12 May, 2008

You can't spell 'self esteem' without 'festee'.

A homeless man told me I looked "very nice today".

I can't help but want to parse this for hidden meaning.

Does this mean that he sees me often and thinks I look nice today, as opposed to other days? Is he being patronising (pretty galling coming from a guy with things living in his facial hair)? Did he sense I needed a bit of a pick-me-up, after my ego-crushing credit card application ("I don't have any assets, I guess. Do first editions count?" "Ha, they're not worth anything. Do you have a car?")?

You know what? I'm going to return those overdue Woody Allen and Curb Your Enthusiasm DVDs today. I've overdosed on neuroses.


Oh, and housewarming at our place this Saturday. Be there!

29 April, 2008

Mag Nation-ation-ation

Still no internets, but breaking news: no money! I'm going to Sydney in 2 days, and my budget for the next 10 days is $30/day. Hmmm. I'm no mathematician, but that seems to me to add up to a whole lot of at-home scrabble and no food.

Oh, and poetic justice chose to kick in nicely last night with a $160 fine for dodging tram fare.

Poverty makes me grumpy. I was really enjoying my misery until a homeless guy asked me for change, saying he hadn't eaten in days. Thanks for putting everything in perspective, arsehole.

15 April, 2008

Australia On Collins

I'm back to stealing internets again, though this time it's actually legitimate (ie. in a mall that offers free wireless as opposed to the alley behind my house).

Updates will continue to be sporadic until this situation improves, as I can't be bothered walking lappy down the road that often. Plus, the girl sitting next to me in this mall is eating a chocolate eclair and sniffing, which is turning me off the public internet experience altogether.

I do have a new celebrity sighting to report: Keanu Reeves. Not actually in the bookshop, but in the posh restaurant next door. And not just in the posh restaurant next door, but in the posher upstairs part. Posh squared.

Okay, now the guy on the other side of me is singing to himself. I'm gone.

31 March, 2008

Up And Out

It'll probs be radio silence for the next little while, folks, what with moving in to the new apartment and lack of internet access in said apartment. Check back in a week or so.

*click*

*beeeeeeeep beeeeeeeeep beeeeeeeep*

30 March, 2008

Statement Of Principle, Public Transport Edition

People for whom I will give up my seat on the tram, or otherwise allow to beat me to the next available free seat:
  • the usual suspects: old people, limping people and pregnant people (NB. The latter category is a bit iffy, and Your Host would recommend proceeding with caution lest Regular-Not-Pregnant Fatty gives you an icy stare thereby forcing you, for face-saving's sake, to get off at the next stop and pretend that was your plan all along.)
  • those carrying lots of stuff or looking generally pooped
  • those who have clearly paid to ride the tram when I have not
However, it is every man for himself if:
  • that person is wearing unattractive footwear (I'm looking at you, girl in black lace-up ugg boots);
  • that person is grotesquely obese (Greater Good principle - two people can sit where one larger person sits); or
  • I really, really want to sit down.

26 March, 2008

Can I Borrow Some Ears?

I was going to say that I've been adding music to my computer all weekend, then I realised it was Wednesday. How did that happen?

25 March, 2008

Not That Kind Of Peepshow

Try to be a glass-is-not-only-half-empty-but-also-has-lipstick-stains- on-it guy while looking at this.

(Number 5 = definite favourite, followed closely by numbers 13, 23 and 33.)

24 March, 2008

Question

How racist is it to be wary of Italian bistros that are staffed entirely by Chinese people*?





*Sushi restaurants run only by Mexicans, etc.

23 March, 2008

I Was Hiccupping, Too. Will The Cliches Never End?

Ugh, sorry about that.

Drunken Blogging = Great

If I haven't told any of you recently, I love you all.

PS. $6 wine = great also

21 March, 2008

And So The Poor Doggie Had None

As of one hour ago, when I ate a carrot, I have no food in the house.

For serious. I have nothing but condiments, and almost none of those.

So, I'm revising my recipe request: if anyone has a recipe in which half a jar of mustard, a tablespoon of hoisin sauce and three wrinkled cherry tomatoes comprise the sole ingredients, I'd really appreciate it.

20 March, 2008

Books Be Where It's At

Famous people who have come into the bookshop since I've started working there:
  • Dr Barry Jones
  • John Clarke
  • Kevin Rudd
Some of the famous people who came into the bookshop before I started working there:
  • Paul Keating
  • Seamus Heaney
  • Salman Rushdie

'Super Student' Has Replaced 'Danger' As My Middle Name

I have done the readings for my grammar class TWO WEEKS before they need to be done.

And you know what? Those readings are really useful. They contain all kind of information relating to the stuff you're studying, and consolidate the things you learn in class. Why did no one tell me this before?

It might have made the previous 17 years a little more productive.

19 March, 2008

The Asbestos Chef

I'm moving in with Em and Simon in a couple of weeks. We have lovely ideas about shopping for fruit and vegies at the Queen Victoria Markets and cooking collectively.

Does anyone have any good recipes (preferably vegetarian, sans bread or pasta and cheap to prepare)?

I'll list my cooking repertoire, just so you don't post something that I already know how to make:

Accidental Dhal

Red lentils
Onions
Stock
Cumin

1. Intend to make lentil soup.
2. Put water and lentils in a pot and boil.
3. Realise you didn't put in enough water and the lentils are still solid.
4. Realise you forgot to add stock to the water or to include the onions.
4. Add a shitload of cumin.

Asian Vegetables

Vegetables
Steam
Hoisin sauce

1. At the back of the fridge, find some broccoli and carrots that you bought from the markets a couple of weeks ago.
2. Put in a colander; put colander on top of pot of boiling water.
3. Take the vegetables out of the colander whenever you feel like it. It really doesn't matter.
4. Add a shitload of hoisin sauce.

Salade aux Légumineuses

Tins of beans
Vinegar
Salt

1. With your lousy $2-store can-opener, open a tin of chickpeas that you bought from Aldi (too cheap for ring pulls).
2. Open a tin of lentils in the same fashion.
3. Combine.
4. Add a shitload of salt and vinegar.

(Estimated can-opening preparation time: 20 minutes)

Sushi

$1.40

1. Buy a california roll from that cheap place on Lonsdale Street.

(NB. DO NOT ADD A SHITLOAD OF WASABI)

18 March, 2008

They're Building An Army Against Us.

Now there's a blue pair of undies in the laundry. Actually, I think these ones might have been there longer than the bathroom ones, given how dusty they are.

If that is the case, why choose to reveal themselves now? I can only surmise that, like cockroaches roaming through a filthy kitchen in broad daylight, they sense that they have the upper hand and that we are powerless to stop them.

Take whatever cautionary measures you deem appropriate.

17 March, 2008

Heaven Help Us*, The Subjunctive Is Dead

I remember my French teacher in high school illustrating the subjunctive verb structure by telling this little joke:

A teenage girl, in the middle of a screaming argument with her mother, declares, "I hate my life! I wish I was dead!"

Her mother calmly replies, "Oh dear. That's horrible ...

... You should say 'I wish I were dead'. That would be more correct."

H0 h0 ho! (Or as they say in France, 'Haw haw haw!)

Subjunctive sentences are supposed to show a difference between real and hypothetical or wished-for situations (compare the subjunctive sentence 'God save the Queen' with the indicative 'God saves the Queen').

I always thought that the subjunctive, like the preposition rule, was something that the lay idiot mangled in his ultimate quest to corrupt the entire English language. Turns out that I'm the idiot. (Who knew?) The subjunctive, apart from a couple of standard usages like the one above, has been dead and buried for, like, thirty years. No one seems to be mourning it. Unlike most grammar rules, there's no controversy.

Gwen 'If I Was A Rich Girl' Stefani is a better grammarian than me.

... better grammarian than I ...?
... g..gramm ...?

... Aunty Em? Uncle Henry?

Maybe I'll bring it back. While the other kids at the club are partying in their fluoro leggings and slogan tees, I'll be rocking retro grammar cool, wishing the bartender WERE older than me and wishing I WERE dead.

(This is all based on what I learned in class - the internets have a lot more to say on the subject. Maybe there is more controversy than my teacher cares to think.

Of course, it's the internets, so apply salt. People here think Britney Spears is still alive.)



*see what I did here?

16 March, 2008

Sharehouse And Sharehouse Alike

We're on Day 6 of Some Guy's Grey Underwear on the Floor of the Bathroom.

15 March, 2008

Row Your Boat, Gently Down The Stinking Yarra

I've got to wake up in about 6 hours to go rowing. What's that now?

There I was a few hours ago, out and enjoying a nice drink or 4, when I get a call from Lucy (already drunk): she'd just remembered that she was teaching a 'learn to row' class in the morning and had forgotten to find someone to fill the last seat, and would I please get to the boatshed by 8am?

A bit tipsy, I agreed.

8 rollies and a bowl of noodles later, this is sounding like a god-awful idea.

Wish me sea legs.

*** UPDATE ***

Did not fall in, which is not any kind of achievement at all.

Was also, in my own not-at-all humble opinion, one of the best rowers of the four. But given that the other three had only been out in a boat twice before, and I rowed for about three years, this is also not any kind of achievement.

*** UPDATE, REDUX ***

Went out again today, was haunted by the ghosts of calluses past.
We Will Forever Be A Part Of You

12 March, 2008

We're Back, And As Ill-Equipped To Deal With HTML As Ever.

I'm back in the Blogspot fold, bitches, and it feels like I've moved out of home all over again. It's goodbye to air-conditioning, hot meals and useful computing help, hello to sleeping on the floor, killing mosquitoes in the shower and polluting the interwebs with solipsistic rantings.

Not to mention employing mediocre mixed metaphors at every opportunity.

I know I haven't exactly had a prolific output over at Lists & Diagrams these last few months. The spirit is willing, but the spirit is also really lazy and easily distracted, so I thought a new blog might motivate me to post more frequently. I don't know how long '1 200 Babies' will last - there are some other Grand Plans in the works, with Co-conspirators Unknown (by you) - but for now, here I be. Update your bookmarks/tracking devices accordingly.

Many thanks to Piers for letting me crash at Lists & Diagrams for two-odd years (longer?) and best of luck to him in the development of his brand - 'Lists & Diagrams', I mean, not the one on his stomach.

And the crowd goes ...