And I think to myself...

[active_apathy]

...what an odd little world.

Once again, I have news from the frontline of sanity, from the raging conflict between sense and nonsense that is the modern world. Or maybe just from that secretive cabal of writers of overly sensationalist introductory paragraphs on entries that otherwise threaten to steal, yes, your very soul, with the sheer mundanity of the subject matter layered with the silliness of its textual - nay, literary - treatment in this bloggish forum of LiveJournal.

Um... yes. Something like that.

Today was an interesting day. To start the recount, here's a bit about the randomly irritating monolith that is public transport.

Late buses are fine. They're a peculiar hazard of the contemporary world that you just learn to deal with, or you go more insane than even I.

Early buses are a particularly enraging phenomenon, and lead me to saying some things very loudly.

And then wondering if half-remembered Mandarin previously half-remembered by Alan Tudyk is the safest thing to shout at a departing (but no less infuriating) bus.

So, yes. Early bus. 5 minutes early, according to my pretty pretty watch, which is set three minutes ahead of whatever time it is for all of the rest of the world. The clock in my phone is set even faster, but it's not my phone anymore. More on that later.

And, um, where was I? Yes. Early bus, Mandarin, at least 8 minutes early, slightly grumpified me walking 15 minutes to a stop with different buses. Yay me. Between that bus driver then being exactly 8 minutes late and his difficulties with money and tickets and his giving me change in 5 cent pieces, my fledgling grumpiness intensifies to levels that make me feel like having a bit of a rant; levels which will, by the time I actually post everything, result in a kind of meandering account that gets sidetracked repeatedly.

Yay me.

This eventually brings me to a CD shop, which has had my copy of the Serenity score on order since the 29th of September. I went to check in person, because my phone is gone, making me immune to phonecalls. Yay me. With the help of six (!) of their staff, I got a full and complete history of my CD.

Imports, for them, typically take about a month. That's fine by me.

That month was delayed by hurricanes affecting their distributor in the US. Also fine by me.

Now, my copy of the Serenity score is trapped in a container on a dock where Customs can't do anything because some kind of managerial bureaucratic nonsense has given rise to the pretend-need for a whole new system, completely unverified, unchecked and untested, that's wondrously efficient at trapping goods on the nation's docks. This? Not fine by me.

Not fine at all, but my options for having angry rants at the officialdom that decides to randomly break things that work happily as-is are particularly limited. I don't think they make appointments to see (semi-)ordinary folk who'd very muck like to repeatedly stab them with their own paperweights.

In a way, that's good. Pools of blood are unfair on the cleaners.

Next was a bookshop. I like bookshops, but I especially like this one because it has Garth Nix's Old Kingdom trilogy in pretty covers in a pretty box which makes me want to buy them despite already having copies of them. Australian folk who are yet to read Our Mr Nix, you must take yourselves to Dymocks and spend the $45 for the books. This is (a) cheaper than buying them individually and (b) one of the very best fantasy trilogies you will ever read.

And then I went to buy an icecream making machine, because they're 40% off at K(rap)-mart up until, I think, Wednesday. The layout of their goods needs work; reading the following lines of text as a kind of map:

[centre aisle]
Toasters
Heaters (WTF?! Late spring!)
[aisle]
Coffee machines*, blenders
Frypans
[aisle]
Hairdriers
Extension leads
[aisle]
Microwaves
Batteries
[aisle]

See anything missing? Me too! Turns out, the humble icecream making device I was after has suddenly been classified as home entertainment. Why, yes, that's sensible. Digital TV tuner, Halobox, icecream machine, Playstation, DVD player... I can see how this makes sense, assuming that 'sense' is of the 'non' variety.

The actual purchasing, happily enough, happened without incident. Yay incident-free moments.

*If you're going to spend money on a coffee machine, please enlighten me on this: Why bother buying one that just makes glorified instant in special bags? Proper coffee really isn't any kind of hard to make, and you're causing more problems for yourself by buying the silly and elaborate machine of DOOM that takes away any semblance of control you might have over what's in your cup.

Comments

[eighthcloud.livejournal.com]

Well hello there, Little Ms. Ranty Pants. I hope you're feeling better now that you've got your ice cream maker thingie.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

I need to freeze a bit before I can use it. The good news is, ice cream in all the flavours of the 'verse.

[herekittykitty.livejournal.com]

COFFEE OF DOOOOOOOOM!!

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

Coffee of Doom only sells proper coffee, and adds a surcharge for faux-authentic terms.

[deepfishy.livejournal.com]

I'm blaming that Customs "new computer system!" goushi on the complete absence of cleolinda Jones's Movies in Fifteen Minutes in any bookstore, despite the fact it was meant to come out at the beginning of November. Most aggravating, especially since I wanted to give it as a birthday gift to someone whose birthday is now past. *bitter, bitter, bitter*

I half want to buy the shiny boxed-set Nix (they look so happy together!), and half don't (hey, my copies are all different sizes and covers from each other, which is a whole 'nother kind of special!).

My personal, cynical theory for the ice-cream maker's shelving arrangements (unless it has an as-yet-undiscovered DVD-recorder function) is that they just didn't want anyone buying it before Wednesday. Whereupon they would be plainly displayed in the kitchen doodads section.

(alternately, the ice cream makers have been plotting revolution with the TVs, and you got there just in time)

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

They have a publish date here sometime in January, too, but Customs upsets me.

They do look so happy together, but my black-paperback-with-Charter-mark covers neatly match my copy of Across The Wall, too. Grr. I want a box set with all 7 of the Keys to the Kingdom books, too.

The TVs and ice cream machines want to overthrow the world by OMG making teh childrens fat. I shall rejoicify in saving the world by adding chocolate chips.

[laurenmitchell.livejournal.com]

I also have the pretty Charter-marks Nix books. And up until Knife of Dreams came out I had all the black covered Wheel of Time books.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

I like the pretty black Charter mark ones, too.

And the pretty black Discworld books, which make me want to replace the few that I had before them in the other covers.

[laurenmitchell.livejournal.com]

I'm not so fond of the black Discworld covers. They're very... bleak. I quite like my family's collection because it's all mismatched, though. I guess since Mum and Dad bought a few of them in hardcover years ago and then my brother and I were the ones who really got hooked and bought the rest that would explain why it's very random.

I like my copy of The Crystal Prison by Robin Jarvis that I just got because I have been looking for a copy for at least six years.

[leila82.livejournal.com]

Mmmmm ice cream makers. Obviously, it belongs in Home Entertainment, as when one watches TV in one's media room with the big 90 inch screen display, one would want to eat ice cream. And one will never ever eat ice cream in any other situation.