The Rule of Three

Blog posts, much like sermons, Hollywood witch covens and Super Nintendo boss fights, operate according to a very strict established convention: the rule of three. Sermons always have to have three central points, with bonus points awarded if the headings all start with the same letter. Hollywood witch covens always have to have three sisters, with bonus points awarded if they are actually sisters. Twins and/or triplets is the ideal here. And it’s well established that you have to jump on Bowser’s head three times to kill him. Or grab the hammer. Whatever.

And so it is with blog posts. Before you can take some aspect or happenstance of your week and inform everyone on the internet (or your mum and a few friends) of how worthy of their attention it is, you need to have three items that you can write about, ideally with some thematic link.

As you know, here at Cum Tacent Clament, we’re very careful about the way we value inherent structure, respect established conventions and stick to a finely defined line of argument. This is why it has been a little longer than it should have been between posts this month; I’ve just been so flat out trying to find a set of blogable experiences that are simultaneously appropriate, memorable and threefold. But this afternoon I managed to do just that.

First off on this morning’s thematically consistent Saturday was another trip out to Berrimah Correctional Facility. Prison ministry is still going strong, and continues to be an enlightening, enriching and engaging experience for the prisoners, the officers, and us.

Next stop was the very first practice session for One Body NT, which turns out to be a worship service and intercongradenomenagalactical church network rather than a discount gym franchise. We’re still putting the play list together for the first time, but I’m really excited to be finally getting the idea off the ground, even if it is going to start small. Next Saturday promises to dynamic, lustrous and cutting edge. It may or may not renege on that promise.

Thirdly and lastly I called in at my old church, Darwin Memorial Uniting, to get re-acquainted with the organ there, since they had asked me to play for them Sunday morning. It’s got some nice sounds on it, but the user interface always takes me half an hour to get used to. I mean, obviously the keys and stops and things are the same, but the settings to turn the reverb down and get some kind of decent volume out of the swell needs some experimentation in order to get your head around the confusing, uninformative and thoroughly non-intuitive settings menu. It’s the only church organ I’ve ever seen that has a remote control. It would be really cool if that meant you could play the processional from outside in the car park, but unfortunately all you can do is turn the  reverb on and off, unless you want to start mucking around with the tuning, which given the tone of an organ in the first place, probably isn’t a good idea.

And fourthly I had Portuguese chicken for dinner. Make of that what you will.

Garry with 2 Rs

Getting Things Started

I don’t know what it was about 2011. It seemed no matter what I turned my hand to, it just didn’t work. Things which should have been straight forward were ridiculously complicated, and things which would have been complicated anyway ended up being flat out impossible. Last year, while I may have had nine and a half resolutions set out on my side bar, really there were only three things I actually cared about. And I didn’t get any of them done.

I’ve wanted for ages to get a combined worship service going in Darwin again. I’ve wanted it to be intercongregational, or ecumenical, or interdenominational, or whatever your preference of term for “all in it together” might be. My friend and I have come up with “intercongradenomonagalactical.” If that sounds stupid, that’s only because it is.

But the point is it’s happening. We’re booked in for the 4^th of February. One way or another, I’m making a start. I don’t have a drummer, a drum kit, or anyway of getting the word out apart from right here on CTC (and maybe Facebook), but come what may the movement is starting in two weeks. Stay tuned.

Probably the biggest disappointment from last year was my utter failure to get myself a vaguely interesting job. Sure, I made the move from staff trainer to operations supervisor, but even though I counted it has half a point on my checklist, it really wasn’t what I was looking for. I tried a few strategies to get into a job with more to do with media, communications or writing, but just couldn’t make anything happen. I started to get pretty despondent about the whole thing towards the end of the year there.

This year, I’m determined to turn it around. I have a two week placement booked with our local paper, the highly esteemed NT News, which is more than I’ve managed to achieve in two years up to this point. I’ve spoken to some friends who work for the paper. They’ve unanimously advised me not to work there, as apparently it sucks the soul out of you. But when it comes around, I’d rather work in a sould destroying job doing something I like than work in a soul destroying job doing something that I have no interest in whatsoever. It’s a pretty bleak view of the universe I suppose, but there again, I don’t imagine there are that many people in the first world thinking “Hooray! Time to go get a job!” anyway.

And then there’s resolution seven. That link goes to some post about Dan geting married. I think it's the only one with an overt mention of resolution seven on it. I was going to write a post about it at some point... but I didn't. Basically last year's resolution seven was "fall in love".

No. Still nothing to report on that front. But the way I see it, it’s not even the end of January yet, and I’ve already achieved a gazillion time more than I had in the two year previous. Two out of three major life goals in the pipeline, and one that I’m not really in control of anyway. Geez, if I could just generate the self-discipline to stop playing with my new computer and actually do something worthwhile, I might just change the world this year.

Probably not.

Garry with 2 Rs

Possibly My Clumsiest Metaphor Yet

I had intended to post a very moving and reflective post about what a gigantic pile of useless junk 2011 was. But as much as whiny self indulgence is the flavour of choice for the mystery stew that is Cum Tacent Clament, it’s probably easier in the end to point to my handily tabulated list of objectives for the year and note that anything that isn’t theatrical or … buying a phone has been a comprehensive non event. I could have given you two, maybe three good (well…) paragraphs all about the awesome things I failed to do last year, but instead I thought I’d tell you all a story which encapsulates nicely the spiritual, psychological and indeed sociological journey of the year that was.

Our story begins on Boxing Day, when my valiant laptop, veteran of an honours thesis, a trip to Spain and more hours of online gaming than I care to think about, crashed three times in succession while attempting to play the Doctor Who Christmas special. The constant freezing and inability to run anything more complex than iTunes I can live with, but start messing with the Doctor and you’re on borrowed time. I made the reluctant decision to find a new one in the post Christmas sales.

Wednesday lunch time saw me spending my lunch break in an electrical goods store. I probably don’t need to name the specific store, but it's one that would be regarded as hardly normal.  It’s not an easy place to get any service, but I find the best strategy is to stand next to something expensive and try to look gullible. A passing sales assistant swooped in like a magpie and soon had me comparing prices, hardware specs and brand names. I told him I’d go check my bank balances and get back to him.

By Thursday lunch time I’d made up my mind about which model I wanted and come to terms with the extent to which I couldn’t afford it. I resolved to buy it anyway and headed back out to the shop. I found the same salesman who had been so helpful the day before and told him which one I wanted. We spent a good twenty five minutes filling out forms and entering contact details into every known database on the planet and then came the killer question:

Salesman: How are you wanting to pay for that?

Gw2Rs: Credit card for now.

Salesman: Yeah, sorry. Our eftpos system is down.

There is something quietly satisfying about being sold a computer by an organisation with chronic IT problems Apparently it hadn’t occurred to him to tell me he had no way of taking my money before spending half an hour trying to sell me something. Or perhaps he assumed I was carrying enough on me to pay for a mid-range laptop computer in cash. He asked if I would be able to hang around the shop for half an hour while they tried to fix the system. I had to get back to work, but I told him I would try to get back after work before the shop shut. Unfortunately all our remote branches at work decided that Thursday would be a good day to implode, so I didn’t make it back until Friday lunch time.

After helping the sales staff settle an argument about credit card payments (operations supervisor to the rescue!), I finally got my hands on my new computer. As always, time was against me and I had to leave it in the car and head straight back to work.

Once again, my attempts to leave the building by five were thwarted by the dastardly powers of general incompetence, but I did make it home by twenty past and took my new toy out of the box. I was shocked and greatly annoyed to discover that the computer I had received seemed in no way to resemble the computer I thought I had purchased. That all the labels had the wrong thing on them was my first clue. I had ten minutes to spare before the shop shut and it would take me about fifteen to get there, so I called ahead to see if someone could hang around and help me exchange the computer.

They refused.

At this point I started writing this post, full of righteous fury at the shop, at 2011 in general and at Karma. Having spent the last three evenings staying late at work to fix other peoples mistakes, the unwillingness of the shop to stay for five minutes to fix their own screw up seemed to me to be just a little unjust. They thought they could push me around like some inconsequential consumer; little did they know I’m a world famous blogger with no less than eight online followers. Oh boy were they ever going to be sorry. However, their imminent downfall was delayed by one evening, as I got an invitation to go have a swim and watch Doctor Who with my friends (It was a delightful evening), so I saved my post to finish later.

Saturday rolled around, as it usually does. At last I was able to confront these villains, these two-bit hacks of the computer retail community. I marched in with all the sense of moment I could muster (it wasn’t much, but I was proud of it) and demanded satisfaction.

It turns out I’m a complete knob who can’t recognise his own computer when he’s looking straight at it. They hadn’t given me the wrong machine at all, just one with unexpected stickers on it. It was the correct laptop all along. I politely thanked them for their time and got the hell out of there.

The moral of the story? I have a new laptop, and 2011 can go and die alone in a dark hole somewhere.

Happy New Year

Garry with 2 Rs