Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the Blogsphere

Losing my political guts

The Chinese consular general was here on campus yesterday.

I was walking out to go to lunch I saw him, surrounded by Chinese security guards, dressed in dark suits with dark sunglasses, and the university security guards - looking like rent a cops.

The consular limo was waiting for them - and it was a beautiful blue sky day here, in a country where actions against 'the man' will probably only have an impact on your social life - rather than say - you actually living.

I REALLY wanted to yell out - Free Tibet! or What about human rights!


but I didn't.

gees I'll never be a political dissident if I don't get more guts.

Its your Birthday

Its my sisters birthday next week and we are off home to the country this weekend to get some fresh air...... (read - drink strongbows on the verandah)



I got her a tops present. But I can't tell you what it is, in case she reads this entry......

Hope you all have a great weekend - it is FINALLY going to be sunny here!

Tuss x

John Butler for PM - After Kev of course

Even though it was a nightmare trying to get there.......

John went off - nice crowd shot at the end of this - it didn't really work....... soz.

Was worth it though. They (Clare Bowditch, The Waifs and John) dang from little things big things grow...... I cried.

It was tops.

And another thing.......

since when did patty cakes become cupcakes?


I am not american.

Give me Patty cakes, or give me death!

Dumb Bastards

Ever wondered what happens if you get busted drink driving FOUR times?

What a dickhead!

Australia Fair? Is that on the Gold Coast?

We spent the Australia day holiday listening to the Triple J hottest One Hundred.

We also were invited to go out to a dam to go water skiing and other frivolity involving jet skis etc.

Now, we had spent a lovely morning listening to the J’s, eating a meat pie and some lamingtons, and waiting for the paddling pool to fill up with water (from the rainwater tank people, not town water, calm down.)

We watched the lorikeets eating the nectar from the bottle brush trees, fed the young kookaburras, who live in the Jacaranda out the back , some meat and shooed away the indian myna birds.

We discussed the implications of having Australia Day on a sat – and having all the shops open, then the holiday on the Monday, when they would be closed, rubbed in sunscreen and sang along with the radio.

Then we went out to the dam.

Now the boy who invited us is lovely, despite his upper middle class cotton farming boarding school up bringing, and we were looking forward to hanging out with him.

But he was there with a large group of people – of all ages – who did not get me AT ALL.

I mean AT ALL. Not just not a bit. Of course I was engaging in the conversations, throwing out witty one liners etc. No one laughed. (except my boyf and my mate – but that was more like sniggering)

I will give you and example:

Players in this scene…..

Girl – 19 thin quite obviously dyed blonde wearing Aust flag bikini
Boy – 22 tall well built, straight teeth, degree in Ag Science

He is – giving her shit for being a dumb blonde

Scene Begins:

Me (to her) – You should just work on the same theory as Dolly Parton

Her – whats that then?

Me – well when she was asked how she felt about being stereotyped at a dumb blonde, she replied “Well, firstly I know I’m not dumb, and secondly I know I’m not blonde….”


Beat

Her – but she is blonde

Beat

Me – Oh sweet heart, I can’t help you from here……


Yep. Now they were well meaning people, hospitable, accommodating.

But they just didn’t get it. And then I realised that now I work with people like me, and my friends and family are clever and funny – it has been awhile since I have been in a group of people who are like that.

So we only stayed for 2 hours, got back in the car, turned on the J’s had the top seven still to go, sang along, talked about what an appropriate prize for a silly contest would be (a golf umbrella and your name on the perpetual cup – kept at the CWA hall) – was horrified at the number one (muse? I mean – cheer up emo kid), and pretty much decided that if hanging out with each other is better than ok, then we are ok.

I hope waterskiing is not my calling.

Wagons Roll

I have been thinking recently about lovers past and present.

It probably has something to do with the house, and the fact it now seems as though I am committing to something for the next 30 years, which is pretty close to marriage when you think about it.

Firstly you have to find one you love. Now you might get lucky like I did, and it will be the first one you see. But most likely you will have to experience between 10 and twenty before you find the right one.

Then there is the phone calls to siblings/parents/influencers, telling them all about it, moments of doubt about wether you have made the correct choice, hearing stories from all and sundry about the things that happened before you came along, convincing yourself it will be different when you are there, picking bits that you want to keep ( and those you want to change).

Then all the paperwork, and the questions, and the planning, and then, when the deal is sealed, and it is all going ahead, crapping yourself because you appear to be in for the long haul.

But I am doing with someone who I finally feel will be there with me the whole way.

In the past 10 years the lovers, good and bad, have either walked two steps ahead, or two steps behind.

And as beautiful as they all have been, they have not been the sort that I thought – you know what, I could hook my wagon to this.

Which is, after all, the reason it has taken until now to do anything remotely grown up.

Although I still love them all, and probably always will, I have decided that not only could I hitch my wagon to this one, I have moved all the stuff out of the wagon, put it on eBay, sold the wagon itself to a German backpacker, and got on board on a whole different one!

Whilst all precautions have been taken to ensure a painless exit should the wagon say, break down, fall over a cliff or start taking on extra passengers (!), I really feel like the father in “The Children of the Oregon Trail” – headed off in a new direction, into the unknown, but knowing deep down, that it is the right thing to do.







Now – as long as I can avoid dying of dysentery……

There's No Place like Home (or even Toowoomba)

I'm buying a house.


I have started to talk about renovations.


I am trying to prepare myself to be very very poor - and not being able to flit off to another country when it all gets too hard.


(insert freak out here)

International Talk Like a Pirate Day

I live in a regional town, and work at a regional university.

Today is international pirate day.

(just wait, this link will become clear.............................now)

There is a house that is clearly a student house at the end of the univeristy driveway, just as you turn onto the main street.

When I drove past this morning before work, they had put up a poster that said

International Talk Like a Pirate Day - 19th September

and suspended white sheets and ropes to resemble sails.

On my way back from lunch at about 1pm, they had erected a pirate ship in the front yard (that has been painted) with masts (3), and there was a boy dressed as pirate, wearing a blue Jackie Howe, with a forex in hand, next to a sign that says....................




Honk if you like Booty (argggggh!)



This is one of the best things I have seen all year, and deffo the funniest thing I have seen today.


So - as if you need an excuse - talk like a pirate!!

I want to ride on a train........

I got Risky Business out on DVD during the week. It was essentially, to avoid the horrendous pap that the programmers try and pass off as mid week TV, but quite a lot of it had to do with me needing to justify my school girl crush on Tom Cruise. He is getting weirder and weirder by the minute.

Anyroad.

We watched it, and of course I had to have that moment that included the words, Hey! This was first released in 1983……..what year were you born again?

But what a fine fine film.

The idea was put across that it needs to be remade.

With Snoop Dog playing the pimp.

And Tom Cruise playing the Princeton admissions bloke. Thought about making him the dad, but it wouldn’t have worked.

I love how this film is so blasé about the erhm, ladies of the night, and the little boys who pay them.

That’s what is wrong with films these days, not enough mainstream stories about prostitutes going straight and making it good.

Protest I think, right now.

But it is great. I can highly recommend it.

And I can totally see why I had a crush on Tom Cruise before he went all Scientologist and weird. He even looks good in those white Y fronts. And we all know that not everyone could pull that off.

And here is a picture

It was a dark and erie night.....

How cool is this.

And how cool was it last night.

I was very pleased to see how excited people were about it, and that it was not just us geeks.

any way,

This photo comes from the USQ observatory - and you can see more of them here

Hope you all had a chance to see it, I thought it was pretty damn tops myself.

Not so Splendid

I have discovered why cameras of any sort should be banned from large festivals of the musical sort.

Especially 'dance' music

That (as my dad would say) is bloody awful.

Pure Genius

Oh my god.

I knew the Guardian was fab but I have just seen the best new name E V A H!!

are you ready?

It is no longer BrisVegas or the Vegas.....


it is.................................................


BRIZZLE



(fo Shizzle)

Its here

It is finally Splendour.

I am leaving th office now - and will check back in on the flip side of the weekend.

Wish me luck!

Fields Anew

Well I am in the new house. And it is pretty good too I must say.

My David chose it, and just as with all the things he is choosing recently - I couldn't have done better myself.

It is very Bachelorette Pad and big enough to have rowdy dinner parties, but small enough to heat with just one gas heater.

Which is very good. It is a hop step and a jump to a very cool deli, and a bottle shop (which should make those dinner parties easier to have). It has a big lawn which I do not have to mow - which is shaded by these very large jacaranda trees from the lot over the back.

Toowoomba is a strange town - I mean strangely laid out - the houses are late 19th Century and all on half acre blocks - and then there is one great big whopping block that kind of goes right down the middle behind all the houses.

They usually have a tennis court or something on them, and really big old trees - kind of like a hidden forest.

I would have loved to lived in a big old Queenslander on one of those blocks as a child - and hidden myself away in the heat of the summer under a tree reading Enid Blyton or Ruth Parks and imagining myself to be thousands of miles away and hundreds of years ago.

So I will be able to sit by the old paling fence and pretend anyway, this summer.

How delicious!

Didn't we have a loverly time the day we moved

Moving day


AGAIN.

I swear to god, I am just going to buy a campervan and be done with it.

Moving sucks something that is not very nice to suck at all.

Like the end of a vaccuum cleaner.

or a bag full of air and pepper.

or the end of a 5v battery........

No sympathy needed. I have hired a ute this time, and bought reuseable plastic containers. So next time I will be ready.

Oh dear God - next time!

We are the Angry Mob

Hello Lovelies,

Nearly Splendour time.........................

I am REALLY looking forward to Kaiser Chiefs.

Their music is smart and clever and makes my life better.

Sounds like the perfect friend/lover/political representative

That sounds like a good case for genetic engineering - take one Kaiser Chiefs album, add hydrocarbons and a large energy source, then Voila!!!

Something else that made me laugh out loud but I am not sure if it improved my life was - THIS - Victoria Beckham in all her glory....................

I know I know, inane total bullshit - but hey - seeing her getting pissed with ladies that had had SO much plastic surgery they make that 'cat' lady look tame was funny as fuck.

Anyroad,

Ruby

Ruby

Ruby

Ruby

Long Live the Kaiser Chiefs......................................

LMAO

A ducks walks into a bar and asks, "Got any grapes?" The bartender, confused, tells the ducks that no, his bar doesn't serve grapes. The duck thanks him and leaves.

The next day, the duck returns and says, "Got any grapes?" Again, the bartender tells him that, no, the bar does not serve grapes, has never served grapes, and, furthermore, will never serve grapes. The duck, a little ruffled, thanks him and leaves.

The next day, the duck returns, but before he can say anything, the bartender begins to yell: ''Listen, duck! This is a bar! We do not serve fucking grapes! If you ever ask for grapes again, I will nail your stupid fucking webbed duck feet to the fucking floor!''

The duck is silent for a moment, and then asks, ''Got any nails?''

A very pissed off bartenders replies “No I do not have any fucking nails!!!!”

''Got any grapes?''

When I Grow up I want to be a Lebanese Girl

As many of you may be aware, I have always wanted to be a lebanese girl when I grow up. I love the way they wear the most fabulos shoes, I love the way the carry outrageous handbangs, and talk on their mobiles constantly. I love their dyed blonde hair, they are so fabulous in every sense of the word....





but now this





"The success of the industry in Lebanon last week prompted a Lebanese bank to put up billboards across the country to announce that they would be giving loans for plastic surgery.
The billboards are posted all over the capital, even in Beirut’s southern suburbs, a hotbed of the Islamist Hezbollah movement.
First National Bank’s “Plastic Surgery Loan” can provide between 1,000 and 5,000 dollars to cover “all your plastic surgery operations,” according to the bank’s website"





Oh dear lord.





New Boobs all round!





This is a much better image and part of the reason I love them....

Style in the face of adversity

(now I know this sounds ill informed and trite, but ......)