eye on melbourne

• Start drinking some kind of obscure, long-forgotten liqueur. Maybe Guignolet. Or Altvater. Claim I have been drinking it since 1995.
• Find out what Guignolet and Altvater are.
• Start Ironic Marbles League in inner-northern suburbs. 
• Learn to play harmonica. Take it very seriously. Tell people I’m ‘working on my music’ when asked about my plans for that weekend.
• Perfect ‘The Robot’.
• Build a robot.
• Take all style cues from episodes of Welcome Back Kotter, Saved By The Bell or Mork and Mindy.
• Eat more cheese. Or was it less cheese? Either way, I’m not eating the exact right amount of cheese.

The list of songs to vote for in the Triple J Hottest 100 is a joke. Yes, I’m serious. No, I don’t know why I’m voting again, given the visceral rage last year’s countdown caused me to feel.

A sucker for tradition or a glutton for punishment? You decide.

Whatever. Songs missing so far, that would definitely make my shortlist:

• Girls - ‘Vomit’
• Gang Gang Dance - ‘Glass Jar’
• Dum Dum Girls - ‘Wrong Feels Right’
• The Joy Formidable - ‘Whirring’

And that’s only at a cursory glance. Fuck this. Imma vote for all Justin Bieber songs, then get drunk next to the Christmas tree. If you get drunk enough, and squint hard enough, you can can pretend its Christmas Eve still.

Allow me to let you in on a little secret: Boxing Day markdowns are not the great deal they seem to be. Surely not, you say. I can get a whole muthafuckin t-shirt for $5, you ignorant bitch, you say. 

That seems harsh, but I get where you’re coming from. We’ve all been conditioned to believe that Boxing Day sales are Just Really Fucking Amazing. So here’s a little dose of reality from someone who has spent far too many years in the retail game:

• Many stores, particularly chain stores, will start their Boxing Day markdowns on Christmas Eve, usually around 2pm. This is because, you know, some retail staff have families and shit, and the markdowns need to be ready for the morning of Boxing Day. If you’re really hankering for an ugly viscose-rayon top marked down to $5, do some shopping on Christmas Eve, and save yourself the drama.

• A lot of stores employ a high-low pricing strategy for Boxing Day - that is, their buyers buy in a bunch of really shit merchandise with the express purpose of selling it at a ‘markdown’. So it will come in with swing tags that say, like, $49.95, then is ‘marked down’ to $19.95, the idea being that you poor sons of bitches will think you’re getting a sweet deal. You ain’t. That piece of polyester, bead-encrusted shit was never worth $49.95.

• Online shopping. Seriously. You’re all capable of using the Internet. Most markdowns that are available instore will be available online. Stay home. For once, sitting around in your underwear with Cheezel crumbs all over you will be the dignified option.

• Go the day after Boxing Day. Or the day after that. Or the week after that. I promise you, the chances of you ‘missing out’ are slim to none. These stores have warehouses that are more jam-packed than my jeans after Christmas lunch.

So think about it. Think about staying home, or going on a picnic, or seeing Tintin or getting wasted with your best friends instead of going shopping on Boxing Day, okay? What the fuck do you want with a $10 popcorn maker, anyway?

Fuck me sideways. People who push for discounts in a charity shop can seriously eat a bucket of dicks.

Work, work, work.

Bake, bake, bake.

Do laundry, dye hair, clean kitchen, pack for trip home for Christmas, get things ready for work tomorrow.

So tired. I think being too exhausted to be excited about Christmas is a sign you’re getting old.

If you never close the program or turn off your computer, the Adobe Illustrator 30-day trial lasts FOREVER. 

Mwahahahaha.