. Ahh well, it will do well on the Sunday 8:30pm tv movie slot - but it was most attractive in many ways and the music was fabulous.

We're hillbillies from way back, my precious.

I was thinking about how Reese Witherspoon portrayed June Carter in the film, or more to the point, how June Carter's character was written for the film - she was written as almost perfect, strong, very good n' godly, patient, dependable, loyal - and I'm sure she was all those things but she was such a characterisation of those things she didn't seem real at all. The screenplay was based, in part, on Johnny Cash's autobiography. Seeing as he adored that girl from day dot, I spose he saw her through those love coloured glasses and that's how it came across in the movie.

Not that the movie was exactly complicated, precious.

I wonder if that's the way we see those we adore all our lives (i haven't adored anyone my whole life yet). I certainly know we can categorise those we are no longer in love with as one of the most detailed lists of faults, flaws and failings ever likely to be compiled - but it wasn't always like that. Remember the beginning? Wasn't there a time when we thought them leaving the toothpaste cap open to ooze it's contents onto the laminate vanity top was cute? or the way we could see what our beloved had for lunch hours before by the left-opened cupboards and drawers was charming? Or they way he has to hum / whistle every piece of incidental music during any given movie or show whether he knows it or not was so adorable?

Yeh, when does the cuteness fade and end up as items on a detailed list?

No list for you, I will always love you my precious.

Dear Rosie,

Yesterday, I went to the Rialto and saw the New Zealand film Banana in a Nutshell and thought of you more than once.

It's a Documentary made by and about a young Auckland woman named Roseanne Liang. She is the youngest of three girls born to a Chinese couple who came out to New Zealand in the seventies to make a new life for themselves. It's about the struggle for them to give their children a new and better life, and wanting to hold on to their own culture and ways.

Roseanne Liang has made a touching, funny, delightful movie-going experience and I'm just so sure you'd like it as much as I did. You can check out what Tze Ming Mok says about the film as she's put a lot more thought into it than I.

love and cups-of-tea,
Michelle.

Lost Petals

Today, someone left a dozen long stemmed, gloriously scented red roses at work. They came without a card nor courier bar code. They came with no knowledge of delivery from the florist whose name was stickered to the packaging. They were a beautiful, lonesome arrangement.

They attracted attention. From men who wished they were for them, from women who were sure they were theirs. The gentle perfume filled the space we work in. Deep red petals against the lime green walls and dirty grey floors. People gathered around to wonder who, and wished they were.

We put them back on the empty desk by the door where they were left - hoping that they would end up where love wanted them to be.