it’s not like i am not having success … on the contrary, i have lost 10 kgs in 3 months …

but i’m fairly overweight, so i still have so much more to lose to be not overweight anymore.

and losing weight is hard.

i know this is the price i pay for not looking after myself in the first place - that if i’d showed some restraint previously, i would not have to forgo so much right now - but that doesn’t make it easier to remember why i’m doing this, when it feels like i’m constantly digging a hole in dry sand.

dieting is hard. it’s nigh impossible when you’re not seeing results, but it’s still hard even when you are when you’ve got this much ground to cover.

i’ve completely changed what i’m eating and i’ve lost 10 kilos and that’s fantastic and i’m proud and pleased and all … but at the end of the day, i’m still fat.

and i don’t want to be fat.

i guess it’s a patience and a persistence thing. *sigh* i mean, i’m not saying i’m gonna give up. just that i don’t like it.

and when people congratulate me on losing weight, i feel bad coz i wish they were congratulating me because i’d lost more. and then i feel bad that i feel bad, and my god, that’s a cycle that just never ends.

* title from ‘i don’t need the city’ by neuroticfish *

i wish i could bring myself to burn it, or even just throw it out, but i can’t. it’s like if i get rid of it, maybe i won’t remember what you did, and maybe i’ll let you in to do it all over again. maybe i won’t remember to learn my lesson.

seriously, i want to slap you so hard for everything you said in that letter. for all that sanctimonious fuckery, all the goddamn heart-wrenching delibrately evocative bullshit you used to get us on side so you could insinuate your way back in (which you must be aware of by this point, insinuated me right the fuck out).

i shouldn’t have believed you, i should never have trusted you a second time. i should’ve learnt my lesson years before.

god, why am i so angry at you? is it unreasonable? is it because i see reflected in you every single regret i have from that part of my life?

or is it just because you’re a bitch?

you hurt me so much. more than any of the others. you appealed to the broken part of me and i took you in, and then later when i needed your welcome, your open arms, you turned your fucking back on me and you walked away.

and for that, i cannot forgive you.

and all it does is eat me up inside.

all i can do is bury this shit deep down, and hope like hell it’s a lifetime before i see you again. because i don’t want to feel like this. i don’t want to ache, i don’t want to remember.

i don’t want to remember struggling with feeling worthless just because you attached no worth to me. i don’t want to remember your derisive voice detailing what was wrong with me over and over.

you’re not even a part of my life anymore. how do you keep popping back up when i least expect it? why do i even care? why won’t you get the fuck out of my brain?

i object to the idea that society allocates a day where people are told they should be entirely focused on love. do not tell me when and how i should express my love for someone. it’s inappropriate and entirely unwelcome.

other reasons why i don’t like it:

it makes lonely and unhappy people even more lonely and unhappy, whether they’re single or in a relationship.

it encourages people to put unrealistic expectations on their partners - particularly women towards men - expectations like romantic declarations of love from atop tables in the middle of crowded food halls, or presents like gigantic bouquets of red roses, fancy chocolates, and oversized stuffed teddybears that cost some people most of their paycheque.

it makes it hard for people who are born around this date to celebrate their birthday with their friends and family.

it gives people an excuse to treat their partners like shit for the rest of the year as long as they do something “romantic” today.

it gives florists an excuse to cover the goddamn pavement out the front of their shop with rose petals.

it means the supermarkets are even more overflowing with chocolate in bright, attractive packaging.

that is all. :)

so i just cut about 2-3 inches off it.

it feels better, and i think it looks better too. hopefully, it doesn’t look stupid to everyone else :p

i find it interesting that i can’t let my hair grow beyond a certain length without going a bit mental about it, while my husband’s hair is almost long enough for him to sit on and it doesn’t bother him. it is different though; he always wears it in a ponytail and i like to have mine out as much as possible. plus he’s got fairly thick hair, and i’ve got fairly fine hair, so it doesn’t hold styles very well, particularly when it’s longer, so it just all looks limp and flys all over the place. and i’m too vain not to do anything about it :)

… i wonder if his hair is so much nicer because he hasn’t spent the last 20 years constantly trying to style it.

* blog title from Ken Bruce gone mad by TISM *

–

List 10 musical artists (or bands) you like, in no specific order. Do this before reading the questions below. Really, don’t read the questions below until you pick your ten artists.

1. Nine Inch Nails
2. Apoptygma Berzerk
3. Fokofpolisiekar
4. Placebo
5. Carter USM
6. Neuroticfish
7. Pet Shop Boys
8. Rammstein
9. Korn
10. Bush

What was the first song you ever heard by 6?
I don’t remember! It was one of four - either Close, Prostitute, Waste or Reinvent the Pain.

What is your favorite song of 8?
Ohne Dich - it’s beautiful musically, and the lyrics are awesome.

What kind of impact has 1 left on your life?
A huge one. I’ve got a separate blog post about that already actually.

What is your favorite lyric of 5?
Hmm, Carter lyrics - I love Carter lyrics. Here are some of my faves:

Now in the chapel there’s a preacher
With a porno star’s moustache
He’s gonna send my soul to Jesus
With a song by Johnny Cash

It’s not that I’m agrophobic, it’s just that it’s not safe to go out anymore so I just stay indoors with my T.V. Times, my petty crimes and my nursery rhymes. Someone said that the sound of a baby crying is the most beautiful sound in the world and beauty is in the eye of the beholder but as my heart grows colder and colder I just feel so tired. The fridge is empty, the walls are damp, there’s no hot water and I look like a tramp and tramps like us baby we were born to walk but where does a mother’s girl go when her mother’s gone? Some you win and some you lose. I’ve spent my whole lifetime falling on a bruise and if I had the chance to do it all again, I’d change everything.

I don’t want to stagger into mental health
Following a shadow of my former self
If only I believed that I could break away ..
But I know I’ll never leave and so I guess I’ll stay

Because you’re too beautiful
Gunpowder is louder that’s all
Beautiful, that’s what the fireworks are for
Yes, you’re beautiful, you’re so beautiful
Too beautiful for such an ugly world

Death and disaster only make me love you more
The morning after the night that went before
When the brains of Brixton with conflicting points of views
Are outside The Ritzy on the local TV news
A love song might not be suitable
But you look beautiful tonight
And if you feel the same way as I feel
Everything will be alright
–

How many times have you seen 4 live?
Once! A couple of years ago. Was awesome :)

What is your favorite song by 7?
Always on my mind. I love the original too (Elvis wrote it about Priscilla when she left him - that shit just breaks my heart) but the Boys just do it so well, I love the cover even more.

Is there any song by 3 that makes you sad?
Hmm. Well, their lyrics are in Afrikaans, and I haven’t read translations yet. But the music does sound a little pensive.

What is your favorite song by 9?
Hmm. A tough one. I only really like their first 3 albums, so that helps narrow it down, I guess. I was 14 - 19 when I was really into Korn, and everything’s hyper important when you’re that age, and most of my group was into Korn as well, and my brother is still a huge fan, so of course, there are heaps of songs that have lots of meaning to me. But if I have to pick the one I like listening to the most (which doesn’t have any meaning at all besides being super fun) … that would be Wicked :)

When did you first get into 2?
We downloaded a version of Kathy’s Song that was mixed by VNV Nation (who we were already into). It was awesome, so we investigated Apop more.

How did you get into 3?
Oh dear. Well, Boing Boing did an article on Die Antwoord, this crazy rap techno Afrikaans group, and we got intrigued by them, so we started looking up stuff about them, trying to figure out if they were for real or not (they’re really really odd) and Fokofpolisiekar are from the same suburb as them, and had done a song with them, and we checked them out and totally fell in love with them. Like, last week.

What is your favorite song by 4?
I don’t have one fave, I have heaps! I can’t choose :) Most of the Meds album, specifically Meds, Infra-red, Drag, Space monkey, Because I Want You, Blind, Pierrot the Clown and One of a Kind, and I also love the Bitter End, Taste in Men, Spite + Malice (has Justin Warfield from She Wants Revenge guesting!) , and English Summer Rain.

How many times have you seen 9 live?
Once, I think. At a BDO.

What is a good memory concerning 2?
They were playing in Newtown around the time of my birthday, and my husband bought us tickets to go see them as a present. One of my friends was working on the bar that night, so I got to catch up with him, and he gave me a little stuffed bear dressed up as Zorro? as a present. And it was an awesome gig. :)

Is there a song by 8 that makes you sad?
Yep, a few. Off the top of my head, Mutter, Dalai Lama, Ohne Dich, and Klavier.

What is your favorite song by 1?
It’s so hard to choose just one. Reptile and The Perfect Drug are my top faves. I also particularly love March of the Pigs, Gave Up, Something I Can Never Have, Kinda I Want To, The Only Time, and the Becoming.

How did you become a fan of 10?
I used to tape Rage a lot. Sometimes I would set the tape to record and just go to sleep, but other nights I would stay up and watch it. I taped … I think it was Metallica or someone hosting Rage, but I set it a bit early so I could crash out. I was watching it later with my friend, and the video clip to Comedown came on. I was fast forwarding through it, but my friend got me to stop because she’d heard them before and she thought they were pretty good. I agreed. Then I heard Glycerine on the radio, and I was smitten. I was about 15. and I wanted to marry Gavin Rossdale. :p

* song title from Ohne Dich by Rammstein *

Hereth begins a song meme.

–

IF SOMEONE SAYS ‘ARE YOU OKAY’ YOU SAY [I AM]?
is there no-one that can save us from today? [snog]

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF?
i never chose you. [neuroticfish]

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
love comes quickly [pet shop boys]

HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
the yuppie shall inherit the earth [snog]

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE?
go down [the bloodhound gang]

WHAT’S YOUR MOTTO?
new whirl odor [public enemy]

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
planet caravan [black sabbath]

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
purest feeling [nine inch nails]

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
let it be captured [danzig]

WHAT IS 2 + 2?
25 ghosts III [nine inch nails]

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
leon takes us outside [david bowie]

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
woman shoots john [consolidated]

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
MKLVFWR [public enemy]

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
head like a hole [nine inch nails]

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
strictly for the tardcore [the bloodhound gang]

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
die for jehovah [birmingham 6]

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
lady madonna [the beatles]

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FEAR?
99 luftballons [nena]

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
40 miles from the sun [bush]

WHAT DO YOU WANT RIGHT NOW?
prioritiseer [fokofpolisiekar]

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
legend in my spare time [the bloodhound gang]

WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
what will become [fear factory]

–

RULES:
1. Put your iTunes, Windows Media Player, Songbird, etc. on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. You must write that song name down, no matter how silly it sounds.
4. Tag AT LEAST 10 friends (including me so I can see your results).
Blogs > Social networks
5. Everyone tagged has to do the same thing.
Do what you want, I’m no fascist. :)
6. Have Fun!

* blog title from MKLVFWR by Public Enemy *

me: “I’m a ruminant? I’m a ruminant! I’m like a cow!”

my psychologist: “Yes, exactly. Or a goat … “

…

there is no flag that is large enough
to hide the shame of a man in cuffs
you switched your signs then you closed the blinds
you changed the channels and you changed our minds

this is a common thing. i always forget about it, and am taken by surprise when it happens, but then i remember “oh yes … tomorrow’s a “special day” of some sort”. tomorrow i go back to work.

when i was young, i could never sleep the night before school went back. and even now, any night beforethe day  i am returning to work, i find myself completely unable to power down.

i suspect it is a mixture of trepidation and an out-of-sorts sleeping pattern. the sleeping i should know better by now (but i am a complete idiot), and the trepidation just makes no sense, but here we are. strange days, me not making sense, after all.

and because i worry about not being able to go to sleep, that exacerbates the situation, of course.

*sigh*

i prefer not to think of it as a NY resolution per se, just coincidental and convenient timing.

i drank too much at the family gathering for Christmas- resulted in much crying (me) and screaming over the coffee table (my brother and me) about things we can’t change.

i drank too much on NYE - most of the evening’s gone, and bits i do remember i either wish i didn’t, or they’re so vague it’s like they happened to someone else. being violently ill, yep, that’s one of the former.

my mum asked me surely at 29, i’m a bit old for binge drinking? and i thought it strange, because most people i know binge drink. it’s a cultural thing.

and i don’t imagine it will feel awesome when i’m in one of those situations where i always relied on drinking to get through in the past. but nevertheless, i gave up chocolate - i can give up alcohol.

and i got really into some bands / songs that we’ve had for ages, but i’d just never taken the time to really listen to

and i went to see NIN in concert in March which meant i listened to NIN way more than usual

and Patrick Swayze died, so i listened to his song heaps ’cause i’m really lame :)

so my soundtrack for 2009* is as follows:

Pop Will Eat Itself - Wake Up, Time To Die
Chemlab - Force Quit
Grendel - Zombienation (v2k5)
Public Enemy w/ Anthrax - Bring The Noise
Root! - Home?
Chemlab - Codeine, Glue and You
Papa Roach - Blood Brothers
the Dismemberment Plan - I Love a Magician
Grendel - Soilbleed (v3)
NIN - Terrible Lie
Chemlab - Queen of Despair (Ode to the Diode)
Psyclon Nine - INRI
Machines of Loving Grace - Albert Speer
She Wants Revenge - Love to Sleep
Negativland -  Aluminum or Glass : the Memo
David Bowie - Life on Mars?
Skinny Puppy - Worlock (Rhys Fulber remix)
Apoptygma Berzerk - In This Together
Patrick Swayze - She’s Like The Wind
NIN - Reptile

* now with mouseovers over the song names with some of my favourite lyrics and samples!

not awesome:
- the two girls do something so incredibly stupid in the last third of the movie, you almost wish the zombies would EAT them. it was kind of lame.

verdict: awesome

i wouldn’t go and see this at the cinemas again, but i would rent it or buy it on dvd (if it wasn’t too expensive). the violence by and against the zombies was wonderfully gruesome, and the zombies were just done fantastically, and the sorta-cameo made me almost sing with joy. it was lots of fun. definitely worth seeing if you like zombies and if you like laughing.

i’ve always been a tomboy - i spent the first 15 years of my life emulating my older brother in attitude and behaviour. no doubt heavily influenced by this, i’ve always found it easier to relate to guys, and enjoyed hanging around them typically more than girls, something which got a wee bit complicated when i hit around 12, because i went completely boy crazy (and never stopped).

but my mum always wanted a baby girl. and my dad is very old fashioned. between the two of them, i have always been treated like a little princess - delicate, sweet and nice, all things that i’m not - with them always wanting to wrap me in cotton wool and dress me in pink and set me up with a lovely rich gentleman who would take care of me forever and ever. because i’m a girl.

when i was in year 11, some of my male friends played D+D. i didn’t know a lot about D+D or gaming by that point, but i knew i wanted to do it. i wanted to do it sooo badly. but i “wasn’t allowed”. because i was a girl.

my circle of friends is made up predominantly by guys who have been friends for years and their partners. a few years ago, the boys decided they needed a blokes’ day - a day where they could all go out and be guys without women hanging around. and i have to admit, i was really hurt. i tried to be understanding, but i *couldn’t* understand. why wasn’t i welcome? oh, because i’m a girl. the same with bucks parties - not welcome - even though i am often closer to the guys than their partners.

the thing is, as i’m sure most people know about me by now, i dislike being defined by my gender. because i don’t define myself by my gender. much like all the other little details in my life, it’s just one of those things that contributes to who i am in my entirety.

today i have had a startling realisation.

in spending so much of my life trying to stop people defining me as a girl, i’ve gotten sidetracked. it was supposed to be something that’s irrelevant to me, not something that i have an inferiority complex about.

i don’t have much control over the way that people perceive me, i know this, but what i’ve just realised is that there are always going to be some people that see me primarily as a girl regardless of what i do, but that maybe that’s not the horrendous, world ending thing i used to think it was.

and maybe that’s not ALL they see. maybe they do see the sum of my parts, but they just happen to notice the individual things that make up that sum.

it doesn’t mean anyone thinks any less of me just because they see me as female, and even if they do, it doesn’t mean I should think less of myself because of how i think they might feel.

and so what if i don’t get invited out because i’m a girl? i often don’t get invited out somewhere, for a whole variety of other reasons, and i shouldn’t get all angsty about those situations either.

so yeah, what i’ve just realised is that all this time i’ve been feeling downtrodden for being a girl, i’m the guilty one. i’m the one who associated being a girl with being JUST a girl.

isn’t that interesting?

not awesome:
- rape scenes
- wooden acting
- the fading in and out, and the white out effects
- actions taken by the protagonist throughout most of the movie don’t make much sense

verdict: not awesome

it seemed to me like a good story, like the book might be worth a read. it has lots of interesting things to say, like how fundamentally we depend on our sight, and how quickly society could disintegrate given the right conditions. but it fell flat. the wooden acting was unexpected and disappointing (i was particularly disappointed in Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo), the fading in and out, and the white out effects (which were quite obviously employed to emphasise the whole blindness concept) were distracting and disorienting, and the characters are 2 dimensional - possibly delibrately to heighten the isolation feelings - which made me feel really separate from the characters, like they weren’t real people, which i didn’t enjoy. 2 hours of my life i won’t get back.

not awesome:
- it is entirely, ridiculously, and stupidly sad. the ambiance, the kid’s life, the monsters, his relationship with the people around him, his mum’s life, even the colouring of the film - the whole movie is so depressing! i was miserable for the characters from the get go, and come the last 10 minutes, i started crying and couldn’t stop until half way through the credits. and then i sat in the bathroom for another 10 minutes after we left the movie and cried some more. not fun.
- seeing it in a movie theatre with a bunch of teenage girls giggling. (i shushed them. that felt good).

verdict: not awesome.

this movie had some amazing elements, but imo, was masssssively let down by the fact it is depressing as fuck. i’m not going to see this movie at the cinema again, i’m not buying it on dvd. i might watch it again if i was at someone else’s house and they wanted to, but i wouldn’t be happy about it.

my personal viewpoint is that i think gambling is uninteresting and potentially dangerous, and horse-racing is cruel and pointless, but i don’t care if people bet on the Melbourne Cup - it’s just that i’m not interested.

but it’s another one of those fun situations where people start a conversation with me about something, i say i don’t do it / watch it / know it, and they’re so quick to say how they don’t either … “except for this one time”.

it’s exhausting having to deal with everyone else’s insecurities on top of my own.

anyway, so in honour of Gambling Day, i’m posting some lyrics from Crown Tower Blues by Root!

I’ve got the blues, Crown Tower blues
Ain’t got no shirt, ain’t got no shoes
Well these people here, they treat me fine
They bring me beer, they bring me wine
Well I’m going back - to my family
I left them somewhere in carpark level three

Do the stoney brokey, spent the kids’ school fees,
Loan defaulty, kneecap injury,
Foreclosed mortgagey, wife takes the family,
Skid-row society, help police inquiry,
Month in solitary, rim job sodomy,
Chemical dependancy, Brotherhood bin residency
End of the ropey swinging blokey
Hokey pokie, yeah
… that’s what it’s all about

“Well, it’s not like I was really a bridesmaid for you anyway!”

Further down the track, the realisation hits you like a blinding flash of light that how you feel about her might not actually be the same way she feels about you, a fact you always feared but she always denied.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry I was late. My connecting train was late, and then I had to wait ages for a taxi from the train station … ”

“That’s okay! I didn’t even notice you weren’t here until after the ceremony!”

You feel your guts twist into knots as you finally see the signs of a relationship that is slipping through your fingers. You’re convinced you can actually physically feel the love between you fading, and you just stand there stupidly and watch her walk away from you, all the while blowing bubbles from a novelty shaped container that a year and one month later you still can’t bring yourself to throw away.

You start to miss those defenses she helped you break down years ago, the defenses created by abandonment and neglect, and fed by bitterness and a general lack of self esteem.

And you are utterly paralysed by the thought that maybe she’s not unaware that she’s pushing you away …

… and maybe you deserve it.

*

* not mine.

” … It’s like watching Seinfeld. People don’t watch Seinfeld because they like those people - they watch it so they can laugh at those people.”

here’s what i wrote about it just after the fact (that i forgot to publish) :

“it was amazing. i’m so pleased i went. turns out it may be the last tour for a while, too, so i am doubly pleased. i missed Trent when i was grumpy at him for making With Teeth. but I am glad I got over it.  still don’t like With Teeth though. But Ghosts I-IV more than makes up for it.

I think the issue I had really stemmed from the fact that I was just a kid when I started liking NIN. I mean, I had the full obsession thing going on. And so I felt kinda betrayed I guess when Trent made something I didn’t like. I never expected not to like something Trent did.  but now i’m over that. i’m able to see in my (relatively newly developed) maturity that it doesn’t really matter anyway. and Trent can do what he likes, even if it is release music I don’t like. and if I don’t like it, I don’t have to buy it just because i used to be obsessed about collecting all the Halo releases :)

man, I remember at high school, my girlfriends and I all being so defined by the bands we liked, and you couldn’t have the same favourite band at someone else in the group … god, there were so many stupid rules to everything. my favourite band was Red Hot Chili Peppers for a long time, and then NIN from 1995 (i was in year 9) onwards.

you know, i have so many distinct NIN related memories:

- sitting on my school bus listening to Closer for the first time on my girlfriend’s discman and gasping because of how rude it was :)

- when i was about 15, going by myself into the city to go to Utopia to buy Pretty Hate Machine + my NIN shirt (my very favourite long sleeved shirt that’s falling apart)

- bonding over NIN with a guy I had a crush on and later going to his house to watch the Closure video

- a cute petite girlfriend of mine having the most ridiculously long Downward Spiral shirt i have ever seen

- one of my girlfriends gave everyone their own painted wine glass at our year 12 formal, and mine has the NIN logo on it … that was my most defining feature at school, that I was obsessed with NIN :)

- seeing NIN at the Big Day Out in early 2000 and getting to the front of the mosh pit by myself. i started crying when Trent came out on the stage. then i got my arse kicked thoroughly in the mosh pit and had to leave, so i stood at the back of the crowd sobbing to myself for almost the whole set.

(which, while very lame, is not unusual for that time in my life. when i saw the Phantom Menace at the cinema, I started bawling the second the Star Wars logo came up, because I was so overwhelmed - i just never imagined I’d get to see a movie from one of my favourite series’ at the movies)

And now I have this concert to add to my list of memories. Things like

- sharing the experience with good friends

- standing in line to buy shirts (this was a first for me)

- enduring the experience of buying overpriced water and vodka in plastic cups (something i haven’t done for a fairly long time)

- going absolutely mental to March of the Pigs (woohoo!!! \m/)

- sitting for 45 mins in the Hordern with only the emergency lighting on, no air conditioning or anything, because NIN rocked so hard there was a blackout (both sitting down at the Hordern, and enduring a blackout there are firsts for me as well)

- having a truly delicious meal beforehand at a restaurant i’d never been to before

- experiencing the awesomeness that is the Love Sac.

I was very very pleased they played March of the Pigs, Reptile, Terrible Lie, Something I Can Never Have, Gave Up and Wish. I was not expecting the Perfect Drug or Into The Void but it would’ve been nice :) I don’t remember what else they played. Oh, Survivalism, 1 000 000, The Hand That Feeds and Discipline. and some other stuff.

[sigh] It was nice being in the same room with him again, if only just for a few hours. :)”

[/fangirl]

i’ve gotten over the Trent obsession since then. partly due to all his carry-on recently in Twitter, and partly because that’s just what I do. however, I would definitely love to see NIN in concert again, if they ever tour again. it was a great night :)

some really awesome photos + a bit of info about a “ghost town” in America.

most of it is not terribly interesting, but this one got my attention.

the best thing about using an RSS reader is how it keeps track for me if there are new posts. I hate having to go to individual websites constantly, with no guarantee that there’s anything to read. an RSS reader means I don’t have to. hooray!

[/ad for RSS readers]

so anyway, here are links of some of the stuff i read.

news / info / opinions / celebrities

tyler durden
boing boing

cute / weird / funny

i can has cheezburger?
emails from crazy people
fuck you, penguin
it made my day
failblog
no first date
bits n pieces
probably bad news
this is photobomb
postsecret
item not as described

webcomics

questionable content
something positive
cyanide and happiness
ctrl-alt-del
garfield minus garfield
xkcd

anyone got any suggestions of other websites i might like? i’m always looking for moar internet. :)

right now, i am completely overwhelmingly obsessed with Jared Padalecki.

he’s so cute! i mean, look at those dimples! and that floppy hair. [swoon]

i know i’m lame. and i know in a couple of months, i’m probably going to have moved on to another gorgeous celebrity, but right now i just had to share with everyone how much i am fangirling over Jared. :D

and it doesn’t help how he fawns over his adorable Supernatural co-star, Jensen Ackles, in public. two gorgeous men, falling all over each other? it’s the stuff dreams are made of.

and he’s like 6′5. and has massive hands. and he’s a cowboy Texan. and if you believe what people say about him, and how he seems in interviews, he’s unbelievably sweet and nice and funny.  [more swooning]

i am such a goddamn fangirl :)

i can has?

but working up the motivation to go for a walk is hard. not because i don’t enjoy it - because 9 times out of 10 i really do - but because there’s always something *fun* i could be doing, like playing computer games, or catching up on the websites i read, or watching a movie - something that doesn’t require moving. and while i enjoy going for a walk, i wouldn’t necessarily describe it as fun.

plus - and i can admit it - i am a Lazy Person.

something else i’ve always had trouble with is, for me, walking has always been about _getting somewhere_. never before in my life have i been interested in walking “just because” - it’s only the last couple of years that i have started doing this, and i think it’s got a bit to do with the fact that before moving to our current apartment building, i had to walk further / more often to get around, so i didn’t have to motivate myself especially to get a particular result.

so sometimes i still have to convince myself it is worth it and i will enjoy it, and not to listen to the very old voice inside my head that says it’s a waste of time.

but the best thing about geting out and going for walks is that i listen to my ipod. i hate walking anywhere by myself without listening to my music. it’s so boring.

for me, the best songs to listen to when going for a walk are ones that are musically upbeat / kinda fast, something that you can sort of walk in time with and be really moving. and it has to be something i can lose myself in, otherwise i start looking around and losing myself in random thoughts, like “i wonder how many people live there” and “i wonder if they have any dogs, or cats, or … oh is that a rabbit hutch? “. that is really distracting and then i start dawdling, which is no good for anything.

some of the songs i listen to, when walking:

In This Together - Apoptygma Berzerk
Shimmer - Fuel
Slide - Goo Goo Dolls
Like You Madly - Just Jinger
Breaking the Habit - Linkin Park
Bring The Noise - Public Enemy w/ Anthrax
Infest - Papa Roach
Timekiller - Project Pitchfork

title from Cesspools in Eden by Dead Kennedys

my day? my day had been awesome so far. then you came in, acted like a fuckwit at me, and now i have to work on getting past it. thanks a fucking bunch, dickhead.

title from Crime Pays by Fr/action

but she never tells me that she’s sorry.

women all around the world are going to be saying to each other “Nobody puts Baby in a corner” and weeping.

Dirty Dancing was one of my favourite movies growing up, and She’s Like the Wind is one of my favourite (omg, shameful) songs. *sigh*

… it must be grief that made me admit that.

I often quote movie lines in conversation. Sometimes they might even be related to what I’m talking about.

The anniversary of my first date with my husband is more relevant to me than our wedding anniversary.

I usually like a band more after seeing their video clips, and less after seeing them live (there are exceptions to the rule). I think it’s because I’m still a teenybopper fangirl.

I got a distinction in a ’science competition’ exam in year 10 which remains (kind of depressingly) one of my proudest moments.

I won a poster competition in year 6 - the mayor of my city gave me a David Attenborough book set as my award. I have never read it but I can’t throw it away.

When I was 14, I had to write a report about who my hero was. I chose my mum.

Several years ago, I had to take my labret out (which I had for about a year) cos it was damaging my gums. I miss it most of the time. I really loved that piercing. Sometimes I still find myself tonguing the inside of my mouth where it used to be.

I love meeting celebrities who I’m a fan of. Last year I met someone who I’d wanted to meet for a really long time. It was one of my favourite evenings ever.

I have really long feet - size 12-13 - and my feet haven’t grown since I was about 14 years old.

When I’m not wearing glasses or contact lenses, my focal point is less than 3 inches in front of my nose.

I love being in water.

I hate spontaneity, and I’m no good at it. I try to organise everything in my life. But I’m not very good at organising things.

The first crush I ever had was on my 2nd grade teacher, Mr Popovski. I don’t remember what he looked like.

I’ve been to see the Australian Ballet peform maybe 50 times. I’ve met a couple of my favourite dancers and gotten autographs. I think I could almost walk the entire way from Circular Quay train station to the Opera Theatre blindfolded. I’ve studied the diagram of the car parking lot half a dozen times, just for interest. But I couldn’t tell you where the Studio or the Playhouse are.

I cry in movies more often than I don’t. It is not uncommon for me to sob hysterically in the middle of a movie theatre or friend’s lounge room. It’s usually because of someone in the movie getting hurt - whether physically and emotionally.

I worked in a shoe store for maybe about 3 months when I was about 18, and I absolutely hated it.

I was working at afore-mentioned shoe store when I found out someone close to me had died.

I’m looking forward to having a whole head of gray hair. It feels empowering, like, maybe people will stop telling me how young I am all the time.

I don’t have as many scars as I think I probably should from being a total klutz.

I have abandonment issues.

I’m a control freak and I don’t like most surprises. I fear feeling powerless.

I’m incredibly insecure, especially about my personality.

My family moved house 3 times after I was born, before settling down for 14 years. Since I was 19, I have moved 6 times. I’m not sure if I want to move again or not.

When I was 20, I had to give away my cat because we moved somewhere where pets weren’t allowed. It remains one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.

I’ve had almost every hobby you can think of and the only things that still have a hold on me are gaming and art.

Facebook helped me realise that just because I am back in contact with a whole bunch of people I used to be close to, it doesn’t mean I can have that closeness with them again. (Although it also doesn’t mean I can’t). This saddens and comforts me somehow.

I used to think it was better to regret something you did than something you didn’t do … until I did a bunch of stuff that, looking back, I really don’t think I should’ve done.

I dream of watery places often - bathhouses, swimming pools, water based amusement parks.

I’m attracted to strong, arrogant men and sweet, gentle women.

I used to think I liked blood. Turns out I don’t. I can’t look at another person’s wound without thinking of it as a piece of meat. I am however fascinated by my own blood and my own wounds.

I constantly make lists because I can’t keep my thoughts organised in my head. My memory is bad and I think too much and I think stuff leaks out of my brain while I sleep.

1) when i was about 4, i sliced my forehead open on a porcelain toilet roll holder that i’d just broken by leaning on it (time and time again). apparently, i was hysterical and there was no calming me, and both my father and brother were in tears by the time they got me to the emergency room at the hospital. if i push on the scar tissue, it still hurts, and i’ve had scans, and no one can tell me why.

2) trying to jump up from a chair to get something off a bookshelf, also at about 4 years of age, i caught my chin on the corner, splitting it open. this scar is really difficult to see.

3) cleaning glass at work, i foolishly reached past the side of it to get to something, and sliced the outside of my right thumb on the bottom knuckle. bled like a crazy thing for hours. i thought i was gonna have to get stitches but i didn’t. yay! i’m still left with the red, crescent shaped scar though.

4) at about 18 or 19, i came home drunk one morning after an all-nighter, and no one else was home. i was hungry so i decided to heat up some canned soup. i couldn’t find the can opener, so i stabbed the can open with a pair of chicken scissors, then attempted to pull back the metal with my fingers. naturally, i sliced my thumb open. (it’s faded though, and i can’t remember which thumb it was anymore).

5) i was using this little metal lifter at work for something completely inappropriate. it pushed through the thing i was using it on, and one end stabbed the wooden table i was working on, while the other slid like a hot knife through butter into the palm of my hand. luckily, it was very thin metal and a smooth shape so the wound wasn’t too terrible, but i was badly bruised for weeks. that scar has also entirely healed, and i can’t recall which hand it was.

1) Xbox 360 - the controllers are comfortable, the game selection is massive and the quality of the games are great. the only thing i am unhappy about is the “new Xbox Live experience” dashboard thing - it’s harder to navigate / find things than it used to be.

2) PC - i love playing MMOs and the Sims and i can’t imagine either of them working on consoles (even though people have tried or have plans to try). also Unreal Tournament is one of my favourite games, and lanning with a bunch of people with PCs all in someone’s house is one of the best and funnest things to do.

3) PS2 - back before the Xbox 360 came and stole my heart, I was a bit of a fan of this platform. tonnes better than the original Playstation, with a remarkable selection in games, and awesome graphics for the time.

4) Nintendo DS - i have a new DS Lite, and it’s very cute. i can browse the internet on it and there’s a pretty good selection of games available for it. however, i have issues still - i have to carry around cartridges for whatever games i wanna play and don’t have the option of “copying” them to the device, and the games are freaking expensive for what they are.

5) PS3 - home to some of my favourite games, i can’t leave the Playstation 3 out. Metal Gear Solid rocks my GD world. and the console itself is really nice looking. however, i find the controllers (the ones without the rumble pack) uncomfortably light - i already had experience with the Xbox 360 by this point, which may have spoiled me - and the selection of games is disappointing. plus there are a number of games which just do not look as good on the PS3 as they do on the Xbox 360, which strikes me as absolutely ridiculous since it came out later and is supposed to be the “next generation of gaming” or some shit.

i have spent a good deal of my life blaming. i am totally a blamer. whether it’s other people, circumstances or myself, i blame everything on something. it’s something i am “working on” changing, but it’s something that i find very difficult to change.

i rationally feel that i shouldn’t blame anything or anyone. i feel i should just accept things are as they are and move on. but i do blame. and i do it constantly.

i blame myself and my family for my emotional issues. the biggest recurring themes are a perceived lack of strength of character, a tendancy towards being a nutcase, and an unwillingness to rise above the victim mentality. but i know feeling like this is unfair of me …  i don’t know what it’s like to have been anyone but me and i barely have a handle on that, so how can i even begin to stand in judgement of others? and yet, my feelings betray what my mind tells me is right, and i get caught up in the associated guilt and emotional whirlwind that creates.

see, i figure it matters cos if i know why i do stuff, maybe i can change the things i don’t like. maybe i can put things away when i am finished with them, or maybe i can force myself to do something productive when all i feel like doing is moping and sooking, and maybe i can stop stuffing myself with food or biting my nails or otherwise mutilating myself to ease the pain i feel inside. but i know it shouldn’t turn into blame because blame gets me nowhere. blaming something other than me makes it “not my fault” and blaming myself just makes me wallow and be miserable, and both end up with me not being productive about my issues.

people always tell me that knowing what my demons are is the first step - apparently, at least i know what the issues are, so i can work towards fixing them. but i can’t help but wonder if some of that old blissful ignorance wouldn’t be better sometimes. maybe if i didn’t know or didn’t suspect or didn’t believe all these crazy things, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

then other times i just think i should’ve been a llama.

2) i identify as a tomboy, but i am completely overwhelmingly paranoid about being too masculine.

3) i’m scared of losing weight because i’ve spent so much of my life hiding behind being a “fat chick”.

4) i don’t think that i will ever drive a car ever again. even driving after my big accident (the one where i could’ve killed myself and one of my friends), i was still too reckless, aggressive and easily distracted. i consider it luck more than anything that i didn’t have more accidents and that i never got badly hurt. i even fell asleep once driving on a major-ish highway. but i don’t consider not driving to be a sacrifice - i never enjoyed it anyway, just the freedom that it gave me. now i’m much happier just to catch a train - even if i’m late or uncomfortable - because i don’t worry about dying in a vehicular accident anywhere near as much as i used to.

5) i love being drunk. not so drunk that i’m ill, but just drunk enough that my head is swimming (but i usually don’t stop there). it doesn’t matter how much i regret it the next morning due to either having been inappropriate or just having a hangover, i will always wanna get drunk again another time. i have to stop myself from drinking so much because i really can’t afford it and i really don’t want to destroy my liver or my life.

sometimes i see you when i close my eyes
and you’re always just as i imagined you’d be
then i remember where i am and why i’m here
and i remember all the things they’ve done to me

when i feel guilty that i won’t share you with anyone
i remember inside me you’re always safe and loved
because there’s nowhere else you could go to escape
nowhere where good intentions would be enough

people try to understand but i can’t explain
it’s just something that i know deep inside
the only way you can have the life you deserve
is if i keep you buried within my mind

1. Losing my sight.

2. Heights.

3. Bugs, particularly fast ones.

4. Raw meat.

5. Being alone.

1. 1984 - George Orwell: no other book has affected me as greatly as this one. it made me think about what governments are there for, and what we let them get away with, and i’ve not stopped thinking about that since.

2. Animal Farm - George Orwell: it’s got anthropomorphic animals with heartbreaking scenes, which is enough on its own for me to love it, but it also explained in a way my simple mind could understand, the dangers of communism. i studied it for school, so i got a more indepth look into it than i probably would’ve otherwise.

3. the Sacred Art of Stealing - Christopher Brookmyre: i was already a big fan of Brookmyre’s style and humour, and his character Angelique de Xavia from “A Big Boy did it and Ran Away”, and blended in with this cheeky bloody American who steals her heart, i was a goner. i am a sucker for a love story between two people who “shouldn’t” be together. :)

4. Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White: what can i say? Wilbur is the cutest thing ever, and all his innocence and attachment to Charlotte just breaks my heart. i can’t read this book without sobbing.

5. Watchers - Dean Koontz: A beautiful and preternaturally smart dog, a wounded but good and gentle man, a tormented but ultimately saved lovely young woman, a terrifying yet remorseful monster, and a happy ending - there is nothing bad in this book.

1. Trent Reznor - specifically, the Downward Spiral era.

2. Johnny Depp - from Tom Hanson to Captain Jack.

3. Nathan Fillion - O Captain, my Captain.

4. Mike Patton - started when i saw the Epic video clip in 1990. i was 9.

5. Orlando Bloom - makes a gorgeous elf, but an even better pirate.

1. My birthday - it’s a whole day just for me!

2. Christmas Day - finally, a break after working intensely for weeks.

3. Good Friday - it’s an early weekend!

4. Easter Monday - it’s a long weekend!

5. My husband’s birthday - a whole day I get to spoil my husband :)

but there is a line. a BIG line.

sometimes, i deal with men who are strong willed and arseholes. i just want to scream at them that it is possible to be strong, powerful and/or impressive without being a jerkoff.

they come here, stand in my face and try to throw their attitude around, like i’m some “little woman” who’s going to take that shit lying down. and i can’t tell them to go stick it because i want their money. i can however gently but insistently imply by my demeanour, and my calm, controlled, restrained voice that this here is my domain, and i know what i’m doing.

then after 30 mins + of wasting my time, they realise i clearly know more than them, and they give up their control, the bullshit attitude, and the condescending tone of voice, and walk out of here much happier for it.

why can’t we just skip the middle bit where you’re acting like a jerk and making me unhappy and go straight to the part where you trust me and give me all your money?

title from Viagra Culture by Revolting Cocks

1. Energy roll [organic brown rice, organic tofu, spinach, capsicum, basil, garlic and tomato - made by Byron Gourmet Pies]

2. Chinese - beef in black bean or sweet + sour pork or mongolian lamb w/ steamed rice

3. Japanese - chicken teriyaki or chicken katsu w/ rice, or chicken yaki soba

4. Fruit salad and yoghurt

5. Hamburger

–

there’s a whole bunch of console games coming out soon - the husband and i had to discuss pros and cons of each and come up with a short list. so far, confirmed want-to-buys include : Uncharted 2, Bioshock 2, and Batman. plus the beloved is going to get the UFC game, but I’m not interesting in that and am even less interested in going halfies, so that’s all up to him.

–

got our WoW characters up to level cap the other day, me for the first time ever. we’ve been raiding at every given opportunity since, and i am having so much fun. just being able to get together online with 9 other people i enjoy chatting to and playing WoW with, and then chatting and playing WoW - it’s just tops. i know lots of people don’t understand it, but that doesn’t worry me - because i sure don’t get a lot of things that other people do, so it all comes out in the wash.

–

went to our friends’ place for dinner the other night which was so much fun. with work and stress, we haven’t been doing much socially of late, and it was so great to be able to catch up with our peeps, eat yummy home cooked food and have a few laughs.

with considerations to the diet, i drank too much beer and probably should’ve passed on the icecream dessert, but the whole thing was awesomely awesome, so i’ve not got too much guilt.

biggest hurdles i’m having with dieting at the moment are :

bread - i want it more often than not. it’s not that we’re avoiding bread generally, just if it’s not necessary. but i want it all the time. particularly soft fresh warm white rolls with melty butter on them.

drinking enough water - i don’t like drinking water. it bothers me. but i’m trying to get past it. some days i’m getting to 2 litres, but usually not. water has so many pluses, not least of all that it gets rid of toxins from bad things eaten, and makes you not eat as much by satisfying that hunger / thirst response, and i know all this but i still have trouble. it’s just so … boring.

and in case you’re wondering, yes, that is something that reminds me in no uncertain terms that i am a spoilt, middle-class white bitch. i’m working on that too.

my whole life is a work in progress.

title from For Whom The Bell Tolls by Metallica

i’m feeling much better, physically and mentally, and i think i’ve lost 7 kilos or so. [it's hard to know exactly, cos my weight fluctuates a lot, and i'm scared of not having lost enough (even though i keep reminding myself it's not about being skinny) so i don't weigh myself regularly enough].

but my most recently purchased pants are hanging off me, and i can get into clothes i couldn’t a couple of months ago, so that gives me confidence, and furthers my determination not to eat bad food cos i don’t want to be a fatty boombalatty.

saturday night, we had a friend come over for dinner and PS3. it was so much fun. i drank too much and spent sunday feeling a bit worse for wear. and we had desserts - between us we shared a baby cheesecake, a lemon crisp slice, a baby lemon and lime tart and a baby strawberry flan. so yummy!

but … now i’m craving sugar again.  i’m finding that’s a significant downside to partaking in the desserts - having to be that much stronger in the days thereafter. but i think it’s worth it sometimes, and it helps me feel like less of a retard if i can enjoy treats every now and then.

ooh, and you know what else makes dieting hard? having a cheesecake shop around the corner from where i work. the smell wafts around, and it’s just beautiful. but then again, more often these days,  i’m starting to appreciate smells without the overwhelming desire to have taste, so i’m pretty happy with that.

it is criminal how much chocolate people have given us since i swore off it. and because my husband is also eating so much better now, i can’t just palm it all off on to him. so … i’m ashamed to admit it … we’ve been throwing it out. well … my husband’s been throwing it out. i had trouble throwing out a Cadbury Creme Egg, let alone 6 Easter Rabbits, and 2 boxes of Lindt assorted.

one of the most confronting things i’ve experienced is listening to the excuses people make so they feel better about what they eat when it comes up in conversation that i’m dieting. it just reminds me of every single time i have listened to my “shoulder devil”, and eaten things i knew i shouldn’t. so i try not to talk about it unless i have to. particularly with family.

title from An All American National Sport by Carter USM

the diet

after consultation with my counsellor and my husband [the two men whose advice i trust over any others] i decided i need to cut out caffeine, eat less simple carbohydrates, and have a zero tolerance approach to chocolate. we are also trying to reduce our fat intake.

the reasons

the question that needs addressing, i guess, more than any others, the question you all may be thinking, the one i certainly keep thinking about is … what makes this any different from all those other times i went on diets?

for a start, this time it’s emotional.

i’ve got issues with food, specifically sugar, and even more specifically chocolate. i have always been a comfort eater. life was hard so i ate. and ate and ate. lots of chocolate, desserts, bread, icecreams - if it falls under the definition of “simple carbohydrate”, i’ve probably binged on it.

most recently, it got to the stage where i would tell my husband i was dieting, and then i would sneak junk food when he wasn’t with me.  and i knew if i kept it up, my relationship would suffer as well as my health.

i don’t want to be divorced or in a shit relationship, and i don’t want to be sick or an invalid.

i’ve always taken my good health for granted. my cholestrol, my blood pressure, my sugar / insulin levels - they’re all fine and always have been. so when’s my luck going to run out?

i’m not going to be controlled by food anymore. i’m just not. addiction is for chumps, and i’m not going there anymore.

the process

the first thing that went is chocolate and other simple carbs.

then caffeine - caffeine, mostly because of it’s addictive properties, partly because of a sensitivity i seem to have to it, and also because i shouldn’t be drinking soft drink like i was - it’s habit forming and excessive diet or non-diet soft drink consumption is linked to metabolic syndrome.

the withdrawal

the withdrawal symptoms kicked my arse for the first two weeks. i was constantly lethargic, cranky, hungry, and craving everything bad i’d ever had - including cigarettes! i fought with my brother, i fought with my husband, and i avoided everyone else as much as possible.

the cravings

i’m not completely sugar free. i am weaning myself off sugar in my coffee (decaf) but i’ve been putting off the final jump because of my old friend, fear. but having sugar in my coffee (albeit low gi raw cane sugar) is probably contributing to the sugar cravings i still have. so that’s my next course of action. sugarless coffee.

other foods

water water water. other than a couple of cups of decaf coffee + milk a day, water is all i drink regularly. i’m working towards a consistent 2 litres per day, although as much as possible is the aim.

i don’t drink full cream milk anymore - mainly because it seems to react badly with me. speaking of reducing animal fats, meat consumption has also been significantly reduced (also helps to keep that weekly shopping bill down).

consumption of beans, lentils and vegetables is way UP, and occasional desserts / treats have been replaced with low fat yoghurt, air-popped popcorn, sesame snaps or trail bars.

servings - breakfast, lunch, dinner, and any in betweens - have been reduced, and food is being prepared in advance as often as possible so we don’t have any last minute desperations that require ordering in of takeaway.

that said, we still have enjoyed the occasional take away meal - pizza once, thai once, indian twice - and have eaten out a couple of times, taking care not to overdo it.

one thing i’ve noticed though is how bad i feel after eating junky things - the day after having pizza, or the day after i had a piece of very delicious lemon slice a customer bought us as a thankyou, my cravings were more intense, i felt a lot more sluggish and was more moody than normal. how much must people ignore their body’s warning signs in order to eat junk food? it fascinates me.

the goal

i want to be healthy - mentally and physically.  losing weight would be a wonderful side effect.

and that about sums it up. i have no doubts that sometimes i will fall off the wagon, but unlike all the other times, this time i’m not preparing myself for it, and i’m not going to allow myself to excuse it either. i have to be firm because this is what i want, this is my long term goal, and i’m not going to allow my ridiculous useless bad habits to ruin it for me.

hope to blog again soon :)

the notes float down the street, and it makes me think of a little boat drifting down a stream.

even when they make a mistake, it’s still very beautiful.

i hope they continue.

I was watching this Q&A session extra on the Serenity dvd last weekend, and Joss was asked by one of his fans what he has against people being Christian.

“I don’t actually have anything against anybody, unless their belief precludes everybody elses. I am an atheist and an absurdist and have been for many, many years. I’ve actually taken a huge amount of flak for that. People who have faith tend to think that people who don’t, don’t have a belief system and they don’t care if they make fun of them. It’s actually very difficult: Atheists are as a group not really recognised by the American public as people to be taken seriously. This does not mean that I rail against religion, however the meaning of life and the meaning of what we do with our lives is something that is extremely important to me. I have included characters from many different religions particularly in [Firefly], but also in the other shows as well, because I’m interested in the concept. I think faith is an extraordinary thing. I’d like to have some, but I don’t and that’s just how that works. [...] There’s one other thing I would mention, which is from Angel actually: One of the few times I really got to sort of say exactly what I think about the world was in the second season of Angel, episode 16 ["Epiphany"] when he’d gone all dark, because he does that, and he was getting better, and he basically decided - he’d been told: “The world is meaningless, nothing matters.” And he said: “Well then, this is my statement: Nothing matters, so the only thing that matters is what we do.” Which is what I believe: I believe the only reality is how we treat each other. The morality comes from the absence of any grander scheme, not from the presence of any grander scheme. [...] So the answer is: “Nothing, unless you’ve got something against me.”

The above text was copied from the Joss Whedon Celebrity Atheist page.

caught in the undertow, just caught in the undertow …
every step that i take is another mistake to you

i’ve become so numb
i can’t feel you there
become so tired
so much more aware
i’m becoming this
all i want to do
is be more like me
and be less like you

can’t you see that you’re smothering me
holding too tightly, afraid to lose control
cause everything that you thought i would be
has fallen apart right in front of you

caught in the undertow, just caught in the undertow …
every step that i take is another mistake to you
caught in the undertow, just caught in the undertow …
and every second i waste is more than i can take

and i know i may end up failing too
but i know you were just like me
with someone disappointed in you

of course it hurts. but it’s not my pain.

its not my fault. i know its not my fault, i know you’re not my responsibility, i know you’re hurting and i wish you weren’t. but its not my fault and it’s not my pain. i didn’t do this to you. the only one you should be pointing fingers at is yourself. what do you expect from me? you can’t have things back the way they were, not when i know the truth now. walk away and don’t look back, i’m tired of your games and manipulation.

i can’t think of anything else, i close my eyes and you’re all i see, lying prostrate on the floor, thrashing, strapped in, just to spite me. pick yourself up goddamit, dust yourself off, and close the fucking door, no one else can fix you when you won’t fix yourself.

it’s not me and i’m not you.

i’m not you and you have no rights to my heart. you say the words, i give in, and you hold it in your hand, then you squash it everytime, and it’s not fair, and i won’t let you anymore. you make me flounder, you make me sink, and you never save me. i’m not yours to break and i never was. stop trying to manipulate me into destroying myself to save you.

what kind of person are you anyway? what do you see when you look in the mirror? do you see the red, the fire that i see? or do you see the halo i used to imagine was there? do you know that you are the one, the one that has allowed me to blame it on me, on my ways, on my ineptitude? the one who should’ve taught me better? do you care? you betray me with your every breath. my heart was in pieces at the foot of your altar, and you stepped on it as you walked towards your self-appointed throne. keep it. i don’t want any of it. i don’t want your blood money, your hatred in my veins, your lies in my head, your pain in my heart.

you are the serpent and the betrayer, and i am the disregarded spawn. i feel your hand on my head, pushing me down, and my arms get stronger as i’m pushing to get up. the fight rages on inside my heart. how can you try to put this back on me? how can you tell me with a straight face that you love me? how can you even exist when you have no heart?

anywho, i mention this because … my arm, the inner elbow bit, is still bruised from afore mentioned withdrawal. thankfully it doesn’t hurt anymore, but it’s all yellow and brown and suspicious-looking.  the idea of this bothers me - argh, internal bleeding - more than the reality, and it’s actually a fairly handy reminder that i need to get my results, but still, why so sensitif, antecubital fossa?

hugely busy week coming up. babysitting, dinners, a day of dvd watching, and then on Tuesday … [drum roll] NIN!

i am so excited. i hope it’s good. if it’s not, i’m going to send Trent Reznor hate mail.

not really. i can’t stay angry at him. but still. i am excited, and am trying hard not to be too excited, because that inevitably leads to overanticipation which leads to disappointment when the reality can not possibly live up to the imagined.

i *do not* over think things.

title from Life on Mars? by David Bowie

[sigh] i hate being obsessed with food. it’s so hard to stop eating, and it’s even harder to stop thinking about it.

a couple of weeks in and then i won’t think about it so much.

just a couple of weeks.

title from killing time by She Wants Revenge

i figure that everyone does things they remember and cringe about, so i’m not too worried about that part. it’s just that mine usually involve me having indulged too excessively, and then behaved in ways that would make me feel sorry for _someone else_.

young ‘uns look forward to being adults so much, being able to make their own decisions, do what they want … so why do so many of us take that freedom and use it to try to self-destruct?

it’s bad enough when i’m in my “normal-mode” - i say stupid shit, i run into things, i’m sensitive, insecure and defensive - but it’s even worse when i decide to let myself lose control. then i say _really_ stupid shit, fall over _everything_, and become paranoid, insecure and hysterical.

meh, any excuse for me to let myself go and blame an external factor for my behaviour. i think because then i can tell myself it’s not _my fault_ if people don’t like me. but that doesn’t even make any sense because my actions, my behaviour, the things in and out of my mouth, are entirely my responsibility and my fault, and whatever you do, you need to own it, or there’s no point in doing anything.

admitting your flaws is one thing. letting yourself change them is entirely different.

life is really hard. whether you’re depressed or not.

title from Plasticine by Placebo

so, my soundtrack for 2008 is as follows:

Negativland - Car Bomb
She Wants Revenge - Hazy Shade of Winter
Ministry - No Glory
Snog - City
She Wants Revenge - Broken Promises for Broken Hearts
Carter USM - Sealed with a Glasgow Kiss
Marilyn Manson - Man that You Fear
Carter USM - Before the War
Placebo - Pierrot the Clown
Dismemberment Plan - Following Through
Placebo - I know
She Wants Revenge - Sugar
Bad Religion - All Good Soldiers
Placebo - Without you, I’m nothing
Bad Religion - Modern Man
Consolidated - Cutting
the Postal Service - the District Sleeps Alone Tonight
Bad Religion - Sorrow

I’m bored to the extreme, this world of foolish dreams
Disillusion, I am not who I seem to be
Yeah sure, I might do harm and bear my right to arm
Retribution, if only someone would listen to me

my insecurity manifests itself into perfectionism and defensiveness. so whenever i am insecure about something, and someone teases me about that thing, i will either get really upset or strive to forever be absolutely flawless at it in the future (and then inevitably fail and get depressed about it).

i am still insecure about my opinions, even though a lot of them have become clearer to me in the last few years, like my atheism and my political leanings. i want to feel comfortable about them, and i don’t want to have to defend myself if someone else is being too narrow-minded to consider my views a valid viewpoint even if they don’t agree, but sometimes, with some people, i find myself doing just that.

i find that i always defend my thoughts and feelings to my brother in particular, because he constantly challenges them. and i don’t feel like he does it constructively, i think he just does it because he’s a bully, and he doesn’t share my views about lots of things, unsurprisingly.

having married someone who is smarter, better-educated and more articulate than me has certainly made an impact on me. i have benefitted by coming to terms with the fact i believe in things outside of the standard, have stopped trying to fit myself into a box, and realised that having passion and belief in something is more important than what you feel passionate about, or what you believe.

but i still feel insecure about my brain - my smarts, my beliefs and my decisions.

my intelligence particularly is a touchy subject for me, because for so long it was all i considered that i had going for me. it was my entire worth, it was how i got my parent’s attention and praise. see, my brother was athletic, and i was smart. he was good at sports and i was good at maths. but then, school finished and all the book-learnin’ in the world (which i ended up stuffing up due to emotional issues anyway) doesn’t prepare you for actually being clever. and my husband constantly surprises me with the amount of stuff he just knows. i mean, he researches anything and everything, just because he’s interested. and then he remembers stuff, which is another marvel to me - i mean, i research and read up on things often as well, but then i just forget everything relevant the minute i read or research about something else.

and my beliefs? i remember having arguements with my teachers at school because of things i believed. i discovered that if you tell someone you don’t believe in taxes, they will often assume you just don’t want to pay any. if you say you don’t agree with having so many laws, they’ll think you worship chaos. and sometimes, if you tell someone you don’t believe in welfare, you are considered a scroogy arsehole who only cares about money. so i learnt to shut the hell up and focus on my socially acceptable beliefs - the ones about how animal testing and animal cruelty are bad, how trees shouldn’t be cut down without significant effort being made towards renewable plantations, etc. but speaking out about “controversial” things just wasn’t worth it. to my teachers, my friends or my parents.

my husband questions my reasons for my beliefs, and makes me think more than any one else has ever before. and in doing this, it leads me to find myself constantly wishing for more smarts. people assure me i am smart, but that’s not what it’s about. i’m not looking for approval or compliments from anyone, just myself. and the fact is i am not as smart as i thought i was. and this exacerbates my insecurity. it’s cyclic.

my husband tells me it’s not that i’m not smart, but that i often don’t think things through. “doesn’t work to her full potential” i guess. i am fundamentally lazy so that concept makes sense to me - why try harder than i need to, if i’m not expecting better results for it?

so am i insecure, or am i not that smart? but more importantly, does being smart even matter, or is it just a hangover from when i was young and being smart was a badge i could wear to try to convince myself, by convincing the world, that i was worth it?

There will be sorrow
Yeah there will be sorrow
And there will be sorrow … no more.

but here i am now, and hopefully this post will actually not just remain a draft that eventually becomes no longer relevant that i end up deleting, like so many of its fallen brethren.

–

i’m playing Warhammer and i’m loving it. i felt this way about Warcraft once. it’s exciting and brings some fantastic fresh ideas to the mmo genre, and even if i didn’t enjoy it, i’d be glad something’s finally giving Blizzard a run for their money. there’s only so long you can have market domination before you start slacking off, imo.

there’s a huge amount of games coming out on console over the next month or so. so far, Saints Row 2 has been one we decided couldn’t be passed up. actually, he decided and i agreed to try it - i’m glad i did, because i’m really digging it. i really love how games are becoming more like movies, but better. interactive entertainment for the win!

–

i can’t stop listening to She Wants Revenge. maybe it’s the whole “killing me softly” thing, but I just can’t stop listening, no matter what. and it’s kinda cool, because i never expected to fall for another band again.

–

we had discussions about our relationship, and things have come to a head. she told me she wasn’t going to change the way she behaves, so working from a cost-benefit point of view, i told her that she can’t be part of my life the way she wants anymore. it’s a basic relationship breakdown. and unfortunately who she is to me doesn’t fix or forgive anything. i know i’ve hurt her, and i am truly regretful for that, but you can’t treat people anyway you want, ignoring their protests, without something breaking down.

–

my brother called me a bleeding heart today. too much of a soft spot, he said. a bit of a pansy, he said. he could be right.

customers are a fantastic group of people. i get to see the breakdown of humanity without leaving my comfort zone.

just because you’re right sometimes people, doesn’t mean you’re always right. and it’s usually best not to be an arse about it, just in case.

leave your assumptions and pompousness at the door.

and don’t let the door crush you on the way out.

i´m not even sure i can remember the last time.

there´s always been laughter, as there has been tears, and there´s always been love, as there has been dislike and indifference.

i´ve worked and i´ve struggled and i´ve cried and i’ve given up more times than i can count, only to be propped up by my close friends and my beloved, time and time again.

and still now i get sad. i miss my friends, the ones who live far away and also some who still live close but whose hearts have moved away from mine. i miss the friendships from my youth, the reckless abandonment of self in others, even though i would never go back. i miss the clubs, the sleepovers, the long nights out (though not the hangovers), the cab rides home at 6am, the midnight city-extra runs.

but it´s ok.

because somewhere along the line i became a person i can like, a person i’m not ashamed to be anymore. i´ve started finding myself in the mess left behind from the broken home i have defined myself by for so long. being me has meaning now, and not the sort of meaning that makes a person long for silence.

i´m me. i´m who i want to be. and for the first time, in a long time, i think … i think i might actually be … happy.

Love ain’t like the movie, it blisters and bruises
And knocks you about with its fists
It leaves you a wreckage, all postaged and packaged
And sealed with a Glasgow kiss

You’re as pure as the driven, and I should be in prison
Or under a lorry, because I hit you and I’m sorry

But love ain’t like the movies, it blisters and bruises
And bites like a dobermann, never home sober and
Leaves you a wreckage, all postaged and packaged
And sealed with a Glasgow kiss

I desecrated the ground that you walk on, put nails in the place where you sit
I wasted the space that you talk from, your teeth and your unlucky lips

* We are going to see Root! in August - Yay!!!

* I am impatient for the open beta for Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, particularly since he has access to the closed beta.

* I am beside myself with anticipation for the Watchmen movie, and distressed at the idea of seeing the Dark Knight.

* “Pastries heated in a microwave oven will be softer and less crisp” … no shit.

you were a space-travelling superhero.

you told me all about transitional star systems, and why they created an effect similar to black holes.

we were going to save the world.

but i woke up.

my hair is going grey, my hands are getting wrinkly, and my joints and muscles are aching more than ever.

most of my friends are older than me, so don’t really understand when i lament getting old.

i’m scared of feeling my life slipping away. i’m scared of the pain.

it’s not about beauty, it’s about quality of life.

looking back on my teenage years i regret that i didn’t make more of an effort to be healthy - ever since i got depressed in high school, i’ve had a hell of a time keeping weight off. getting motivated? pfft. what’s motivation? and even now i have trouble realising what’s good for me and what isn’t. and then even when i know, i have a tendancy to sabotage myself. stupid brain.

and i’m so sick of promising to “do it this time”. so i’m not going to. i’m just going to have to think very carefully about what i’m doing to myself, and how i can’t get away with mistreating my body anymore.

i can see how people “turn into” their parents. luckily (or unluckily) i’ve been enough like them both for years, so i don’t think i have any huge surprises in store for me. i can also see why some people start being concerned at this age about having kids. not that my view is changing, and not that this applies to everyone, but i can just see that some people would be quite happy to start living life through their kids, enjoying youth all over again, the whole immortality through spawn thing.

maybe i’m over-emphasising the issue to myself. it certainly wouldn’t be the first time. i’m just scared that it’s going to hurt.

why do big companies have such stupidly complicated systems that require people to jump through hoops while holding a cup full of water that they can’t spill with one foot tied behind their back?

so the basic upshot is our adsl line had its codes wiped, so someone needs to put more codes on it. but surprise, surprise - estimated turnaround for them fixing their mistake is a week.

i get that everyone’s human. but how come every single time i call my phone company someone messes something up. it’s either the system or the monkeys they’re employing.

or maybe it’s me. maybe i just fail at being a customer. clearly that’s it.

Where’s the line between displaying the beauty of a child and exploiting it?

The politicians of this country have said that Bill Henson has crossed these lines.

Maybe it comes down to the eternal age of consent debate. Is or is not a child under 16 entitled to decide who can and cannot see their body?

Is or is not an older man allowed to view / display a child’s naked body, if said child wishes to display it?

Can a healthy, well adjusted adult look at a naked teenager without becoming aroused? Or are we all just creatures of uncontrollable lust?

Is there such a thing as a healthy, well adjusted adult who chooses to look at artistically- minded photos of naked youths? Or is such an intent born from depravity?

Children should be able to live a life free from abuse …

Men, women and children should also have the right to express themselves freely …

Where’s the line?

* Title is from a Dead Kennedys song. If in doubt, trust in Jello.

I see candle, wax is melting, peel the scabs off my hands
I really need to tell you something but I can’t remember who I am

There’s a bomb inside of me, call it magic surgery
In my head, electrode, pus and bleeding, I explode

Cutting, I’m cutting myself again

Lacerates her face on the cage, falling in a Noble-Collip drum
When she gave birth to her puppies, she could neither love nor bond with ‘em
The only way that it knows how it’s coping with it -
Feel a cold hard floor, slam the cage door and that triggers it

Cutting, I’m cutting myself again
I’m bloody but no memories …

Some animals try to cope with their fear and life in a barren cage, by developing erratic movement and self-mutilation …

I must cut myself if I remember

Some mothers become psychotic in laboratory life … raise their infants but all mothers will lose their young to the experiments

I must cut myself, must cut myself, must kill myself

Try so hard to stay in control, dissociate from the fear
I always carry a box of blades just to make sure I’m here

I’m cutting myself again
I’m bloody but no memories of back then
I’m just coping with the pain

Something happens, break the cage, let me out
Break the mirror, look behind

How can you? You don’t even see me as anything other than what I am to you, what I can do for you. And you don’t even care.

I am starting to understand now, starting to see things a bit more clearly …

And I realise … you are never going to change.

…

So I guess I’d better.

Bought “Citizen Kane” and “Apocalyspe Now Redux” the other night, without having seen either - which is always a strange gamble - but we’ve watched both, and I am impressed, particularly with Apocalyspe. I have to admit I have always delibrately avoided war movies, especially if they had anything to do with Vietnam, but while this was rated R for adult themes, it didn’t have any devastating bits. Although there is this bit with some 4 legged animal getting mutilated at the end, but it’s in context so it doesn’t seem that wrong, just a bit confronting. It would’ve upset me before though I think.

Anyway, I don’t think any of the violence was unnecessarily gratuitious, and the whole war thing, while vaguely upsetting, didn’t break my brain like I had been concerned that it might. And besides all that - I absolutely loved the cinematography. I never went out my way to watch anything of Francis Ford Coppola’s, figuring he would be overrated like many other directors but I think I might have to check out some of his other movies [I have seen "the Outsiders" and "Dracula", but I haven't seen any of "the Godfather"s, I think because I thought I would have trouble with the Mafia violence. Since I love "the Sopranos" and "Goodfellas" I reckon it'd be okay after all!].

The same can be said of Martin Scorsese’s movies; having only seen “Goodfellas” and “the Departed” recently. I did already love “Taxi Driver” and I am itching to see “Raging Bull” and “the Last Temptation of Christ” but I didn’t really like “Gangs of New York” very much. I guess 3 out of 4’s pretty good.

We re-acquired ourselves some Bloodhound Gang albums this week, and while I am constantly revolted by the lyrics, I do find myself humming some of the tunes over and over. “Asleep at the Wheel” and “Hold Your Head Up High (and Blow Your Brains Out)” are probably my two preferred songs at the moment.  Classy stuff.

Oh, and the drummer from Def Leppard’s only got one arm.

The new place is great. There’s more space, a balcony we can actually use for entertaining, and an en suite (which I cannot actually decide why it’s nice to have but it just is).

Matters of the heart are usually better left buried
in the recesses of one’s subconscious but they always
make themselves known in the middle of supermarkets
or cafes. Unwanted and unwelcome longing.

“Such imagination seems to help the feelings slide”

Today I got confused again about something that happened - was it a dream, or just the other day? Turned out it was a dream. Dammit. This has to stop. You know it’s true.

The call and the buzz; it never ends.
They all want something, but it’s not for them to decide.
It’s not up to them. It’s never up to us.
It comes and it goes and it’s fleeting and you’re dying,
one day at a time. One day closer to being alone.
One day closer to reverting. Only this time, knowing
the taste of what could’ve been. Your insides are
screaming with the loss.
The outside shrugs and carries on.

How come people can’t leave me be? Why do people have to tell me things like “how much prettier” I would be if I didn’t wear so much black?

I guess people honestly think they’ll be making some sort of positive difference in my life by imparting this bit of wisdom to me. But I don’t want to be like them. I’m not interested in being anything but me. So I think the best person to be making decisions about my life is me.

“Over-saturation curls the skin and tans the hide”

My brother told me I was selfish for not wanting children (a sentiment my father also shares). I asked him what was so un-selfish about having children. He didn’t have an answer. It’s not that I disagree that I’m being selfish. But I don’t understand why that would be exclusive to childless people. And I don’t understand why doing something because it makes you happy, that doesn’t hurt anyone else, is a bad thing.

“I’m unclean, a libertine, and every time you vent your spleen, I seem to lose the power of speech … you’re slipping slowly from my reach. You grow me like an evergreen, you never see the lonely me at all”

I attract all sorts for various reasons.
They come and see me and pull at my hair and poke
at my sides and laugh at my nervous ticks. And what do
I have to show for it? Not you. When you’re all I could
want for, that I don’t currently have.

The best thing about going to work really early is how the world is at 5am. I have always loved the night time. But the night time can bring scary things like creepy men. And late at night, the world is still dirty from the day that has just ended, like before you’ve showered after a long day at work. But first thing in the morning, when it’s still dark, there’s hardly anyone around, and those who are around have agendas that don’t involve you, and everything is waking up and rolling over and rubbing its eyes dozily. And the air is fresh, not thick with the putridness of a day that ended prematurely. It’s my favourite time of day. It’s just a shame I hate getting out of bed so much.

And I really do. I hate the transition from asleep to awake. It’s horrific. Particularly when it’s not natural. It’s like being ripped from the womb.

My life is a melodrama in several acts with no intermission.

Sometimes I wonder how I will die. But it’s like a Secret Santa … it’s better not knowing.

You are the ones you love …
wherever they are …
whenever they are.

“Without you, I’m nothing”

a) running late for work or school; or
b) running late and unable to find my schedule / timetable; or
c) travelling on some sort of public transport (train / bus / aeroplane) and arriving without something important, such as notes for the meeting / homework

I’m seeing a common theme here.

I wonder what it means .. you know, besides the fact that I’m a chronic worrier.

Hmmm, that’s probably it.

I know it doesn’t make a lot of sense here, but I’m still reeling from the news that Heath Ledger died last week. He was such a good actor. And now his baby girl is going to grow up without knowing him. It’s just so sad.

And it reminds me of other celebrities’ deaths that affected me … namely River Phoenix, Jeff Buckley and Michael Hutchence.

First thing I become aware of here is the age difference … I was 12 when River Phoenix died, and 16 when Jeff Buckley and Michael Hutchence did, not 3 years off hitting 30. Am I not too old for this fan-girl behaviour?

And there’s a consistent theme here. Reported stories indicate that all 4 of them were doing something incredibly stupid that led to their death - like, taking ridiculous amounts of different drugs together or going for a midnight swim fully clothed (in steel-toed boots, no less) alone in a river. (And the jury is still out on the asphyxiation thing - official line is MH committed suicide, but popular belief is it was a kinky thing, which I don’t think is stupid in and of itself, but doing it whilst alone? My god. So much for having a safety word.) Either way, they all would’ve been better off if they’d just gone to bed. (Well, in Heath’s case, if he’d gone to bed without taking a shitload of prescription drugs.)

Anyway, the most obvious similarity is of course that I was chronically hot for all of them. [sigh]

So by that rationale, it would appear their deaths upset me so much because they were all incredibly cute and fantastically stupid.

The most annoying thing of all of this though is that Heath’s death brings back to my fore-brain memories of friends who have died, one of whom is intrinsically linked in my mind with the afore-mentioned Mr Buckley. So you see, it’s a vicious circle of thoughts of death, and I think it’s probably unnecessarily and unhealthy. And yet …

i can sleep it off however, if given the opportunity.

thus i have come to the conclusion that sleep for me is like when you reset a computer.

all day i have been running sluggishly and my applications have been freezing randomly.

i need a reset.

i’ve always been afraid of people dying. ever since i was a kid. i’d dream that i’d wake up in the middle of the night, and head to the lounge room, where the rest of my family would be watching tv, only they were all skeletons. and my family kind of used to tease me about it, i guess because they didn’t understand. but the fear is real, and it always comes at this time of night.

how could i get up every morning and just carry on, after losing someone? how did i get over the deaths of those in my past? how can i stop obsessing over it so i can get some goddamn sleep?

please don’t die, not ever. i don’t know what i’d do.

In play order :

the City - the Dismemberment Plan
And God Created Brixton - Carter USM
When You Were Young - the Killers
Killing God - Ultraviolence
Anthem - Assemblage 23
Kinda I Want To - NIN
Close - Neuroticfish
Holiday in Cambodia - Dead Kennedys
Five Yards - TISM
Butyric Acid - Consolidated
Bozo Skeleton - Lard
In the Garage - Weezer
Missing - Everything but the Girl
City - Snog
Orestes - A Perfect Circle
Everything I Said - the Cranberries
Pasturn - Skinny Puppy
Nearer - Apoptygma Berzerk

What I will miss about holidays: sleeping in, getting up late, playing console games all day, and being able to hang out with friends at the drop of a hat. What I won’t miss about holidays: that vague feeling I always get that I should be doing something more useful, not appreciating my time off enough, having a proper schedule again, and getting enough sleep (usually).

These holidays have been particularly fun-filled because Steve + Alex + the most beautiful baby in the world, Emilia, have been visiting. And we bought ourselves a PS3!

We saw “the Golden Compass” at Parramatta just after Christmas. Parramatta has changed so much since I last spent any significant time there so it was a little disorienting. “The Golden Compass” was pretty good but I didn’t like Nicole Kidman in it - I think she was mis-cast. I don’t really have much more to say about the movie. The kid is cute, the polar bear is awesome, and Sam Elliott is the same as he is every other time I’ve seen him. We also saw “1408″ which was just amazing, except for this one little bit in the middle. I adore John Cusack, even though he’s getting a little bit doughy as he’s getting older. But who isn’t?

Other than that, we had a few meals, and a trip to the Lord Nelson (where Quayle Ale was my beer of the moment), and even got to fit in a couple of games of D+D, with Steve as a special guest. As a group, we weren’t as well-behaved as we could’ve been, but we still managed just to finish the campaign, albeit a session later than Scott was hoping for.

As a side note, I wish I’d been able to break into the gaming groups when I was in high school. I wasn’t allowed to game with the boys, I guess because none of them wanted to pork me. And none of the girls I knew were interested. But I dunno - I guess you can always make lemonade out of lemons, you just have to add enough sugar … or something. So these days I’m just happy that I can play sometimes, even though I still can never remember the rules in D+D because they’re terribly convoluted.

After finding out at the last minute that they were touring, Kurt and I got to see Assemblage 23 at the Gaelic Club - woo! It was more like a nightclub than a gig, and A23 didn’t come on until 1am, and my feet were already sore, so I was a grumpy bugger. But the songs were lovely, and Tom (who writes wonderful lyrics I can always relate to) was rocking out intensely and the crowd was great too, so there was an awesome vibe, and it was a lot of fun. I chatted to this group of gorgeous young girls a few times in the bathrooms which was a highlight, and we saw a few people we know, although we weren’t able to have a chat because it was too loud. The Gaelic Club isn’t my favourite venue though, I have to say. It’s always a little too loud, and hot, and it’s not wide enough for the length, imo.

We’ve also played a few more console games during our time off, including Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune and Ninety-nine Nights which we bought ages ago but didn’t get into until recently.

And last night was a huge amount of fun - We had people over for Guitar Hero 3, wine, homemade sausages, chatting, laughs and cuddles, with pudding and ice-cream on top.

Today, there was a picnic in Newtown. I really enjoyed seeing everyone, particularly friends of Steve + Alex’s that we don’t normally catch up with when they’re not around, and Emily was as gorgeous as usual, but my god, there’s a lot of nature involved when picnicking. The grass is itchy, the dirt is gritty and you know that giant ball of fire in the sky? That’s really hot and burny sometimes. So as soon as we could stand it no longer, we raced to the car to drive back home to the safety and sanctity of our beautiful little air-conditioned apartment. Love our friends, but not their taste for the outdoors.

Acquired a copy of “the God Delusion” this past week, which Kurt is reading first, then I will read. I am looking forward to that. Getting this book has also reminded me that I really want to get my hands on “The Gospel according to Judas“, which I should make some effort to do when I can be bothered.

I am hoping to get to the cinema to see “I Am Legend” and “AVP: Requiem” before they stop showing them. I reckon they won’t work quite as well on the small screen.

Rockband looks amazing. Since it’s not out yet though, we’re going to play more Guitar Hero 3. Oh the sacrifice.

We still haven’t finished Assassin’s Creed. It’s such a great story, and I love the cities (Damascus, Jerusalem etc), but the gameplay feels really slow, and I get a bit bored. It’s just all the same missions in the same 4 towns, over and over again. And you have to have a lot of patience to “blend”, I think, but it doesn’t feel sneaky-sneaky like Metal Gear Solid, just slow. But we both really want to finish it, and I hope the ending is worth it, because I do think it has a lot of potential.

…  I just served a teenage girl clad only in a bikini.  My brain is torn by the fact I am a prude who thinks that’s completely inappropriate (the beach is not within walking distance) and by the fact I am a perv.  Anyway, moving on …

Last day of work today. 13 days off. Hooray! And we are currently completely without plan. Excellent.

I have to go and call customers now. Otherwise they might forget they want to pick their things up for Christmas.

The games reviewed are : The Darkness, Bioshock, Halo 3, Stranglehold, Skate, Orange Box, Guitar Hero 3, Assassins Creed and Mass Effect.

And just a few hours ago, we received Kane + Lynch: Dead Men. But we can’t play that yet. Unless we get a 2nd Xbox360. I have to play more Mass Effect.

The Darkness : end June
+ Cool story, scary monsters, Mike Patton doing the voice of the Darkness. Brilliant.
- It was too short, and the ending was kind of sucky.

Bioshock : 23rd August
+ Great story, brilliant graphics, scary to watch. Loved the Big Daddies and the Little Sisters. Multiple endings depending on choices made during the game. Wonderful twists along the way. And who wouldn’t want plasmids??
- Ending a little bit sucky … too strict, imo, on good guy vs bad guy.

Halo 3 : 25th September
+ Enjoyable story, very pretty graphics, easy to get attached to Master Chief + his A.I girly friend. Lots of very funky ads and promotional stuff.
- Over-hyped entirely. Tried not to expect too much, but did anyway. Loading is a bit of a joke, definitely taking longer than it should.

Stranglehold: ~ 27th September
+ Love the idea of making a game as a sequel to a movie. Fantastic idea modeling the main character on Chow Yun Fat in appearance etc. Very groovy “Tequila Time”, trademark John Woo direction and very pretty.
- Basic story made it hard to keep my interest.

Skate : ~ 27th September
+ It’s a skating game. It’s damn cool. Controls more intuitive than Tony Hawk (once you get used to the difference).
- Hard to stay interested when surrounded by story-oriented games.

Orange Box : 25th October
+ So many games! PORTAL! Woo! Best game ever to date*. Favourite game ever to date*. And the main character’s name is a chick called Chell. Woo! Half Life 2 is also very cool, but we haven’t made it through the whole game and onto the other chapter installments yet.
- The cake is a lie. Dammit. And Portal was way too short. And the engine they use for Portal and Half Life 2 gives me motion sickness.

Guitar Hero 3 : 7/11
+ Very easy to pick up and play a bit of, once you’re used to the controls. Nice selection of music, funky graphics / characters, and easy (maybe too easy) tutorials. Comes with one wireless Les Paul style guitar controller. You can buy additional guitars, and play co-op. Woo.
- “Legends of Rock”? Doesn’t have half as many “legends” as one would expect.
- - Where is the second guitar controller???? I’ll tell you where! Not in my house! Why? Because they stuffed something up and ran out of guitar controllers that work and the whole country is short of spare guitar controllers. So we can’t play co-op! Meh.

Assassins Creed : 22/11
+ Very cool futuristic storyline blended with past storyline. Talk of instinct really being information stored in your DNA from your ancestors and the like. Just enough science fiction in there, to go hand-in-hand with the very cool assassin-ninja stuff.
- The main character (Alta’ir) is a jerk. It’s kind of hard to like him. The initial traveling between cities takes too long.

Mass Effect : 15/11
+ Best game ever! Favourite game ever! (*Portal’s glory of being in first place was short-lived). One look at it, and I knew I had to play this game. You can be a female or a male custom character, or you can quick play the default character. You can customise your look, right down to face shape, scars, mouth width, etc. It is a massive science-fiction role playing game, choose your own adventure space opera, with aliens and synthetic creatures and a love story. I’m in heaven. It’s brilliant. The graphics are beautiful. The attention to detail is impressive. The story is detailed, well thought out and complex. The characters are believable, interesting and engaging. It’s everything I could want from a space opera, let alone a role playing game, let alone a console first person shooter.
- It has some graphical glitches, loading sometimes takes a while and I can’t directly plug myself into this game.

“The Australian Christian Lobby put 25 questions to each of the political parties on key issues of concern to Christians. This interactive website contains the parties’ responses to ACL’s questions in bite-size pieces. It showcases their attitudes to Christian concerns as well as their responses to specific questions on pro-life, pro-family, refugee, climate change and many other issues. It allows you to compare and contrast the parties’ positions and provides other useful information about the up-coming election.”

We all know I’m not a Christian. However, I don’t think these questions are exclusively relevant to the Christian community. I basically found the whole article incredibly informative, and if you have any interest in learning about the current Australian parties’ stances on specific issues, you might like to have a look yourself.

So, whilst on that topic, allow me to share my personal thoughts with you. I am excited and terrified by the upcoming election. I don’t feel that either party that will win actually supports my view point so I am a bit concerned. And yet this is the first time the LDP has contested the federal election so they could possibly win a seat in the Senate - the LDP being the only party that I have encountered that seems to have policies in line with the way I feel.

For example, I believe in free markets and free trade. I support gay marriage, the right to choose to have an abortion, and the legalisation of voluntary euthanasia. I want the church to stop having such influence over the government. I believe it is a person’s right to control their property the way they see fit, and to determine what others can do or not do on their property. ie: smoking in pubs. I think our welfare system needs a massive overhaul, not just more or less money poured into it etc etc.

I don’t want my civil liberties threatened by personal economic freedom. And I don’t want individual freedom at the cost of my economic beliefs.

But I have to choose, one way or the other. So I will choose, and I will watch as either John Howard or Kevin Rudd win, and I know I will feel vaguely empty because it doesn’t change anything. At least not to me.

2. i must be an adult. i don’t understand teenagers anymore.

3. my grandparents probably had a lot of things they could’ve taught me, if they and my parents had bothered to get along.

4. if i hadn’t changed schools in year 11, i could be living where i grew up, married to a guy who wore wife-beaters, working the check-out, with 3+ children. and it probably wouldn’t have bothered me.

5. i wish we had more parties to choose from in the national election that actually had a chance of winning.

6. if I was skinny and beautiful and always had been, I probably would’ve been a really nasty person.

7. i think i wouldn’t mind being a professional musician or artist. as long as i sold enough to buy food.

8. i think i would like to not have such a short attention span.

9. life isn’t fair. you don’t get what you give, you don’t get what you deserve, you just get what you get. sometimes it’s what you want, sometimes it’s not.

10. there’s always a light at the end of the tunnel for me, but i think i must go through tunnels constantly.

k + i just celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary yesterday. on one hand, it seems like it couldn’t possibly be that long, and yet it feels like we’ve known each other forever. i guess that’s just how this whole thing works.

S+A just became S+A+E with the arrival of their new bubba, Emilia. How very exciting!

Relatedly, I smsed a girl I went to tafe with to tell her when Emilia was born - her name is Emily so I was able to use it as an excuse to say hello. We’re meeting up for coffee next week, which is excellent. Emily is great. She and I drifted apart after tafe but I still consider her a friend and one of the nicest people I’ve ever known. So naturally I’m very pleased to be catching up with her.

Anyway, back to my point - big congratulations for S+A on the arrival of their little girl. Wish the world wasn’t so big.

Got a long weekend coming up. I have plans for not getting dressed at all on Monday and totally vegging out. Fingers crossed.

i hate people.

nay, i hate customers.

the fall caused bruises to be sure, but it couldn’t be said they were worse than the scars, the years of abuse damaging the brain and soul, much more than having fallen so far

but God is gracious, and always welcomes back into the fold, those children who repent, and the wrath of God knows no bounds when scorned, ignored or shown contempt

you will never escape the fire in her eyes, nor the lashings of her poisoned tongue, but you will rest soundly, with the knowledge in your heart, that breaking the cycle has begun

Your heart aches and your face hurts from faking the smile of a lifetime. You don’t want to feel this way, and you don’t want her to be a psychopath. You don’t want to hate what you love, despise what you once adored and worshiped. But you are the moon to her planet, a celestial being to be fascinated by, to revolve around her all-encompassing importance, so you will never be released. Your brain spasms with this revelation daily. Those who know coo softly and comfortingly, repairing your soul while promising nothing will change.

She’s a knife in your frontal lobe, a thorn in your side, a ring of fire around the pedestal of refuse she forces you to dance on. You cannot escape. You must make believe, pretend, be the greatest actor of all, or she will stalk you, burn you, and break you. She must know in her heart that she is adored and admired, or you will never get any rest. Your life is her life reincarnated. You are the spawned, the adored, the revered, and only time and nature can save you.

one day, one person who had gotten very old and tired, up and moved to another land far away.

at about this same time, the shop got even busier, and those that were left, had much work to do all the time.

this made the people really happy, but at the same time, left them a bit sad, as they were always tired and unable to be bothered doing anything.

one day, unable to justify the expense any longer as they never had the time to play, the people even gave up playing a game where they pretended to be people once upon a time in a land far away.

then one day, in an attempt at being lighthearted about it, one of the people wrote a really lame blog entry about being so busy that they never got enough time to see their friends and do all that fun stuff that they always used to do.

the people were looking forward to the day that they would have lots of money, and live happily ever after.

I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER? LOLcatz Lolcats2 … and so on and so forth …

i have to admit, i went a bit nutty for lolcats. i cahn’t halp maiself. the kittehs are just so adorable, and the captions so funny and cute. [i think i have however just overdosed for the time being, as i've just spent 2 hours looking at nothing but lolcats. oh dear]

anyway, there have been others i have come across, but mostly i don’t find them very funny (like fakecats, lolgeeks etc). but LOL President is pretty good, and so is The Complete Walrus Bucket Saga.

i really just can’t get past the original lolcats-style ones however. some of my favourites:

that is all.

the weather today has been utterly amazing. the wind blew so hard at one point that coupled with my incredible inability to balance, i fell into a street sign pole. luckily there was no one around to witness my embarrassment, unlike the day i was playing with my pda and walked forehead first into the same sort of pole on the other side of the same street. there was this guy there, who laughed at me. but i laughed too because it _was_ funny.

anyway, so its raining heaps and heaps, and the wind is almost blowing the trees all over. luckily this means most people stay inside and don’t go to shops. happy days!

i ordered a decaf before from Gloria Jeans, and i got a coffee, but i think it wasn’t decaf. i have a caffeine headache - does anyone else get those? it’s really off putting. i’m super energised, but really tired at the same time, and there is a dull ache behind my eyes, sort of near my temples.

i have to go now, bye.

speaking of wasting time and the lovely Mr Depp, i bought “the Astronaut’s Wife” the other week and i can’t believe how bad it is. apparently, i can’t expect much for $5 :p  even though it was bad, i loved it of course, but i think my beloved nearly divorced me for making him lose 2 hours of his life so painfully. it’s a bit silly, particularly the ending. but it’s Johnny, and Charlize Theron (in a very similar role to hers in “the Devil’s advocate” with Keanu Reeves), so over all, i figure it could be worse :)

saw “28 Weeks Later” the other week too. that was just unreal. scared me silly, just the way i like it. but only in movies, not in real life. so when people make zombie faces / noises at me, it is not cool. [pointed look] it’s like after i saw “the Grudge”, having someone phone me and make the creepy noises at me [second pointed look]  :)

on a roll here, so i’ll also tell you how i borrowed the first season of “Twin Peaks” off Chris the other week (also the animated Aeon Flux dvds but i haven’t watched those yet). i love Twin Peaks. so much. i missed it when it was on tv, maybe because i was too young? i dunno. but i’ve been slightly obsessed ever since i watched “fire walk with me” late one night about 8 years ago (but have many times had my plans to watch the series thwarted for one reason or another). so now i must acquire more twin peaks-age. and more David Lynch-age for that matter. hmm, yes.

Trent Reznor is on the cover of some teen rocker magazine this week - i skimmed the article and the pictures this morning - and he’s gotten old. and i don’t mean because he’s 42. not everyone at that age looks old. he does. must be wrinkles from frowning so much. anyway, i am so unimpressed with his new album. several people whose opinion i value said it was pretty good, and more like his old stuff, so i gave it a chance. hmph. disappointing much! building my hopes up, just to have them dashed! but i don’t blame my friends. maybe i’m just more demanding of Trent than they are. anyway, my point is i’m not loving the new album. not at all. i do love how he makes his pre-mixed music available now though. that’s a tops idea.

anyway, i gotta do more work, otherwise i’ll never get all these toys out in time for christmas.

winston’s website is new and improved! we can’t sort our shit out with the webcam for the moment, but there’s a news section and stuff, and some links, for those interested in seeing how piggies live. more to come, promise.

i’ve been getting into Consolidated heaps lately, just their late 80s- early 90s stuff. they’re sort of industrial hiphop dance music, with very heavy political messages. they used to hand out microphones at their gigs and on their albums, they’ve sampled a bunch of stuff that their fans had to say both in agreement with, and opposed to their views, which is very cool. sometimes their lyrics are fairly confronting, although i don’t think that’s always a bad thing. sometimes it’s good to feel.

this is our new house. sorta. the design is unfathomable, and even though i sketch house plans for fun (yes, i am that boring), i couldn’t figure this place out to draw. so i came up with this rough sims 2 representation.

see the corner of the bedroom that juts into the lounge/dining area? i ran into that the other day. my arm has a massive bruise where i hit it. i was distracted by the halo 3 beta on the tv, see. it’s very pretty.

anyway, there you go.

the chest infection i had, for 3 weeks even after hardcore antibiotics, turned out to be my childhood asthma returning for a whirlwind reunion tour, according to a gp at my medical centre. he prescribed to me ventolin and symbicort and i am feeling better, but i just have to wait and see if this is a long term issue, or just one of particularly bad chest infectioning. i’m not too worried as long as i have medication. medication makes everything nicely.

i suppose you want an explanation for the slight changes to the site, eh? …

see, i used to use movable type as my content management system. now i am using wordpress. hence, website looking same-same but different. wordpress is a bit more complicated to use, but you can do so much more with it, so i’m happy. naturally, k did all the hard stuff. i can barely html.

anyway, so now there’s all these tags you can click on to see all the stuff in the same categories, and links to all the different pages too, all in the nifty little sidebar over there on the right. if anything breaks, please comment or use the “contact” page to let me know. i wouldn’t like your avarice experience to be marred by anything structural.

chris is a legend. chris lent us twin peaks series one dvds. fantastic stuff. cannot wait to watch series two. it has just come out, but i have no money at the moment. been buying too much crap. he also lent us the aeon flux animated series dvds, which we haven’t gotten around to watching yet - opinion on that to come later.

been working like a dog; it’s been a hard day’s night. people tell us not to work too hard, but it’s not as if we have much choice at the moment. the work is there and needs to be done … i just wish we could conjour up some sort of magical pixies or something to do it while we slept. but no, is not meant to be. and so we work. and we keep working until the work is done, and then we will work some more because there will be more work. maybe one day we can retire, say when we are about 40? that would be nice. i could handle that.

spewed into existence
caged, clipped like a bird
born to be kept so pretty
and quiet, not to be heard

brought along as a saviour
the nucleus of your world
not given the chance to just live
to behave like a little girl

spoilt, ruined and soured
primped, preened and posed
poor little poor baby
a princess in pauper’s clothes

molded into your likeness
developed as your own echo
admired with your vanity
and kept forever in your shadow

manipulated to feel for you
and used as a go-between
twisted, torn and abused
pulled apart at the seams

given up as a traitor
and betrayed by all your lies
sacrificed to save your face
a scapegoat to be despised

abandoned and neglected
left alone, bleeding and raw
fallen from your grace, in the cold
just a casuality in your war

these two teenage girls in melbourne will never know the release, the relief, the overwhelming joy at experiencing happiness after years of suffering. they will never understand that it can all lead to something brighter and better at the end of the terrifying tunnel that being a teenager can be. i wish someone had told them, that someone had explained all that to them. maybe they did, and maybe they just didn’t listen.

we could blame the parents, the internet (which they _are_ blaming, of course), the school, their peers, but i don’t think its any one thing in particular. i think it’s all because of the way our society is - we just do not have a fantastic support system for kids these days. and it’s so incredibly sad. and all we can do as individuals is try our best to be positive influences on the lives of the kids who we know, and pay attention to them, and never forget how hard it can be.

i don’t want to be a mother, but that doesn’t mean i don’t care about kids. i just hope as a society we can learn to take better care of our children, and give them the education and understanding they need. it doesn’t mean young people won’t kill themselves, but maybe it won’t happen so much.

“A gravatar, or globally recognized avatar, is quite simply an 80×80 pixel avatar image that follows you from weblog to weblog appearing beside your name when you comment on gravatar enabled sites. Avatars help identify your posts on web forums, so why not on weblogs? Signing up for a gravatar.com account is FREE, and all that’s required is your email address. Once you’ve signed up you can upload your avatar image and soon after you’ll start seeing it on gravatar enabled weblogs.”

so, if you wanna personalise your comments on my blog, go to gravatar, and then once you’ve done that, enable it on your blog too!

btw, i noticed that “soon after” was about an hour or two for my avatar to be “globally recognised”, so be patient :)

kthxbi.

i’m going to an engagement party tonight of my friend who is with child, which should be interesting. not because she’s pregnant. just because most of the people there are going to be people i went to school with. plus it’s really far away - halfway between Bilpin + Richmond - so i’m staying over at another friend’s house who i’m meeting this side of hell and driving there with. naturally, my beloved broke out in hives at the mere mention of such a party, so he will be staying home nursing his new radiation sickness (aka s.t.a.l.k.e.r) which we picked up yesterday. and by we, i mean me. which was good because i got to leave work early to do so.

my mum’s coming to visit in 5 sleeps. as always, i am filled with a mixture of excitement and dread - i like my mum, she’s lots of fun, but she’s also certifiable.

nothing much else happening. our new place is going well, although there are still a few boxes hanging around. but we’ve been getting into the culture - we’ve used the spa + sauna a couple of times, and have even gone workin’ out in the gym a few times. [but then that's been counteracted with visits to the numerous restaurants around, especially the pizzerias and the thai downstairs.]

and … that’s all i can think of that’s not mind-numbingly dull.

the new place is weird. (we’re moving in there regardless, because of the building [same building as the flat we were previously going to move into], and once you’re in the building, you have preference for other flats that become available.) the “master” bedroom doesn’t have any parallel walls. its kinda shaped like a dog leg. very strange. and the lounge room is also kinda kooky, but not as weird as the bedroom. the 2nd bedroom is normal looking, so we might use that one for sleeping, and the master one for computering or something. the balcony’s heaps smaller but as long as it still fits the barbeque its best not to complain. anyway, so i dont know how long we’ll stay in this one, but we’re going to go with the flow. if we can put it up with it, it might be for a while - k doesn’t like moving at the best of times and with the recent bullshit we’ve been through, i don’t like my chances of convincing him to do it again in 6 months unless he really can’t stand the place.

going out for dinner tomorrow night because its the beloved’s birthday. and because it’s his birthday, i get yummy swiss-german food. hurrah! fantastic scheme this marriage business.

i’ve been dreaming heaps lately, possibly because we’re working so much and i’m so tired and i’m sleeping more. i dunno. its mostly wish-fulfillment stuff, accompanied by the occasional creepy manifestation of something i saw on television crossed with the last meal i ate or something. i really don’t like wish-fulfillment dreams. i wake up cranky because i know it wasn’t real. stupid brain. why can’t my brain dream about whatever it needs to in complete abstract forms? hmmm? why do i need to make believe that what i want to happen is actually happening, only to wake and realise it’s not happening and it sucks?

oh, had coffee with my brother last week - doing the whole trying to get to know each other again thing. it’s really weird. we’re both determined to be friends and such, but well, basically … i think we get on each other’s nerves. i think that’s normal though. it’s hard to tell. i’ve never had what one would call a normal family, so i have to base it on what everyone else says. one thing is for sure though, i have no idea what to say to a 7 year old kid. i can make all the right funny faces and tickle-monsters for 3 year olds, but conversations with my 7 year old nephew sorta go like this : “how’s school?” “good” “what’s your favourite subject?” “maths” “what do you like to do out of school?” “skateboard. look i’m like tony hawk and am going to try to kill myself by grinding on concrete and a park bench.” “argh!!!!”

- Frodo + Gandalf, the Lord of the Rings, Book1 Chapter2

and we were successful in finding one in a flashy building close to the train station that has a gym, an indoor heated pool and a spa! and lifts! and airconditioning in the three of four rooms! the only potential cause for distress comes from the fact it is smaller than our current place. but we want to live less cluttered anyway, so we have been ruthlessly throwing stuff out and breaking up crappy furniture we’ve been holding on to for far too long.

so description of the new place :

door opens into lounge area with balcony on the left, turn 90 degrees and you head past the kitchen (still in the lounge area sorta). then you’re in the hallway : laundry cupboard on the left, bathroom on the right. a couple more steps forward and master bedroom to the left, 2nd bedroom in front.

bedrooms are as big - bigger than what we have, as is the bathroom i think. laundry is a cupboard one … byebye storage space + second toilet, but i have always wanted a laundry cupboard :) lounge / dining room is kinda tight, so we’re sacrificing dining area for more lounge area, however, the balcony is quite good - covered and protected from the elements, so when we entertain, we’ll do so outside.

so, we sign the lease on friday and start moving in this weekend! maybe i’ll take pictures and post them, if i get a chance. am looking forward to finally getting into the new place - i have no patience and once i can no longer do anything but wait, my skin crawls.

~ Peter Weiss, German dramatist and novelist

1. i drink too much, particularly when i’m nervous
2. i cry too much, particularly when i drink too much
3. girl A* and i can’t talk about anything without arguing
4. some people still smoke when pregnant these days, even knowing the risks
5. people who don’t like entertaining their children at someone else’s house still sometimes bring them along instead of making alternative arrangements

on a lighter note, i think there’s something in the water. everyone’s having babies. and it’s nice when friends have babies. i like seeing all these miniature people that look like my friends running around, getting into mischief. it’s like getting a glimpse of what they might’ve been like when they were small. that amuses me no end. :)

plus women always look super great when they’re pregnant. but i think thats possibly instinctive attraction though, designed to make men want to be with them because they can obviously reproduce, and women want to be like them in order to further the species.

speaking of babies, our little winston-pig is doing very well! he eats too much if you let him, and he still doesn’t like being taken out of his cage, but he will happily sit on my lap or my chest while i do something, and even doesn’t seem to mind little trips around the house in my arms. the biggest danger with holding on to him for too long at a time is that you’re likely to get peed on! and yes, i am speaking from experience. ick.

relatedly, his webcam is experiencing difficulties. it seems to require more USB power than it’s getting, so we’re trying other software, and thinking about maybe hooking it up to another computer to try to sort it out. keep checking though, if you’re interested - we’re always trying to get it working because it means we can keep an eye on him during the day when we’re at work!

i bought vanguard. it’s fun. buggy fun. and it’s not full of idiots like world of warcraft is these days. not that i’m going to stop playing warcraft for vanguard. no, somehow i’m just going to find more hours in my day to play both. i waste a lot of time sleeping. maybe i should abolish that.

* names avoided to protect me

playing vanguard atm - we bought one copy last weekend, and it came with a free 10-day trial for a “buddy” so k + i have been playing all the time trying to get the most out of the free 10 days. you wouldn’t believe how buggy it is. basically, from what i understand, the creators started to run out of money so had to release it before it was officially ready, hoping to make enough from subscriptions that they can update it as they go along. not a bad idea if you don’t want to see your project go down the drain, along with all your capital. only problem is it’s so buggy!! things like - sometimes when you log on, you don’t look like your character at all; quests changing halfway through you doing them; mobs so bugged that they disappear, or snap back 300 game metres from where they just were etc. it’s pretty funny though, and except for the bugs, it’s really an awesome game. we’re still playing wow, just playing vanguard as well at the moment. but its got unreal crafting, so much better than wow’s and its also got this sideline of diplomacy, which is super cool. for a better explanation of it, you should see tim from ctrl-alt-del’s news post, “narrative” here.

nin are coming out. and i’m not going to see them. shock! but really, i’m a bit over it. sorry trent, but i liked your old stuff better than your new stuff. besides after seeing apop live, i don’t know i can ever go to another gig again, it was that amazing.

man, i am so boring. i need to start making up things to blog about to be more interesting. this is what happens when there are no obstacles to get over day to day, when i run out of angst. meh. maybe i should become interested in apathy.

childhood trauma article

it has been considered for many years now that abuse is cyclic - a formerly abused child will often, in the future, abuse their own child as a means of exorcising the demons inflicted onto them, even if they don’t consciously remember their own abuse.

the above article discusses this idea and then further theorises that the behaviour of some people in their adult years, such as Stalin and Hitler, can be explained (but not excused) by the incredible mistreatment they suffered in their younger years.

very interesting and thought-provoking.

posted a bunch of photos up on flickr yesterday (but for the life of me, i can’t seem to just upload them when i take them) and added some other crap on various pages, including making the links into little pictures.

had this family thing up the coast last weekend, which was fairly awful. 1 hr and 15 mins after i initially said we were going to go soon we managed to get out of there, but not before explaining at great lengths to my father + stepmum how our headlights need to be replaced, so we had to get home before sunset. … no, we don’t know how to fix them … yes, it probably is just the globes … no, we’ll just go to our ordinary mechanic thanks (instead of taking the car to my brother’s house) … no, we can’t stay for cake … my god, it was exhausting. it was made even more horrendous by the fact that my brother enjoys stirring me no end, my dad is more fascinated with my brother than with me, and my stepmum had her 4 kids, their partners and one of the partner’s parents there as well, most of whom i’d not met before. yikes. but i survived, reasonably unscathed, with only a slight increase to my frustration and despair at being ignored by my father, and a startling awareness that my brother enjoys having an audience to play up to more than ever.

how do you reconcile your love for someone with your dislike of their behaviour?

on a more geeky note, in less than 2 months, i have gotten my warcraft character up to level 37. (i get a mount soon!!!) last time i played, it took me twice as long. i think it’s because i know how to play a bit better this time, but also having someone to level with - because k already has a level 60, he’s got another character to play if i don’t want to play, so i always have someone my level to team with. the expansion stuff is so pretty, and they seem to have included heaps more story into it now, which is very nice, so i’m looking forward to being higher level these days so i can see all the end game stuff. not only that but being on a pvp server changes your outlook on things - i need to be higher level so alliance players stop ganking me! cheeky bastards.

Fact : far fewer people commit suicide in poverty-stricken, war-torn, disease-ravaged societies than in the comfy, economically advantaged West.

Explanation : when faced with infinite toil, infinite grief, infinite fear, and infinite suffering, human beings are simply too preoccupied to stop and listen to the demons within.

And it is only when the demons are within that self-slaughter becomes an attractive option. For suicide is a kind - a rather drastic kind - of exorcism, is it not?

Yes, the one luxury affluent folk like you and I cannot afford is the luxury of that universal analgesic: adversity.

And so it is when, from time to time, I become aware of the suffering of the hapless hordes who inhabit this agonizing ball of pain we call planet Earth, I do not worry that my sufferings cannot possibly equal theirs. No, I feel rather envious of these people who have so much on their plates already that they have no need to spend their time wrestling with phantoms.”

our gorgeous guinea pig is doing well. he was getting a bit fat so we reduced his pellet availability which seems to have helped a lot. he still gets fresh veggies / herbs twice a day, and a small amt of pellets in the morning, plus he has hay available all day, and that seems sufficient. my goodness, he is so cute. he squeaks and carries on now when it’s breakfast time (about 7-8am) and dinner time (5-6pm) whether we go into the kitchen or not. previously, he just wheeked when he heard us preparing his food, but now he seems to know when he should be getting fed. it’s so cute.

k’s started making music again, which is very exciting - go to brokengod.net to check out his latest song. it’s called “getting closer” and i think it’s a winnah! numba one!

i’ve been having the weirdest dream/s lately. i wake up several times a night, and each time i remember a different dream which is very similar to all the other ones i remember. full of friends, set in typical situations, but then something unexpected happens, and it goes crazy from there. in the last one i had this morning, it ended with me having to escape from this locked warehouse type thing, and i found this disused tunnel, and crawled up that, and then had to shimmy across this leather strap running along the ceiling, while i carried broken bits of razor blade. wah. i need an off switch.

our baby boy winston stayed with a friend while we were gone, and uncle d was there to document the event. i have also gotten around to uploading some photos of our little fur-monster to flickr, which you can see by clicking on my images link up top.

here’s one :

my husband is currently making fried dough. yay! yum! i don’t know what i did to deserve the sweet doughy goodness, but i’m glad i did it.

i have started playing warcraft again. i have named my character in honour of my first character, the only one i ever really enjoyed playing, only now i am horde instead of alliance. level 19 undead warrior princess. i am enjoying myself so much i have preordered my very own copy of the burning crusade expansion.

so now i must bid you adieu to eat my fried dough, play some warcraft and revel in the comfort and safety of my own house, safe from intruding critters and creepy crawlies.

not only did i forget one of our friend’s birthdays whose is just before mine [happy birthday evelyn :)], the friend who i thought blanked me didn’t, she just forgot. turns out she’s got some stuff going on in her own life that might seem a little more important than a school friend’s birthday. ahem.

… sometimes i think that i have come so far from being a spoilt little brat as a kid, and then sometimes i realise that perhaps i haven’t come as far as i would like to think.

to sum up, i had a fantastic birthday, and the only disappointing thing about it turned out to be how i allowed myself to get caught up in childish tantrums about not being appreciated enough.

anyway, thanks to everyone who sent me birthday wishes. you guys rock, and i love you all.

xxxx

ps: a special acknowledgment has to go out for a friend who i caught up with at apop who gave me a cute zorro beanie baby bear. i don’t even know if he remembered it was my birthday or not, he just gave me a bear, and it’s very cute :)

anyway, wow, what an awesome night. the only thing that would’ve made it better would have been sharing tonight with friends, particularly those who are overseas who i think would’ve been as impressed as i. but maybe next time :)

i am a big fangirl and i love it! woo!

you know, i get really sappy around my birthday. there was always a certain attitude with my friends and family when i was growing up about birthdays being the one day when you are the centre of the universe, so when a friend i haven’t been close to in ages does something like that, it says something lovely to me about how they feel. likewise, when an old friend completely ignores my birthday, it speaks volumes. it’s different with people i’ve been friends with since i was a kid. they know … we all do … the acknowledgement of each other’s birthdays is a big deal. its how you determine if you’re in someone’s good books or not. its probably stupid but i know these girls … i know who probably just forgot, and who probably blanked me. and it sucks. but i got a handmade present from a friend who i did expect to blank me, so it’s just a world gone topsy turvy.

and now i’m 26.

going to see apoptygma tonight, omg yay :)

this upcoming event prompted a discussion between me and someone else, who asked me why i like apop. this made me realise once again how poor i am with expressing myself. i just like them. their music makes me feel good. why is there not more i can say about it? is it because i don’t know music theory? or is it because the everyday english language is ill equipped to handle it? or is it because i am lacking something? i think i am lacking good language skills. and i know i’m not alone. i have no doubt about my intelligence, but my ability to express myself in words is shocking. and i can’t help but wonder why.

saw “a scanner darkly” the other night, and i really liked it. the animation sort of gave me a headache, cos it’s all jerky, but other than that, i don’t really have any complaints. saw it with kurt + chris, both of whom are really cluey, so any questions i had regarding plot were quickly solved. chris has also read the book. and now, i think i should read some phillip k dick. i have enjoyed all movies i have seen that were adapted or based on his novels and short stories (that i am aware of anyway) like blade runner, minority report, total recall, and of course, a scanner darkly, and i am always looking for more sci-fi to enjoy, so yes, that’s my plan.

we’re going away for a few days over the xmas break, and i’m looking forward to it. i do worry about winston though, but he’s going to be staying with a new surrogate aunty, who seems quite capable, so i’m sure he’ll be fine. i’m just being a nervous pet-owner. you know, me, nervous. just for a change.

working in santa’s workshop always means that christmas is a busy time, but that’s not a bad thing. it helps me remember that christmas is only about what you make it. for some people, it’s about faith and religion. for others, its about friends and family. some people, its about a mix of lots of things. but for most people these days, it’s about buying lots of presents for people so they give you lots of presents too. for me, its pretty much just another time of the year, albeit a super busy time at work. a lot of people take the time at christmas to acknowledge how they feel about others, but i’m always wearing my heart on my sleeve, so i don’t feel much different at christmas. however, i do hope everyone is safe and well over the next few weeks, and remembers that stupid people take vacations too. and that’s why you have to travel extra carefully.

see, logical.

people who you respect, admire, and love, people who you think are smart, can still have opinions you don’t agree with. this doesn’t mean they are not as smart as once thought, or that they are lacking in some other way.

like with the differences between dark and light, i have come to realise it is important for people to have different opinions - both dark and light are necessary, and one could not exist without the other.

and something else i have learnt recently is that belief, as a concept, is all the same. whether you believe in science, psychology, a god, yourself, or a flying spaghetti monster, it’s all the same … and again, we all think we are right. i don’t believe in much … but that’s my belief, and it’s no different to anyone else’s belief. people think other people are wrong in their belief in something - that denial of right to different beliefs is the only thing wrong in that equation, in my opinion.

that’s not to say i haven’t had problems with people who believe things that i don’t agree with. it can be very hard to face someone who lives their life in a different way, and not take it as an indictment on the way you choose to live (particularly when you don’t have a lot of confidence, and / or develop your opinions as an emotional response instead of a rational one). but i am coming to terms with other people’s beliefs a bit better now, and developing more confidence in my own. i still can’t have a debate to save myself, but i blame that on my lousy verbal skills - something else confidence would help to overcome, i guess.

anyway, thats just something i wanted to share as it’s been swirling around my head for a few days now. [which is a dangerous place to swirl. things get lost and muddled up in there if they're not released].

- neverwinter nights 2 co-op!
- we pre-ordered tony hawk project 8 and it arrived today
- i don’t crave chocolate anymore :)
- my best friend has a boyfriend that she really likes!!!!!!
- we have the best of tism album on order and it should be in soon
- it’s my birthday in a month!

i also just got a cd that i ordered that i thought would take heaps longer to get here [from a band who has a song i really like but someone who i used to be friends with has my cd single and apparently handled it badly when i asked her to give it to someone to give back to me because according to this other person, "i don't make enough effort to see her and if i want it back, i should come and get it myself". pfft. i'd rather buy the album from south africa. which i have. nyer. :p ]

also, a good friend of kurt’s has just had a baby. yay! very cute! congrats to rob and belle!

things that are not so good right now:

i have a sore back and it makes me feel really really old. i also need to buy presents soon for people and i don’t have enough money because i keep spending it on crap.

what i want for my birthday : palm lifedrive mobile manager

speaking of scars, my labret hole has healed to the point where you can hardly even see it. i’m a bit sad i had to take it out, i really liked it. but i also like having my two front teeth. oh well, my parents will be pleased.

my best friend’s sister + brother-in-law are bringing their newborn up to visit for the weekend, so i have invited myself over to see them briefly tomorrow night. other than that, i am intending on having a fairly quiet weekend, and playing a whole lot of the sims.

[i nearly bought a new sims pack thing on the weekend, "family fun stuff" - it's got all these new items and furniture and stuff. but then i decided i couldn't be bothered. and if i wait a few months, it'll be cheaper. and i want to get a new computer soon, so anything i install, i'll just have to reinstall in a few months anyway. meh, who can be bothered?]

i did however buy a bunch of dvds last weekend; “the ring”, “salem’s lot”, “godsend”, “eternal sunshine of the spotless mind”, “poltergeist”, pet shop boys (video clips) and placebo’s ’soulmates never die - live in paris’. yay. i love dvds! and our local video store has a bunch of b-grade horror on sale at the moment, so i might buy some more when i get paid :p of course, as i am repeatedly told by my ever-patient husband, the more i keep buying things like dvds, the longer it will take me to save up for my new computer. oh, and i need to buy new games for my pda too.

[sigh] it’s so hard being middle class.

i watched super size me the other night, and i was pleasantly surprised. i am guilty of believing negative hype far too easily, and there was no exception this time. i heard a few people go “omg, i’m never eating mcdonalds again” and it turned me off massively. but the movie’s not so much focussed on attacking maccas, i think - more just showing how poorly your body copes with nutritionly-lacking foods. and of course, i got a bee in my bonnet about him eating maccas for every meal, but now i’ve seen it, i understand his point better. unsurprisingly.

anyway, so it prompted me to be even firmer in my committment to getting healthier (again). i don’t care so much about being “fat” anymore, i just don’t want to die before i absolutely have to. and i’m pretty proud of myself when i think about it. i haven’t had a piece of chocolate in over 2 weeks. woo. but its not about not eating chocolate this time, its about not thinking i need chocolate. it’s about stopping myself from being so compulsive. naughty red right hand.

i also think about our guinea pig, winston, a lot. not because i want to eat him (although apparently they are quite delicious). no, i think about how cute he is, and what we can do to make him the happiest little rodent in the world. i don’t think it takes much :p we’re going to make some barriers to set up for him so he can go running around without danger of getting under something we can’t get him out of, or getting away from us and getting dead. he needs more exercise apparently than what he can get in his cage. and he can’t have a wheel, most people say, because it ruins their footses and they can hurt themselves. so we will take him to the park, and he can use our 2nd bedroom when we’re home. and we will take photos and everyone shall fall in love with our little boy. but you can’t have him. he belongs to us. get your own damn guinea pig.

so there.

also getting my goat at the moment: there are people who complain about the price of things, and then complain about the lack of service provided by the company selling the things. do some people not understand that service costs money to offer? i would rather pay twice as much for something and have better service, but people want cheap prices and top service. and i’m not surprised that this rarely exists. people always think of only material objects being worth money, but what about labour for example? or petrol costs associated with call-outs / in house quotes?

in related news, this is an interesting read :)

lately, i’ve become very interested in the way the brain works, and all the sorts of mental illnesses one can have. i also find interesting, the debate about whether or not mental illnesses, neurological disorders, and whatnot are actually “real” or not. i mean, there’s no way to really prove either way. you can’t hold something in your hand and go “here it is, here is my schizophrenia” so i guess, it becomes a matter of what you put your faith in.

humans are too smart to just shut up and go with it, but we’re too stupid to figure out the answers to all those really interesting questions, like “why are we here?”.

in winston news, the little fella seems to be getting used to having us around. sometimes we can even walk near him without him darting back into his little house. he is so cute. like, when he drinks water or nibbles his broccoli. i hope he likes cuddles :)

i miss my friends [you know who you are] and i wish it didn’t hurt sometimes. but i guess the grief is not unlike when someone dies. i mean, when someone dies, we cry because we miss them right? but its just that when someone dies, we believe we’ll never see them again. at least when someone moves or you lose contact, there’s always the possibility (varying in degrees) of seeing them again. it’d be nice to live in an age where you could live anywhere you wanted to and just teleport to other places all over the galaxy to see your friends. then we could all visit each other for the weekend, or for dinner! or even to borrow a cup of sugar. mmmm, intergalactic sugar.

so, we put our heads together, did our research, and then went shopping on tuesday, and here we are : we’ve got a new guinea pig friend! we call him Winston. :) and as you can see by following the link, winston has a webcam! unfortunately for you though, guinea pigs don’t do much, but you can watch him sleeping, eating and drinking to your heart’s content. (and if you’re lucky, you might catch a shot of our hands from time to time!) so far, we haven’t had too many cuddles because he needs to get used to his new home (and his new parents) but he seems to be getting more relaxed every day. yay! i’m going to get him a little harness so we can take him down to the park, because guinea pigs like grass - they, after all, live in grasslands natively - and they need exercise because they’re little fatsoes.

other than getting winston, we haven’t been up to much. spent some time with friends last weekend which was pretty good - its always fun to catch up with people - but in my old age, i am preferring smaller groups over larger ones. large dinner parties and whatnot just make me really nervous, am not sure why. i do notice i ramble on with more crap when there are more people around, i figure thats a nervousness thing. anyway, so it was fun seeing everyone, but i think i’ll try to stick to have 2-4 people over for dinner at one time :)

also, am trying not to snack so much anymore because i’m turning into a big fat chubber (again). so no snacking, only three meals a day. we’ll see how long this lasts :p but so far, its been okay. had some icecream + cake last weekend, and had some pizza last night, but other than that, we’ve been eating pretty healthy. apparently, i need to come to terms with the fact that chocolate isn’t a daily food. pfft, asif. and last night, my gorgeous and slim best friend sat on my couch and ate 4 chocolate billabongs and it was fine. yay! so now i’m only trying to have junk food on a special occasion, so … i need to organise bi-weekly special occasions at the very least here, people. book now!

found this very cool german-australian website called infobahn australia that has a directory of all sorts of german places, like restaurants and bakehouses and even doctors, chemists, clubs and schools. it seems to basically be a guide for the newly immigrated german person to australia, without them needing to lose touch with their germanity. there’s even a slang page, explaining terms like “good on’ya”, “shiela” and “dodgy” :) :) but it is in german, so its a bit beyond me. i have to use my clever husband to explain certain bits and pieces. although i haven’t forgotten everything, it just takes me a while to translate it in my head.

my first friend and i haven’t seen each other for maybe 4 years, so it was nice. i don’t think we’ll keep in regular touch, but i’ve got her details and she’s got mine. she and her partner seem happy which is great - they’ve been together for 8 years and i think they’ve had to put up with a lot of resistance from their families and some friends regarding their relationship. they sound like they handled it remarkably well though. i don’t know how i would’ve coped in the same situation.

we just bought an eye-tv. this means we can timeshift television, so i can go to sleep early and not miss all the high quality tv shows i watch. the first one we got about 2 weeks ago didn’t work, which was very sad. we had to send it back and wait while they tested it to make sure we weren’t entirely stupid (it just plugs into a usb port and should work - that’s all), and finally yesterday our replacement was delivered. huzzah, it works! oh, and even better than recording entire tv shows in digital quality, we can even pause live tv. that’s right, live tv. it simply stores it on the hard drive of your computer until you unpause it, and then it plays back. how exciting. i love me some gadgets.

have educated myself in the way of all things labrety, well at least in the etymology - it seems “The word is from the Latin labrum, lip. It is not French, and should be pronounced “lay-brit” not “la-bret” or “la-bray.”

speaking of which, i had to remove mine. not terribly surprising or unexpected, but still a little sad. it was too low, and made my teeth threaten me with abandonment. so now i’m thinking about getting a lip piercing - the only thing stopping me is the wondering of how much it gets in the way of things like eating and kissing. i wouldn’t want a tongue piercing i think. and eyebrow ones look much better on guys than girls. maybe i’ll get my nose done. but i don’t want it to get all snotty.

it is sooooo hot. i can’t believe this weather. a month ago, i was wearing 2 shirts and a jumper at work, now i’m sweltering in just a t-shirt. ick.

oooh, gotta go on a tart mission right now. tarts!!!

dead rising came out yesterday for da xbox. and kurt has already bought his copy, which is not surprising, cos it seems like a pretty groovy game. it does mean, however, i will not be able to watch movies in the lounge room for maybe months, but i suppose i can watch the zombie movie game.

i saw fourplay last night for the first time, and it was pretty cool. got to meet all the members of the group and everything - how cool am i. i was very impressed by their performance, and i think i liked their original stuff even more than their covers. i don’t think i’d enjoy it much to listen to at home, but i’d definitely go and see them again sometime. speaking of which, they’re playing at @newtown tonight, but i’m not going to that because i’m tired and not that much of a fangirl. but if you haven’t heard any of their stuff, you should check out their website and such - very groovy.

my best friend’s sister is about to pop her first little boy out. woo. i am very excited. obviously not as excited as the family, but still. i like (other people’s) babies + toddlers. they’re very cute. oh, speaking of which, we have a new nephew too, on the husband’s side. that’s 6 nieces and nephews we’ve got now. and they’re all so cute too. although, the two oldest are getting a bit too much like real people now, at 7 + 6 yrs.

not doing much of anything this weekend, which is good because the following two are busybusybusy. plus now we’re working extra, its nice to get some bludge time. plus i’m doing this software course by correspondance at the moment which i really need to finish. so i guess i’ll do that on sunday. waah, life is full of worky things. i would like to retire please. kthx.

oooh, i don’t think i mentioned before, i just got the 3 neuroticfish albums, yay! gelb, les chansons neurotique and no instruments. they are very pretty. and i’m sure that my $90 makes all the difference, so go on, sascha, buy yourself something nice.

lunch break’s over.

apparently, the death of steve irwin earlier in the week, and now peter brock, makes this “a very black week” for australians … well, at least for their family and friends. not so much me. i dunno, its just some guys, you know. people die all the time, why isn’t there more grieving for those people? i think its kind of silly to get caught up in someone just because they’re famous [... well, now i do anyway, now that i'm a big scary adult that is. you should have seen my sobs when river phoenix and michael hutchence carked it :p]

anyway, it gets me to thinking - i don’t need a “tragedy” to make me realise how precious life is or to appreciate and value my friends and family. i don’t even need christmas, parental units’ days or whatever. and i think its strange that so many people do. but at least, if everyone affected by steve irwin or peter brock’s death goes home and gives each other a hug, and if they could remember to do it without prompting!, the world would be a better place.

water pistol man, full of ammunition, squirting at fires on a world wide mission. did you ever think to stop and squirt the flowers in your own backyard?

so yeah. got plans to see some movies on the weekend, silent hill and dead or alive. woo! should be lots of funnly. and i just had some margherita pizzah for dinner. and now i’m full, buuut i want gelato.

we’re going to start working 6 days a week soon. very busy little bees, we is. buzzzzz. this is going to make our sundays even specialer cos our time is so in demand, you see. so book now, you don’t want to miss out on this very special offer. yeah.

today i had a bottle of pepsi max and a gigantic mocha caramelatte and i feel kind of strange. too much caffeine, too much sugar. i need to go home and have a lie down.

placebo soon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

you know, memories are such funny things. i get these recollections in my mind as clear as day - as if they’re happening right now almost - and yet all those times, and a lot of the people, are all gone. they might not even have happened, and i’ve just had memory implants or been brainwashed into believing them; there’s no way to know. and i know the idea sounds silly, but if you think about it, there’s no way to be 100% sure that anything non-tangible ever existed. man, i should have been a philosopher.

silent hill is out! woowoo!

following on from the fact that we keep finding new celestial bodies that are larger than pluto, the IAU has decided that pluto does not meet the necessary requirements to still be classified as a planet. it will now be classified as a dwarf planet, along with the solar system’s largest asteroid, ceres (between mars and jupiter), and pluto’s moon, charon.

there were 9, but now there are only 8 planets in our solar system. i guess “my very energetic monster just sat on neptune’s … ” nothing now. no more puppy!

[i've just been informed incidentally that the mnemonic my husband learnt was vastly different, and dare i say it, vastly superior : "my very easy memory jingle seems useful naming ... planets" - not anymore it doesn't!]

i wonder what they will use now to teach kids to remember the order of the planets …

i am very passionate about children being treated properly. i have a massive aversion to suffering of any kind, and when it comes to children and animals versus big scary adults - well, it should be obvious whose side i’m going to take.

so anyway, dinner on saturday night was fun. the food was too hot but i sort of expected that so i wasn’t too upset. our waitress was waaay too bubbly though. and i’ve figured out i get sort of sensory overload being surrounded by that many people i am expected to interact with. see, i went a bit mental, and quietly freaked out about it all the way home. i used to drink lots to make up for the fact i was insanely nervous but that seems less wise as i get older, so i guess i just have to cope with the nervousness. … i am strangely neurotic.

oh, i meant to post about this weeks ago, but you know - they’re making a “Dead or Alive” movie. woohoo! boobs ahoy hoy! and it has the chick who played Flick on Neighbours in it.

i have been having some very strange dreams again recently. the other night i dreamt i was a ballet dancer and i had to go into the costume room and find clothes and shoes (not the first time i’ve dreamt that either) but this time i had a broken foot or ankle or something. then it all changed and i had to get some sort of surgery by this crazy doctor who amputated my entire leg at the same time as he was amputating another patient’s opposite leg. then he swapped them and gave me the other person’s. but it was a man’s leg, and it was covered in weird welts and spots, and then i ran up the fire stairs in the hospital, and then i became the king! |\/\/|*

* it’s a crown. obviously.

in other news, i’ve been trying out different brands of chocolate almonds recently, and i have to say i’m reasonably disappointed. see, i’m really fussy. i might not be fussy in the way you’d expect, but i am fussy. and even though i really like cadbury chocolate, i don’t like cadbury chocolate almonds as much as i like darrell lea chocolate almonds. and i don’t like nestle choc almonds much either. so that means i am restricted to eating almonds that are only sold in speciality shops. and the occasional chemist (how weird is that).

now for some serious thoughts - its not like its anything new but its just in my head for some reason - why do people always need some external influence to blame for kids doing messed up stuff? why don’t they realise it might just have something to do with the parents? pfft, controversial topic, i know, but its annoying. and frustrating. i just wish people would take responsibility for the things / people in _their_ area of responsibility. particularly when it comes to kids. kids need a lot of looking after and people just constantly let them down. and it makes me cranky. so there you go.

busy weekend coming up. lots of working, plus dinner plans for tomorrow night. should be lots of fun, and i hope we don’t have to bail too early. looking forward to stuffing my face with mexican. weee!

i just had chips and gravy for lunch. yum. not healthy though. really. i can feel my arteries hardening as i type.

speaking of clogged arteries, there’s this new smoking-is-bad thing around (again), and its gotten to the point where you don’t seem to be able to find out the milligrams of the cigarettes anymore, cos “there is no healthy option”. and its all over buses. and they’ve got ugly pictures of diseases on the cigarette packets now. and a lady on the tv with mouth cancer that looks pretty nasty. its all a bit icky. but i wonder how many smokers its affecting. i don’t really smoke anymore, even socially because it seems to make me feel a bit queasy. maybe its all that thinking about stomach cancer. but i figure if knowing it causes cancer doesn’t make you stop [or the fact its hard to smoke indoors anywhere anymore, or the physical ailments you suffer as an immediate response, such as tonsilitis or whatever], then is this latest campaign going to affect you? meh. i dunno. just a wondering of mine. thats all for now. boring.

k is checking out the handi ghandi website. i’m concerned he’s going to want to start a franchise. we’d never make any money because he’d be eating all the indian. and i’d be crying from exposure to too much hot things. they gave us this chili sauce yesterday and it smelled like danger! hot things make no sense. hurty! i find butter chicken a little spicy most of the time.

i have to do more work. my lunch break is over i think. kbye.

there is an indian shop in cronulla called “handi ghandi” - their tagline is “great curries, no worries”. bloody brilliant. apparently the food is quite good. and not too expensive. we had indian from somewhere else the other day and it cost us $40 for lunch. wah. it was good though. and i got to have my leftovers for dinner, cos beloved had business dinner plans and i can’t be trusted to cook my own food. i have progressed to being able to heat quiche up in the oven now, but i have to put the timer on because i get bored and forget about it. everyone’s like “you don’t cook? oh but cooking’s so much fun”. no. cooking is not fun. cooking is annoying, messy and fiddly. and the result is never worth the effort for me. unless i am making a cake. i have made some pretty nice cakes. and i make a mean salad. which is just as well really otherwise we’d never eat any vegetation.

just got around to watching the third season of black books on dvd (i got it for my birthday last year). and it was very funny. it makes me want to drink copious amounts of wine and smoke myself stupid however. this can only be a bad thing.

i want milkshake. ohhhh milkshake. milkshake for meeee. i would drink it all up and be full and ’splode from all the dairy, but it would be fun! and yummy.

i don’t know how people don’t get more bored. they say that boredom seeps into the boring mind but i dont think my mind is boring. its just full of insane. i need an off switch.

new comic is up for those who are interested :)

its called “one fine day …” and it’s about a bunch of young adults and day to day relationship stuff.

see it here.

enjoy!!

gott weiss ich war ein truffelschwein.

pizza for dinner, which means pizza for breakfast! yay!

god i am so bored. its time to go home soon thankfully.

beep beep.

i think i have mad cow disease.

goddamn right, its a beautiful day.

we are going to buy an airport once we have the money. it is very expensive liking owning stuff. but when it comes to computers and technology, i don’t think there is anything that one of us wouldn’t be interested in owning. i know i would like to have a house thats fully automated, with music piped through to every room of the house, security cameras, intercoms, fingerprint scanners, built in entertainment systems, tv in the bathroom … so on. one day maybe. a geek can dream.

speaking of which, i wish everyone liked emails and smses as much i do. i dislike phone calls these days, and i get frustrated when i sms or email someone and they constantly respond by calling me. i understand some people have problems, like my father who finds emails and smses a bit overwhelming, but people who are younger than 40 have no excuse for not giving technology a better go. oh sure, maybe some people like talking on the phone. i suppose i can forgive that. maybe. if i like you enough :)

my mother thinks me not wanting to talk on the phone all the time means i am becoming anti-social. (haha, “becoming”!) seriously, i don’t think that has anything to do with it. i enjoy people’s company, i just don’t like making plans or chatting aimlessly on the telephone - i would rather sms or email if there was no way to talk in person. i think it has a lot to do with the increased clarity with which i can express myself with written communication. basically i am a mong with talking. i do it too much, too fast and too randomly. and i can’t think while i’m talking, so you can see where that ends up.

[btw, in case you were wondering, mong is apparently australian slang for mongrel dog, implying idiocy (i guess due to poor breeding) not anything else that it might sound similar to which is much more offensive.]

i like trains. i was thinking about this the other day. i really like trains. i wish city -rail were more reliable, but other than that, i have no complaints about trains. kurt doesn’t like trains. but thats okay, because he drives! i don’t think i will ever drive regularly again. i think sometimes its better to take the hint and quit while you’re ahead - 4 accidents is enough for me. but i like trains to the point of wanting to go on a long trip on a train again. and its not because i haven’t done it - i caught the indian pacific from sydney to adelaide and loved it. but i don’t think i’m going to win my beloved over. i think once people start driving, it can be hard to give that control over to the public transport system, particularly in australia. germany is apparently much easier to cope with on a day to day basis because of the fabulous p.t system. and what i saw of it, i can’t disagree.

i think i would like to own a train … have a big property somewhere with lots of hired hands so i didn’t have to do anything and just ride around on my train, surveying my calm kingdom. i used to consider being a train driver, but that’s too much responsibility. besides if i keep crashing an automobile …

i am tired of clothes. not of wearing them but of having to buy them and decide constantly what to wear. i like uniforms. reduces social pressure. doesn’t matter if people think i look tooly because its a uniform, no choice. i also get tired of eating. for people who know me that is potentially amusing, but regardless i really do. i get really bored and am insanely picky. i don’t know why, maybe because i was (am) spoilt.

got our placebo tickets today, wahoo! how exciting. but now i have to go shopping for new jeans, because jeans are my clothing of choice for the hordern. and i currently have none. and apparently black is back in fashion this year which is good, it means i might actually be able to find some clothes i like instead of peasant tops and scrappy skirts.

DONALD - “Oh, God. I was so in love with her.”

KAUFMAN - “I know. And you were flirting with her. And she was really sweet to you.”

DONALD - “I remember that.”

KAUFMAN - “Then when you walked away, she started making fun of you with Kim Canetti. It was like they were laughing at me. You didn’t know at all. You seemed so happy.”

DONALD - “I knew. I heard them.”

KAUFMAN - “How come you looked so happy?”

DONALD - “I loved Sarah, Charles. It was mine, that love. I owned it. Even Sarah didn’t have the right to take it away. I can love whoever I want.”

KAUFMAN - “She thought you were pathetic.”

DONALD - “That was her business, not mine. You are what you love, not what loves you. That’s what I decided a long time ago.”

placebo are coming to _my_ town! waaaahoo! tix go on sale friday at 9am (limited presale today at midday). i am very excited. placebo are one of the only bands i really like these days that i’m likely to see without having to go very far and/or spend a lot of money. (well, $80 isn’t pocket change but its not as much as i would have to spend to go and see Rammstein for example).

weee! [does a lively jig]

i am a bit tired. i stayed up last night playing the sims. i have the three expansions now - “nightlife”, “university” and “open for business” - which adds lots of fun stuff, which is mainly what i’m interested in. i like getting new clothes, hairstyles and whatnot primarily. the business-running in o.f.b can sod off though. its complicated and annoying. i’ve also done this thing where i’ve kinda stuffed my neighbourhood by filling it with related people. and as much as i would like to make them inbreed for fun, you just can’t. so i have to keep making new people delibrately to marry them off, which is a little tedious.

my keyboard just borked it. meh. so now i am using some manky thing we had hanging around. i have to clean it now. all better. funny how that was no time at all for you, huh?

i am so bored. and i’ve lost my train of thought.

jaime and shannon are an inch or two away from flying off on their canada immigration extraordinaire. how exciting! a very bittersweet occasion, i imagine. mmm, “bittersweet” makes me think of chocolate.

someone the other day said to us “a lot of your friends are moving overseas aren’t they?”. well, duh. mickey mouse award for you, bright spark. it’s good though because it means i have friends all around the world without having to do any travelling and meeting new people! hurrah! not that i’ll do anything with this happy turn of events though. wah.

speaking of travelling, i’m not sure if i mentioned how pleasantly surprised i was about the relative comfort of an international flight versus a domestic one. the main advantage was of course comfier seats and tv screens to watch movies on, followed closely though by the lack of feeling like a balloon was being blown up in my head (sinus) and not feeling like i was going to spew over everyone in my row. yay for that.

moved our furniture around the other day. now the dining table’s where the computer desks used to be, and the computer desks and little couch are over near the balcony door. i like it a bit better i think. i want more furniture, but i have run out of wall and floor space. and if i try to make us move at this stage, i think i’d get divorced. so i’ll have to find another hobby for the meantime.

i have paperwork to do but golly, i’m not feeling like i can be bothered. i had this dream last night, i just remembered, about being somewhere like a eurospar doing some shopping with some random people. weird.

it’s kinda chilly today and my arms are cold. but my jumpers are all at home and my shirt has short sleevicals. so i shall have to suffer. unless i wear my bear jacket. mmmm, ugly warm bear jacket. i have to go now, i’ve got homework to do before school tomorrow. not really. bye.

* but i don’t know where to find one. haha.

we’re tired, still sleep-deprived from watching the game on monday night, still hoarse from screaming and waking up the few heathen neighbours. and my eyes have squiggles in them but solutions cost money or inconvenience. but we have each other, and we have the night to look forward to, when we’re finally allowed to sleep again.

we’re late for work and we don’t care right now. but when the coffee’s drained, we’ll have to go. chinese for lunch today, so i have something else on the agenda to look forward to today. my best friend left her tobacco here and i want to smoke. last night, i had dreams of failing at work and of friends coming home from overseas to visit without anyone telling me. i awoke to therapy? over the speakers, and cold hands.

the morning is too cold, the day is too warm and the night comes too early. and now the coffee is all gone.

speaking of, we just saw Slither on Sunday and it was very enjoyable. Very gross, yet very funny, my sides were hurting from laughing (and trying not to be sick) for most of the movie. Nathan Fillion is a legend too. I know him from his work on Buffy (as Caleb, the First’s right hand man) and he was in Firefly and Serenity which everyone raves about (but which I still haven’t seen), but I didn’t realise he was the chickie’s boyfriend in 2 Guys, a girl and a pizza place (possibly because his character was reasonably unmemorable), which is pretty cool. Interestingly, he apparently initially auditioned for the role of Angel but was rejected unsurprisingly, seeing who they eventually did cast.

heh, i’m a bit of a movie nerd.

and now for something even nerdier, i did this quiz the boys are emailing around to each other, and apparently if I were a D&D character, my alignment would be Neutral Good - “A neutral good character does the best that a good person can do. He is devoted to helping others. He works with kings and magistrates but does not feel beholden to them. The common phrase for neutral good is “true good.” Neutral good is the best alignment you can be because it means doing what is good without bias toward or against order.” (from the Players Handbook)

so, what’s been going on with me besides losing my mind, you ask? not much … i’ve been watching buffy and playing the sims a bit which is quite time consuming. i’ve got a girlie friends dinner tomorrow night which should be fun [not for kurt though, thats why i'm letting him stay home] and going to visit my dad soon, and collecting souveniry presents from his trip to the uk, yay for presents.

and jaime & shannon are leaving soon. wah! :( best of luck, guys! [even if it does mean half our friends are on the other side of the world]. i have always wanted to visit canada though, and maybe by the time hell freezes over, we’ll have saved enough money to go visit. remember to send me postcards to show us what we’re missing.

i am so postcard greedy - not only because i like seeing pretty piccies of where people are, but also because with emails and such, people feel compelled to write so much more even when there’s nothing much to say. postcards you can just write “hi, having a blast, love you lots” and it’s done and it doesn’t feel forced. and its much more traveller-friendly to send postcards, i think.

i wonder how well australia will do in the world cup. i’m a little bit excited, but i just can’t get watching football on tv. i shall have to learn to teleport so i can see all the games live. good plan, old chum.

i want football-shaped nutella.

i wish i was going to germany for the world cup. not because i’m particularly interested in the world cup, but i am particularly interested in germany. see, this is why i didn’t want to start travelling - now i’m just unbearable when other people get to and i don’t :)

see?

then there’s this: While Brown’s book is a work of fiction, Jennings said the film, starring Tom Hanks, “muddles fact and fiction, upsetting people who have been Catholics all their lives who now don’t know what is true and what is lies.” (Full article here).

what?? look, I appreciate some people might be upset by a work of fiction that challenges their faith, even though i don’t understand why they’re upset as it’s just a work of fiction, but people getting confused about what’s true or not? that’s just crazy. if someone has their faith shaken by a work of fiction, one has to question the basis of their faith to begin with, i’d say.

but what do i know? i don’t have that kind of faith.

i wish that i could help you see
how you’ve been neglecting yourself
too afraid of stepping up to the plate
for fear of hurting someone else

i wish you could just snap out of it
but we both know you’ve been here before
and i can feel your despair, your confusion
too traumatic for me to ignore

so i watch you stumble around again
as you chase away dream after dream
and there’s nothing i can do for you
except be here for you like i’ve always been

LIBERTARIANS support maximum liberty in both personal and economic matters. They advocate a much smaller government; one that is limited to protecting individuals from coercion and violence. Libertarians tend to embrace individual responsibility, oppose government bureaucracy and taxes, promote private charity, tolerate diverse lifestyles, support the free market, and defend civil liberties.”

“take the world’s smallest political quiz”

we also might be acquiring some bits and pieces from our friends who are moving overseas soon, which would be lovely, since we can’t afford to buy any more brand new furniture at the moment, and man, if we don’t hate our current couch :)

i just found out last week that one of my girlfriends from school has just hooked up with one of our other girlfriend’s older brothers. it sounds silly, but i am so terribly excited for them. i’ve always thought they should get together, and they both deserve to be happy finally, so i hope it works out for them. i just need to try and keep my excitement to a dull roar around them so i don’t embarrass them too much :)

it’s nice not working on mondays, even though sometimes i can’t think of anything i wanna do.