Jobs I Would Like If All Else Fails

Cackademia is a pooey place to be at times, especially when you know you are staring down the barrel of un- or partial employment after slogging your guts out for a number of years writing a thesis on something fabulous and world changing like 'Syntactic Analysis Of "The Ants Went Marching Two By Two"; A Post-Thoraxian Approach'

So far in my thesis, I am only up to the chapter on The Ants Went Marching Six by Six, but I figure now would be a good time to explore possible Plans B, C, D or E. I think it's a good idea to go for jobs that have some connection to your interests, or suit your personality in some way...

Jobs I Would Like If All Else Fails
1. Lion Tamer (I really like cats, and this would be taking my personal interest to the Next Level)
2. Vintner (self explanatory)
3. Tea Grower in India (I love tea. I can watch Bollywood musicals on my weekends)
4. Presenter on Playschool (get to do all the fun stuff like sing songs, do craft and read stories without any actual contact with any actual children)
5. Life Coach (I like telling people what to do. Not in a bossy way, but in a "I am so sagacious, you will be changed for the better if you follow my advice" kind of way. Other benefits for this job include a comfy armchair, and lots of thoughtful nodding)
6. Gorilla-gram (it can't be that hard)
7. Temp in a law firm (see 'my personal hero' link on juicebar's blog for details, but basically I think it would be cool to leave the office hours before the lawyers everyday, and feel a sense of pity for the overworked, underwhelmed mass)
8. Wedding Planner (I am a passionate advocate of reducing the number of instances when Pachelbel's Canon and Handel's Bridal March may be heard. I think I could do a lot of good work from The Inside)

Fugs of The FugFug ManFug

I guess the title of this post is a tribute to two things. Firstly, and fairly obviously, I like the way Go Fug Yourself manage to make their post titles sound intriguing, even though they use one word over and over. And it becomes quite catchy, as you can see here. Secondly, the TV show I am currently distressed about (which is possibly less clear due to my flagrant overuse of one word) is "Girls of The Playboy Mansion".
In no particular order, the things that distress me the most about this program are:

1. Kendra's laugh
2. The infantile nature of the playmates' behaviour
3. Why someone who is so old he no longer walks, but rather shuffles, *wants* to be surrounded by three pairs of matching silicone balls.
4. They have a curfew. And it is 9pm.

So really, the combination of 2. and 4. is a huge problem for me. Do I need to go on a femmo rant, or are we in agreement that it is creepy?

A Fraction Too Much Fiction

A Fraction Too Much Fiction
What upsets me the most is that some of the characters RAN invented seem really cool, and I still want to meet them.
I could live without the so-called best friend Maddy (who is pregnant and engaged sort of against her wishes), especially as she turned a bit psycho towards the end. She never seemed all that interesting to be honest. She is engaged (in the RAN's head, obviously) to Patrick and I could do without him too. But I really wanted to meet Rupert, her brother. He got botox for a dare, and smiled for the first time in 10 years - he is an emo, so smiling usually not on the agenda, but his face was frozen that way for a few weeks. And he is friends with Jack Osbourne. I kind of wanted to meet the sister too, out of horrified awe. She is the practicing Mormon who fell in love with a dope-smoking winemaker (I found this particular little nugget so hilarious and fascinating that I figured it had to be true, because I couldn't imagine how anyone could make it up! Little did I know). I also wanted to meet Tom who likes to drink at The Four Seasons, and has a big white mo and no hair.

I'm still struggling with the fact that she went to so much effort. She made up email accounts and sent emails pretending to be 5 or 6 people, she wrote a letter from her 'friend' Hannah to NLJ, she wrote a suicide note to herself from her 'ex-boyfriend'... that last one is particularly grotesque and strange... I mean, what the fuck?

Congratulations, Inventor Of The Year

The saga of the Random American Nurse turned Compulsive Lier continues. Her name appears to be completely different from the one she told us, but how are we to know if that one is real or not?
She apparently is a nurse, or at least works at a hospital, here in Sydney. So that is a bit of a worry for the people she is dispensing medical advice to, but NLJ is contacting the relevant people.
The funny thing is (well, ok, the 57th funny thing) that she seemed to just want to make people happy, so she pretended she could give them what they wanted. All her stories were designed so she would receive reassurance that she was not such a bad person after all. (The parents blaming her for her grandmother's death, the ex-boyfriend's suicide, the best friend's jealousy over her supposed success....)BUT, I am bestowing upon her the title (that she claimed for herself): Inventor Of The Year. Sadly, this award is for inventing stories and characters, not inventing a life-saving respirator, but at least winning SOMETHING is better than a poke in the eye with a blunt stick - right?

Crazy Crazy Crazy

CRAZY, CRAZY, CRAZY

er... yes, folks, that's right. She was absolutely, genuinely fake. Here is a bit of blog that I never quite got around to posting, which I hope will convey the sense of having drunk too much coffee in one day, because that is how my life has felt around this chick for some time now:

Life is just so crazy and intense at the moment. I feel like everything is happening in bold print (except for my thesis, unfortunately). It is all due to the RAN, who assures me that her life is, in fact, *not* usually like an episode of Gray's Anatomy crossed with The OC. So she is a nurse, but she is playing with life and death in really full-on ways in her personal life at the moment and I have now been caught up in the drama. She called me yesterday to ask me the number for emergency services over here. I thought it was a little strange that a hospital person wouldn't have told her, or why she would have to call if she was already in a hospital in the first place...but it turns out that she was on the street and saw a guy having an asthma attack. According to the paramedic who eventually looked after him, if I hadn't picked up the phone and given her the number, this guy would've died. Anyway, the latest development is that this guy has flowers and chocolate for me.


...which incidentally never arrived. In fact, a lot of things like that were promised but never arrived. But everything was so constantly so dramatic that I didn't really notice. I was actually craving some serenity. Now I have it. I am peeved that I wasted what could have been half a day of study listening to someone cry over what was probably non-existent mother drama.

I am interested in the fact that this post contains the phrase "I thought it was a little strange that..." because on reflection, a lot of teeny tiny things didn't add up, but individually they were not such big issues. It's funny how you will dismiss things that are inconsistent merely because you don't see a reason to question them.

Anyway, that is my crazy life for now.

Absolutely Genuine and Totally Not Fake... or is it?

At what point do you begin to question things about a person you believe to be your friend? If you like someone, you want to believe that what they are saying is real. So when, in your excitement over their achievements, you google them for news about awards and nominations and so on, you expect to find something. But if you find nothing, is that just because google is slow or because they made the whole thing up?

Absolutely Genuine and Totally Not Fake

Absolutely Genuine and Totally Not Fake

I would like to recount a recent soundbite of conversation between two Absolutely Genuine and Totally Not Fake People I Know:

AGATNFPIK#1: Oh, look at that. I had completely forgotten, but I got an award for 'Service to Music' in Year 12 at school.

AGATNFPIK#2: Really? I got an award for 'Service to Humanity'.

Well, ok let's be honest - AGATNFPIK#2 was exaggerating slightly. She has only been *nominated* for the Nobel, she hasn't actually won it yet.

...Yes, you read correctly. My friend has been nominated for the goddam Nobel!!!!

(In case you are wondering, it is the RAN)

Nothing Ever Happens On Mars

I found a grey hair today. It was really long so I have been going grey for months and months and didn't realise it. I am distressed. And old.

In other news I have been away in New Zealand for a week and feel like I should post something about the experience but the mere thought just makes me lethargic.

Cleavage Occasion #2

It's official - I think I'm hilarious. I am the only person among my swirls and eddies of friends and acquaintances (to my knowledge) who grabs a pen and writes down something someone said that I think is funny. The other day I found a beer coaster with this little nugget on it; I think it's a couple of years old:

Just because you have a crooked cleavage doesn't mean you're interesting

Yes, Flo, I was talking about you. Your parents might have given you a boob job to celebrate your sensational year 12 results, which were good enough to get you into Law, but the new boobs were far from sensational. Your cleavage is CROOKED. I do admire the fact that you shamelessly show your baps off with aplomb anyway, despite the fact that they look like crap*, but, just for the record, I'd rather not have to speak to you. This has nothing to do with the fact that you have crooked boobs, and more to do with the fact that you are boring, and have an irritating voice.

*Bap and crap rhyme, so this must be true.

Highlights: The Farmer Wants A Housekeeper/Cook/Mother

Apparently, The Farmer Wants A Wife is wholesome family entertainment, because it is about the eternal search for love. If I wasn't distracted by all my cringing at things like the farmer who likes one girl better because she did a load of washing for him,
then I might consider counting how many times the host uses the word in her current affairs-esque pitch modulating voice.
Along with overuse of the word "love" as opposed to the patently more appropriate "desperate", "bored" or "lukewarm attraction" (depending on context), we also know this is not a shameless attempt to take advantage of people's insecurities and loneliness because they talk a lot about Emotions. For example:
3rd Grossest Farmer, on what it's like with 2 girls in his house (he never mentions "creepy" but I guess that's too obvious, even for him): "It's hard. Emotions and feelings, and having to deal with that stuff. Blokes don't deal with that sort of stuff, we go out and dig holes and stuff."

Essay Gold

ESSAY GOLD

Huzzah! I have been promising this post to some people for a few days now. Here it is.

In case there was ever any doubt as to whether or not I have ethics, I will take this moment to clarify: I have no ethics. Here are some examples from the essays I am currently marking, that have caused much hilarity. I usually include a few ESL ones (unfair, I know, but as you may be aware, I have no ethics). However, this time I really didn't need to, the native English speakers did a great job unaided... [my comments in brackets like this]

Surfs Up might appear to be another penguin movie [yawn. The sense of ennui is overwhelming. ANOTHER penguin movie? you ask, despairing]

Like an instrument, sounds have their own specific timbre, for example, sparrows, and storms.

After two months under the constant care of his vigilant parents, and the constant kindly shelter of the nest, the cockatiel chick becomes a fledgling. His plumage fully formed, his legs strong, his eyes wide and bright, his beak and claws hardened, he sits resplendent and youthfully curious on the edge of his aboreal home. And there he contemplates the natural wonder that will one day become a daily occurance to him, the wonder of flight. So too sits the body of critical theory surrounding the analysis of film sound.

we personify all of the characters in the helicopters. [I *think* this one is supposed to be "identify with", but you never can tell]

[A word of warning. If this essay writer is telling the truth, I don't recommend you see the Transformers movie] The audience is left literally blown away by the creation of power and impact experienced by the mixing of the sound effects.

[Although if you are prepared to brave that, there are apparently some nice scenes for the gourmets and gourmands out there] ...in the dessert scenes of Transformers artificial winds and metallic rustling are used...

What upsets me about all of this is that for some of these kiddies, it is the last essay they will ever write, therefore, it demonstrates the pinnacle of their academic achievments.

What incredules* me is the number of people who make the cliched mistakes. I had 2 or 3 people use "wether" which they now know thanks to my caustic comments is a castrated male sheep.

• The author of this post reserves the right to invent words for purposes including, but not restricted to: amusement, clarification, obfustication and bloggolation.

Is Infantile

I went to a BBQ last night, in a suburb far, far away. I was contemplating an AFD but as soon as I turned around in my seat to see that we passed a sign that said "To Sydney" I knew I needed a drink. It was a housewarming and there are pros and cons to the house. Obviously, first con is that you need map, compass and water supply to get there. But the pro is the beautiful big rooms, huge windows and back garden. But the second con is that all three residents each pay more for their rooms than my flatmates and I do. In my case, $50 a week! So The score is: Far Away Suburb- nil, Tower - one.

Anyway, there was this guy who sat near me and a few minutes into the convo decided that he was going to begin every sentence with the word "is". He encouraged me to do the same. Now I know that book larnin and street smarts are not always the same thing, so the 500 or so years I have spent at university (none of which included maths) are often useless in understanding the logic in such suggestions. I asked him "why?" and he replied "is because it's fun". I demured. He insisted. I left.

Delta is The New Celine

I am so fashion forward:
http://music.ninemsn.com.au/blog.aspx?blogentryid=35694&showcomments=true

Fashion renegades, disbelieve me at your couture-peril.

The PhD Wants A Husband

I have a great idea for a new reality TV show - it will be to find me a husband, because I have decided that is what I really want. I might wait to see if someone gives me one for Christmas, then it'll be full steam ahead meetings with Endemol. It will be great because it's that whole rags to riches thing. So far I have the promo pretty much designed. I will be standing in my apartment with a big glass of wine in hand, and sweep my arms across the view from the window while saying "Take me away from all this!" dramatically yet quite sexily. This will work well because it will show the viewers at home how terrible my single life is, because I have...oh yeah, a fabulous $3 million dollar view of the harbour... hmmm maybe this needs some fine tuning.

Well maybe instead of being in front of the harbour, I could be sitting in a pub with all my fabulous friends... er, but that's kind of cool too...maybe sitting in the SUN with...

It is actually much harder than I thought to make my life look really miserable and desperate. But I know that it must be, because I don't have a husband, see? I did have a Cinderella moment this morning where I washed the floor, but that was only because I got a bit silly last night and poured a big glass of wine which I subsequenty decided I was too drunk to drink so put the glass in the fridge door. A good idea until somone (me) actually OPENED the fridge door...

I may have to resort to using black and white film, and Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings in the background to make even my smiles look somehow mournful.

Trends For Summer 07/08 #3

DELTA IS THE NEW CELINE

Ceriously!

Watching her on Aus Idol last night was a weird experience. She looked like a 35 year old who had Botox and surgery to look 23, and was wearing too much make-up (perhaps in an attempt to reintroduce some elasticity into her facial muscles). She is middle of the road for teenagers. A very strange concept.

Trends For Summer 07/08 #2

I braved the Newtown Festival yesterday, and have burnt shoulders as a battle scar, but I discovered a couple of interesting new trends. If you attend such a festival, there are two choices you have for fashion accesssory: a dog or a child. The best kind of dog is of a dalmation-blue heeler-ish size but should probably be a bitzer. You may or may not choose to tie a scarf around your dog's neck... Now when I say *your* dog, of course I am possibly being presumptuous, because I suspect that people hire, borrow or steal dogs for this occasion. I mean, seriously, a lot of people in Sydney live in apartments. How can they all have these (quite large) dogs? A lot of places in the Newtown area have tiny gardens, if they have gardens at all. I reckon maybe they ship them from dog farms in the outer suburbs and you can rent them for the day. But what I think is sort of amusing is that the dog as fashion accessory began with Paris Hilton on the red carpet. This is interesting for 2 reasons.
1. It's a great example of haute couture moving to pret a porter, if you will.
2. These people would be horrified to think they were following Paris Hilton in anything (well I guess anyone would)

Choice #2, the baby. I think this is indicative of the fact that people who used to live wild crazy single lives (like possibly they would dress up in skimpy nurses outfits to go clubbing, or maybe they liked to play debauched games of rude scrabble into the wee hours or stuff like that) are trying to recpture the wild crazy times, but they have to do it in daylight and with the bebe. So Newtown festival is a perfect juncture point of hip and wholesome. Or, they decided to have kids because they were following the trends from Hollywood (Angelina, Gwenyth, Mads...) Amberjee - did you have a baby for the fashionista credibility?

So, in summary: Babies are the new poodles

An Essay On The Blog

As suggested in a previous comment on this blog, I am now switiching my thesis to one on blogs, and doing what used to be my real thesis in my designated procrastination time (about 60 hours a week). Now here is where my dedication to procrastination really shines through. I have found an essay on blogs on the website "essay generator"
(http://radioworldwide.gospelcom.net/essaygenerator/). This site is brilliant for slightly bored time wasters everywhere. You type in any topic, and a random essay is instantly generated. I reproduce an edited version of the very excellent distinction quality essay that was generated for me just moments ago.

An essay on the blog
'Brilliant', 'Quite Good', 'What?', these are just some of the comments made recently in the press regarding the blog. There are many factors which influenced the development of the blog. Until recently considered taboo amongst polite society, spasmodically it returns to create a new passion amongst those who study its history. Since it was first compared to antidisestablishmentarianism much has been said concerning the blog by those most reliant on technology, many of whom blame the influence of television. With the primary aim of demonstrating my considerable intellect I will now demonstrate the complexity of the many faceted issue that is the blog.

Social Factors
Comparisons between Roman Society and Medieval Society give a clear picture of the importance of the blog to developments in social conduct. I will not insult the readers inteligence by explaining this obvious comparison any further.

Political Factors
Politics - smolitics! Contrasting the numerous political activists campaigning for the interests of the blog can be like looking at chalk and cheese.
Since the Renaissance the blog has become more and more prevalent. May it continue.

Conclusion
In my opinion the blog may not be the best thing since sliced bread, but it's still important. It enlightens our daily lives, brings glamour to an unglamorous time and it brings the best out in people.

I shall give the final word to star Stevie Morissette: 'the blog is the new rock and roll! And the new opera!'

American Woman

AMERICAN WOMAN
What is wrong with the US of A? I think most non-Americans agree that there is something rotten in the state of WalMart, and depending on who you speak to it varies in seriousness. Most people (I think - I know this is the case for me) seem a little perplexed about *why* it is so bad, and exactly *what* the root cause of it all is. Well I don't really have any answers here today, but I do have a little insight into the issues of nutrition and health that are one of the "pieces of pie*" in the country's overall malaise.

We currently have a Random American Nurse (RAN) sleeping on our fold-out couch. More details about her and her randomness in a little bit, but I'll just state now that she has many good qualities as well as a few random ones. Ok, so RAN, NLJ (housemate#1) and I decided to order pizza**. Going through the menu, it transpired that RAN didn't know what celery was. In the time that we have know her (6 days if you discount phone contact) there have been a couple of translation issues that seemed to be all in fun, so I wasn't too nonplussed, and NLJ and I tried to explain what it looked like. Fennel and Celery sound quite similar in description, so when I realised that was what she was thinking of, I said "Celery is that stuff that you put peanut butter in" and she said "OOOHHH - Peanut butter cup! We call that peanut butter cup!". The poor old vegetable is only useful as a container for some greasy, fatty condiment, it doesn't even get its own name. I weep for the future.

Ok, there are two things that put the random into Random American Nurse. The first is that she got the wrong number and accidently texted NLJ instead of a friend of hers. That is the only reason that we know her. The second is that she is an ex-Mormon from Salt Lake City. This provides fodder for some amusing stories (like the first time she tried coffee, she asked for a double esspresso; didn't want to do things by halves). But actually, the most amusing things are to do with her family, and her sister in particular. Her sister came to Australia on a mission, knocked on someone's door to preach the word and he invited her in and fell in love with her. They are engaged. He is a winemaker. He was stoned at the time. The sister has no idea - she thinks that Adelaide has a particular smell, that hangs around their house, but it is the smell of pot. I swear I am not making this up!

More RAN stories to follow in subsequent weeks, I am sure.


*Not terribly funny, but I couldn't help myself.
** Yes, I am aware of the fact that I am gluten intolerant. I was gluten intolerant at the time of the incident, but I was also drunk (see disclaimer on the previous post if you don't believe me) so had left my Better Judgement at the pub.

Me Bad At English? Unpossible!

Name: Sandilands, Kyle
Nickname: Toaster Head
Job: Judge on Australian Idol
Special Power: Stupidity
Made Up Word: Clothes-arexia

So what I want to discuss here is not so much his Special Power (although that sort of comes into it by default), but "Clothes-arexia". This word is supposed to refer to someone who choses clothes to wear that make them look terrible. When said in context, it makes sense and everyone gets what he is talking about but I spent (possibly a little too much) time thinking about this word, and it does not really seem appropriate. Anorexia is not about looking terrible by mistake. I think that Toaster Head is getting confused with Body Dismorphic Syndrome.

The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that Clothes-arexia should be the word to describe those chicks who go out in winter wearing mini skirts and boob tubes and no coats, then stand in line OUTSIDE waiting to get into a club. Because THEY think they are wearing PLENTY of clothing, and everyone around them is looking at them thinking "you poor thing, that is SO unhealthy. You really need more on"

*disclaimer: There are several words in this post that I am unsure have been spelt correctly. It's early morning and I drank a lot last night so I don't care. Thankyou*

Mashups

I am soooo bored with mashups. A really fantastically good one will still excite me but overall: yawn. Just between you, me and the blogosphere, they have been boring me for about 12 or 18 months now. They are so 2005. I was just in the middle of reading an email to our (-name deleted-) list going on and on and on and on about the latest ones he has heard, and what the dude in the record shop thinks about them and blahdy blah blah.

I am often tempted to send emails to the list along the lines of "you are all boring old farts who have dysfunctional personal lives because you spend too much time in cd shops, and then writing about what you found in said shops", but one of them might give me a job one day so I'll have to keep quiet for now.

Although at this rate nobody will give me a job because I will never finish my thesis Felix, unless I change topics entirely and write one about blogs.

Not Vary Affective

I know that I can be a bit of an over-emotionally irrational vigilante when it comes to things like grammar and punctuation, but I am happy to admit that I get things wrong sometimes. Not very often mind you, but there was, for example, an incident with a badly placed semi-colon earlier this year. However, one thing I am not so happy about is my travails with the difference between 'affect' and 'effect'. I remember very consciously making sure I learnt the difference when I was about 15 or so and I was very proud of my ability to choose the correct option in any given situation*. Unfortunately, after three-odd years of marking the essays of people who did NOT conscientiously figure out the difference between the two words at an age when their brains were still sponge-like in nature (in terms of soakability, not softness or full of holes) has unraveled my once rock solid faith in my ability to use these words. I have seen the wrong one so many times that now any time I see either I assume it must be wrong. I no longer have any idea which is which.

I have not had any coffee today either, but it is still early.

I think I want coffee.

*Yes, I know, a tragic way to spend your time, but who WASN'T tragic at the age of 15? As far as I can tell, the only people who have vibrant social lives at that age end up emaciated, bedraggled, and addicted to Crystal Meth. But they can join one of Jamie Oliver's restaurants, so there is no need to feel sorry for them.

Inappropriate Punctuation!

I know this is something I have ranted about in the past, but the overuse of exclamation marks really has the potential to amuse. I found this the other day on someone's blog:

"Phoned mum yesterday. Dennis Butler is in a bad way, poor bugger. He's in an induced coma, has had a trachioctomy and just ain't too good!"

I note, on a completely unrelated topic that I didn't drink any coffee yesterday.

"I Think I Could Be Wife Material; I'm Quite A Good Cook"

Sweetheart, that means you are a good cook.
I am seriously distressed and disgusted. There is not a post-it note big enough for the TV show "The Farmer Wants A Wife", from whence the above quote came. I guess it's the ocker version of The Bachelor, it is full of very skinny eyebrows under too-blonde hair, and the silences on their "five minute dates" are excruciatingly akward. Craig The Sheep Farmer in particular is painful to watch. His conversational gems include "So you handlin' this weather alright or what?" and "How's things been goin' today, alright?" and my personal favourite "d'you reckon you could handle lookin' after me in the bush?"

So, yes, it's official. Feminism is dead and we might as well be living in 1956. I am going to give up the thesis and try to forget what I have already learnt because I don't think I should be too educated. My only quandry that I can see is that obviously I need to be a better cook, but if I forget how to read then I want be able to read any cook books. How will I get around that?

Affirmative Action

I've drawn a line in the sand. I have decided that it is not enough to believe something to be wrong without doing what you can to right that wrong. I bought a post-it note pad, that I now carry with me at all times, along with a pen. Just as the City Rail anti-terrorism ads suggest, when I see something, I say someting. I write my message on the pad, and then stick it to the person who needs it. The message says: "Crocs. Never ok."

Small Effort - High Impact

Rather than agonise over a fabulous topic to post, and then spend hours refining the nuances of my writing style (my usual apporach to posting, I am sure y'all can tell) I am being a little lazy and just collecting some funny quotes to share. The first one isn't all that funny but I think my version of -Lo's name is (snaps to me), and she doesn't generally say really funny things, so this was the best I could come up with.

J to the 'ello:

"Men really disgust me if they don't have a nice smile, nice lips and nice teeth. They have too many disgusting habits, like scratching themselves all the time. And it's really weird how guys think that passing gas is the funniest thing in the world. They love to do that thing in front of girls and laugh about it."

Jessica Simpson:

“I think there's a difference between ditzy and dumb. Dumb is just not knowing. Ditzy is having the courage to ask!”

But our winner is clearly George W. These are all from THIS MONTH alone:

"My job is a decision-making job, and as a result, I make a lot of decisions."

"I got a lot of Ph.D.-types and smart people around me who come into the Oval Office and say, 'Mr. President, here's what's on my mind.' And I listen carefully to their advice. But having gathered the device, I decide, you know, I say, 'This is what we're going to do.'"

"You know, when you give a man more money in his pocket -- in this case, a woman more money in her pocket to expand a business, it -- they build new buildings. And when somebody builds a new building somebody has got to come and build the building. And when the building expanded it prevented additional opportunities for people to work."

This was last month but it's pretty special:

"All of us in America want there to be fairness when it comes to justice."

Mere Men

I remember reading trashy women's magazines like Woman's Day from cover to cover as a kid on school holidays at our family holiday house. Not only was there no TV, but the house was in a place that had two public buildings: a phone booth and a toilet block. Yes, there was the beach, but we ended up being there in Winter a lot. We made our own fun. Sometimes we would stare for hours at the passing cars, and wave at the people who looked in the windows at us. So now you understand how thrilling a Charles and Diana Anniversary Special Edition 17 page spread could be to a ten year old. I remember there was a section where people would write in with little stories about stupid yet funny things their children/grandchildren had done (who all seemed to be called Miss Two or Master Five). There was another one called something like Mere Men, that was reserved for the same stories about husbands/brothers etc. Now I have such a story of my own:

After being away for two weeks, I returned home to notice that the dishwasing liquid was quite light in colour but almost full. I was quite impressed, thinking that Mere Man must have filled the empty bottle with water to make the most of the dregs. It was suprisingly bubbly and effective. I then noticed that it smelt not unfamiliar, but not as I had remembered. I looked in the kitchen cupboard, and saw that what had been an almost full bottle of Wool and Delicates clothes-washing detergent was now nearly empty...Admittedly, the phrase "seek medical advice if swallowed" was VERY small, and on the back of the bottle.

Cackademic

A couple of days ago, I headed into my old uni for a spot of microfisching. I was after an unpublished thesis on Busby Berkely musicals. After spending a few minutes being puzzled by my failing attempts at communication with the librarian at the information desk* I got it all sorted, discovered some interesting and some uninteresting things about Mr Berkeley and also about Dr Steike who wrote the thesis. There were a few choice phrases that stood out, but this one is by far my favourite:
"The collapse of Berekely's five early marriages shows an apparent failure to deal with women." I love that he says "apparent failure", because we must never make statements in Cackademia that we cannot 100% back up. It is certainly possible that he married five women who were after green cards, or were really men, or maybe they all divorced him because he farted a lot. You can't be too careful.



*Me:I've never used the machines before.
Librarian: - - -
Me; Well, should I just go in there and try to figure it out for myself?
Librarian: - - -
Me: And just come back if I need any help?
Librarian: - - -
Me:Um, well is it very difficult?
Librarian: - - - well...I would say it's... ... ... relatively difficult....
>fortunately (for my sanity and for the professional pride of Librarian), at this point another librarian got off the phone and helped me out

Interweb: Friend of Foe?

I wish my life was a blog page.
I have always liked writing lists but now I feel the need for something a little more complicated. I have been writing a list of everything I need to do for my thesis, but I really need some pop up windows or side bars with extra info that is related to and will effect the progress of items on the list, but does not belong on the list itself.

I know that there are things available, but the ones designed by someone else are no good - it needs to be set out the way I want it so I know where to look for the info. Stupid Google Apps for example is about 5 screens of mostly useless lists of crap that I will never, ever need...why would I check the weather on my uni email account? Well that might actually be a good idea, but to find that I have to scroll through information for undergrads, stuff about discounts at The Quarry*, information on placements on the ScholarShip**... and while I am in rant mode, how is it that Google Apps Single Sign On for my uni email account now means it takes me three times as long to sign in as it did when there was no "Single Sign On". Or is the interweb just mocking me because I am not married and don't have a boyfriend?

So my question remains: is the interweb friend or foe?
And we find another set of questions has been posed: why do things at Macquarie have such cringe-worthy, dumb-ass names? what will be next? why can't they just keep things simple, like calling a refectory a refectory, or having summer school in a school instead of on a ship? Answers welcome.

*Oh hilARious - those crazy kids calling the MacQUARIE refectory "the 'quarry"... what a great joke!
**More hilarity - a SHIP that you sail around on and get extra credit points...come ON!! I can't believe the name let alone the concept is actually real

Library Etiquette

I am "enjoying" a little sojourn in Adelaide for a few days, and have been spending my time in the Barr Smith library at Adelaide Uni. It's got me thinking about acceptable noise levels and mobile phone etiquette in such places. In the two days I have spent there so far, a few phones obviously on silent have gone off, but the people talk on them anyway.Kind of defeats the purpose of the silent mode... One guy planned his whole day very loudly, including asking for details on Nonna's movements (but not bowl ones as far as I could tell). So maybe it's not all that unacceptable, but I still feel a bit funny about it. Am I the only one? Because the other day, after someone's phone went off that wasn't silent, I thought to myself: It's embarrassing enough when your phone goes off in a library, but it's even worse when the ringtone is Savage Garden.

Standing Ovation

What is the deal with the standing ovation? I think that they should not be handed out willy nilly. I think that sometimes they are given away too freely, but maybe my criteria are just very different from other people's. I went to Berlin last night, part of Graeme Murphy's final season at the helm of Sydney Dance Company (did that sound like a press release or what?). I really enjoyed it but felt it was uneven in some ways; there were peaks and troughs. For me, to give a standing ovation, it should be impeccable and beyond technically perfect. There should be an extra "I don't know what", as the French would say if they spoke English. There were lots of great things about this show but it didn't move me. I will admit that I was very tired so maybe it was just me. But that brings me to another point - I'm not sure how I feel about the "mexican wave" standing ovation, where people stand up because the people around them have done so. If you think it is deserving of one then stand up. Don't stand up just becasue the person next to you thinks it is deserving of one.

But back to my thing about different criteria. Maybe last night they gave one because it was opening night (is there a separate protocol for this of which I am unaware?) and/or it is one of Murphy's final things with SDC. I personally don't think either of those things warrant a standing ovation, but perhaps to other people they do. Another awkward thing is that you need to think everything and everyone was amazing, because you can't half stand up, or have a neon sign over your head saying "This is for Johnny"... although I can see that catching on. So iOTA, if you read this, I would have given you a standing ovation, but I didn't have my neon sign handy.

Audience Celebrity Spots:
Tim Freedman
Paul Keating

Trends For Summer 07/08

I thought I'd share my ideas on directions in which I see the season going. since now is the time we should all be thinking about updating our wardrobes (not to mention political affiliations and beliefs, literary tastes and other things that should all be colour co-ordinated).

Paradigm Shifts:
Chai is the new Latte
Gluten Intolerance is the new Vegetarian
Atheist is the new Mormon
Chrones is the new Chronic Fatigue

What's So Hot Right Now?:
Throws for the couch
Burma
Stories featuring Oprah's new gardening guru (Jamie Durie) and his sexy, secret, shameful, seedy past as a stripper
Making Emos Cry (that way everyone is happy)


Trends For the Future (2009 and beyond)
Blogs about tea
Thai Fisherman's hats, gloves and shoes
"Scientology is the new Black"
Austrlian Idol contestants' Greatest Hits compilations

I know that much of this is pretty profound stuff, so please feel free to make buttons, t shirts etc featuring any of these as slogans. I will not charge for copyright. Now go forth and be fashionable.

The Hills Are Dead With The Sound of Music

What makes a film a musical? What makes a film a dance film? These and other exciting questions are being shouted at me from the windows of W6A (the world's second ugliest building*, and home to our questionably illustrious department) by DCMS staff and acolytes every time I cross the car park to enter.
...Ok, maybe I have a little cabin fever, and this is the result of a slightly crazed imagination. In reality, it's only one or two people doing the shouting. So, with all the carry on, I am thinking about this a lot and believe I have come up with the definitvie answer to the second one at least. Here it is: A dance film usually contains plot that is centerd around dance, and also some actual dancing. The most important element, however is that someone dies or is already dead. Let's look at some examples:
Save The Last Dance - mother dies
Flashdance - Hannah the mentor dies
The Red Shoes - dances herself to death
Bootmen - dead mother, AND the brother dies
Billy Elliot - dead mother
All That Jazz - protagonist dies
Dancer in the Dark - single mother who basically dies (but this is Arty, so can't be expected to follow the rules exactly. It needs to be Clever and Thought Provoking)

Does this work for musicals?
Sound of Music - dead mother
West Side Story - Tony dies
Moulin Rouge - Satine dies
Wizard of Oz -TWO witches die (plus Dorothy is an orphan)
Once - dead mother
Oliver - I can't remember this very well because I saw a school production and had to block a lot of it out (no offense Koala) but I have brought in a outside expert to help me with this list and he assures me that Nancy dies.
South Pacific - someone with a dumb name dies

....so I think we get the point

There are loads more but the list is getting boring. One final comment is that lots of Disney movies like The Lion King also follow this theme.

I think this is pretty strong evidence. The End. By Sophie

*it's pretty well documented that the world's ugliest building is the one I currently live in. I personally don't agree with this, but then, I don't have to look at it because I am inside it.

Shitney Spears and Not OK-Fed

Well, it's not so much those two that I want to rant about, as the terrible excuses for English you come across when you read comments posted by people on a Britters/K-Fed article. Lack of punctuation aside, I have a few problems with this one:


They are both trash and the kids belong with someone decent that can raise them to be good upstanding citizens. They are screwed up human beings if one would call them that*. These celebrities if that is what you call them# deserve far less if any media attention. The important issues in this country seemed to have far less if any priority than this garbage you keep reporting on^. Give Us a break

*You just did
#well it's what you just called them.
^But you still read it - didn't you?

Sigh.

I Would Like To Be Gentially Superior

The problem with third years is that they have usually learnt to self-edit, and don't write such funny things in their essays. I have been doing a bit of marking and it's really not as fun as it could be. Last semester, the best one I read was this: "These people are genitally superior". I'm still not sure what the student actually meant, because even "genetically superior" didn't make sense in the context.


In other news, the sun is shining, people are sailing boats outside my window etc blah blah blah... just a typical Sydney day. I'm not bored with sunshine precisely, but I think it is a little overused, kind of how I feel about that hyper-real, we-must-talk-to-one-another-quickly-and-while-wearing-black-overcoats-in-order-to-catch-the-perp aesthetic of crime shows on TV. I didn't demand it, but I am happy enough to engage with it for a while, even though it's always the same old same old.

The Bitter, Twisted, Secret History Of Me

"When I began yelling obscenities at the characters in boring ads on TV, I realised that I was at the wrong end of the gin glass, and had become bitter and twisted."

I wrote that a few days ago and since I was at the bottom of the gin glass when I did, I never bothered to finish it off. Lately I have managed to keep the obscenities to a minimum, and mostly confined to characters on TV shows rather than ads. I think I have shown remarkable restraint. There are some terrible ads out there.

But onto other matters: of what has my life consisted recently? Three things mainly, which are 1. my thesis chapter draft, 2. The Secret History (Donna Tartt) and 3. Australian Idol.

1. The less said the better, but I submitted it this morning.

2. This book is gripping, disturbing, well written and very long. I am close to the end but have had to set it aside for a while because it is getting under my skin, and making me want to emulate the main characters which would entail the study of ancient Greek, being slightly drunk all day long and murdering my annoying but somewhat endearing classmate named Bunny.

3. I have a deep and abiding intense dislike (I was going to write hate, but that is quite a strong word, best reserved for extreme cases) of Carl The-Judges-And-I-Think-I-Am-The-Next-Michael-Buble-So-We-Collectively-Ignore-My-Inability-To-Sing-In-Tune-And-General-Lack-Of-Musicality Risely. I mean really, that scatting is completely dire. I think my 65 year old neighbour Shirley could put more swing and conviction into it. And the fact that he puts it in every song no matter what it is shows that he is a man of very little brain, and can only handle one idea at a time.

I'll try to save my Idol rants to one person per post, in the hope that by spreading it out I will look less bitter and unable to manage my anger.

Liquid Lunch For Me Thanks Mrs M.

Yes that's right folks - I actually had a liquid lunch yesterday. A gin and tonic to be exact.
It was all down to a hideous shift at the bookshop. (There are only two things that drive me to drink, the other one is my thesis...ok, also mumble pants*, so that makes three, oh and I guess turquoise coloured skinny jeans on pimply 'yooouths', Bindy Irwin...)
Anyhoon, to be fair and precise, I should explain that as my shift started at 12 I ate before that so my 'lunch break' was at about 3.30 and I wasn't really hungry. But I really needed that drink.

* For those who may be unfamiliar with the term, mumble pants are very tight leggings. Why are they called mumble pants? Because you can see the lips moving but you can't hear what they are saying.

Whoops - I forgot the trams. Beep beep!

I Heart San Francisco

I like big butts and I cannot lie... this first pic is from The Mission - very funky precinct in San Fran, and I hope that it is obvious that, yes, it is butt implants. Sort of like a padded bra, but for the J Lo wannabes of this world. Stoiylish.
Second pic is also the Mission; I like the way the trees are nicely lined up with the windows of the building behind. (I am very conscious of the fact that I take pretty sub-par photos, so am quick to self-congratulate on the smallest but of artistick-ness...)
Third pic - Alison was the ever-patient guide, hanging around while I took snaps of buildings. Snaps to her.

Compadre Padre, or How I Wish Individuality Was Not The New Conformity

I am afraid to say it, but individuality really is the new conformity (I didn't make this up, it's a book that I am reading). Over the last few days I have been doing lots of blog browsing, and only recently realised that if you view someone's profile you can click on anything they have entered and a list of all other blogs with the same entry will come up. It's nice to know that 1000 people like my favourite book, and 2,500 like my other favourite. But I realised that it's all about trying to be an individual within a morass of same-same when I noticed that 12 people have listed "maintaining my sanity" as an interest, and 54 "watching the world go by"*. I think that a level of comfort comes from knowing that you exist among a likeminded (virtual) community, yet there is something unique about you. For instance, although my literary tastes are not terribly individual, I am so far the only blogger with an interest in pear flavoured vodka. I am sure this is only a matter of time though; it's a new flavour.

Anyhoon (I just invented that word - trying to be an individual by increasing my idiolect) on to the first part of my title. Compadre Padre (never studied Spanish - no idea if I have spelt that right) is what I have dubbed Pastor John Wiuff from Oregon - he and I are the only two bloggers with an interst in "real tea". I am sure he is a lovely, Goddish man but a glance at his blog was enough to scare me into doing some work on my thesis, and to contemplate giving up my fondness for real tea.... well I suppose I could just call it "leaf tea", then our blogs would no longer be linked.

He has called his blog "Crossview" and no, it is not the vista of an irritable person a al Grumpy Old Men, it is indeed the view from a cross. Let's not forget that there is more than one person who has been crucified. Are we supposed to assume he thinks he is Jesus - surely a problem for the hardcore Christian community to swallow - or that he thinks he was one of the robbers(?) who was crucified next to Jesus? In a way, this choice of blog title reminds me of Trinny and Susannah. Just like some people on their show who follow the letter of the rules but entirely miss the spirit ("but it's got a nipped in waist" "yes, but it's ugly!") he has chosen some element of Christian paraphenalia to use, but not really thought through the consequences. Anyway, oops I mean Anyhoon - I'll stop my ranting now to go away and contemplate some alternative blog titles for the Padre.

*including a dog blog, written by her She Boss.

PS a little pimp for my site (and I mean pimp in the promotion sense, not in the MTV "make glitzy" sense, which someone used in an essay I marked last semester): down the bottom of the page are some links to more time wasting opportunities

Hola

Here are some buildings around Mexico city.
Soon to follow will be trams and stuff from SF.

Mexico

This is me and Megan enjoying breakfast in the cool little cafe a few minutes walk from our hotel in Mexico City. Note the limes and green pepper sauce.

New Look

I think I prefer the dots, but I felt like a change so I'm going with this layout for a while.
Is it too boring?

I also want to add that I have finally managed to be busy enough to do some real procrastination, and as well as all the little extra doobies I have put on the blog, like extra details on my profile, I have at long last linked my camera up to my computer. I added a few pics to my House Party entry, so you can all see the bowl-on-head incident for yourselves. I will add more pics of my travels in the coming days, in no particular order.

A Cleavage Occasion

Apologies to my regular readers - as I suspected, I have become so obsessed with Trinny and Susannah that other activities (cooking, eating, blog-writing, study, sleep) have fallen to the wayside. It has all been worth it though, because I am able to share a fabulous quote, and I know that if you have big boobs you shouldn't wear crochet or stripes, and you need to make sure you chose pants that don't make your bum look square, flat or wide.
Anyway, the quote: Trinny was asking a really old lady about the clothes worn by her employee, and asked her if she ever showed any cleavage. The old lady's response (in a very posh voice) was "Well, I think you need an occasion to show cleavage...we don't have many cleavage occasions here".

Care Factor: 0

I have arrived at the bookshop and realised that my care factor is so low it wouldn't appear on a scale. I am supposed to wear all black but today, for the first time, I am in jeans because I can't be farquared.
But I did have a revelation on my walk up the hill: Internet dating is like shopping for clothes in a catalogue. It's perfectly fine if you don't really care whether or not your clothes fit properly, or if you live in the country.

A Word From Beneath The CEPA Sign

Ah ha - I have figured out who the sign on the bridge was for, but unfortunately it was to no avail. It was to remind George Bush where he was. Annabel Crabb in the SMH has collated some of his choice quotes from his time here including the one where he praises John Howard's hosting "the OPEC Summit". To further prove that he has absolutely no idea where he is (although, as we have just learnt, a sign saying SYDNEY AUSTRALIA on the Opera House probably wouldn't have helped much), he congratualted Howard for visitng "the Austrian troops" in Iraq.

The Knowledge is already in the room, it just needs to be shared...

Thankyou Channel 7

Thankyou Channel 7
Something wonderful happened last night - Channel 7 screened back to back episeodes of The Ghost Whisperer. Something that I have not actively tried to keep a secret, but have certainly avoided advertising, is my morbid fascination with this show. I know that it is terrible. It is terrible in a way that surpasses most crap that we excuse ourselves watching because it is crap, like the OC or Big Brother. But there is somehow something totally arresting about watching a twittering boney idiot ((Julia Love Hewitt - any relation to Lleyton, I wonder?) with eyelashes almost as thick as she is giving heartful words of wisdom to sad, distressed people, who are a mixture of alive and dead. I also like the fact that her husband is called Jim Gordon, and Juliet's boyfriend from Center Stage is also called Jim Gordon. The actress who played Juliet was once a bitter, dead bride on Ghost Whisperer, who would not let her man remarry.... anyway, back to why it was so wonderful of Channel 7 to screen a double episode - I got sick of it! It worked as some kind of immersion therapy, and I turned it off before the final character (an Autistic man who kept banging wooden xmas decorations on the floor) had "crossed over". And apparently he won't have Autism in heaven, or I should say "in the light". I have finally had enough, in the way you feel after eating too much chocolate, and can now focus my attention more fully on What Not To Wear.

What Have We Learnt From Foxtel This Week?
Well I realised something that would be difficult for most Australian free-to-air-only viewers to notice, unless they had spent some time in the UK. And sort of like how Aussies who lived in the UK during the mad cow years are unable to donate blood, this would possibly be noticable by Brits who spent time in Australia in the 90s. So what was this amazing feat of cross cultural understanding? The opening notes of the Banana commercial (you know - the "make those bodies sing" one) are the same as the opening notes of the theme song for Eastenders.

My Cold Remedies

A propos of nothing in particular, I felt like sharing some recipes:

My current favourite is a variation on the Hot Toddy
Lemon Scented tea
milk (if that's how you normally have tea)
2-3 cloves
spoonful of honey
dash of honey vodka

The Hot Toddy is as above but Scotch instead of vodka, a slice of lemon instead of the tea, and no milk.

As you can see, I favour the alcoholic approach to colds, in the belief that it will possibly kill some bugs but failing that will probably make you feel a bit better, at least temporarily.

These are good At Home drinks. If you have to go out, I suggest vodka cranberry (or a cosmopolitan if you feel like being fancy). All the vitamin C in the cranberry juice will have you feeling better in no time.

One Two Three

1. I wonder if fat people realise that every time they walk down the street they are in danger of being filmed from the neck down, and then having that footage screened on some current affairs or news program? It's usually to do with heart conditions, clothes sizes etc but almost any excuse to show people walking around is good enough, and unattractive torsos and legs seem to be the best type to use. I just watched a report on sleep depreivation, and once they got bored using the footage of a (fat) person in bed, they moved to people walking on the street. "What does that have to do with sleep deprivation?" I hear you ask. Well I am not quite sure, but I suspect nothing.
I also wonder if people ever recognise themselves...

2. And another thing - APEC is pissing me off. There have been helicopters circling all morning and they are loud and irritating. Plus, they put the big sign on the bridge the wrong way around - it looks backwards to me and surely it was put there for me and other tower residents? Who else would it be for? Not the people attending, because they already know that's what they are here for. If they haven't figured that out, then they are obviously a little slow, in which case I would be concerned that confusion may ensue. They'll be thinking APEC is an Aboriginal word for bridge or something.

3. And finally, I am celebrating the fact that I just finished reading one of the most BORING articles I have ever had to put myself through trying to absorb, and that includes the semester of politics I did in third year. It was about defining "moving picture dance" and the guy spent about a page and a half arguing with himself (and other people not present in the room - does that make him crazy?) about whether or not a TV screen is actually a screen.

Lazy Sunday

Two things of interest happened today:
1. I got an official report, and No Name and Name Withheld have No Chemistry, so there is No Relationship.
2. I discovered a website that is a beacon to the pursuit of scholarly yet useless information. If you want to learn how to say squirrel in almost any language (including Basque,Cherokee and Klingon) visit this site:
http://www.angelfire.com/fl/scalisti/languages.html

And the Award Goes to...

I am awarding a prize for the best academic article title I have seen. So far there is one clear winner and it is: The Hollywood Latina Body as Site of Social Sturggle: Media Constructions of Stardom and Jennifer Lopez's "Cross-over Butt"

(not) myheadspace

I just gave myspace a go, about 500 years late and it freaked me out man! After first struggling to get the right profile (ie not some 21 year old chick in America who has stupid things to say about alcohol that she obviously thinks are really clever and profound) I realised that it is a mindfield of time wasting rambling and roaming. I would be tempted to start at one point, click on one of their friends, and keep clicking on the next person's to see if I was able to end up where I started. Hours and hours of "fun".
The other scary thing about it is that it is a festering virtual swamp for people who do not express themselves well with the written word ( although I am sure they may very well have talent in other areas). I know that punctuation is, like, so middle aged or, like, whatever but, like, you know: use it! And keep the goddam exclamation points to moments where you are exclaiming, otherwise you end up with things like this "we aint got much goin on at the mo!" which tend to jar. And while I am at it, an exclamation point is not a substitute for a space between words. And "haha" is not necessarily a substitute for an exclamation point - it tends to make you sound less funny, strangely enough. "Lol" is never ok, even if you did.
I think I should stay away from Facebook. I shudder to imagine it, because from what I hear it sounds like myspace except that as a substitute for the music, there is high potential for people you went to school with to contact you. Egad! I didn't move halfway across the country for a reason, I moved for about 500 hundred reasons, and most of those reasons are people I met while we were all forced to wear rust and yellow clothes with clarke's shoes.

I'm Not That Innocent

My attention was caught earlier this morning by an article on the Spears vs Federline case (that makes it sound so serious...). Basically, it listed a bit of vile behaviour from each side, then ended with the good old "who should get custody of the children? Leave your comments below …"
- To digress for a moment, I really hate these news polls - they are pointless. Then they waste another 30 seconds of your time telling you the result. Morning television is particularly bad at this. Whay do I care if 70% of people think so-and so is guilty/should run the country/wastes too much water in the shower???
Back to Brits and Kevo...
There are two comments that have been left and while I share the sentiment with both Amy from Queensland and Carol from North Queensland that neither Kev nor Brits are fit parents, Carol cannot hide what (I an 73% of readers feel) is essentially an unsound mind with her proposed solution to the custody battle:
as much as i love brit and dispise kevin.. i think both kids need custody for even 6 months by someone completely unrelated as neither parents r stable and in a fit state to raise these kids. After 6 months of not having her kids hopefully brit will get in control of her life an treat these kids like kids and not toys.

And under the article are related links including "Britney's shocking sex snaps" I realise now that that "sex snaps" is a noun, rather than "snaps" being a verb, but it did cause me a moment of idle amusement. Think about it. I'm not sure how a shocking sex can snap - maybe it was very cold? or even exactly what it would look like, snapped or whole...

Men Are Like Undies

This post has been co-authored with LG Life's Good (is basically an email convo we had with one another this morning)

Men are like Undies.
The small and very pretty ones (eg Anthony Callea) are quite useless.

the older ones are sometimes the ugliest but perhaps the best for
rainy days

If you don't wash them they will start to smell

if you get the wrong type for you they're a pain in the arse

men are like boxer shorts- a good idea in theory, but perhaps not terrible
useful

and finally, men are like undies: not much good if you are legless

Happy/Funny/Sad/Thoughtful

Happy/Funny
I poured myself a coffee a little while ago and tasted it black to check if it was strong enough. I thought to myself "actually, this is really quite nice. I think I will drink it black today". Two sips later and back in my bedroom, I realised that I don't like black coffee*

In other news, I braved torrential rain to buy a carton of milk, and came back completely soaked, apart from two dry patches on the back of my legs that my bottom had conveniently sheltered. Not happy Jan. I have a big bottom, and a pair of wet jeans.

I have nothing else to say really, since I have done nothing all day apart form move paragraphs around and italicise a few things. Oh, I checked out the wikipedia entry on musicals, and it was very bad so I feel much better about bagging wiki to people.

* should I be calling it African American coffee? A Zimbabwian aquaintace of mine told me how SHOCKED he was when he arrived in Australia and heard people shouting things like "short black" across crowded, bustling cafeterias...

Sad/Thoughtful
Reading an email from Sbleby who really is in Outer Mongolia (well maybe she is in Inner Mongolia, but it is still... MONGOLIA!!! for goodness sakes) made me very thoughhtful about physical presence. It was so lovely to read a message from her to me, but it also made me sad because we are not in the same room. It's funny how feeling physically close to someone becomes so important. Email and stuff is really lovely and handy but getting a letter/email/text/phone call is simply not the same, even if you might talk to your friend down the pub and never touch them, it's still better because you are in one another's presence.
And really, I think maybe Walter Benjamin could possibly have been a bit too pleased with himself and while making an interesting point, actually missing the main part of it. Ok, so a copy is not the same as the original but really it is such a minor detail (the way he sees it). I would rather listen to pirated music while sitting next to my friend on a couch than listen to live music while talking to someone on the phone. Who wouldn't?

Housewife Reds

"You know those days when you get the mean reds?"
Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's talks about the mean reads being much worse then the blues, and while I think that's a little melodramatic for my situation I thought I'd put it in because I didn't want to use the same title twice, but I do want to talk about my problem that has no name/housewife blues... in reference to an earlier post, I just want to say that I washed a LOT of dishes yesterday, and did not feel particularly fulfilled or womanly.

However, something that did make me feel thus was making an omlette for breakfast using fresh rosemary and chives from the window sill.

Another postscript - the voting forms got filled out. It seems one boy responds to nagging, and the other to peer pressure.

A Post To Amuse My Sister

I really hate to disappoint people, and since I mentioned to a certain someone that I have to work very hard and have no time to play this week, I feel like I should make up for it by posting something vaguely entertaining to amuse her for a minute or two at work...
so I would like to pass comment on an ad- oh excuse me -an invitation I received on an email list the othr day for something called Theology on Tap:

Theology on Tap is a speaker series for university students and young adults (18-30). It's a casual and relaxed forum where friends from all walks of life gather for *straight talk, hard facts and real answers*...
Now, aside from the fact that unless I am being paid, I generally try to stay as far away from most 18 year olds as possible, this sounds suspiciouly like an invitation to a swingers event. Let's break it down:
"young adults" - emphasis on being of legal age, but not too old and unattractively wrinkly.
"casual and relaxed" - birthday suit is fine in fact
"all walks of life" - We are very ... uh ... open minded
"straight talk" - none of that gay stuff. Even though there will be more than one naked man, they will only touch the naked women, not each other.
"hard facts" - hmmm

Wo-Man

I recently had a conversation where the subject of Kyle "Toasterhead" Sandilands surfaced (sort of the way poo floats I guess), and it was suggested that his cockiness is due to the fact that he knows he is the best looking male judge on Idol. A quick ponder confirmed that he doesn't have particularly stiff competition* but I actually think that Marcia - despite being a beautiful woman - is, in fact, someone who would make a better looking man than Toasterhead.

*The other hotly contested competition between judges is which one is the most painful and irritating personality. I think that is possibly a 4-way tie

The blog entry that has no name

Two things:
1. Name Withheld and Name Forgotten are going on a date tonight. How cute!
2. An academic just trying to be accurate, but ending up sounding very old and un-cool - "In the video for Canned Heat (1999)... he pulses in a knock-kneed stance and executes nifty footwork and snaky gesticulations to match the funky soundtrack" (Dodds, 2001: 51). Again - how cute!

fo' shizzle my nizzle

Here is the best definition and etymology of this phrase that I have managed to find:
"fo shizzle ma nizzle" is a bastardization of "fo' sheezy mah neezy" which is a bastardization of "for sure mah nigga" which is a bastdardization of "I concur with you whole heartedly my African American brother"

And a note on the housewife blues- - I darned a sock today.


...and while I am on this whole housewife thing, I wonder if "The Genre That Has No Name" is a good thesis title...

Housewife Blues

Now that I get to study full time, I am beginning to suffer ever so slightly from what Betty Friedan termed "The problem that has no name"* Ok, so she was talking about housewives who have nothing to do but cook and claen all day, and I do have that teeny little added extra that is called a thesis# but in many ways my life is beginning to resemble the lives of those 1950s American houswives in 'The Feminine Mystique"^. Here's what I mean: I am stuck in the house all day long. On Wednesday, I couldn't get motivated (a key issue noted in the book) so I went up the road for a coffee. Now, admittedly, the coffee was pretty cool - it came in a BOWL and it was HUGE and DELICIOUS but the fact remains that it was 3 days ago, and I am still obsessing about it as one of the most exciting things to have happened to me all week! The other worrying concern is that I am turning distinctly motherly. This might simply be the strange effect of having two (somewhat laddish) male housemates but this morning I put their Enrol to Vote forms on the kitchen table with a note "Hi Kids. I am posting this tonight so please complete. Mum". Is this the kiss of death for my sanity? Stay tuned to find out if the boys' forms get completed, and if I achieve a sense of fulfillment after washing the dishes.


*Actually, just by being able to intellectualise it, I feel a mite better. Maybe it's all about naming the problem... she could have given it a proper name though, instead of this cop out - imagine an explorer discovering a new type of plant, and calling it "the plant that has no name". Similarly: "the gene that is possibly linked to breast cancer and definately linked to memory loss in people over the age of 65 that has no name"

#basically a non-electronic blog that goes for 5 or so years

^Now THAT is a great title. She obviously had a brilliant editor, or we would have been stuck with "The Book That Has No Name"

The House Party

It's amazing how much fun posting a blog seems when there is a deadline looming. But we had a party on the weekend and I feel the need to debrief. Certain events are definately worthy of mention.
First, perseverance points need to be handed out to a few chaps.
1. Simon is determined (I think) to lose the moniker "One Wash Simon" because every time he visits our apartment, he puts a bowl on his head and parades around. I think he wants to be known as "Simon Who Wears a Bowl On His Head" but that's not quite as catchy. Anyway, he did it again the other day. He is fond of the purple bowl.
2. The English guy who attempted to crack onto 4 separate women, one after the other. He finally got someone interested (a fellow Brit, so they must have bonded over Coronation Street or something) so well done. Bonus points.
3.Every second male at this party was called Nathan, so I'll refer to this one as Nathan #3 (why not...). His points are for being so boring that he was able to turn interesting things boring. He is an ex-champion of the weirdest sport ever (some kind of rowing in ancient boats) but he made that sound boring. He talked about the snooze function on his alarm clock for 5 minutes. Now that is perseverance.

A few other details in a nutshell: a kitten was brought up to visit from another apartment, the meatballs didn't get burnt, snaps to Nicola who wore her nightie as a dress, and shout out to the young lady (name withheld) who is now dating the guy she hooked up with, even though she couldn't initially remember his name!!

Faux pas quotes:
"You have great childbearing hips"
"I can't stand thespians who smoke. What do you do?" ... "I'm an actor. And I'm going outside for a cigarette"

And finally, for those of you who suffered the following day, the ingredients of the punch are as follows:
Champagne
Apricot juice
Fruit
Sugar Syrup
Triple Sec (stolen from Eve's cocktail party)
Vodka
Tequila

Thankyou and goodnight

Center Stage or Save The Last Dance?

I met someone the other day who told me these films are called "Dancicals" ... but whatever they are called, people seem to love them. I love Center Stage, and am not sot so fond of Save The Last Dance but barside chatter has lead me to believe this is a contentious issue. Some say CS is total sugary crap but I actually think that as a movie it's really well put together, plus I love that final scene of dancing. SLD irritataes me because Julia Stiles can't dance, but I am open to being convinced otherwise...
Apart from these two movies, there are heaps of others like Strictly Ballroom.
I may have a bit more of a rant on this later but I had a big night last night - (I stole a fork, a chip and an olive from a restaurant in Petersham...) and need to get down to some work.

Bog Blog

I have taken the suggestion for the title of this blog from a random character who is currently camped out in our corridor. His name is Murgatroyd, and he works for Westfield, driving prize cars for those lottery things through the shopping centres. Anyway, he observed that after my fake grass/poo entry, it was "time for another bog blog". I found I couldn't agree more. So I should actually talk bog now... would it be wrong to use this as a segue to the bookshop? ... nobody resigned today so it was not too bad. I think if I worked in a place like that full time, my brain would turn to mush. After a mere day this week, I already feel like I have no interesting thoughts, and nothing interesting to say.
Maybe I should stick to quoting "Age of Love"...

Sorry Felix

I wish i could be witty and cheerful and fun but unfortunately right now I hate my thesis i hate the department I hate the university and I hate the way eating things like croissants and eclairs and ham and mustard sandwiches makes me sick. Things in Felix land are not good at all. Plus I did a day at the bookshop this week - horror of all horrors; it is worse than I remembered. I thought one day a week would be ok but it drove me to drink. All I had was sherry, which I drank in wine sized serves. Admittedly, someone resigned a few hours into my shift, which doesn't happen every day but I am not sure I can take listening to the crap that goes along with ... well everything in that place.
Await with baited breath to find out if Felix will continue to live...

Waiting For Godot...in Lane Cove

I was having a very pleasant lunch in Lane Cove the other day, sitting on a bench minding my own business when a family togetherness excursion/let grandpa out of the nursing home for an hour or so pity drive descended, and decided to sit next to me. I didn't look too closely but I think it was mum, grandpa and adult child. The entire conversation (such that it was) was carried out between the two women so either gramps had given up talking when he lost his final tooth, or he knew from experience that participation in the conversation was pointless, because it was soooo inane.
My favourite bit was when the topic moved to fake grass (we were sitting near some). It went something like this:
Adult child: you'd think the birds would poo on the fake grass, wouldn't you? but they don't!
Mum:mmm
AC: Apparently fake grass is all the rage with retirees at the moment. They fill their ENTIRE homes with it, and then they don't have to mow it or anything.
M: Really?
AC: And it's always green...
M: Well, i suppose with the water restrictions these days it's a good idea.
AC: A lady at my work has it and she says its great. her dog poos on it, and she just cleans it right up.

At this point I got up and pooed on the fake grass.

Barthes: That French dude We Love to Hate

Ok, for those of you who are not familiar with him, Barthes was one of those dense abstract "intellos". Sometimes when I read his stuff I feel like my brain has had a real work out and it's a great achievement when I finally understand what he is getting at. At other times I think it is complete and utter merde.* But I just picked up a book this morning "The Language of Fashion" and what I read made complete sense, AND it was quite interesting. Here is the thread of it:
"For centuries there were as many clothing items as there were social classes. Each social condition had its garment and there was no embarrassment in making an outfit into a veritable sign, sinced the gap
between the classes was itself considered to be natural." (65)
"We know that in the aftermath of the French Revolution men's clothing changed drastically, not only in its form... but also in its spirit: the idea of democracy produced a form of clothing which was, in theory, uniform, no longer subject to the stated requirements of appearances but to those of work and equality." (65)
"So clothing had to cheat, as it were, the theoretical uniformity that the Revolution and Empire had bequeathed it; and within a universal type of clothing, there was now a need to maintain a certain number of formal differences which could exhibit the difference between social classes.
It is here that we see the appearance of a new aesthetic category in clothing... the detail. Since it was no longer possible to change the basic type of clothing for men without affecting the democratic and work ethos, it was the detail...which started to play the distinguishing role in clothing...to highlight the narrowest of social differences." (66)

So the reason I started thinking about all this was that my friend Peta was telling me about a 3 hour meeting held by her colleages to decide what they should wear during a meeting with their chairman on a casual Friday. It's intersting to ponder how important people perceive clothing to be, and what kinds of messages it might be sending that we may or may not be aware of.

In conclusion, I can't break the habit of referencing, so Barthes,Roland "The Language of Fashion", Power, Sydney: 2006

oh, a PS from SP - pronounciation guide... this blog seems to be fixated on Simpsons, and the way to pronounce 'Barthes" is like another famous Simpson; Bart.

*Before a moderator or killjoy typre attempts to remove this word, I would like to point out that in French, it is used the way "break a leg" is used in English. Additionally, and completely aside from that, because it is French it is therefore cultural and thus by definition not rude, crude or insulting in any way.

Makeup Doesn't Talk Back

Well the quote for the day is from America's Next Top Model; "Makeup doesn't talk back". Who said models were stupid?
My other favourite quote came from my favourite part of today - reading a book during breakfast before facing the day. However, in the light of that recent model's gem it just doesn't seem funny any more. But what the hey, I'll talk it up a bit. The book is called "Hello, i'm Special; How Individuality Became The New Conformity" which I picked up on my recent trip to the City Lights bookshop in San Fran (can I just say, you can never have enough hats books or shoes) and the quote, refering to amature internet based wrestling competitions (believe it or not, it makes sense in context) is: "all willing to put life and limb on the line and online"(Niedzviecki, 2006: 7)
But pop culture crap has just won again in the eternal competition for my attention and affection. We are now watching Age of Love with The Poo and that is filling my world right now. Obviously this is the quotes blog, so here are my faves from the young chickies vying for the attention of Australia's greatest export (after Bindi Irwin)
"i have great thoughts" and
"Maybe I am super young and super naive but in my mind i don't know that!"

I weep for the future.

What fresh hell is this?

As Mr O'Neil (Daria's English teacher) says "sometimes boundaries can paradoxically bring us freedom", so I would like to invite fellow time-wasters out there to suggest future topics for FelixforZosia to write about. (ie you will provide the boundaries which will result in my creative/artistic/pointless freedom). In the spirit of this quote, I will start by providing some boundaries of my own; perhaps someone(s) would like to provide opinion(s) on whether or not any of the following may make interesting reading:
1. Why I love lists
2. An open debate on: Which film is better: Center Stage or Save The Last Dance?
3. Words that sound similar but are etymologically unrelated, like 'ginger' and 'gingerly'
4. Whether it is possible to plagiarise a physical movement
5. Hell. Is it blogging, knitting, or other people?

I look forward to your comments

Looking For Pics of Naked Simpson Sisters?

To those of you who are interested, we have experienced some technical difficulties while attempting to post naked photos of Hilton and Simpson sisters. In roughly chronological order, they are as follows:
1. Photos of Maggie and Lisa were rejected by the committe as apparently they are not the right Simpson sisters.
2. Although known in certain circles for my fabulous way with technology in general and the world wide interweb in particular, when I sticky-taped the pictures to my screen, they would not upload. must be something to do with the tower- we have terrible mobile phone reception here you know.
3. Technical difficulties #1 and #2 are fictional. There are no photos.
4. I was busy working on my thesis

Who are Felix and Zosia?

Felix is my thesis and Zosia is my alter ego, alto ergo....
Basically, this blog is a chance for me to procrastinate. So obviously, whenever there are long and detailed posts, anyone who cares to read them (or perhaps just look at all those words for a second before turning to read the latest on a Hilton or Simpson sister) will know that I am not getting very much work done.
I'm trying to keep this first one brief so that I maintain at least a thin veil of scholarly integritity.