I want to talk to someone about soybeans.

Have you ever had a bad day at work? Ever steamed in frustration after talking to an idiot? I'm sure you, gentle reader, are far above such behaviour but I've been spring-cleaning my inbox and I found my friend's little piece of spleen-venting:

I am currently working at the Christchurch City Council in the call centre, its OK, ppl are pretty grumpy, and if they re not grumpy then they are asking the weirdest questions which make you want to say WHY THE HELL ARE YOU CALLING THE COUNCIL!!!?!??!?!

We started writing these down, these are just some of them!

• "What's the phone number so can I get a job picking mushrooms?"
• "Hi, we are having a function in September and want to know where we can get some Indian music CDs?"
• "I'd like to import an exotic cat, can I?"
• "What was the background music played at the Art Gallery two Sundays ago?"
• "Hi, I want to talk to someone about soybeans..."
• "My daughter's boyfriend is being released from prison, can you tell me who to contact about this!"
• "I would like a list of all the free doctors there are in Christchurch."
• Someone has rung to say he has built a garage. He rang requesting we now remove the street tree that is blocking the vehicle access way to the garage.
• "I have a couple of beds, who do I call?"
• "Do the service centres do drivers' licences?"
• "Do you know the number of the Christchurch Pony Club?"

What are we, Telecom?

The message was dated October 2006, so I guess the list grew quite a bit after that. I wonder if the full list is available online anywhere?

Bats are awesome

In the same way that I was excited by seeing actual squirrels when I was in London, I was suprised and intrigued when I noticed actual bats flapping their way overhead. Suprisingly, they did look just like symbol Batman uses.

I don't know if this swarming is a regular occurrence; unless you count Gotham, I'd never heard of bats in the city.

I just wish I had a camera (with batteries) on me at the time.

Tales from the middle of the woods

I was walking down a path through the dark forest— last night when I saw it. A shape in the darkness, on the path ahead of me. Something like a dog, I thought.

I slowed my pace, unsure of myself. The dog-thing glared at me, and I waited.

Suddenly a troop of six or so little piglet-shapes trotted across the path, with the big beasty following suit.

After that, the crunches and snarls from the trees weren't quite so creepy -- after all, wild pigs don't attack people, right? Right?

The two Indonesian dudes that were coming the other way hadn't seen the pig and remained utterly freaked out, however.

Good times.

Art, language, society, weather

There's a wonderful new place on Oxford Street, opposite the enormous Freddie Mercury. I'm not sure my new discovery has a name, or even what it is — it's like a gang of street artists broke into an unused retail space and covered it with subversive creations like Santa's Ghetto and the Heinz Beans Looter.

If you're in the area, do check it out (before they get busted?).

Also in the area, I had my first language swap with some friends I met through work (one German, one Polish). We managed to thoroughly disturb the whole coffee shop practicing the difference between the shh sound of of Polish s and the ssh sound of Polish ś. Slavic languages sure have a whole lot of different whooshing and hissing noises; my poor English ears can only begin to discern them!

Some fellow tube passengers noticed my copy of GQ Magazine in German and we actually struck up a friendly conversation. This may not seem noteworthy unless you're familiar with the mandatory surliness rules for London transport. To be fair, the conversation did take a turn for the worse when they discovered my vegetarian tendencies. They seemed to consider it a kind of frightening disability, on par with losing one's legs or waking up deaf.

Also, a tornado caused some grief a couple of kilometers from my house. My own roof appears to be intact!

Rolling black-outs

What happens if you're at work and the power goes out? If you work at my company, you grab a cab with senior management to play table football and drink beer for a couple of hours at Café Kick.

Mo-vember

I have just been informed by a reliable source that this month is Mo-vember. This means that every man should aim to grow a 70's pornstar moustache by the last day of the month.