Your Opinion Is Wrong™

I'm back after having no internet for the better part of a week. Instead of doing important things, like updating my blog, and reading you'se guys's, I've been playing AOE3 and looking for work.

I've realised that my imagination for naming my home cities in AOE3 is lacking. I shall list their names...now.

- Russian city: 'Non-Poland'

- Ottoman city: 'Constantinople II'

- Dutch city: 'The Land Of Cheese'.

- Portugese city: 'Anti-Spain'. I've decided I'll try renaming it to 'Bizarro-Madrid', since, well, Spain is not actually a city. Not that I'm too hung up on making any sense in the first place.

Oh, I've also seen Adaption, which is quite hilarious. It reminds me of fight club, but the protagonist is overweight and balding. Oh, and there's an abscene of fighting...

I guess it doesn't at all remind me of fight club.

Sarah and I have been jamming with another guitarist, Duncan. He's rather good at what he does. Sarah's also been convincing me to play guitar...she's got this idea for her own material which involves four or so guitarists...sadly, I think bass playing is not going to happen there. But there's still poweranimal!

SLIDE AHOY!

Deep, man...

Reading this article about Futurama star Al Gore (he may also be the Chief of Defense or something) Is there anything he can't do?

Also put another link over there in the sidebar for no particular reason...it's also about chicken hypnosis.

So, I start work on Tuesday after over a week of absolutely no word from work - no calls, no messages, no sky-writing, nothing. Even though the girl taking Craig's job is supposed to at least let me know when there isn't any work so that I don't sit around waiting all afternoon for a call. So I get sent a few customers after getting my area (Bondi - hooray for easy parking!). I get a message which includes the letters H L T $200 Mobile for the customer's plan. The %200 Mobile thing I get, it's a promo that's been running a while, but the H L T is totally new. I assume the H stands for Home and the L stands for Line (as per most Telstra plans), but the T doesn't match up with anything that I knew about. I go over all the little check-boxes on the forms to figure out if I'm missing something...and I don't seem to be.

I message the New-Craig. She says: 'home line together [rattles off rates]. Got it now?'

As if anyone's even bothered to tell me this before?

Not only that, but it's obvious that with new rates, I'd definitely need new forms for it too. The customers have to sign their consent for us to switch them over to said plan. I can just write 'H/Line Together' next to the number to be switched, but the rates for that plan need to be somewhere on one of the forms for them to read over. This is even more of a problem, because the first customer I get didn't actually agree to switch over when she was speaking to the tele. She wanted 'to look it over'. Maybe if the rates were on the forms, I could just negotiate a deal where she signs, takes the forms, reads them, and calls up to cancel if she doesn't like what she sees. But there's nothing to read. They're on my phone though, courtesy of New-Craig. I don't even bother attempting to just read them out to this customer from my damn phone, so I just explain to her what's happened, apologise for the inconvenience, and arrange a call-back.

I message New-Craig, telling her that I just can't read rates out from my phone and hope a customer buys it. I need them to have everything explained (which is what's supposed to happen anyway, I'm never supposed to answer questions, just collect signatures). Are the teles selling properly? Make sure they are. And one other thing, I ask: I assume this new thing means there are new forms which I haven't been told about...what's up with that?

I get no answer from her. I call her up. I tell her what's happened. I tell her I can't sell anything, partly because

a) I have no paperwork with the right dollars and cents on them, and

b) Partly because my state manager, upon hiring me, stated that I am 'Not To Answer Any Of The Customer's Questions - I Just Collect Signatures'.

She pauses. Then:

'So she didn't sign?'

'No'...

'OK, just send it back to me in a message so I can put it through as a no-sign'

I tell her 'I should have obviously called Mish about this instead, but she never answers her phone (understandably, she's usually too busy babysitting the teles), so I was stuck with calling you'.

'Yeah, OK, just send me the message'

I hang up.

I've run out of forms, so today I come into the office to pick up some more and drop the signatures off. I tell Mish by sms that I'll be late (very, VERY late), but I'll be there by 3.40. I get no response from anyone. Probably no work anyway, I assume.

When I finally get there, I learn from Mish that there was indeed work. She didn't check her phone. I was assigned an area, I learned. New-Craig had teles calling my area, I learned. New-Craig didn't sms me about any of this. Luckily, the reason I didn't find out was because they didn't happen to be selling anyway, so I didn't have any customers to go to.

Mish realises that New-Craig hasn't done her damn job, and just tells me I can go home. Woo-hoo! Happy ending!

(oh, I also picked up the new forms. The Homeline Together forms. And the new forms that replace all of the old ones that I've used for the customers the day before, which turn out to have completely outdated information/rates on them due to the re-jigging of even the old plans. Wouldn't be surprised if all of those customers call up to cancel once they notice that what the tele said and what the paper said don't match up too well.

Thom Yorke - The Eraser

*click* *click* *beeeep!* *beepity* *beep* *click, beep*

What, do you think I actually KNOW?

Pfft. Give me a little credit.

Instead, I'm going to ramble about how I think Radiohead are overhyped. That's right, another self-indulgent rant about music.

See, I consider myself a fan of Radiohead. I don't understand why many of their fans are hoping they'll release another OK Computer (since they kinda already did OK Computer). I guess if they mean 'release something that's original and has the potential to make us re-think what we know about rock music, like OK Computer did', then I guess they did that too with Kid A.

But I derail. I'm really intending to write about their consistency. I haven't heard much from Pablo Honey (but almost every fan admits that the first album wasn't the best) and I've not really heard through The Bends properly (so I COULD say that what I heard from it on first listen isn't terribly original and that it sounds quite a bit like everything else around that time, bar Johnny's crazy I-can't-find-my-lower-frets guitar playing, but I won't). I have OK Computer. So I'll start dumping on that.

It's not that it's a bad album, it's just that it's patchy. Like I said, consistency is a good thing, and any tracks that I skip over or just damn well can't remember after I've listened to it for months (upon months upon months) are probably not too memorable in many ways. Keep in mind, few albums that I listen to cause me to make use of 'Old Skippy'

Airbag is a good one. That was the first Radiohead song I heard and I kinda liked it. Still do.

Paranoid Android is OK as well...although my opinion of it dropped a little once I heard that Thom claimed that its multi-sectioned structure was influenced by 'Bohemian Rhapsody'. This is not a bad thing, but after listening to the two songs back-to-back, I can say with certainty that they did take a pre-existing formula and put it to good use but couldn't they have done something else to it as well? It seems like they unconciously lifted the song structure from a song from years ago, and applied it to an otherwise conventional Radiohead song.

Subterranean Homesick Alien is also cool, as is Exit Music.

Let down's one that I just can't remember anything about. I just started playing it though, to see if any memories come flooding back. One did: 'Oh, God, not this song, skip forward'. Bad sign. I think the way it's sung is rather dull. (I've finished listening to it now...it actually ends quite well, but it's mainly in the way the vocals are layered. It's a slight redemption, but I still don't think it's a great song)

Karma Police. Oh dear. I remember this song. It genuinely bothers me to this day. It's so goddamn simple and by-the-numbers in every way I can think of and sounds like a B-side from the Bends. Yet they even made a video for it. I'm skipping the rest of the track - by it's very existence, this song depresses the hell out of me. It's even mixed badly.

Electioneering. Radiohead really are sticklers for lyrical content that makes you think, aren't they? Again, instrumentation is dull. I like the lead guitar line, but even that gets repetitive by two minutes in. And the drumming is...*cough* beatles-esque*cough*. If I were a drummer banging out something like this, I'd get bored. With life. Yeah, sure, he plays a few fills here and there...I don't blame him. This song, too, has horrendous mixing.

Climbing Up The Walls is one I like. Although 'No Surprises' isn't one of my favourites, it's not bad in any way, so I guess it's a good thing.

Lucky and the Tourist...I just can't remember for the life of my what either of those songs sound like. They both run into each other (but I don't think it's intentional)

(Just listened to Lucky...again, not bad once I'm listening to it. Still a little dull in places, particularly the way the song starts. But it gets into a good thing after a few minutes. Am I going to say the same thing about The Tourist? No way...As I force myself to listen to it, I just keep looking at the 'time left' display. The guitar solo at the end isn't bad though. Doesn't stand out like a guitar solo shouldn't., so I guess that's a point for good mixing.)

My point (no, I'm far from done) is this: If you took out, say, Paranoid Android, Airbag, Climbing, Exit Music, would people still like it? Forget that, if you just took out Paranoid Android and left everything else, would it be as popular? I doubt it.

Kid A, at least, is much more difficult for me to hurl abuse at. When these guys made it, they sounded pretty damn original. The National Anthem in particular is quite insane. I guess Optimistic and In Limbo are potential throwaway tracks, but it's another case of 'good, just not great'. Morning Bell is the only song that I dislike...which makes me wonder why Amnesiac features a rearranged version that (somehow) is even worse. I guess I have to respect a group of musicians that can take the worst song off one of their albums, botch THAT up (as if it weren't already) and put it on the next album.

Which leads me to Amnesiac. I listened to this one last night (since I hadn't listened to it as much as Kid A) and I enjoyed more of it than I remembered from last time.

Generally, I can't complain up until I Might Be Wrong, which is still a pretty good song. I think the guitar line is cool as a rhythmic device, but wonder what it would be like if it were pushed back into the mix a bit...

Knives Out is a little sleepy. Not something I've felt the need to skip over, but at times it comes close.

Morning Bell/Amnesiac...I've been over that. I don't want to give it any more of my time...

*pause*

Damn, I just did.

Basically, the only song after that that I dislike is Hunting Bears. Dollars And Cents and Spinning Plates are so-so...and Glasshouse doesn't seem to work. The instrumentation is great, but it is basically Radiohead trying to play a genre they can't pull off. When I listen to this one, I'm always concious that they're playing a genre for the sake of playing the genre.

Maybe my opinion of them will change eventually and new light will be shed on those songs I dislike. The same thing happened for a few months after I bought Lateralus (no, I won't stop bringing up Tool every second bloody post). Of course, I eventually took to liking the songs that once seemed like filler because the only problem with them was that they were too subtle for their own good. Although I still think 'Reflection' goes on for way too long...

Oh, and I'm aware that I didn't do Hail To The Thief. I'll probably do something about that in the next week or so.

Wha...Why aren't I hearing sighs of relief?

Hahhahhahahaaaa. Just kidding.