Back

After about a fortnight of not writing, I'm back. A few updates:

Last week, my brother was pelted with eggs while standing at a pedestrian crossing somewhere in the vicinity of the University of Queensland. The yobs, the fucking cowards, didn't bother to stop their speeding car to appreciate what they had done, and the brother didn't have time to pick up a large rock to smash a windscreen, or even to note down their license plate number.

It's been quietly simmering for a week now, so I hope the next person who tells me what an absolutely lovely place Australia is to visit and perhaps to migrate, will forgive me if I spit on him or her.

***

Things I learnt while waiting 40 minutes for a cab today:

1. I really detest the morons who call up a taxi using the advanced booking service, and then STAY in the queue, waiting for whichever comes first.

2. That, for all their whingeing about poor working conditions and the high cost of maintenance, cabbies really ought to be grateful that it's a fucking seller's market out there. I mean, which other country has cabbies who will stop only for passengers who might be going their way? And if we can't get a cab whenever we want, we can always call for the cab waiting just round the corner?

Bastards.

3. That, when impatient, aunties will talk to anyone standing next to them:

"今天要等很久..."

"每天一样要等那么久。"

"每天啊？”

Really, lady, maybe you should get out more. It's the morning peak hour. Did you expect to get cabs, just like that?

4. That it is generally not a good idea to announce loudly that "perhaps we should walk a little further up and catch a cab from there" when people in front of you in the queue have been waiting for more than half an hour.

5. That it can be quite interesting to have a cabbie tell me about the suicidal tendencies of fish all the way to my destination.

***

Jonathan, the Chief Security Officer, at the Tekka Mall should take a chill pill too. He wins the award for the application of rules of the letter of law without considering the reason for them. The dude came over twice to tell the students I was with that they cannot sit on the ground, not because they're blocking the thoroughfare of the people - or lack thereof - walking through the mall; or because they're blocking the entrances to the [closed] shops of paying tenants, but because, and simply because, it's our rules. And mind you, these aren't students from schools with a reputation of requiring police escorts each time they're out in public, but (to quote some dumb-ass parents) rather girls from a premier all-girls' school located at the Anderson Road and Steven Road intersection.

So what did the girls do instead?

They stood around blocking the thoroughfare of the people - or lack thereof - walking through the mall and the entrances to the [closed] shops of paying tenants.

***

That it is hardly an incentive when one receives an email with a godhumongous attachment from the inappropriately-named Incentives Management Branch of a government agency asking for one's bank account details for a GIRO payment which, strangely enough, requires a photocopy of the NRIC to be attached to the form they sent.

I asked for terms cash or cheque. Not this GIRO nonsense. Why complicate things? And for fuck's sake! Why do we need the fucking photocopy of our NRIC for EVERY. FUCKING. APPLICATION. IN. THIS. COUNTRY?

Who's the payment for if not for me? Oh yeah, hell, I've earned $n, let's just give a random bank account number so the owner of the account can benefit from my sweat.

Facepalm.