Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in The Jester's LiveJournal:

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Wednesday, July 15th, 2009
8:54 pm	No seven-day weekend At least not yet, and hopefully never. It turns out we all still have jobs after all *touch wood*, though our hours are reduced significantly - we each get roughly 27 or 28 hours per week divided among five days - and there are still no guarantees.  In fact, today my shift had the day off due to a cattle shortage, so I used this day off to look for another job.  I got a few position descriptions, though a couple of jobs may be out of my reach due to insufficient experience on my part, but nothing ventured, nothing gained, eh?  I also inquired in person about a car sales consultant position today, but I dunno, I guess it might just be one to bone up on my interview/application skills with - I can't imagine new cars being in big demand during an economic downturn (my Dad says we're in a depression; I don't think we're quite there, but hard times have definitely come). Admittedly this job has been good to me - good pay, conditions, et cetera - and there is no union presence because there has been no need for them, we have been looked after well enough for them to not be required.  Indeed, the fact that we still have jobs, instead of being unemployed due to closure, is testimony to the top brass looking out for us.  However, I have a lady waiting for me back home so I have to look out for me and mine. Anyrate, between shifts, I'll be busy with job applications, including chasing up referees, and please God may I land on my feet. Current Mood: restless (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, July 9th, 2009
5:19 pm	As you all no doubt already know, they have held funeral rites for Michael Jackson.  One of my first thoughts on the subject was to suspect that it is just a matter of time before some conspiracy nut out there broadcasts some crackpot theory that dear old Jacko isn't really dead, he staged the whole thing, and this thought revisited me after reading a news article online saying that the location of his grave is a mystery.  And so it should be unknown to the world at large where his final resting place is, let him rest in peace.  No wonder both John Lennon and George Harrison elected to be cremated (and don't be surprised if Paul and Ringo do the same), and what would Elvis think of his grave being a tourist attraction? (4 Comments |Comment on this)
5:13 pm	This will edify you, it might shock you, it might even make you laugh... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gropecunt_Lane Incidentally, isn't it funny how attitudes change... Current Mood: amused (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 8th, 2009
5:25 pm	Seven-day Weekend? Part Two So apparently we could all be cut back to five six-hour days (meaning we lose the equivalent of a day's pay), subject to a vote.  Another possibility suggested is that the place could be closed down, perhaps even indefinitely.  If that happens, it could do major damage to the little town it's located near.  It's been put to me that three or four 7.6-hour days are a better proposition, and more cost-effective all-round.  Anyway, to reiterate, I am seriously considering looking for another job. So what have I got going for me?  I'm young, educated (not something I really even mention at work - a meatworker with a tertiary education - the very thought!), know how to present myself, prepared to work whatever reputable job comes my way, and generally have a positive, can-do attitude, reliable, conscientious and all-round pleasant disposition.  I hope this is enough, and I find something appropriate, especially considering that jobs aren't exactly falling off trees right now.  I shouldn't be feeling sorry for myself (I feel like Sarah's going to be pretty bummed out about it too, though, and I feel like I've let her down somehow), I should shit-can the self-pity because there are plenty people worse off than me. Thank God I don't have kids or a mortgage, and my heart goes out to those who do, poor souls.  And especially those who didn't even finish secondary school.  Please God, help them make ends meet. EDIT: Our working hours each day look like being something like 5.5 hours with a half-hour break, and we stand to make about $500 per week.  Not great I know, but I'll take that over $500 a fortnight. Current Mood: depressed Current Music: "That Ol' Wind", Garth Brooks (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 7th, 2009
7:23 pm	Seven-day weekend? I really need to start looking for another job, and I kick myself for not applying for a few earlier. This cattle shortage is going to bleed me dry otherwise. If it wasn't a bad enough sign that they were dropping Mondays for half of June and all of July, it looks like they could be dropping Fridays too, meaning a three-day week. Why is this a bad thing? Because (1) it's going to use up leave I was hoping to save, and (2) once all that's gone, the paycheck is going to be a fair bit smaller, and worse, there'll be insufficient - or even zero - leave for next summer, when Sarah and I were planning on getting married and going on our honeymoon. And that's if we're lucky! A more pessimistic rumour says that the abbatoirs could close for three months, meaning I'll be unemployed for an awfully long time unless I pick up something else. I guess I'll find out after tomorrow's committee meeting. Please God, give me the strength and the wits to get myself out of this shit. And no, this time telling me "you've got a good job, stick with it" isn't going to work. The job might be a drag some days and even some weeks, but being unemployed is far worse, and this is a possibility I am confronted with - not having this "good" job to go to. Watch this space. Current Mood: depressed Current Music: "I Feel Like Going Home", Muddy Waters (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, July 6th, 2009
7:32 pm	Writer's Block: Firsts What was the subject title of your first-ever LJ entry? Submitted By paperxflowerz View other answers The title of my first-ever LJ entry was the imaginitive, colourful and stunning "First Post", a veritable triumph in colourful and clever use of the Queen's English. Current Music: "Interlude (A Night In Tunisia)", The Dizzy Gillespie All-Stars (1 Comment |Comment on this)
2:17 pm	Writer's Block: Listen to This If a friend asked you for some new music recommendations, what would you suggest? View other answers It depends on what they're into. Current Mood: can't talk - eating Current Music: "It's Only A Paper Moon", Nat "King" Cole (Comment on this)
Saturday, July 4th, 2009
6:28 pm	Happy Fourth of July to all my US friends out there. (Comment on this)
Thursday, July 2nd, 2009
6:40 pm	Kev: 2, Influenza: 0 Last night I thought Round Two was coming up, and I guess it did, but it was a short bout. I felt okay until about 3:30-4pm yesterday, when I got that hypersensitivity in various parts of my skin. Then I got the shakes, and aches in my midriff, my hips, my balls and even my teeth(!). I went to bed early, but got very little sleep because I had a massive fever - if my head felt any hotter I probably would have looked like I was the Ghost Rider! (I wouldn't mind a bike like his anyway)... Anyway, I considered the very real possibility that I might not be in for work but decided to see how I felt in the morning. As luck would have it, the fever was well gone by the time I was due to get up - I guess the ol' immune system knew what it was in for this time, and beat it hollow (too bad it cost me a decent night's sleep). So without further ado I got ready to go to work. In other news, on a happier note they changed the radio station at work. Now we get rock from the '60s to today (all they need to do is chuck some '50s rock classics in the mix and she'll be apples) - no rap, no techno (or any of that other electronic druggo poofter shit), no emo, and I don't think I've heard the same song twice on that station in a week. Two highlights of the day yesterday: no more neckbones to pack, and Here Comes the Sun by The Beatles on the radio. Current Mood: tired (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
5:18 pm	Happy Birthday orangebeaver Have a great day and may your wishes and dreams come true. Also, Happy Birthday to Donna (Sarah's sister). May you too have an awesome day. Current Mood: hungry Current Music: "Fire", The Jimi Hendrix Experience (Comment on this)
Saturday, June 27th, 2009
12:03 pm	Me as a kid? Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net Current Mood: amused (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, June 26th, 2009
11:21 am	RIP Farrah Fawcett After a long, hard battle with cancer, Farrah Fawcett (one of the original Charlie's Angels) has passed away.  May she rest in peace. (Comment on this)
11:09 am	RIP Jacko Michael Jackson has passed away - I was shocked and stunned when I got the news, and I am still getting used to the fact that he's gone. I wasn't a fan, but I do appreciate the cultural impact he had, and that he was indeed superstar material.  I hope in his final days he managed to get some peace, especially as the last seven years or so weren't exactly kind to him. Current Mood: still coming to terms (Comment on this)
12:37 am	Writer's Block: All-Nighter When was the last time you stayed up all night? What were you doing? View other answers I think the last time I literally stayed up all night was for a job at a 24/7 roadhouse a couple of years ago, working the graveyard shift (midnight-9am). Darn near burned myself out because I was juggling it with a job at a fruit cannery. Sometimes I crammed in a few hours' sleep between knocking off at the factory Friday arvo and starting on at the roadhouse Friday night but wasn't always lucky. One day I worked within a period of 23 hours with only three hours between knocking off from one job and clocking on at another, and the hours were 7am-3pm and 6pm-6am respectively. Since I was twenty the only time I've pulled an all-nighter that wasn't work-related or study-related was woman-related. What can I say? She was very interesting, intelligent and funny. I was eighteen the last time I stayed up from sundown to sun-up partying - I was doing great too, until I had a beer and savoury biscuits for breakfast (crackers for you American readers), and then I was knackered, all I wanted to do was sleep. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 24th, 2009
10:55 am	Writer's Block: When I Was Young What do you miss most about being a kid? Submitted By daeinleyof View other answers The belief - the mindset even - that anything is possible, that you can do or be anything, sky was the limit. For me it's best exemplified like this: when I was a kid I had a few dreams where, if a given situation called for it I'd flap my arms and fly. Tellingly I haven't had dreams like these since adolescence. I had a dream once when I was 25 where I was floating through the air, but I don't think that's the same thing. Current Mood: wistful Current Music: "Free Bird", Lynyrd Skynyrd (Comment on this)
Monday, June 22nd, 2009
8:34 pm	Because I am bored and we could all use a laugh: Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, June 21st, 2009
8:12 pm	The Good News:  I am feeling considerably better than I did during the week, and am getting on top of this stupid illness that sucks royal arse. The Bad News: my week-long hiatus is over and I have to go back to my stupid job that sucks royal arse. I do have a sporadic cough now, which always starts with a dirty ragged breath because of the mucus either in my lungs or bronchioles which is what I cough up and spit out.  I'm told I can expect to be tired at the end of each working day for a few days yet.  Like my job isn't tiresome already... Oh well, at least I've got weekends to look forward to... EDIT: There's a cattle shortage today, so I get another day off after all. Current Mood: blah (Comment on this)
Friday, June 19th, 2009
10:17 am	If there is one person or more on your friends list who makes your world a better place just because they exist and who you would not have met (in real life or not) without the Internet then post this same sentence in your journal. Well, there's definitely more than one :-) (Comment on this)
Thursday, June 18th, 2009
8:47 am	Writer's Block: Conversion Rate Have you ever considered converting to another religion? View other answers I have long thought that Buddhism was pretty cool, but no I have never wanted to be anything other than Christian.  Of course, I have thought about changing denominations, and have indeed tried a few.  On the books I am Catholic, though I was only a practicing Catholic between the ages of 16 and 20; I was raised Anglican if anything (that's Episcopalian, for the benefit of U.S. readers), and I did most of my church-going to the Anglican Church, though in the last year, thanks to my fiancee I am now a practicing Baptist (I have been planning on getting baptised at some point).  I have also considered Presbyterianism.  There is different dogma with each church, some of which I agree with, some I don't, but the central messages are the same - God's Love for Us, treat everyone with kindness and respect, Jesus came to Earth, died and rose again to save us all - and those I absolutely believe in. Along the way I have entertained New Age ideas but have since found the New Age movement to be a load of shit and have no intention of ever going back there.  In fact, is it just me, or do a lot of New Age adherents tend to be holier-than-thou or more-enlightened-than-thou, when in actuality they really haven't got their shit together and have neither peace nor enlightenment?  Controversial I know, but someone had to say it. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 16th, 2009
6:53 pm	"Shoosh girl! Shut your lips!" Shut your own lips, dickhead!  or Music Rant Part Six. My goodness gracious me, the supply of terrible, excremental "music" is a bottomless well, isn't it?  Here are some of the latest offerings, plus some that have been around a while, and even one or two that I had a crack at previously but thought warranted another pizzling: - Don't Trust Me by 3OH!3: quite possibly the dumbest song ever!  For a start, it contains the utterly deplorable refrain: "Shoosh girl!  Shut your lips!  Do the Helen Keller and talk with your hips!"  Me: you idiots!  Anyone with half a brain knows that Helen Keller didn't talk with her hips, she talked with her hands, which makes that refrain a total non-sequitur.  Then I scrutinised the rest of the lyrics and I think my I.Q. went down.  Example: "You tell your boyfriend, if he says he's got beef/That I'm a vegetarian and I ain't fucking scared of him".  And of course there's the misogyny and sleaze that oozes out of every pore on this turd.  To sum up, this is a song by wankers for wankers. - Love Game by Lady Gaga: another one of the dumbest songs I have ever heard.  "Let's have some fun/This beat is sick/I wanna take a ride on your disco stick" she says repeatedly throughout the song.  Me upon hearing it for the upteenth time: NO! I will not have sex with you!   She thought she was so clever coming up with that one too, describing "disco stick as "a thoughtful metaphor for a cock".  Oh great, so she's one of those pretentious people who think they sound intelligent when they come out with malapropisms (whether they're aware of the malapropism or not).  Indeed, she revealed that she'd used it as a pick-up line.   Even worse, that stupid song would get stuck in my head, not helped by it being on the radio several times a day every bloody day.  However, the old brain has managed to twist it around to make it less insufferable, changing certain words: "This song is crap/it makes me sick/Lady Gaga's got a head like a disco stick". - Paparazzi by Lady Gaga: "I'm your biggest fan/ I'll follow you until you love me/Papa-paparazzi" - says it all really, doesn't it?  The woman's a chronic attention-seeker, maybe even a narcissist, and she's obsessed with being famous.  Further evidence of this is the way she dresses: dressing like a 25th century prostitute onstage is one thing, but according to her she dresses like that all the time.  Well, the eyes of the world are on her now, so of course she's going to get about everywhere done up like a stripper at a buck's night on the Starship Enterprise in order to generate further attention.  I read somewhere she said she actually gets offended by potential dates asking her to dress a little more "low-key" so as not to attract attention - "I am not going to change who I am just so you can have a quiet dinner."  And who are you exactly?  Darth Vader's concubine?  Or Skeletor's girlfriend?  In addition, she used to be a stripper despite being a silver spoon brat (that is, she didn't need the money, but got a kick out of all eyes in the room being on her).  Indeed she herself corroborates the attention-seeker argument by saying that, among other things, it was about "wooing the paparazzi to fall in love with me". - Poker Face by Lady Gaga: might as well make it a trifecta.  And yes, I've mentioned this song in a previous rant, but I bring it up again because it turns out I have additional thoughts on it: the "muffin" bit in the bridge goes something like this: "I'm not gonna say I love you/Kiss and hug you/Because I'm bluffin' with my muffin" - she might as well make a bee-line for the nearest glory hole!  Indeed, the bridge more or less sums up the song, that it's about meaningless sex which reduces the partner to a disposable plaything, and it would seem that Gaga's encouraging girls to be sluts.  And to crank up the creepy factor, do my ears deceive me or does she sound disturbingly prepubescent when she's going on about "bluffin' with her muffin"? She complained on Rove that "I happen to think that people are frivolously hard on me."  Cry me a river, sweetheart.  (By the way, "frivolously hard" - WTF?!?) - You Made Me by Eminem: Getting past the bit about me not being a fan of rap anyway, I don't actually have a problem with this song, except that it's on the bloody radio ad friggin' nauseum, and has thus been Officially Flogged To Death. - There's this other song that I've heard over the last couple of years, I don't know the title or the artist, all I have to go on I guess is "mawkish ballad with female vocalist doing a very poor and completely tasteless impersonation of a disabled person", or "mawkish ballad with bad retard groans at the start".  It sucks big time anyway, and it evaded me for too long, but now I take the opportunity to say "Flush that turd!" And that's me done, at least until the next installment.  *steps off soapbox* Current Music: "I'm So Tired", The Beatles (12 Comments |Comment on this)