Gratuitous Big Brother posting

Skanky BarbieKatie - not just horribly scary in appearance....

Katie tells him: "Three is lucky in Chinese, and this room is decorated Chinese".
Gaelan says: "This room is Japanese".
Katie: "The meal we had earlier was Chinese".
Gaelan "We had Thai green curry".
Katie: "That's Chinese".
Gaelan: "No, it's Thai. That's why it's called Thai green curry".

This has been bugging me for a while now

Some bicycle seats are obviously very uncomfortable.

You can tell just by looking at them.



But you can also tell just how uncomfortable they are by the fact that cyclists, in the search for comfort, are willing to wear padded shorts that make them look as though they are wearing some kind of adult diaper.



So my question is, why not just put the padding on the seat in the first place and be done with it?

Ten Thirteen things I hate mildly dislike about you, Melbourne

Oh that’s right. I promised a post to slag off Melbourne following our southern sojourn a few weeks back.

I’m so lazy (slaps forehead and says d'oh).

Coupla things:

1. WTF all the shops were closed on Easter Sunday!?!?!

No Melbournians, this is definitely not normal.

As a young retail slave I strongly recall the opportunity to skive off from family functions on Easter Sunday in favour of earning triple time and a third at work selling sneakers to brats high on their body weight in chocolate.

So the one time I have the retail trifecta (being that I a) have money, b) have time, and c) have an urge to spend them both in clothing shops), everything is shut. Bastards.

2. A word to the ‘spruikers’ on Lygon Street who attempted to ‘tempt’ us into their restaurants with aggressive body language and inappropriate personal contact: “shut the f*ck up and stop upsetting my wife before I punch you in your large, pasta filled belly”.

Or something.

Seriously, does that spruiking crap actually work?

The effect it had on us was that we deliberately chose a restaurant which didn’t feature a fat, balding, smoking, smelly, aggressive, hairy and mafia-esque thug out the front trying to shoe-horn us into his den of dietary despair. I know I know, we have strange tastes.

3. It was day three of tram travel before we realised that you don’t have to validate your tram ticket every time you get on a tram. Boy, did we not feel any embarrassment about that. Despite the haughty stares and sniggers from locals. Meh.

4. We found the highest concentration of wankers on the planet. It was called Prahan.

For StinkTown Canberra locals, it was like the Academy nightclub was on steroids and had taken over a whole suburb. Not that I've ever been there. Honest!!!

5. Y'all need to take spelling classes:




6. There are lots of helpful signs around the CBD, including this one, warning you to be on the look out for a man with a giant hand dealing out wedgies.



7. The Swans beat Carlton. Ha. Take that, predominantly Carlton crowd.



8. Look out, here comes the obligatory complaint about the weather.

It rained just about the whole freaking time we were there.

That horrible cold rain that comes in sideways and all torrential like so you can’t even open your eyes to see where you are going (no great loss, in some cases). As Keisha-Marie would say, "your weather was shit, Melbourne".

The sun came out briefly on our last afternoon there, which allowed me an opportunity to test out the ‘atmospheric’ setting on my camera.





9. Five star hotels continue to grow on me as a desirable way to waste my fat-cat public servant salary.

10. Fitzroy seemed to be a bit over rated. But then again, I couldn’t see anything while we were there because it was raining so frikkin’ hard I couldn’t open my eyes (see 8 above). Plus it shows the first signs of suburb ruination (being the presence of a ‘Dangerfield’).

11. The vendors at the Queen Victoria markets can be more than a little scary in their appearance and general demeanour.

12. The best thing about our trip was a brilliant café in St Kilda called Superbo. The waiter appeared to be the long-lost twin brother of an old family friend of the LovelyWife’s and he was playing original ‘50s jazz diva recordings on an antique record player. Ripper stuff.



13. No, actually, the bestest thing about our trip was this mug, which I also picked up in St Kilda:



That’s about it really.

Oh no, wait. How could I forget!



Melbournians, sux to be you with that whole Federation Square thingo. Boy, someone has had one helluva a good joke at your expense with that thing. Ooooo-wee. I would laugh, but I’m still perplexed.

Note to the ALP re: federal leadership

Simple Saturday delights

Sometimes. On a Saturday afternoon. The LovelyWife likes to peruse the baby name listings for the week from the SMH.

As the LovelyWife is being particularly lovely this evening and cooking me a rack off lamb, I have undertaken the responsibility of reading the names aloud.

I have interrupted this erstwhile diverting activity to break in and let you all know about THE WORST BABY NAME EVER. Either that, or there are no sub-editors at the SMH this week and this name is some kind of typo because no child's name could possibly be this horrific, dismaying and ghastly.

Here it is, laydeez and gentlemen:

Jaygen Bo.

Now, I know I previously lamented the invasion of 'Georgias' (or, even, 'Jorja'), but 'Jaygen'? Come on people.

And this is even before I've resorted to perusing the birth notices in the Illawara Mockery Mercury!!

Hold the phone! I've just started browsing the Mockery pages and... ta da!

Neshae Sarah

As the LovelyWife just said "fuck me sideways, that is hoarey."

I've also just found:

Charli

I don't care what anyone says, I would be forced to pronounce that "charl-eye".

But, just like Vanessa Williams, I've gone and saved the best for last. Oh boy oh boy.

Have I found the bogan-name bonanza we've all been waiting for! So many delights in the one birth notice!

FALLINS (nee Mahony).-
17/04/06. Kathryn, Vince and Ty are very proud to announce the safe arrival of their second precious grandchild and niece
SUMMER RAE

Congratulations and all our love to Chad, Raylee, Jayden and our precious princess Paris Jade.

I don't think there is anything I can add to that, quite frankly.

Enjoy your evening.

Prime time voyeurism

Getting my confession of plagiarism out of the way right now – I was ‘inspired’ by Zoe for the following rant. Deal with it.

Anyway, yes! Big Brother approacheth.

All ye Big Brother faithful be prepared for a time of joy and a time of trial. For while we can look forward to month upon month upon month of glorious housemate crapulence (the emphasis being on ‘crap’ there, thanks), one must also face the tribulation of facing the non-believers.

I know some people are always perplexed at the attraction of the show. In some ways, I’m sure it is difficult to understand.

But really, what we are dealing with is an opportunity to watch people. And that, I reckon, is always going to be of some interest to someone somewhere. And I just happen to be one of those someones somewhere. Or something.

There is a certain attraction about being able to observe the behaviour and personality of the kinds of people you are never likely to meet in everyday life. And for me, that level of curiosity is just enough to get me to tune in at the beginning of each season, just to see which particular type of twats are in it this time round.

Plus, I’m sure we all like to watch the show and revel in the warm glowing warming glow that comes from observing the oftentimes utterly ghastly behaviour of these people and thinking ourselves so much smarter/mature/sober/more stable than they.

Although, like Zoe, I must admit that my interest wanes not long after the first couple of evictions. This is also normally the point at which “the bullying of the socially outcast housemate” commences.

To me, nothing is uglier than bullying and unfortunately, on past seasons of Big Brother, the bully always tends to prevail (at least in the short term) with the voting audience appearing to side with the bully and ditch the outcast.

I always thought this was because of an in-built impulse to avoid aligning oneself (even subconsciously) with a victim or ‘loser’. Whatever the reason, at this point in the season, I always get a bit cranky, chuck a television-related tantrum and refuse to watch.

Which isn’t very handy for the LovelyWife who, by this point of the season is probably just getting into the show and finds my sudden banning of it from our home highly irregular and selfish.

But anyway, I am thoroughly looking forward to another year of Gretel looking uglier, Family First getting crankier, housemates being even more vain and the ‘twists’ being ever more predictable and disappointing.

As a wise woman once said, the little plastic castle is a surprise every time...

Sink and swim

As is the case in most of the country, it’s school holidays here in the nash cap.

This means a proliferation of children in public spaces at all hours of day.

And these aren’t the cute, adorable, dribbling type of children (otherwise known as ‘babies’). These are school-age children, all elbows and shouting. And getting in my way...

Hence, when I went for my normal lunch-time lap swimming yesterday (part of my ongoing delusion about maintaining some kind of healthy disposition) the pool was full of these jumping, splashing, whooping annoyances.

I mean, how dare they!

Anyway, here is something you don’t want to hear at a public pool:

Mother (squawking at child): Geeeeooooorrrrrgiiia! Do you need to do a wee?

Followed by long periods of the child not getting out of the pool...

Hair today...

Check out Kylie’s “new do”.

Not bad, I say.

Now, I would like to call up the 431st rule of pop culture news reporting which says that:

“any female celebrity that chooses a very short haircut is secretly a lesbian and is absolutely begging for the tabloid press to print salacious rumours and sensationalist articles along these lines.”

(This comes right after the slightly related 430th rule of pop culture news reporting that says that: “any male celebrity that loses a bit of weight or looks a bit pale, and who happens not to have a girlfriend at that time, is secretly gay and has HIV, etc etc”).

Because of this I will be scanning the tabloids and women’s mags and will be the first to report to you when rule 431 comes into play (I swear, I wouldn’t normally look at those publications, it’s just for this blog you know).

I guess though, there is always the possibility that pop culture news reporting rule 12 will come into play - that being that an Australian celebrity that battles a high profile disease can do no wrong and shall be venerated and revered beyond belief. No chance of the tasty rumours in that case then I'm afraid...

Mexican fiesta!

The LovelyWife and I will be descending on Melbourne this weekend. Partly to watch the Swans play Carlton. Partly just to get the feck out of Canberra.

Here are a few things I know will happen:

I will get sick (I always get sick when going on holiday or after a busy time at work). Actually I can feel a bit of a sore throat coming on now…. Cough. I think I need a placebo.

We will get on the wrong tram and end up in some really bad suburb where people get knifed just walking down the street (which I guess is better than Sydney, where one gets shot in one's home these days).

We will find out that Melbourne’s advertising campaign is really just a load of bollocks and the fact that Melbourne has a lot of cafes doesn’t actually mean it is ‘European’. They serve ‘fancy coffee’ in bloody roadhouses on the Pacific Highway these days, you know.

It will rain a lot.

The Swans will lose.

As I am from Sydney, next week you should all look forward to a post from me detailing how shit everything in Melbourne is (“what do you mean, there’s no harbour?!?!” or “Sure, an efficient public transport system is nice, but where’s the gridlock?!?!?! There’s no charm without gridlock!” ).

Doctors and Nurses

If I were to become a doctor (and I’m sure I haven’t left my run too late), I would come to the job already armed with a wealth of knowledge, purely from watching medical dramas on the telly.

According to every single medical drama there is (except maybe the Flying Doctors, because that’s pretty ‘80s and I’m too young to remember that), here are some hard and fast rules about medical treatment:

If an illness can’t be diagnosed by “doing bloods” or ordering a bajillion scans, then the only test left to try will be a lumbar puncture. Patients always need lumbar punctures. I can’t stress this enough people. Doesn’t matter if they have a broken arm, they will need a lumbar puncture.

If you are a young doctor on your first shift, for some reason you will be required to perform a dangerously complex and experimental operation, with no supervision. Probably during a blackout or infectious diseases scare. You’ll likely pull it off, especially if you are a good-looking young doctor, but you’ll have the surly head surgeon to deal with later (but don't worry, they'll probably be secretly in love with you).

If you are a young doctor on your first shift, it will probably be a 63-hour straight shift, with no sleeping and crisis after crisis after dramatic crisis. You’re likely to sneak in a quick nap in the café after turning off your pager. At which time, all patients under your care will simultaneously develop massive ‘complications’ and die before you can get back to the ward.

The only time you’ll see a gay patient in a hospital is when they are being treated for AIDS. Gays never ever get any other kind of illness.

All nurses at some stage will be required to “go beyond their authority” under circumstances of extreme pressure (blackout or infectious diseases scare – or possibly even stuck in a lift with a patient on the way to urgent surgery) and perform an emergency tracheotomy using a pocket-knife and a Bic pen with the insides pulled out.

If a patient is homeless/in an abusive relationship/mentally ill, “social services” won’t be able to help and you’ll have to take them into your own home, with disastrous consequences, solely for the purposes of developing your character and learning a lesson about trust and naivety.

You’ll be surprised by the number of times you’ll discover, through testing, that a patient’s parents aren’t the biological parents, and have been lying to their son/daughter for years and years. No matter what illness the patient has, you’ll have to break the news regarding their lying parents to them in dramatic circumstances for them to have any chance of recovery.

Chances are that dramatic irony will eventually determine your fate, and you’ll end up dying of some horrific disease, just to prove that even doctors are humans too.

I don’t understand why medical students need to undergo 17 years of intensive training. It’s all there on TV.

8 items or less

Canberra has a few idiosyncrasies, including no outdoor advertising, no toll roads, yellow fire hydrants and a humane legislature.

But by far my favourite is the fact that you can purchase alcohol at the supermarket.

Not only is this highly convenient, but it also brings a whole new dimension to a game played by myself and the LovelyWife – being ‘who can spot the weirdest grocery order when waiting at the supermarket checkout’ (our lives are packed with rich, fulfilling experiences such as these, you see).

An otherwise mundane pile of groceries can get just that little bit entertainingly interesting by the addition of a bulk container of grog.

Not long after moving to Canberra, I thought I had spotted a corker of an order on the conveyor belt:

Home brand cornflakes, a litre of whiskey and cut-price, soon to expire, packaged ham.

This was soon topped by:

Two bunches of spring onions, a bottle of champagne and a toaster.

However our favourite to date would have to be:

A box of 4 individual pizzas and a bottle of Stone’s green ginger wine.

Not just a little bit entertaining to look at whilst waiting for your Eftpos transaction to go through, but indicative of someone expecting a bloody good night in.

You should try playing this game yourselves. In the field of ‘mildly distracting and totally trivial happenings in modern life’, I’d rate it as at least a 7/10.