excess baggage

Santa Monica Sheraton, May 10th, 7.53 am [AH! THE EVER HACKNEYED INTERVIEW APPROACH TO NEWS DELIVERY!] Q: So what’s with all the weird random disjointed snippets of information recently, eh? Don’t you think that will be pretty irritating for whoever reads this? A: Err, yeah, I suppose. Recently, I’ve been very busy… sort of. I seem, also, to be suffering from some sort of information overload combined with a burgeoning attention deficit disorder. I just can’t summon the patience to sit and write for a couple of hours, as I was wont to do some years ago. Once I sit and start typing, I enjoy it – in an abstracted sort of way, and my own over inflated self-image remains buoyant. Even now – 50 or so words after I started – my attention is wandering. I don’t seem to have any grip on what’s interesting and what’s not anymore – hence this paragraph. … Q: What takes you to Santa Monica? A: Real estate. Guy wants x million dollars to develop “luxury’ condominiums. I still don’t even really know what a Condo is. I was happy going through life thinking that it was a word Americans use when they are talking up what the rest of us mortals call flats/apartments. But no, this guy kept talking all day about condos –in relation to apartments. So now I’m clueless. Couldn’t quite summon up the gumption to just flat out ask him? I imagine his face as he comes to the sinking realization that they’ve sent an idiot to inspect his baby. Pleased to note that I can still summon up fear and revulsion when anyone refers to a home as a ‘unit’. Q: Apart from your blinding ignorance of real estate terms and total unsuitability for international finance, how’s it going? A: This report for this one’s going to be a nightmare. The principal of this project has decided to get ‘creative’ with documentation – presenting them in his own ‘intuitive’ order. This means that instead of just ticking things off a checklist [which he bloody well received as well] as usual. Now I’m going to have to search for what I need, before I can tick it off. You know what this means, don’t you? I'm going to have to read the fucking documentation. Wade through 200 pages of real estate esoterica in order to find the 20-odd pages of stuff that was actually requested of him and I need. This is an unwarranted and unsupportable imposition on my time spent staring at hotel walls and stealing toiletries. Q: Where are you now? A: My life as a hotel zombie has taken me to the bar at the Sheraton, Santa Monica. The bar probably has some cod-iberian name [as most hotel bars do] but I can’t be bothered to find out and don’t think you really care that much. Q: Time and Date? A: 9.00 pm, 10th may. Q: What are you drinking? A: Something slightly unpleasant with vodka in it. Q: What’s Santa Monica like? A: Beautiful. Mountains, ocean, beaches, donut [sic] shops. The world needs more donut [sic] shops – but must be forced by law to sell cinnamon doughnuts. SM is gorgeous. Enough to make me revise my opinion of Los Angeles [somewhat]. The brilliant, cool weather may have something to do with it. I went down to the beach earlier today. It’s true – they do have boardwalks on the beach where beautiful bronzed toned gods and goddesses rollerblade and enjoy the fit active lifestyle that most of us believed only existed in tampon ads. I expect they have fit active sex with each other, as well – bastards. I kept expecting ‘the Hass’ to show up with his fit active pectorals. I sat on the edge of the beach – pasty and wan - and scowled at them all – fellow limeys would have been proud. No string bikinis – which was a bit of a let down. Q: Where are you now? A: Somewhere over the pacific, some weird time zone. Not even sure what day it is, technically. Probably Wednesday. Q: So how did it go yesterday. Were you able to bluff your way through the world of condo leasing deals and buy back schemes? A: Just about. Although at one stage he did start frequently referring to condo-hotels as if it would mean something to me. As I’ve said, I still haven’t quite figured out what a condo is, so when “condo-hotels” came up my pancreas exploded and the resultant tsunami of bile knocked my eyeballs out of their sockets onto the table with a liquid popping sound where they proceeded to perform a minuet around my tortilla soup [true story]. Really… true. Saturday 9th May, San Francisco Airport, sometime around 10 Traveling sucks. Remember back in the good old days. When traveling used to be amusing, jam packed with incident. No? Well, I do. But no more. I can’t think of a single entertaining nugget about this current jaunt of mine to Los Angeles. When I first went out to China, I seem to recall writing at least 2000 words about the journey itself, much to my mum’s chagrin. The only reason I typing this right now is that I’m desparately trying to charge the battery up before the next connection. It’s never going to happen. Sigh. Recently bought a nice new laptop. Sadly, the old one was slowly but surely falling apart after three years. Seemed like the perfect opportunity to splurge on a widescreen vaio. Sigh… I really have lost the ability [if I ever had it] to write informative and entertaining stuff. Santa Monica, California, 9.00 pm Santa Monica is nice. Have a view of the ocean. Cool breeze. Real estate project. See. Told you. Lost it. I’ll have to get drunk and try again... [back to Excessbloggage Archive]