10 Things That Are Shit About Centrelink

When i started writing this blog I changed my Facebook status to: Ben Carey is writing a blog about how shit centrelink is. One of my friends commented on it and said, “So i guess that means you don’t support the system that supports you?” to which i replied, “No no, I would rather fuck the system that fucks me.”

Centrelink, the government’s lovely idea of keeping tabs on everyone and providing financial “aid” to people in need. What a joke. It’s more like a game show with like really shit prizes. They notify you to come on down, answer a shit load of useless questions and then they say, “Congratulation Benjamin, you have won the chance to Justify Your Existence!”
Which brings us to, the ten shittest things about Centrelink:

1. The pale green walls

I’m sure it’s supposed to evoke a sense of calmness and tranquillity, but it just reminds me of vomit and baby poo and how much i hate both, it just makes me angrier for being there. It’s enough to drive one insane. I’m actually really surprised (considering all the shady characters that reside there) that there hasn’t been a Centrelink Massacre yet. I mean what do people usually kill for?

- Money
- Being screwed over
- War, defence and other ridiculous reasons

Seems like a perfect target to me. I’m not saying that i condone it in any way, I’m just saying i’m surprised it hasn’t happened, and let’s face it, at least the walls wouldn’t be so bland anymore.

2. The shitty Mid day television

My god!
It’s just so cruel. As if we haven’t been tortured enough. Really old (and not the good kind like Dawn Patrol or Dr. No) movies, with terrible acting, shrill American accents, predictable storylines and ridiculously upbeat music that makes you want to fight something.
The least they could do is give us Foxtel. Then at least it’s modern shitty American television.

3. The disgruntled workers

It’s a statistical fact that 99.37% of Centrelink workers are fuckbags who don’t have a shred of human decency or that little thing that most of us treasure called personality. It’s just their job you say? Fuck you, i would reply. Get another job, all they do is inflict their depression on the rest of us.
The worst part is when you find a really nice person (most of the time at the counter) who understands your problem and then they transfer you to some other douche bag who you have to explain everything to AGAIN.
It’s like saying to a kid, Oh here’s a PS3, the pinnacle of human achievement and a super awesome HD TV for you to play it on…but you can’t actually use it, you can only look at it and compare it to how shitty your Xbox is.

4. When they cut you off for no reason or loose your forms

Fun fun fun. Especially when it’s in the middle of your exam block. They will request that you come in 5 times a week just to sort out something that is completely their fault to start with AND if it all gets sorted out they will not even give you the slightest apology let alone any kind of compensation. They will either imply that it’s your fault, or some other branch of Centrelink, but never them personally.

5. The company

Only in Centrelink will you find such an assortment of Ex-Convicts (and lets face it; soon to be Convicts), drug addicts, alcoholics, wife bashers, seedy old men and my favourite of all – irate aboriginals that reek of a mixture of alcohol, petrol and McDonalds. For starters, don’t you dare call me racist! I have just as much respect for an aboriginal person who acts like a real human being as anyone else. I do not however have a shred of respect for those who beg me for money and shout insults at me if i don’t give it to them, those who waste away their lives and kill the name of aboriginals everywhere by sitting on streets getting pissed, being violent and generally unpleasant. If they have enough time, money and effort to do that maybe they should get a fucking job, go back to school, or do some volunteer work. Anything is better than that right?

“Life is unfair, kill yourself or get over it.” – Child Psychology by Black Box Recorder.

6. Their stupid forms and the amount of them you have to fill out

Centrelink has recently been advised that you went to the toilet on the 23/04/2009. You are required to provide all information about that visit. Please answer the following questions:

1. Roughly how many times did you go to the toilet on the 23/04/2009?

2. Was it number ones or number twos?

3. What was the consistency of the urine?

7. The waiting time

2 Hours to hand in some fucking forms!
Enough said.

8. The waiting time

Maybe not. 2 Hours!!!!!!

9. The punishment they dish out the unemployed

Okay so half the people that get dragged through the Jobseekers system are just plain lazy and couldn’t be bothered get off their asses to get a job, but the other half, ones that can’t for the life of them find a job in the current financial situation get punished too.
If you don’t know about the system, every 2 weeks they have to apply for 10 jobs and write them down in a form and show them to Centrelink. On top of that, any job which they are accepted into they have to take. But here’s the real kicker, as of July 1st people on Jobseekers will have to work for Centrelink for their fortnightly pay. Now that’s just plain evil. Crimes against humanity. Personally i’d rather die of starvation and pneumonia then put up with their shit.

10. It’s Centrelink.

Do i really need to say more?

Wet Socks!

Some people say that losing a child is the worst pain someone can experience. WRONG! Wet socks (with a possible combination with a number of other things such as being violated) are far worse.

It started raining yesterday, fairly lightly, but it continued on through the night. This morning it was crazy, it was blowing a gale and pissing down for hours and unfortunately i had to go Uni. So i braved the elements with my tiny blue (and very broken) umbrella. I was nearly blown away by the gale force winds and freezing cold because the jumper that i was wearing was saturated from the rain. After Uni i made the grave and uneducated mistake of getting on the bus home. I would like to clarify that is a 5 minute trip from Kelvin Grove to Windsor. I got on the bus at 3.49 and was still on it an hour later. In fact i hadn’t even gone 1 stop!
But then again it was a 333, so what else is new?
Near the service station I found out that it was quite heavily flooding and therefore the road was blocked off. The traffic was moving an average speed of 3 meters per minute and our bus was being diverted off in the opposite direction. I knew it was going to be a long ride home. I took this opportunity to edit an article which is due tomorrow. I also got some good shots for my Homely assignment in Photography.

I wonder if there is Guinness World Record for the longest amount of time trapped on a bus travelling 3 kilometers due to unforseen flooding. If there isn’t, invent one motherfuckers! You obviously need one. Besides if there’s a record for the longest toenails or nose hair then there should be for this. And i should win it and be given a check of $100,000 and write a book about it and stuff. Maybe this is the blurb?

As you can tell i have been trapped on a bus too long without conversation with real human beings (I did have a wonderful conversation with a bunch of leprechauns and a cave troll but that probably doesn’t count). I am hungry and tired and i want to watch TV!

If i believed in god (see i didn’t even capitalize his name, shows how much of an unbeliever i am) i would probably think it was him either trying to smite me, or the much more likely, give me a sign that i should stop procrastinating and do my work. “What the hell?” I would say, “What’s your problem you big jerk. I edited my article (I don’t care if it was only 300 words), what do you want from me?!”

1 and a half hours now. I am really hungry and the air-conditioner is making my head all stuffy. I fear i won’t be home in time for dinner. Or Neighbours. Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo That was a joke by the way, i don’t watch that trash…I much rather Home and Away. Hahaha, GET ME OFF THIS BUS!

Fast approaching 2 hours. I’ve been eyeing of this fat kid about 5 seats in front of me, wishing his arms actually were actually chicken wings. He must be about 100 kilos, about a week’s food if i ration it. Should i eat him raw or cook him against the hot spot where the tires are? I know it says you can’t eat hamburgers and drink soft drink on the bus, but they didn’t say SHIT about…chicken wings. I’ve never even seen lord of the flies but i have heard about it and i imagine this is how they felt. Oh come on i haven’t eaten in 6 hours and at this rate wont for another 2 days. Maybe i can trade him my camera for his left wing, I'm sure he’s right handed anyway right? Who uses their left arm anyway? Except for stupid things like eating, driving and playing the guitar.
Fuck i am hungry, i reckon if it takes too much longer I'll have to put a move on him. The way i see it, I've gotta eat him before he eats me.

2 Hours comes and goes. My mind is torturing me with thoughts of Roast Chicken and Grandma’s best in the world mashed potato. Nachos, T Bone Steaks, Cheeseburgers, Chocolate and Mangoes. I try to fight it, i focus on my music library. Fuck me i didn’t know i had that?!
The Way I Are comes on and i have to fight off the urge to jump up and show off my mad hip hop skillz which i learnt from so you think you can dance and music videos. I just need something to expend some pent up energy. Seeing this 6 year old girl running around (doing exactly what i want to do) isn’t helping. Maybe i should eat her too (if your thinking what i think you are then you can just fuck off!)

2 and a half hours. The bus pulls up in front of Bowen Hills trains station (1 stop before mine on the train). By the time i pack up my stuff the bus actually moves, too far to run back. The bus finally stops at Lutwyche (1 stop AFTER where i need to be), the next bus isn’t for 20 minutes and I could still eat a whole cow so I run over to the Coles. Thanks god for Coles Lutwyche. I bought Two packets of twisties and 3 chocolate bars and i am currently stuffing my face.

I just went to the bus stop and the bus driver said that there were no buses going past Windsor. He told me it was flooded. Jackass.
So i rang Jodie to see if her and Jess could come pick me up, but apparently no one is supposed to be driving. Looks like i’m camping out at Lutwyche tonight which sucks because i totally forgot my sleeping bag.

…

SHERYL I LOVE YOU!
I rang her up and she came an picked me up. We drove through the carnage and when we entered Windsor all of the house’s lights were out. I got home an collapsed. Then after a while we all went for a walk and i took pictures [Coming soon]

P.S I realise my tense is dreadful, but that’s because i wrote it during and after these things happened.

Sporadic Ramblings

lol*, so many things happened today. I got offered a job, i got a distinction for my non fiction assignment, i had an epiphany about pool and had a funny dream about being in an army squadron and Trevor (the ebony fellow with dreds from Big Brother 4) was in it.

I’ll start chronologically. I recently bought a game called Valkyria Chronicles for the PS3 and it’s fucking shit hot! So far i’ve clocked about 40 hours play time. I love it. Pretty much every waking moment over the last week has been devoted to that. Needless to say it had some affect on my subconscious life. Pretty much every dream i’ve had has involved the battlefield of Gallia. The night before last, i had a rather strange dream about meeting Mischa Barton, in a church, posing as a singer, in England. AND, I totes blackmailed her. I said if she let me get my camera and take pictures with her that i wouldn’t tell the paparazzi where she was. Harsh much? I ran home and Told Jodie and then everything was gone. I was back on the battlefield. Is that my subconscious telling me I miss the O.C.

Now, last night. I was in this cool little squadron, which didn’t actually fight any battles. There was this cool dude who was really good with a sniper rifle, these two rad lesbians who rode on a sweet harley and for some strange reason Trevor! He had a temper on him, probably because he was sick of being called that guy from Big Brother. And i couldn’t break the chain. I said, “Hey, it’s that guy from Big Brother.” He punched me and i got up and turned to the girls and said. “So worth it!”

I woke up super late, 8:35 (my lecture was at 9) and blamed it on Jodie then skipped breakfast and made for the bus. At the stupid traffic lights, two of my buses went past (not one but two!) and i had to get creative and jump buses to get their relatively on time.
After class i went down to the guild bar to get a $6.50 movie saver. The chick at the front desk was running around trying to find them and I saw a stack behind the desk and said, “Hey that looks like them there.”
She smiled and said, “You should be working here, do you want a job?” I laughed and said, “Sorry, i’m not looking for work at the moment.”
Random.

And now my epiphany about pool. It occurred to me whilst playing a few games (free games!) that it it is the most Racist thing i’ve ever seen. Alright, BLACK ball and 12 COLOURED balls which the WHITE ball is constantly hitting. You win when the coloured balls and the black ball are in the holes and the white ball reigns supreme. It totally think it should be banned.

*Possibly the most unliterary way to start a sentence in the history of everything. Don’t blame me, i grew up reading J.K Rowling.

Wolverine

[I’d like to first state that any movie with Ryan Reynolds in it is destine to fail.]

Wolverine was one of those movies which i hoped was going to be good ever since i heard they were making it. Even after it was released and people were trashing it, i thought, well it’s going to be bad, but it couldn’t be that bad. I was wrong.
We all know the character of Wolverine, bad ass dude with Adamantium claws. That’s all we need to know, that and he gets paid to fuck dudes up. For some dumbass reason they decided to turn this movie into an excruciatingly detailed back-story of Wolverine’s life. To sum it up in a sentence, it was 2 hours of bad twists and turns with every single character which has ever been in a Marvel comic thrown in there. Even ones they made up just for this shitty movie.

Charlie from Lost (Dominique Monaghan) was the one and only redeeming feature of this film, he played a cool character with a rad power and guess what? They killed him off 15 minutes in.

The asshole director throws us right in there, not unlike Pirates of the Caribbean 3 or Quantum of Suckass, we have absolutely know idea what the fuck is going on and surprisingly enough still don’t when the credits come on. The opening follows Logan and Viktor (who is apparently his brother now) through their bulletproof history of violence. It shows them fighting in countless wars and i have no fucking idea why, it didn’t add anything to the story or the development of the characters, except foreshadowing Viktor’s (Sabertooth) turn to the dark side. It felt like a cheap trick to get from A to B really quickly. And it wouldn’t be the last time i felt that.

The next scene sees them chained up in a dungeon which for some stupid reason they can’t escape from, even though they are both invincible and have the strength of 10 men. Some retard General comes along and offers them a job and they take it. They introduce some other mutants including Ryan Reynolds as a loud mouthed samurai sword wielding prick, Will.i.am as the token black teleporting guy (wait, didn’t they already have a cool teleporting guy called nightcrawler. Maybe he wasn’t black enough) and that douche bag, smug faced git from the 4th season of Lost who later turns into a 600 pound fat guy which for some reason Wolverine fights. Oh that’s right, if it’s in the movie, Wolverine fights it. General rule of thumb.

Anyway, back to the “Story.” Van Wilder (Fuckface) is sent into an apparently well guarded building to clear it out. He pulls out two swords and fends off the bullets, swatting them like flies. And if that wasn’t bad enough he actually slices a flying bullet in half (which i saw coming, but i just hoped they would go there).

Wolverine gets sick of hangin’ with the wrong crew and leaves.
Six years later he has a girlfriend and is living a happy life on the top of a mountain in a log cabin. Long story short, the retard general comes back to tell him to be careful, he ignores him and his girlfriend gets killed…

He gets angry (and i’m talking Anakin Skywalker, when he finds out Padme is dead in Revenge of the Sith, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO) and signs up with the retard to get injected with a boiling hot indestructible metallic compound called Adamantium. But oh no, the crazy scientists turn against him (duh?) and try to erase his memory, so he busts open the glass tank and gets on out of there.

Next he stumbles upon the farm of the loving Jonathan and Martha Kent. They take him in and feed him and the next day they get shot and blown up. Wolverine is just a sucker for punishment. He fights a hummer and a helicopter and has this stupid conversation with a guy who was in the chopper and should be fucking dead but only has a few scratches on him.

After blowing up the chopper with the sparks from his claws he goes to find Will.i.am and fights the fat guy for information which leads him to Gambit. For some stupid reason him and gambit fight, but then Sabertooth shows up and he fights him instead.

Turns out the retard general was working with Sabertooth the whole time. Who would have seen that coming??? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
And better yet, his girlfriend that died, didn’t actually die, they injected her with some hypodermic bullshit (which slowed her heart rate to a flat line) and Sabertooth spread fake blood on her corpse. All an elaborate scheme to get Wolverine to come into the lab and make him kick ass?!?

They free a bunch of mutants from the lab, the dumbest of which has diamond skin. And i’m not talking a cool opaque suite of armour, her skin actually turns into a thousand diamonds. Just in case the audience didn’t get it.

For some reason they throw ANOTHER character (deadpool) into the mix. He is the ultimate mutant killer and Wolverine and Sabertooth have to team up to kill him.
And Logan’s girlfriend comes back to die again.

But the icing on the cake was the Adamantium bullets which the retard general fired with amazing accuracy at Wolverine. One penetrates his brain and wipes his memory. How convenient. I wish someone would shoot me with a fucking Adamantium bullet so that i would forget this movie was ever made. In fact, a regular bullet will do just fine.