RandomHero

Warning: What started as a small blog turned into quite a long rant, so I hope you have a bit of spare time.

[More:]

I never know how to start a good blog. This past week has been quite an interesting one, not only have I seen two of my favorite bands live in concert, but there are various other shenanigans and happenings worth writing about, so here they are.

Monday: A rather uneventful day at work couldn't have gone by any slower, for that night I was going to Melbourne to see Story Of The Year live. Once in Melbourne we had a dinner and a few brews at the hotel room a mate was staying in, then headed to the concert. The support bands weren't too bad, but when Story Of The Year came on we got into the pit and went nuts. They played for a good hour and a half, a good mix of songs from all three albums, as well as plenty of stage antics. They're such a good live band, their sound is clean, lots of stage diving, guitar spins, backflips, the works. So I came out of that one smelling beautiful drenched in other peoples sweat. I also caught Dan's (lead singer) water bottle, so I got a souvenir from the gig which is always good.

Tuesday to Thursday were also pretty uneventful at work, although I must say I had a pretty stellar week as far as sales go. We're having a "Sales Snakes and Ladders" game within our team (mobiles 6 spaces, broadbands 5 spaces etc), 1000 spaces in total, winner gets $100 cash, which I happen to be winning so far.

Friday: I rock up to work to find an email in my inbox from my team leader saying the number one mobile seller in the team wins a mobile phone. Myself and a couple of the other guys in the team are pretty competitive so it made for an interesting day. I sold 4 before my first break so I was pretty confident I would be going home with a new mobile. I got half way through my 5th order but I couldn't finish it because the guy didn't have the necessary ID, and a couple of other people in the team were hot on my heels. By the end of the day I was sitting on 5 (should have been 6) and thought I had it in the bag but Cam got an order for 3 mobiles which put him up to 7 for the day and made him the winner (bastard). But when it came time to receive his prize, it ended up being one of those plastic phones with the lollies inside, best prize ever! At least it made us try a bit harder.

So after work I was straight up to Melbourne once again, this time going to see Parkway Drive. This show was a totally different type of crowd to the Story Of The Year gig, the crowd was even crazier at this one. But we still got amongst it and rocked out. They only got a 45 min set but it was still long enough to play all their best songs, another great gig. After that we went back to a friends place and got quite drunk. We wanted to go to one of the metal clubs, but without actually finding out where they were we ended up on King street at about 1:57am and decided we were going to have to go into the first place we saw, which happened to be Showgirls, or be locked out due to those shitty 2am lockout laws. After about half an hour there I was quickly running out of money (the drinks were expensive, I didn't spend any on strippers...) so the decision was made to make the drunken stumble home in the rain, stopping at various 7-11's and not really knowing where we were going. All I can remember from that is high fiving random construction workers, getting wet, and having a good conversation with two guys who tried to sell us stolen watches.

We finally made it back to the apartment and finished off the rest of our booze. We stayed up playing Guitar Hero, kicking a hackie sack, drawing on those who passed out and there was even a ghetto ear piercing took place in the bathroom (not mine by the way). The night ended at around 6am, I slept for a few hours then made my way back to Geelong in a very hung over state.

Not long after I get home Saturday I get a call from the missus saying that we've been given the task of house sitting for the next 2 nights. At first I was over the moon, a house to myself for the weekend... Until I found out where it was... Solar Drive in Whittington of all places. For those who are unaware (and my apologies to anyone reading this who may live there) Solar Drive is probably the worst street in Geelong. But we went ahead with it anyway. This house was exactly what I had expected, and I could tell I was going to be in for a fun few days. Doors that barely locked, doors and windows which gave anyone looking in a full view at the expensive gear inside (mainly a plasma TV, which is what we were doing there, stopping anyone from stealing the TV). The garage roller door closed however there was a hole in the wall on one side which meant the bottom half of the door blew in the breeze, so I had no way of telling if the wind had blown it or someone had just gone in to steal parts off my car.

Despite the shady characters getting around, the first night went by without drama. We went out during the day but had to return the next night to look after the place. To my surprise nobody had broken in, everything was still there, but on the second night I was a bit more worried. On three separate occasions throughout the night somebody ran up to the window of the room where we were sleeping and banged on the window, and disappeared before I could get there and see what was going on. Despite my nerves being totally on edge, I got a decent nights sleep until I was woken up at about 9:30am Monday morning to someone banging on the door. So here I am standing at the door still half asleep in my underwear and one of the most shadiest characters I had ever seen was on the other side, wanting to know where the owners of the house were. I didn't want to give him any information as I had no idea who he was (turns out he was the owner's brother), but the fact that he had a car full of people with him meant I was shitting myself. After I got rid of him we packed up and got out of there, I couldn't stand another minute living in that street.

So I'll find out at work whether or not anything got stolen after we left, but right now I'm just glad to be back in good old Highton, where the worst we have are obnoxious uni students playing loud music and a neighbour who likes to operate heavy machinery at all hours of the day and night.

The next few days at work should prove to be interesting as well, Telstra have decided to update all their computer systems, and despite doing 4 days of training in these systems nobody seems to know how to use them. Telstra have put this one system in place which is supposed to roll all the systems we use now into one easy to use (not) system. Except in true Telstra fashion it has been rushed so we'll also be using the old systems in the background. It probably doesn't make sense to a lot of you; the point I'm making is in their efforts to make our job simpler, Telstra are actually just complicating it. I think I should go work for 3 mobile. I don't have any trouble selling Telstra stuff, but 3 have already incorporated an all in one system which I've seen in use and it looks much simpler, plus 3's products crap all over Telstra. So if I can manage to sell Telstra products I think I would be able to sell twice as much working for 3. Having said that, if you want any Telstra stuff, let me know and I'll see if I can get you a good deal. It also means I get the commission for it.

So that brings this blog to a close, I hope you've had as much fun reading it as I've had writing it. Also, keep your eyes on the ML website. I can't say much but I can tell you we've got some pretty cool things in the works at the moment, so stay tuned. Until next time people, RandomHero out!