Contunation of Ushjness

Well the last few days have been even more ushjmaking. My current job marks the 3 month anniversary of having no petrol pumps, tanks and very few cusomters. All I have been doing is sitting out the back of the "petrol station" playing on the laptop and stuffing around. Fun. At the moment I'm trying to decide whether to take on a smaller part time job up at a supermarket which offers four hours a week as a duty manager or maybe as a telemarketer as I haven't heard back from the people at the data entry place. Then again the five minute speed test I took as a trial for the job consisted of me jabbing buttons every now and then and sitting there with a Doogled look on my face, wondering when I was getting my break. I also have very little time to get in two essays that are due next Monday, but judging by what other people have said, it sounds like I'm further ahead of them in terms of progress. These stresses culminated in my big giant ushjmaking headache that I got the other day. It would have been manageable had it been a regulkar headache but it started in the sinuses so it hurt like hell. Despite all this the weekends have been gooood. On Sunday we watched one of the funniest Mystery Science Theatres ever entitled Space Mutiny which was a ghastly impersonation of Star Wars. The hero was this buff, dimwitted, WWF, action hero, the heroin was Lea (sound familiar?), the "force" was substitued with divine dancing beings who guided people and the mentor figure was strikingly similiar to Santa Claus. All in all it was ridiculously funny and I highly recommend this show to anyone who cares to watch.

Ushj-making

The last few days have seen me desperately trying to find a new job. The one I am currently at gives me 6 hours a week on a Saturday morning and the large amount of money I have is gradually draining away due to having no income (and a vibrant lifestyle [only Jon will take that the wrong way]). It is a bit frustrating considering that when I left Countdown at the end of February I was given a healthy payout of $3000 of which $500 was taxed away. I managed to get out of overdraft with that money but now I'm slipping back into it despite the fact I have a thousand put away in a savings account. Anyway I went along to Student Job Search and asked for a job. Well, they told me I had to sign up online so I did this and found an ideal job down the end of North Rd as a bar manager part time at the Normanby Tavern. I was stoked and guessing that not too many people would have a liquor licence I left it for a day seeing as SJS was now closed. Well, today I turned up to SJS and, being pendatic, they said I didn't have the 6 months bar experience so I couldn't apply for it. I ignored this and went and talked to the person at the Normanby myself. And whaddya know, but they had given the job to someone the day before. Major ushjmaking! I tried to argue that I would be better cos I already had a liquor licence and the person she had hired was only going through the course now. Well, she took my number down anyway but I doubt I'll hear back from them. So the ideal part time job with flexible workig hours and short shifts is down the gurgler. Major ushj-making! The only other job that worked for me was a security guard but I dunno if I can be bothered giving up my Saturday and Friday nights to either hang outside bars kicking homs out or even worse, standing at the wharf guarding entrances to cruise ships. I've included a photo of myself wearing a police jacket. Does it strike fear into anyone's hearts? Hmm, maybe not, but I do look doahh.

This year was also momentous for the arrival of another addition to the Crowl fam: Lucy Baker, Libby's second. This is the seventh grandkid now for mum and dad. She was exceedingly cute but every photo I got of her and Libby was deemed to be ugly and gross by Lib (which is a reason you don't hand her the camera to look at the photos). We had a gettogether for mum's birthday a few weeks back and celebrated the arrival of Lucy at the same time seeing as Lib and Lucy were down. It was kinda weird not having Mumma there and annoying that mum had shoved a giant table tennis table in the middle of Mumma's lounge. Nevertheless it's probably just another phase like the Wally puzzles or her scooter or beanbags. Time will tell.

Family Reunion

The other day I had a family reunion which was rather awkward at first, as per usual with reunions, where only the people who organise know everyone. Despite this I met some pretty kudos people and even I guy I had been at Kavanagh with for years who I didn't know I was related to. After a whole lot of mingling with people I came to the realisation that family reunions can be the worst kind of party if you're looking to meet someone, unless of course you come from a backwater town like Gore. Seeing as I've mentioned this I will also mention there was a couple of doahh second cousins who I didn't talk too much with just in case they turned out to be my perfect soulmate. Afterwards we had a family photo. Note that in the one the guy took on my camera he cut me out of it. Ushj! After this we had a quick visit to Mumma's grave followed by Jenna's birthday. We were exhausted by making small talk all day so everyone stayed for the minimum amount of time required at a birthday before heading home to have a Shunday shhhleep. However I stayed behind and watched Jenna and her friends play with the new bubble maker which was impressive and ideal for cool looking photos.

Karetai Cliffs

The other Sunday after church it was such a nice day and Scotty was down from Wellington so Jon, Scotty and I suggested going and doing something. We tried to get Total Bads to come along but he thought we were just going to hang out inside and watch movies or play boardgames or as he would say "You joolers are just gonna bainj around at hom bamshebamming around." His made up language is far more complex than mine and Jon's. Anyway we tried to convince him to come along but he ran off so the rest of us followed him with the van. When we got along to the Tea Col builders Scotty and I jumped out of the van and chased him through the college campus but he was too fast. We then tried again when we met up with him at uni and ran past random people at high speeds yelling stuff like "Stop that man!" We searched for another ten minutes all up the Town Belt but couldn't find him. After a while he texted me and said "Iskay u gushie bol-rolling banjirs. Why don't u joolers get creatv, go 2 supermrkt 4 focacia bred & pesto & hav picnc abv Karetai Cliffs? Thats wot real men do!" Jon and I were challenged by this. Iskay! Closer to the truth we now had something to do so we picked up Bads after he came out of hiding and went to the cliffs and got some good pics.

Poker and Parties

In March our flat celebrated the arrival of the new poker set complete with 500 authentic casino chips, cards and die. It's given us hours of enjoyment since then and has prompted many visitations from friends, family and randoms. Of course the thrill of playing has gradually worn off without the actual worry of winning any real money. Another exciting event in March was Susan Auty's 21st which was an international theme. I went as a Russian sailor and went around speaking in a Borat like fashion. Other costumes included Vanessa as a geisha, Jon as an leprechaun, Total Bads as a Frenchman, Greg as an Native American, Mike Beck (Mix) as a Roman centurion and Suzie Q herself as a South African, borrowing some of Jenny Beck's normal clothes. At the end of the night Vanessa and I swapped over costumes and I strutted around as a geisha. People told me I looked quite appropriate in it. Hmmm, ushj.

Weddings

This year started off with the whole bunch of weddings of people from my church. There was Anna and Matt Holman, Jane and Andy Robinson, Cate and Paul Weir and Neelam and Matt Dalman. The first one was a lot of fun as there was an open bar which I noticed was not repeated at the following three. The invitation to the second one was a surprise cos I had only met Jane that summer but it was a lot of fun. At one stage Jon and I tried to revitalise the dancing so we bowled up onto the dancefloor and went hardout doing all these stupid moves in front of people and dancing along to YMCA. Luckily we knew virtually noone so it wasn't as embarassing as it could have been. In the third wedding there was a weird kind of informal atmosphere when it came to the singing and even the celebrant was getting into a bit of groovin. When asked for the rings the best man produced hoolahoops, handcuffs and burger rings before actually presenting the real rings. Strangely enough Boss grabbed the handcuffs and stuffed them in his jacket. Juuust kidding. At the reception after the drinks table came crashing down Vanessa pointed out chicks Jon and I could go for and tried to encourage us to go for them. Like usual we were too picky and it came to nothing. In the last wedding in March I went up and stayed with Jon and Scotty at the Sudima Hotel where the wedding was being held. Unfortunately I wasn't invited to the reception so I had to sneak around and pretend I wasn't there when the reception was on. Instead I hung around for a while, bought a burnt pie from the Caltex down the road and finally managed to escape with other noninvited people to go see Ghost Rider at the movies. We got back to the hotel to go to the dance but had to wait round an hour for them to finish dinner and start dessert! After sneaking into the reception a few times I finally encouraged the others to come in and we had a good dance until it was only Scotty, me and Jon left on the dancefloor. In honour of our committment to the dancefloor the band played Dave Dobbyn's Loyal. That night I slept on the bedbase instead of the bathroom floor the night before.

Tutorial

Well, I have been putting off jumping on the blog band wagon but hey, what the hell, why not? I'm Dom and I have decided to include the past few month's main events as well as my current personal goingons. Just some background info: I go to Dunedin City Baptist Church, study history at Otago and flat in Opoho with a couple of other Christians, Malcolm and Ashwin. I have one bro and three sisters who all live in NZ and my parents recently told me they were moving to the UK for six months. Along with my "kudos mate" Jon I also have a large subvocabulary of a whole bunch of words we modified, made up or stole. We also made a whole bunch of tshirts when these words became popular around our church for people who repeated them back to us. I really should send those out. They were Christmas presents and they're still sitting in my room. Anyway the first post will be a teaching session of these words.
Firstly there's kudos (adjective). This is basically the new word "cool" but can be used in a multitude of situations. For example: "I just bought the new Feelers cd." The response would be "Kudos." Antonyms of this include kudes, superkudes and unkudos.
Next there's ushj (adjective). This is a particularly distressing or depressing mood which you can be put in when things don't go your way. It is the new term for "gutted" or "damn" and is popular among many DCBCers.
Thirdly there's doahh (adjective) which is something that is particularly attractive, most commonly used when driving down the road and spotting extremely hot chicks. In the case of Graham Beck doahh is only used when he sees an older woman because he likes older woman so doahh is instead substituted for "Graham would be doahh!" or Grahmedbedoah!
Next there's iskay (adverb) which is a more aggressive and sarcastic form of okay because it is only said when someone says something really stupid or unlikely such as "I'm pretty sure I can make that (10 metre) jump." The response would usually be a rather forceful "Yeah right!" Iskay makes takes this sarcasm one step beyond into ridiculement.
Wench (noun) is also used instead of girl but is not meant in any derogatory sense. Total Bads is Graham's nickname. Fudge replaces f#*k as a resepectable replacement because it's stronger than darn or shoot. Right. I think we're pretty much ready to begin.