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My Accommodation Must Have Mints

I’ve been looking at hotels for an hour, and none of them mention whether or not they have mints. Seriously, this is an international problem, because I’ve been looking at hotels all over the world and no one so far has mentioned it. That’s…unforgivable. The mint on the pillow is a basic service. It’s the thing that makes you feel like you’re somewhere else, as WELL as giving you a burst of minty freshness. Oh sure, there are a FEW things dotted around the hotel room that might give you the first thing. Nobody has a telephone in their bedroom any more, for example. But that unique combo can only be achieved with mints.

Guess I’ll just be taking my holiday is Lorne this year…again. We always go to the same cosy beach apartments in Lorne, ever since I was a child, and I know for a fact that the owner puts mints on everyone’s pillow. It’s like, 50% of the draw of the place, knowing that you’ll be receiving a minty fresh welcome. When do you get THAT at home? Never. That’s the answer to that question.

It’s not that I don’t like Lorne, but I’ve always wondered what it would be like to go somewhere else. I suppose there’s also merit in going somewhere familiar, though…because that way, you know exactly what you’re in for.  In your mind it becomes a place of relaxation and no stress. It is your special holiday place, where everyone knows your name. I’ve eaten at all the best restaurants in Lorne and the owners are always happy to cater for my family.

If I went off to Tokyo or something, I’d be stressing constantly about the language, and getting around, and getting lost, or committing some kind of foreign crime.

Too much stress. I’ll stick with the luxury Lorne accommodation, thanks very much.

-Tennyson

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The Architect has Spoken

I like to think of myself as an architect of the future. Like, I don’t actually build anything, and I’m not a real architect, but sometimes I look at a place and I can just SEE what it’ll be like in the future. Or…what it should be like.

Energy-saving methods just keep getting better, and it’s not just bulbs. Solar power, wind power, hydrogen power, punching power, moon power, crystal power and many, many other kinds. Commercial energy storage in Melbourne will one day provide most of the city’s power needs, which will become greater because people will always need more power. As the world becomes smaller and more connected, the power requirements soar. 

 While I’m sitting here in this cafe  I can’t help but wonder what it’ll be like 20 years from now. In the future, I imagine that there will be no friendly person to greet me and take my order, sad as that may sound. I’ll enter my order into a terminal, and a robot barista (not shaped like a human, because that would be silly), will be the one making my coffee. Or maybe just a machine? But the machine will be able to talk and make light conversation, because obviously we’re still human (barring implants). Where does all the power come from, you might ask? Well, commercial solar power will be more efficient than ever. In fact, the parts of the outback we haven’t converted into lush forest will be coated in solar panels, providing basically all of Australia’s power needs. This all get routed into large commercial energy storage banks, so basically we can use all the technology we want without any fear. Also, gigantic catapults along the equator toss any waste we DO create into the sun, so…easy. Between Melbourne’s commercial energy monitoring and utterly renewable power, I foresee that we don’t have anything to worry about.

The architect of the future has spoken.

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An unusual path to beauty

Everyone has a unique story about how they got into their career. Some people start off sweeping floors in a factory and work their way up to middle management. Others graduate with an Arts degrees and end up as network security officers. For me, it was an equally strange and unexpected route.

I wasn’t doing much with my life after finishing college. In fact, I spent a lot of time in my bedroom watching beauty videos online. They’re really quite addictive. I particularly enjoyed listening to them on my headphones late at night.

All of my favourite videos revolved around beauty therapy, like facials and laser hair removal. Melbourne has this crazy strong beauty culture that I never understood until recently. I was enjoying the content so much that I wanted to recreate the experience for other people. That’s when it occurred to me that I could look into a beauty therapy course. Melbourne has a few of these colleges that teach and qualify you to work as a professional beauty therapist. So I chose one that looked good and I went for it.

During my studies, I found myself enjoying the hands on beauty therapy stuff just as much as watching the videos. The students got to practice on each other so it was a good way to build muscle memory, far more effective than learning out of a book. I enjoyed rubbing lotions into people’s faces and the satisfaction they got from looking great made me smile. We also learnt how to do some specialist stuff like spa treatments and lash and brow tinting. I remember giving one girl in Melbourne anti wrinkle injections and thinking, “I never thought I would be taking beauty courses!” Girls seem to have this unquenchable need for beauty treatments, which means I’ll never be short on business. So long as people are sprouting hair out of their bodies and are needing to impress others, there’ll always be jobs for me.

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Controlling the Pests Through (My) Fear

Some people ask…if you’re terrified of insects, why are you trying to get into pest control?

And then I respond…that’s why it’s PERFECT.

For you see, what greater pest control agent will there be than one who wants all pests gone, all the time, forever? You call up someone in Rosebud who does pest control and your service is pretty good. They’re professionals, and of course you’re going to get a good service because that’s just how the industry is nowadays. Reviews on Google and all that. BUT…all the people working for pest control are unafraid of insects and other small beasts. They do their jobs as would people who are not in perpetual fear. If I got into the job, I’d have the ultimate motivation, all the time, to do an amazing job. I’d just want the termites and ants and spiders and everything else to stay away from me at all costs, and thus I’d do my job magnificently. I’d be called to a house crawling with pests, and in a fear-induced panic fuelled by adrenaline, I’d get rid of every single one in record time.

As a plan, you can’t fault the psychology. And I never wanted to be one of those people who just keeps doing their jobs day after day, never making a change because they’re too bored and stagnant. Well, that won’t be me, because every single day on the job will be a heart-thumping thrill ride. I’ll be kept on my toes, never bored, always alert and always wanting to do the best job possible, and give the greatest pest control service in Sorrento and beyond. Just think of how much I could get done in a blind panic on every job. I’d be the greatest industry professional ever! See, this is how you take a phobia and turn it into something positive.

-Alfie

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The Big Party Venue

I only vaguely remember my first birthday party. I don’t mean my first birthday party, like…when I was one. No one really remembers things like that, although funnily enough there are celebrations anyway. To be honest with you it seems a bit pointless to spend all this time and money on a party that the kid isn’t even going to remember.

My parents didn’t do the whole party thing until we were old enough to remember it, which was, like…five? I can’t remember how many candles there were, but I had some friends over from playgroup, blew out the candles, ate cake and just ran around. You know, as kids do: making their own entertainment.

That’s what kids USED to do, anyway. Blame inflation, blame the Prime Minister, blame the hole in the ozone layer, but whatever the reason, everything has to be bigger and better now. There are places in Melbourne, kids birthday party venues, and that’s all they do. I’ve got nothing against them as such. They seem really fun. But I guess I just look at them and wonder what it would’ve been like if that industry had been super big back when I was young and my parents were into taking the kids out to venues for big celebrations. Imagine the cake you get in those places. It’d have to be big, right? You can’t take a kid out to somewhere like that and give them a small birthday cake. It’d look really small because the room is so big. The table is also big. Everything looks small on those huge tables, unless the thing sitting on them is huge enough that you don’t notice.

Maybe one day I’ll have kids, and I’ll be faced with this decision. To hire a kids birthday party venue or not? I’m sure Melbourne’s birthday party venues are up to scratch, thanks to inflation, the Prime Minister and kids getting higher standards for their celebrations. Maybe I should just give in and have a celebration.

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Irregular Ice Skating Companions

My book, ‘Exercising With Your Pet’ has taken off like I never thought it would. Everyone in the Club wants a copy! They’ve all told their friends, their friends have told all their friends and the Melbourne pet community has promoted it to number one on the Purr-Fect Book List. Now Catrina is suggesting that we have Club-wide daily exercise routines as part of shared activities. Perfect!

I’d better get to work on my next one. Drawing from my former experience as an ice skating instructor, I’d like to go a step further and suggest ice skating…with your pet! It can be done, as Jessabelle my cat can attest. It took a while to find her four skates that’d fit, and honestly it’s a real adjustment period. She certainly didn’t want to strap them on and come on the ice with me. But it was my job, the half of my world that wasn’t Jessabelle, and so I wanted to combine those two halves. Over a short period of about three years, she grew used to the experience and we began to teach together.

I can tell you, people who arrived to learn how to ice skate were put to shame when they saw that a cat was better at the practice than them, and they worked extra hard to be as good as Jessabelle. She was furry motivation for everyone, and also motivation to come to class because she’s just so darn adorable.

So, this book. I want it to be accessible, obviously. There are some very elderly people here who don’t have much of an interest in learning to ice skate, so I have to cater for my audience. You also can’t rule out the possibility that your cat could be super keen to get out on the ice, but they’ve never been given the opportunity, so it’s important to test your feline or canine friend for enthusiasm.  Learning how to ice skate shouldn’t be rushed. That’ll be my first sentence of the book. This is exciting times for pet lovers who like to stay in shape.