Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Mentally 17

I have moved onto signing my dates with 2013 but I haven't found the necessary courage to write how I felt about 2012.

I'm not ready to be 30. And yet it's ridiculously inevitable- ready or not, here it comes.

On 2012 last year

 On 2012 last year.

"Beyond the politicians, the rest of us were being reshaped too. The first serious media impacts of what some of us like to call interconnectedness were being felt. Alan Jones called social media campaigns against him “cyberterrorism” which was not entirely off the mark, for social media campaigns like #destroythejoint or more temporary ones like the waves of rage against the 2DayFm royal prank are indeed about power and its use. Traditionally dominant analog media increasingly find themselves trapped in the same rituals of apology over and over again as the people formerly known by that engagingly passive term “audience” use social media to undermine their business model. That’s accomplished not so much by directly challenging media outlets as by challenging advertisers, who invariably figure discretion is the better part of valour.

The media has been told for a long time that the internet will bugger their advertising revenue. But no one told them it would happen courtesy of social media campaigns as well.
This had a particularly amusing outcome of upsetting powerful old white men, the sort of people not merely used to running things, but doing so in an unchallenged, and definitely unmocked, fashion. No matter where you looked this year, there was some privileged old white guy angrily denouncing things. Gerry Harvey or Solomon Lew or Ray Hadley or Alan Jones (Old White Guy primus inter pares), or the entire Republican Party (brilliantly condensed into Clint Eastwood railing at an invisible person, an act so laden with symbolism it deconstructed itself in real time), or the old men of The Australian, from Chris Mitchell down, powerful elderly males infuriated that the world no longer gives them automatic deference, let alone allows them to run things unchallenged. The result: the rage of the prostatetariat." - Bernard Keane.

If you want to read the rest of this piece, click here. I can't put it any better than the: rage of the prostatetariat. What a sentence.


Monday, January 28, 2013

I've been at home for two days

Hastily cleaned just for you.

I am somewhat going out of my mind from being holed up in my apartment from rain for the last two days.

And then you know, I feel guilty because I have all the comforts of warmth, shelter and internet while I'm sitting here popping blueberries into my mouth and I'm not in a North Korean concentration camp digging ditches, slowly dying of malnutrition. And I'm complaining about rain of all things.

I often wonder what kind of quirk of fate sends one person here and one person there? If my great-great-great-grandfather had decided to walk on the left side of the street instead of the right, (assuming that my existence was somehow a given) would I be sitting in a hacienda in New Mexico instead? or skiing in Canada? or under someone's floorboards in Philadelphia a la Cold Case?

My mum followed my Aunty H here in the 70s because she just didn't want to be separated from her. At the time, Australia wasn't my Aunty H's first choice but for some reason or another, she changed her mind and here we all are... sitting here trying to wait out the rain.

I'm always thinking about what people are doing right now on the other side of the world, like that girl who served me at Aeropostale at Times Square (5:56am) I guess she's about to wake up? Or that pissy concierge from the hotel in Rome (11:52am), is he still standing there frowning pissily at papers? Probably. His is a 24 hour job and the tourists ave all checked out at ten. And then again it's 7:58pm in North Korea, so it's a late dinner for some family in Pyongyang- I can only guess at what they're eating.

Thursday, January 24, 2013

The Food Truck Journey

Two posts in a day. I must be dying.

Last year I spent a lot of time chasing around food trucks. Also I spent a lot of time and effort dragging my friends out with me to look for them. I didn't really mind because it wasn't about the food but more on the pleasure of the company.

Also last year my little group of friends split in two and what can you do about it really.

I spotted the elusive food truck tonight and I think I must have squeaked in joy.The past is gone and that chasm will never be recovered but I like to think that when they see the photo on my facebook page, they feel a momentary fondness for the things that were.

I gripe.

So this is my resolution for this year.

I will not turn on any damn appliance on in the morning before I go to work. No iron. No curler. No stove.

Why? because even if I write it on my forehead or tattoo it on my hand, I am never 100% sure that I've switched anything off. Somehow a panic button flips in my head as soon as I reach the ferry and I have to turn back making me damn late. And the stupid thing is? the appliance is always off. Yeah I know.

This happened more than a couple of times last year and this morning was the final straw. By the time I did a circle back to the ferry, I was super sweaty and my hair (so painstakingly curled) had frizzed out to the before shot in a shampoo commercial.

Also I missed my ferry. again.

So never again, only cereal and baseball caps for me in the morning. Don't mention to me that my skirt is wrinkly lest I laserbeam you to death with my eyes.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

The domestic goddess returns

So jokingly (God, I hope jokingly) ND said to me the other day "your domestic skills need some work. So how about you go out and earn the six figure salary while I stay home and look after the kids?"

Scoff. "I facebook for a living. Unless I actually work for Facebook, I don't see six figures coming up anytime soon. How about you go out and earn the big bucks in finance and I stay home and watch said hypothetical children?"

And then I added defensively, "besides I'm pretty good at domestic things..like cooking"

That was an outright lie.

So I thought I would cook a frittata tonight and dazzle him with my similarities to Nigella Lawson. Of course Nigella would probably cook something more complicated than a frittata but whatever.

I'm slaving away, doubled over boiling pots and pans. Spilling things and generally making a mess of things when I come to the ridiculously obvious epiphany that I really don't damn like doing this.

I'm hot, I'm puffy, I'm bored. The sweat is making my glasses slide off my face. And I can't walk away to watch TV or something will burn.

Other people find the process soothing, they find it relaxing trying to decipher quantities of spice. People who love to cook to destress must be some higher form of yogi, because I can't find a single thing about it that's not completely stressful. One thing goes wrong and you're like Swedish Chef, unrecoverable and talking gibberish.



I take that back. I love the Swedish Chef. He's my hero.

So back to my frittata..



(Sorry, for some reason the picture won't rotate.)

Yeah I know my frittata turned into a makeshift omelette.

ND looked it and said "Is that bubble and squeak?"

Strangely enough, it tastes okay. But it's definitely not a frittata.  So I guess I'll be the one heading out to the mines everyday?


Sunday, January 20, 2013

Random thoughts for this weekend

 First of all I stayed in almost all this weekend (which is a change) and watched in this order:
  • Safety not Guaranteed
  • Life of Pi
  • Beasts of the Southern Wild
  • Ghostbusters
  • Weekend at Bernies (I could not finish this, it was that awful. I understand people's love is tinged with nostalgia. but I hated everyone in this movie. )
  • Monster Ark (I only lasted 15 minutes with this on Tv. Blerk.)
  • The adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (still so good)
There might be some random references


- Man, I am really broke. Broke, broke. Not quite living on the street but if I don't stop spending money on expensive shampoo, I'm gonna get there.

- I had the Life of Pi ending all wrong (for how many years?!) until I watched the movie and had it spelled out for me. Shame shame.

- I still don't know why Lance Armstrong has chosen to come out now?? Dude, I don't know why you didn't just stick with ambiguity.

- Quokkas  are damn cute. See? Who could resist a face like that?


Always cheered up.

 - Ray, when someone asks you if you're a God, you say yes!

- ND and I play a game called douche menu where we try and turn ordinary food into an item on a fine dining menu.
I won with: biodynamic hen yolk drizzled with tomato salsa with a side of wild boar belly served with potato au gratin ( thus eggs with tomato sauce, bacon and hash brown) I'm pretty damn good at it if I must say so myself.

- Also I cannot watch SATC with ND around, he outfeminists me when watching it and goes on minirants about women perpetuating the beauty myth through magazines and watching shows like SATC. Call me shallow, but I really am just watching it for the fashion. Also Carrie should have married Aidan. Stupid Carrie.

- Speaking of shallow, I really want the Karlie Kloss haircut. I don't think my hair can take curls. Argh.


- I read somewhere that pubic lice are becoming extinct due to more and more people taking everything off down there. I'm not quite sure about this... but if it's true then it's a good thing?


- Oh, this is niiiice.

- In response to a story about a Queensland mother being asked to be more discreet with her breastfeeding at a public pool, Kochie (the TV presenter) said it was ''fair enough'' that an attendant had asked her to move. Hundreds of angry women are now going to rock up at the studios for a nurse-in. Uhm. Milk for everyone! Marketing opportunities for nursing bras. I'm glad I don't watch Sunrise and I'm glad that I don't know anyone nuts enough to participate in the nurse-in.

- What does moonshine taste like anyway? Should I try and get hold of some?

- I hate the phrase 'In your face.' It's just so.. rude.

- Governor Arthur Phillip died of rolling his wheelchair out of a an upper story window. Which is quite an undignified way to die. I guess that's why when you look it up, it never specifies how it happened.

- I went to a travel agent to enquire about tickets to Japan and he gave me a quote of $1400.
Yup. $1400. And then he said that prices were only going to get higher and I should buy them for ND without consultation. I think he thought I was an idiot. A rich idiot. A rich idiot without internet. This is why travel agents are going out of business.

Thursday, January 17, 2013

It's a big world



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 The Door to Hell in Turkmenistan

enhanced-buzz-15183-1350403278-20Moravia, Czech Republic



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Tulip Fields, Netherland

 enhanced-buzz-13415-1350405285-3 Lake Retba, Sengal

Even though I am as content with my life as I'll ever be, there's still a part of me that yearns for to be somewhere else. I know it's ingrained in the human condition to always want and that really I should be thanking my lucky stars that I'm not in a jail somewhere being beaten.

But I guess you can't really look at a picture of Lake Retba and not wanting to be floating down a sea of milkshake.

If you'd like to join me in my daydreams, click here.

(Off topic: I took down yesterday's post because I didn't think it was good enough. This writing thing is a struggle.)

Monday, January 14, 2013

Don't go away



Aaron Swartz's death was a punch in the appendix. It was his age. It was the industry I work in, filled with hundreds of budding Aaron Swartz's. It was the way he left the building and why he chose to do it. And not at the very least, the immense waste of talent.

At this moment in time, you can find hundreds, maybe thousands of In Memoriams to Aaron Swartz. You just have to hit up Google. So I am not going to talk to you about individual liberties, and political activism and government persecution, other people will discuss it better and with more eloquence.

So I only came in here today to say this:

You are never alone as you think you are. If you are not coping, get help. Talk to someone. Call a friend and say "I am not okay." It's four words. Maybe they'll be the hardest words you ever have to say, but you have to say them for someone to hear you.

I don't know what your problems are from this side of the screen, but the solution isn't to leave a hole in the universe where you used to be.

I don't think Aaron could have been able to see how much he would be missed either. Seriously, talk to someone, anyone. Don't bottle it all in to build up to a decision that is completely irreversible. Someone would miss you too.

Saturday, January 12, 2013

How I feel about Lindsay Lohan

I haven't done a pop culture post since... I can't even remember



I'll be honest back way when (and yes, this is pop culture blasphemy) I didn't really enjoy Mean Girls. I mean it was a nice enough movie and there were a few smiles raised but I didn't rabidly want to quote it (stop trying to make fetch happen), rewatch it and Lindsay Lohan certainly didn't ping my radar.

In other words, while every saw her as the second coming of Julia Roberts, I was kind of meh.

Fast forward 5 to 6 years, several car crashes, rehab stints and multiple arrests later and I am still meh on La Lohan.

I am meh, but I can't stand the Lindsay vitriol that thrives on the internet so here I vent. One visit to the Celebitchy forums and a glance shows you that people are calling her the Cracken or talking about she's ruined her face or joking how she's been passed around (what hilarity) or what kind of STDs she has from being passed around. It's like the done thing to do to kick her in the head from the comfort of a keyboard.

To step in her shoes for a second (and I don't really want to be in them, Louboutins though they may be), if I was a 23-26 year old girl (or whatever age she was when her breakdown started) and I started reading on the internet that people thought I was a hopeless junkie and that my face was melting off /not heading in the direction that they liked, I would probably be driven to drink as well (actually no, I'd have a needle permanently situated in my arm- a heroin drip). In fact, I'm not sure how many of us could take that kind of criticism day in and day out and still be a reasonably well-adjusted person.

I mean the withering Liz and Dick reviews are just the tip of an iceberg. But (and I say this with utter exasperation) it was a Lifetime production, who the heck acts well in a Lifetime show, what kind of Shakespearean dialogue are you expecting? It caters to middle aged housewives and people who are bunking off sick for the day. If you google Lifetime, the first tv show that comes up is called an Amish Murder. Really. So did it deserve the panning that it got in comparison to 'Murder on her Mind' and 'Last Chance Cafe'? Come on, it's Lifetime. Please stop kicking Lindsay on her way out.

Which brings me to: yes, she really doesn't come off too good in the personality department. She runs into things constantly, she kidnaps people for fucks sake, she's frequently caught stealing jewellery, she is terrible at commitments and couldn't turn up to something on time if the US was depending on it to stop a war. She is one hairs breadth from having a permanent home in LA County Jail. She is like your fuck-up kid sister that won't stop doing the wrong thing.

But that doesn't mean we should chase her around with flaming pitchforks, you understand? It's very iffy territory about what she deserves for her actions. Frankly, it looks like a Lindsay pile-on from this vantage point.

So this is what I want for Lindsay (who most likely is not going to listen to me). Take whatever money you have left and go away. Buy a farm in Missouri, attend a community college, spend some time in a hoodie and thongs, crack open some history books. You don't have anything to prove to anyone and the sooner you realise that the better off you'll be.Your career? It is stuffed so let it go woman. Get out of LA (which doesn't mean you should head to NY either. Try somewhere without paps)

Maybe not a farm in Missouri. Whatever it is, do something more useful than being a moving target for bloggers and commenters hey?


 
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