• Never get a visa for the United States. Never. Just fill out one of the green slip things and tell them you’re here to “chill outies” or something. Honestly, the first dude I spoke to was trying so hard to get me into the country he wouldn’t have cared if I’d been waving a 9mm around in his face. Sadly, I pressed the “I have a visa that is being processed,” line (on advice from an immigration attorney) and we were referred to “secondary.” This is where we stayed for the rest of the day.
• SPEAK ENGLISH. Nothing is more important than this. Although Customs and Immigration employ many cunning linguists, if you can’t speak English you’re a second- or third-class citizen NO SHIT. This one dude who was having trouble finding a Mandarin translator got arrested in front of everyone even though he looked like he was packing some serious $$$. When I was out back being questioned his luggage was still there BUT NO SIGN OF HIM. I BET THEY KILLED HIM. KILLED HIM FOR NOT SPEAKING AMERICAN.
• Make sure that your application isn’t shuffled between shifts. Our case went through three shifts of officers and two different supervisors and what seemed like two different Port Directors (but I think it was just one dickface changing his mind.) DON’T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU. DON’T BE A VICTIM OF CIRCUMSTANCE.
• DO YOUR UTMOST to ensure that when the overly-keen officer dude is playing you Placebo from his iPhone and looking up your band on the Internet he doesn’t find any reference to vulgarity or drugs or an EP with “CUNTTTT” in the title or anything like that.
• If one of the officers tells you that the Port Director has “graciously” waived the 545USD per person fee, stick by this NO MATTER WHAT. Just because some wanker in the office out back changed his mind doesn’t mean that you and your friends are going to be $2180 out of pocket. Fuck that.
• Don’t get some lawyer in Vermont to process your visa application in such a manner that it gets approved the night before you arrive at LAX meaning not only do you have no documentation to show you have a visa, there is no evidence of the visa in anyone’s computer systems and customs basically have to take the lawyer’s word for it.

For anyone who didn’t care about this, here are some tits:

LOZL JUST KIDDING:

Fuck some book called Mr Nice that may have been good except for the constant mention of “marijuana” and poor writing skillz.

Fuck the ten minute walk to my car.

Fuck the shitty battery in my fucking old mp3 player.

Fuck all of the fucking red lights from the airport to St Albans.

Fuck the stupid microwave’s defrost setting.

Fuck the microwave’s cook setting that fucks up frozen meat raaaaage.

Fuck the fucking half defrosted mince that fell on the floor.

Fuck the little bits of mince that I couldn’t pick up off the floor to put back in the pan.

Fuck the smelly TV that managed to work yesterday with no complaints.

Fuck, I left the bag of salad out. Now it is definitely not going to last until Sunday.

“Fuck this. I fucking guess I’ll have to wear my other pair of gloves reserved especially for the computer.”

Anyway, today I didn’t do anything worthy of comment except troll someone else’s blog because I couldn’t think of anything else to do.

Here is a picture someone drew about this very instance:

This is Australia. One thing you will notice is that there is no Internet access anywhere. That is why I haven’t updated in aaaaaaages – but don’t worry! I’m thinking of something really funny to write about! So funny!

HI EVERYONE ARE YOU A TOURIST? THERE IS/WAS THIS BAND CALLED THE BEATLES AND THEY CAME FROM ENGLAND SO HERE IS A POSTER OF THEM ON THE COVER OF THE ROLLING STONE – BUY A GUITAR AND MAYBE AN AMP AS WELL! THE BEATLES ARE SO GREAT. NO, THE BEATLES NEVER USED A FUZZ PEDAL – WHY WOULD YOU WANT A FUZZ PEDAL? YOU SHOULD BUY SOME NICE GIBSON HOLLOW-BODIES AND MAYBE A BASS THAT LOOKS LIKE A RETARDED VIOLIN, THEN YOU MIGHT BE A GOOD BAND. COME BACK THEN.

Today when I turned up to work everyone was all, ‘OMG, ZACH! YOU ARE AN HOUR EARLY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?”

After that ordeal random people started picking on me:
“You can’t come to work looking like that. You aren’t wearing your hat.”
“I’m not actually working right now. That is why I don’t have my hat on.”
“No – you need to wear your hat and tie your hair up.”
“Look, when I actually start work I’ll put my hat on and sort my hair out.”

Later, on one of my breaks a manager asks me to help her take some stuff to the kitchen. As I leave the kitchen after completing her task I get this:
“Zach. You need to tie your hair up and put your work hat on.”
“Yes, I will do this when I START WORK.”
“OK. Go downstairs and put your hat on.”
“YES, I KNOW. I WEAR MY WORK HAT WHEN I’M WORKING. THAT IS WHY IT IS CALLED A WORK HAT.”

Later still, in the cash room:
“I told a few people off today about uniform, including this one.” (referring to me)
“I told you, I was on my break. I’ll tie my hair up when I’m working.”
THEN SOME OTHER FUCKING BITCH WHO ISN’T EVEN A MANAGER PIPES UP: “You’re working now and you don’t have your hair up!”
“I’m in the cash room – not around food. I don’t see any cups of coffee around here that my hair can fall into.”
“No – tying your hair up is an OSH regulation”
“I don’t think having long hair is a danger to my safety”
“Yes it is! That guy up North got scalped when he was working in the mill!”
“The saw mill? With the big fucking machinery? Cutting up trees?”
“Well, there is machinery here!”
“In the cash room? The only machinery here is that calculator.”
“There is other machinery in the airport!”
“Where I work there are lattes and flat whites and the cash room. I don’t think I am going to get scalped by the steam wand.”

Then she stopped talking BECAUSE I HAD BURNED HER ASS and her till didn’t balance.

Mine didn’t either but WHO FUCKING CARES?

I am so sick of frumpy bitches hassling me.

I KNOW I HAVE LONG HAIR – PLEASE LEAVE ME ALONE.

Yeah, and then I went inside to wash my hands (because dogs that have just been swimming in the Avon river aren’t really that clean) and I realised that I’d just basically rubbed my right hand in a big pile of goose shit. So I got to the bathroom and got some soap and started to clean the fuck out of that hand BUT THE SMELL WOULDN’T GO AWAY!

+

=

I spent about ten minutes washing the fuck out of my hand before I gave up and went back to nethack.

Tonight I am sick, and confined to bed. To ease my pain, I made the mistake of switching on the TV. Normally I stay well away from TV (apart from documentary/discovery/NBA highlights) so tonight I was somewhat unprepared for what I was about to witness.
Target just finished. It was possibly the most retarded thing I have ever seen in my life.

Tonight on target, they tested four mp3 players, an ipod touch, and ipod nano, a sony player and a samsung player. I wouldn’t let elemeno p make me god-damn toast as they could probably find a way to make jam and hot bread SHIT, but the morons at tv3 decided these idiots would be ideal to review mp3 players.

After watching this, I am now officially able to tell you how to:
a) be a stylish band that comes across as knowing lots about technology as well as how to make amazing music
b) be a crafty consumer, buy an IPOD NANO as it is GOOD.

Seriously. This show was packed with lots of comments that you would expect, like “I could just move my fingers across the screen and things would happen”. I’m glad I know this now, I was under the impression that a “touch screen” was something you stood behind at the airport when the nice men thought you were importing things that make your brain funny.

So yeah, even though the Ipod Nano has a shitty battery life, shit headphones, and shit sound quality, you should buy it. BUY IT.
To reiterate:

I the last two fools who commented on this thing copied the spelling of “assassin” from the first fool. Not withstanding their horrible spelling and grammar they fail because they were cheating. Normally I would be cool with cheating but they managed to take the wrong answer and that kind of stupidity cannot be allowed to spread. The second person gets an F- for being extra retarded.

I found this on C4′s poor excuse for a website.

This was obviously an attack on me because she didn’t even try to pretend like she had any business over there on the other side of the road. Just meandered past me like, “I don’t go near your kind. You little fags carry disease.”

Fuck old people.