this is your brain... this is your brain on deadline...

CASSY: Do you have any thoughts on that, Andy?

ANDY: I don’t have any thoughts about anything right now… I can't think beyond my own eyebrows.

under attack

ANDY'S COLLEAGUE: So what did you get up to over the weekend, Andy?

ANDY: Umm... [racking his brain] I saved some broccoli from being eaten?

His colleagues stare blankly at him.

ANDY: By snails.

ANDY'S COLLEAGUES: Oh.

ANDY: They’re like Napoleon at battle, they’ve got military finesse, honestly! They've got a one-track mind and all they want is my broccoli…

dry spell

CASSY: *gasp* Andy, the last post is dated July 26!
ANDY: [gravely] I know.
CASSY: That's three solid months without a word, without a peep--
ANDY: [indignant] Hey, I've been peeping, oright? You just haven't been posting!

what's for lunch?

"Serendipity" a la Andy

Thomas Dux lentil rissoles on a bed of lentils with corn chip garnish

Photo: Cheri S

juggling act

ANDY: I need some sugar.
ANNA: I've got a mandarin?
SIM: I've got two...
ANDY: [confidently] You can throw them all at the same time - I can juggle.

*THUD*

SIM: Did you drop it?
ANDY: [defensively] Well you didn't say that one was the size of a bloody house...

a match made in heaven

"Concave, concave..." ANDY muttering incomprehensibly. "Y'know, if you mixed Con the Fruiterer and Nick Cave, you'd get concave..."

third time's a charm

ABBEY: …and a tasteless vegie burger…
SIM: You make that sound really appetising.
ANDY: [popping his head up over the cubicle wall] Yeah you make it sound really… abbeytising [turns to Cassy looking pleased with himself] Write that down, eh? Eh?
CASSY: No, Andy, that’s not funny. It’s just lame.

LATER...

Beeeep. Beeeep. Beeeep.
ANDY: Abbey? Well, Abb-ey damned, the microwave’s finished!
ABBEY: [unimpressed] Have you been sitting on that one for awhile?
ANDY: Nah, it just came to me. Like an abbey-rition…[Cassy gives up, heads back to Andyisms and selects Create New Post]

the long & short of it

ANDY: [eyeing an email on Cassy's screen] Woah! Who's that for?
CASSY: A friend...
ANDY: It's big enough! What is it, a novel?
CASSY: It's not that big, it's just a really long paragraph.
ANDY: A paragraph? [scornfully] That's not a paragraph. You could fold that into seven bits and make a paper plane, that’s how big it is...

the smell of an oily rag

ANDY'S COLLEAGUE: I'm going to Dux, anyone need anything?
ANDY: I might come with you.
ANDY'S COLLEAGUE: Alright. But only if you walk at least two metres behind me.
ANDY: I feel like an oily rag...
ANDY'S COLLEAGUE: [baffled] Why an oily rag?
ANDY: Well you don’t take an oily rag with you, do you?
ANDY'S COLLEAGUE: There's a lot of things you don’t take with you-!
ANDY: Yeah, but I’m not about to start listing them all, am I?

green, green grass of home

"Treat it like it's Daylesford or something man, enjoy it." ANDY advises CASSY as she heads to Greensborough for an interview. "It's a leafy suburb. It’s hardly bayside, but it does get some puddles…"

pennywise

“You know what I saw this morning on the train? As I leaned across and looked over someone’s shoulder at the paper (that’s called frugality and cost effectiveness)…”

somewhere o'er the rainbow

ANDY: I saw something the other day that would blow your mind, I bet you’ve never seen anything like it in your lives, any of you!
NAT: That's a lot of build up, Andy...
ANDY: It was a rainbow, it came out of the ocean as we were driving and hit the escarpment. It was probably shining on the head of some ferret.
CASSY: [bewildered] Why a ferret?
ANDY: They like to burrow.

the winds of change

"Look at me, I open a tin of sardines and start a revolution..."
ANDY watches with bemusement as murmurs of discontent ripple through the office at the speed of sardine fumes

waiting in vain

LOZ is strolling past ANDY'S desk, and notices CASSY staring.
LOZ: [uncertainly] What?
CASSY: Oh, I wasn't staring at you, I'm just waiting for Andy. He's taking too long.
ANDY: I thought I could feel something burning my neck...

Later...
ANDY: [having finally sent the e-newsletter on its way to Cassy] It’s out in cyberspace… suck it in.

notes from the train

Armed with his new iPhone, Andy braves the arduous, trans-Yarra journey from Greensy to Armadale...

A: Currently at Jolimont
A: Yet again the trains are my undoing
A: Currently at Flinders and no sight of a fricken train

L: What?! I heard our public transport system was flawless!

A: Train just pulled in 10 mins late but has decided it does not want to take passengers

L: It's taking one passenger: the train driver!

A: Now a platform change
A: Now on train 14 mins late
A: It's now 30 mins since Jolimont
A: It could end up becoming an express and not stopping at Armadale

L: Is the train express or not? Just head to Frankston and start selling drugs

A: Train just arrived at Armadale... start walking

Andy [walking through the door]: There you have it! I've just walked you through a morning in the life of Andy...

easy listening

ANDY: [torturing his colleagues with yet another painful request during easy listening hour] What about the Waterboys?

CASSY: Who are these people Andy?

ANDY: That's exactly how I feel when you go on about your modern music...

NAT: I'm older than you, mate.

CASSY: [imagining Andy on the dancefloor delivering lectures about the scourge of modern music] Do you go out and party after Ironman, Andy?

NAT: Nah, he hangs out in the elevator listening to this sh*t.

flattery will get you nowhere

ANDY: Cassy, Cassy, Cassy...

CASSY: What?

ANDY: You're a bane...

CASSY: [indignant] How dare you? What did I--?!

ANDY: [interrupting] Don't take it personally...

typecast

CASSY: [staring uncomprehendingly at the screen] What exactly have you done here, Andy?

NAT: ...Andy, the big fat Pandy...

LOZ: ...the size of a house...

ANDY: [seriously] D'you know who I feel like?

ALL: [indulgently] Who do you feel like, Andy?

ANDY: That guy, Jason, in the RACV ad...

whiz kid

"...I could piss in the wind and it would move faster..."
ANDY in the midst of another anti-public transport rant

pregnant pause

ANDY: Or... Here’s something profound… [pauses until one by one everyone who’d been trying to ignore him looks up from their desk for the punchline] [grins] The longer you leave it the more profound it is, right?

downward spiral

After swearing at stubborn lolly wrappers and singing in gibberish, an under-pressure ANDY’s last resort is a rambling story about gypsies, which he abandons halfway through while struggling for a word.

ANDY: What’s that word? Cassy knows, she’s not gonna tell me though.

CASSY: I don’t want to distract you from making pages, Andy.

[Sullen silence from ANDY]

CASSY: I don’t know anyway, I have no idea what you’re talking about. ‘Gypsies…’ That’s all I heard.

ANDY: [mumbles] That’s all you wanted to hear…

overtime

KATE: [leaving for the night] Do you want the air con off?

ANDY: Nah man, I need to breathe. [adds quietly] Don’t take that away from me…

what about me?

“You’re getting all of the fruits of the forest lately!”
ANDY watches two colleagues prepare to head off on a research trip to the peninsula, but remains tied to his chair like Cinderella longing for the ball

food for thought

CASSY [while subbing an article on nutrition]: There’s a message for you in this, Andy. According to this, ‘sports bars are not a nutritious daily snack.’

ANDY: Touché to that except for one thing - I don’t eat them as snacks, I eat them because I ride a bike between hither and… thither.

CASSY: How long is your ride?

ANDY: About an hour.

CASSY: Well Kristian says for any session under 90 minutes all you need is water.

ANDY: [pauses, temporarily dumbfounded] Maybe that’s what the Beatles should've sung…

first time round the sun

"He's obviously cut the mustard many times..."
ANDY on learning that ALEX LLOYD first began making mediocre music in the 1990s



Listen to early Alex: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Os3hahvPJIw

give me the skinny

ANDY: [mispronouncing his order] Can I get a large skinny lah-day?
COFFEE SHOP GUY: Whoa, that sounds like a strange lady! Would she be tall but skinny?