The Boiler Room

aka. Ice, Ice Baby
Humans have created some godawful situations in their lifetime: War, terrorism, and fast food kitchens (it's greasy. Very, very greasy). However, none of these can compare to the sheer mind-numbing torture that is: The job interview.

You walk into the office with the nervous posture that would put the Hunchback of Nostre Dame to shame. You nervously ask the reception lady (it's always a lady) where to go. Without even looking up, she condemns you to the row of chairs; half of them filed with equally nervous job applicants. You can just see the bricks dropping from their pants. The reception lady gets back to her tasks, wiping her hands clean of your presence.
They all look up at you. Upon realising that you are yet another applicant, they give you The Evil Eye. They shuffle themselves away from your direction, paranoid that you will, for some reason, steal their resume notes, even though you have absolutely no use of some crappy work experience job in some miscellaneous office filing papers to nowhere.
As soon as you take your seat, it becomes freezing cold. This is the effect of The Cold Shoulder. Everyone sticks to themselves, never speaking a word, never generating small talk, even though you all are brothers, bonded by interview trauma, about to be led like lambs to the slaughter. Even those who do bother making small talk are so nervous, that you can't understand a word of what they say, only hearing jittery gibberish.
You stare at the blank walls, somehow hypnotised by the emptiness. Paranoid thoughts pass through your head, transforming the inevitable-yet-unintentional truancy of the interviewer into a test of courage and faith.

Finally, after everyone else has walked the green mile to their interview, you are called. You flinch, surprised and horribly scared. You shuffle that little bit too quickly into the interview room, filled only with a bookshelf holding smelly 50-year old books, a poster with a rock climber and the word 'Courage', an empty chair, a bare desk and the interviewer. There is no natural light to speak of, only a single 75 Watt light bulb filling the darkness, yet not shielding you from the inevitable darkness of the upcoming events.
The interviewer stares at you, observing and over-analysing you as you sit down. They introduce themselves. You smile (badly) as you shake their hand, repeating their name over and over again in your head. They crap out a tangle of lies, claiming that you are important to their business, that you don't have to be so tense. Nothing could be further from the truth. You've already forgotten their name.
You give them your resume, your hand trembling like there's no tomorrow. You begin to panic as you over-over-analyse one of their blinks as a look of disappointment. They finally finish, saying that it looks good. You break out into another sweat as they put your beloved resume into a manila folder, disposing of it like a used tissue.
You stress like a man facing a shooting squad as they start shooting the Questions at you. "What can you bring to our business?" "Why do you want to work here" "Can you see yourself working here?". You blindly reply with answers that you spent all last night rehearsing in your head and to your rather pissed off family/roomies/significant other. Then they pull out the big guns: The absolutely worthless metaphorical questions. "If you were an animal, which one would you be?" "What would you do if ?” You stammer, pause, pause and pause some more, the awkward silence permeating the air like your sweat. You finally stutter out a reply that a 6 year old kid would make. They write down some notes. You begin to have a nervous breakdown.

At long last, you shake their hand again and farewell them. You get out of that room as quickly as you can. As soon as you step back into civilisation, you are ecstatic. You wish your other rivals the "best of luck", almost hugging and kissing them in your present state. They nervously reply and resume their hypnotic state, staring the wall infront of them.
You get home. And then it hits you, The Inevitable Lament. You lost that night's sleep regretting nearly everything that happened in that interrogation/interview.
You lose more sleep over the next couple of days sitting at the phone. Sitting, waiting, lamenting, hoping for that inevitable call...

Happy (belated, egocentric) birthday to me

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Well, it's now officially a year (and three months, but that aside) since the creation, nay, the birth of Antisocial Rant, the opinion-based blog loved by millions...many...several...5 people at most. Hooray for me!
So many memories, so many opinions, so little time. Looking back, many of these opinions have pretty much no relevance today. Who gives a crap about football umpires, about a video game, about the 2004 Olympics. However, some topics brough up by this site (well, observed, anyway) have lasted. Tell me that you don't care passionately about obesity, about crap music, about novelty merchandise.
I've even spawned some other creations. Who hasn't loved the Iron Yuppie and its tales of woe, excitement and et cetera. I've even inspired others to join in on the joys (read as 'banalities') of web logg-ing (visit Tromboner's Corner to see. "shameless plug...can't wipe the dirt off")
Well, this brings this nostalgia trip to a close, along with the shortest post on this blog, apart from the intro. Here's to another year (9 months, actually) of fun, oh-so frequent rants on the most banal of topics (wow, I used the word 'banal' twice in a post), poor syntax and grammar, and even more egocentric events.

Cheers!

Muzakal Revue: Novelty Month

A frog, a crocodile and a chipmunk walk into a bar...being swung at their direction by me
The ARIA singles chart right now is in a very, very sad state. Why? According to these charts (25/7/05), not one, not two, but THREE novelty, utter bullshi'ite songs are terrorising our charts. Two of those songs are singles based on ringtones. T'other is the conventional novelty song. The songs that I need mention are:

• No. 1: Crazy Frog - Axle F
• No. 2: Akon - Lonely
• No. 12: Schnappi - Das Kleine Krokadil (Crocodile Song)

Let's start with the most disturbing trend. Back in the day (of which I can't remember), the crazy frog (notice the lack of capital letters, on my behalf) sound effect was released into the world. Coupla years later, mobile company jamster bought the rights, and began to not only flog the dead horse, but do other sick, twisted things to it. And now we come to the single, number one in many countries, including the UK and Australia.
The crocodile song also spawned off a ringtone.
Which poses the following question: SINCE WHEN IS A RINTONE CONSIDERED A FUNKING SINGLE?! This worse than the conventional novelty song(Macarena, Ketchup Song, etc.). At least they have some sort of substance and purpose out of it, maybe even a dance. These marketing ploys, which are about as subtle as someone beating you over the head with a mallet with the word "shameless" written all over it, are soulless. No musical talent, no passion, no talent, no purpose...did I mention no talent? They are a waste of our air(waves), and annoying as hell to boot.
Let's get back to individual attacks for a minute. The crazy frog ringtone is probably one of the most, nay, the most annoying thing I've had the displeasure to hear. However, there are as many people who hail the frog (and I ask them, why?) as people who want to tear that frog a new one. So what do jamster do? They steal a movie theme, add a doof-doof beat, and release it as a single, with three additional mixes. Original(!).
The crocodile song...well, I haven't actually heard the song, so no bitching for this one. However, I have heard from many reliable sources that it is a crappy song. And looking at the single, it has a total of eight tracks, including: the original, the X-mas mix, and even the karaoke mix. A slight bit of overkill, there.
Now, lonely. Although this isn't a novelty song per se (since akon's actually released an album), I call it a novelty song for it's main feature: the annoying high-pitched chipmunk sample. The entire song wraps itself around it, which isn't a good thing to do in this case. Not to mention the fact the akon is all show, no substance. He can't carry a tune, and, to severely understate it, I've heard tryhard wiggaz (sic) who can rap/r&b better than akon.
The only piece of comfort I can hang on to is the fact that the singles chart isn't exactly the best indication of musical preferences. The main people who buy the stuff are kids up to the age of 14 or so, the perfect type of annoying little crap who can actually stand mindless white noise (aka. ringtones). After all, these are the kids who can watch the exact same episode of a fad anime 20 times and still enjoy it, and who decide to play all their ringtones on the train at full blast.
I won't bother to delve into the disturbing psyche of the mobile phone/novelty song creator, nor the fans who listen to and enjoy them, but it is a disturbing threat to modern musical society, which has already taken too many for them team. Need I mention the Idol winners, wuss rock (simple plan, in particular) and William Hung. The plague needs to be stopped, because if I hear that stupid frog one more freaking time...

Repeat after me: terrorism is boring

Because repetition is boring. It's boring to be repetitive. Repetiveness is boredom(ness).
Before I begin, let's make it clear that the London attacks were devastating and tragic. Now that that fact is clear, let's move on.

The London bombing is one of the most important news items of this year (apart from Shane Warne's hair regrowth, which, as we all know, is massive stuff. Why did it only make the front pages of nearly every newspaper, even the broadsheets? Why no hour-long heartstring-pulling/product-plugging interview about the new rug? But I digress)
This is the first major terror attack since Madrid last year (remember that, folks?), and we as the public had to know every single, minute detail. What time the bombs struck, the causality count, the brand of coffee the person in the 60th seat of the 2nd carriage was drinking when the first bomb went off. All of these details are each as important, if not more important, than the previous one.
That said, the TV coverage was in two ways like an all-you-can-eat buffet. First off, there was plenty of choice. In Australia, we had either the ABC (who was screening CNN all night), Channel Ten (who had CNN for an hour before screening their top priority show, Big Brother), Channel 7 (who couldn't make up their mind between this or the cricket, causing some interesting segues) and Channel 9 (who screened ITN). And cable viewers had a lot more choice with CNN, Fox (who would be looping Dubya's comments whilst praising him as their saviour), and more Brittish networks than you can poke with a stick.
However, unless you''re willing to pay, most of the food at a buffet is bland and near-identical. The TV coverage was the same. Unless you had pay TV, you were stuck with the leftovers provided by free-to-air TV. This means footage of the aftermath in a mind-numbing, repetitive loop. Every five minutes, we saw the exact same footage of soot-covered victims, the exact same footage of that double-decker bus, the video-phone footage of the trains (what kind of sicko would want to record that kind of smut. After all, who needs a life when you can record low-quality video as that rubble above your head falls?), and the exact same footage of the gurney with papers flying from it trying to get past police tape (That was my personal highlight).
If a station expects to keep viewers interested, they would have to provide new, hard-hitting footage. 'Less analysis, more paralysis' is the key here. Back in September 11, people were glued to their screens. School classes and workplaces came to a halt to watch the events unfold. I'm guessing that millions upon millions watched. Why? Not only was it major, major stuff, but it provided action. It showed the big hits, in full colour and widescreen. Not just barely-lit video-phone footage.
These attacks on London were a tragedy. I'm not denying that fact. However, we need to be able to keep track with events as they unfold. Watching the same footage over and over and over and over and over and over again isn't exactly keeping us informed. Even a bit of expert opinion may liven things up. But unless the networks are willing to go the whole yard and keep on pumping us with information, why bother?