You'll find me about 11,000 miles away.

You have been warned It's always pleasing to find signs in public places with exemplary punctuation and word use. Just as pleasing as having sentences written in a sarcastic way interpreted as being sarcastic. Else where on this blog you can find examples of chinglish (Chinese-English) and other language mistakes that I have a love/hate relationship with. I saw this amazing example today by Sydney Harbour and Foreshore Authority. Sign attached to 5 barriers Taped to 5 plastic barriers, the sign warns the city's citizens that there is "no parking", which is a reasonable request. But then it goes on to further advise that "offenders will be infringed ". Despite seeing those Copyright Infringement Notices from ISPs where you download something illegally then get notified that you have infringed some copyright , I've not seen the word used in a different way. Especially warning that an "offender will be infringed". Among the diction

Earlier this week I went to a presentation about Mona Vie. Mainly out of interest, as most of the things I had read online contained the words "scam exposed", "why I quit this scam", "scam or real deal?, "scam exposed" or "pyramid scheme". Pretty much all negative things and I'm also sure that looking up "pyramid scheme" in a thesaurus would list the "scam". So my cousin and I rocked up to this presentation, and I wasn't expecting that much. Sit down, watch a slide show, listen to the usual passive-aggressive pseudo-motivational soft-sell preaching, see a lot of people in suits, pretend to be interested, maybe eat a few snacks available, and so on. But I have learnt not to trust my expectations. I wasn't disappointed. We arrived in this office building, made our way through small groups of people and got to a meeting room with probably 60 people there (not an exact figure, but it helps with the maths). Lo

My water heater blew up yesterday evening. Properly blew up. Massive expensive-sounding pop. Smoke and shit. The offensive industrial odour of greasy, burning plastic. A combination of circumstances that makes you mutter a random selection of coprolalia (aka Tourettes) inspired swear words. I'd imagine that if you set fire to a pyre made of bodily-effluent infused mattress, a pile of rotting leaves, rusty coat hangers and dead hedgehogs it would probably smell the same. Aside from that, I knew the boiler was on the blink, I've had freezing fucking cold water for 2 days now and even though it's summer and 30 degrees, unheated water from the shower head is still like waters fresh from the fucking Arctic,....cockmunching dickwhistles.  I called a boiler engineer last night, but got no answer. Today I managed to get one, coming tomorrow. I can already guess that it's going to be expensive. Cold showers are not actually that bad in the morning. There's some pseud

Using the British-English date format today is 11th December, 2013. Which can be written as 11/12/13. I was talking to my dad a few weeks ago, on 10th November 2013 and he mentioned that the day before was the last day for its kind for a long time.  This mysterious, pessimistic view of the date confused me until he told me it was 09/11/13 and it would be 90 years or so (1st March 2105.....in 91 years and 223 days I think) until the next time there are 3 consecutive odd numbers in a date (01/03/05).  I found this amazing and a bit humbling. It makes you wonder about your existence. The dates will just keep on going, forever. It sort of makes you wish you had celebrated the date properly. Like it would be something special. 11/12/13 will be consecutive numbers. The last time this will happen for basically the rest of my lifetime. The next time will be 01/02/03...1st February 2103.  So if I am able to live to 120, I will make sure my great-great-grandchildren fully acknow

Last week there was a guy in the supermarket buying a bulk pack of 6 spreadable cheeses,.....and paying in 5, 10 and 20c coins. There was a small gathering of shoppers in a loose sort of queue, staring at the lone checkout attendant making the cashier desk look like a busy bar. It was annoying but it was made more amusing by enjoying the intense frustration of other customers. Soon his colleague arrived to help him out. The blatant hilarity of this situation was enough to make me open my backpack, search around for my phone, get it out, unlock it, read a message, then snap a picture. I should have taken a picture of the angry, bewildered faces of the angry horde eager to pay for their wares. The lady to my right was buying just a single box of cherry tomatoes. Some days I do this on purpose. I take 5c and 10c coins to another supermarket and use the automated checkout machines. I try to pick a time of day that's not too busy but busy enough so that there's a queue for

I finally got an Instagram account. Follow me @r4v3yk Some pictures....graffiti, sunsets, scenery and quirkiness of life - all with an "insta" prefix, of course, and the odd hashtag. No selfies if I can help it.