Trolling, trolling

We just finished watching Sinister this afternoon and afterwards I was looking for (sigh) intelligent discussion of the movie on the internet.

This was pretty much the first comment I saw:

"Horrible, horrible movie. I DO NOT recommend bringing your children to view this disgusting piece of “entertainment”. I brought my 11 year old and her sleep pattern is still very much disturbed. Shame on you, the makers of this film. And a true testament to where we are heading as a society."

I also don't recommend you bring your kids to see this film! Shaniqua, your points are so pertinent, you are almost a genius (almost!)

Everyday Racism

I just got a random comment on strep throat foods. Thank you..person. I will keep that in mind if ever I get strep throat.

You know you think you live in a multicultural society and you surround yourself with (relatively) enlightened people, you don't read YouTube comments and then.. racism sneaks up on you anyway.

Bloggers.

"Who cares about Haiti? I mean what did this country bring to us except baby rape?"

"How come I don’t hear about the world demanding Germany to feed the whole Europe because the Nazi slashed some heads?"

Ok yeah, all I have to do is stop reading them completely and there will be no more angry rage on my end. However I do just want to drag them by the hair into a history classroom. Seriously, mandatory history lessons for idiots. Maybe throw in some documentaries if reading is too hard on their heads.

Workpeople.

I was walking down the street with my older workmate and her friend.

OW: There are just so many Aborigines everywhere *wrinkles nose* ruining this suburb.
Fr: I know! Oh My God! We should just get rid of them.. we give them too many things already. And what is with the whole speech thing that comes before every tv show-
Me: Excuse me, I really can't listen to this. Can we please change the subject? I am extremely uncomfortable right now.

OW and Fr exchange glances like I just requested to put cherry pie in my shoe. I have broken the racism sisterhood bonding code. I don't care. I can't do it.

Family (?!)

Sumo: God, I would never date an Indian. They smell funny and-
Me: What? Do you even have Indian friends?
Sumo: No, do you?
Me: No, but I'm not tarring them all with the same brush!
Sumo: We're all racist, there's no point in denying it. I don't like Indians.

Me: *turns to ND* What the hell? Since when dinner turn into a local chapter of the KKK?
ND: She's your family!

I don't deny that racism exists and people argue that racism is innate- a holdover from when we were all cavemen and trying to keep other clans off our patch. However many thousands years later, are we not more enlightened than that?? You'd think multiculturalism and globalisation would have opened people's eyes to more than just food and tv shows, there are some people that will never get it. At the end day, it feels like a losing fight, it is almost near to impossible to change someone's mentality from the sheer force of your words. If you can't talk them through it, then it's okay not to stick around and listen if you don't want to.

Prowlers and gratitude for small spaces

So I apparently live in one of the safest suburbs in Sydney, when ND and I don't have our heads screwed on and leave the door unlocked while we're sleeping- we generally awake to find we still have our lives and our possessions the next day.

Lately however, there have been small incidences of crime that are making me a bit nervous. A bag snatching (a bag snatching?!) and prowlers. It has become a thing, every month or so to leave a note on the downstairs bulletin board pointing out someone is impersonating a cop, or lurking. in the. dark. or wandering the stairways or whatever.

(I just want to say that I don't really want to post this, because people are always murdered right after they talk about feeling uneasy on their livejourmals. I feel like I'm poking fate.)

Anyway! Even though I often begrudge my 2x2 metre space apartment and I (more frequently than you know) wish for a larger space with a walk-in closet, I am never more grateful for my 2x2 than when I walk in from garbage disposal at night. I can see every nook and cranny and I know 100% that there's no-one in here but me. Prowler, you may remain downstairs. I think if I lived in a 22 bedroom mansion ala Adele, I would  waste a lot of electricity turning on every damn light in the house to feel safe.

Oh, and if you want to feel really unsafe while I'm talking about prowlers, I recommend you go and watch Funny Games and get back to me.

Le Doppelganger

I haven't thought of Le Doppelganger in a while (super speedy update: there's someone in Sydney who looks exactly like me and has been fooling my friends for years)

So I think I may have finally found out her name, crafty-face-imitator of mine. I was exiting brunch this morning, when someone calls:

Anna!

I turn around and a girl is looking at me (excitedly) and calls again: Anna!

I'm a bit confused so I point at myself and mouth 'me???'

She nods and I walk over to where her and hey boyfriend are sitting and she says 'Hi Anna!'

I am about to disappoint her - 'Sorry, I'm a Mush!'

She's mortified and her boyfriend pats her lovingly on the elbow.

'Sorry, you look like someone I know... Anna...'

'That's ok.. no worries!' and I lope off before I/evil doppelganger person can create more confusion.

Actually I'm probably the evil one because I don't mind the idea of making mischief. Le Doppelganger, please come out so we can recreate the Parent Trap.

The paranoid generation

A year or so ago, I caught this program on TV- I think it was called Las Vegas Beauty Queens/ True Beauty. Anyway the premise was that all these girls were applying to this show thinking they were competing on hair, makeup and bikini bodies but actually they were being secretly judged on morality. So the show would give them little tests such as whether they would open the door for a random grandma or whether they would accept a bribe.

Anyway, if they passed these tests, they automatically preceded to the next round and if they didn't, they would discover that they were an ethically challenged individual and booted unceremoniously from the show, all the while protesting meekly that they meant to save the puppy from the burning building but didn't see him. (Fun sidenote: I caught this on the second season so frankly I judge these girls for being idiots who are unable to even vaguely research what TV show they are due to appear on)


Which precedes onto that terrible 20/20 segment called ( rather originally) What Would You Do?
And of course, a plethora of homeless people, battered wives and racist rednecks are served up in situations to see .. ahem.. what would you do? (Besides you know, feeling smug that you would never do what those people did!)


Which leads me to .. this one that everyone is talking about.
I like the guy with the fire hydrant. That was smart thinking. Even though I'm pretty sure no one remembered to fill in that section of the worker's comp form. Anyway I am sure there are a trillion more examples of this morally-superior infotainment that we could go through. But alas no time.

Here's the thing, this stuff is becoming more and more regular, even if we don't presume we're going to end up punked on a tv show (and judged by everybody in the world), we are more than ever hyper aware that whatever we do will quite possibly end up on the internet via mobile (Thanks YouTube!) or on some sort of cctv camera. Our bad behaviour despite our best efforts to keep it underground, is going viral. You lest be vigilant that your drunken rant doesn't end up with a million views or that your bullying ways doesn't land you on the nightly news. Here a camera, there a camera, everywhere a camera.

Which is good for exposing asses (and once again, the smug thing) but bad for the rest of us who are relentlessly paranoid about not doing the right thing.

I gave up and I have a Twitter Account

Ever since I started this job, it feels like I'm laying out a cookie crumb trail to my personal identity.

Now if you just kind of look, you can find my LinkedIn, my Facebook, my mobile, the website I manage (I'm about ten minutes away from posting a video ala Kim Kardashian)  and now fer Gawdsakes my Twitter.

Yes, I know- I know. I have finally succumbed to creating a Twitter account and the reason for this is three-fold.

One, for my next working project I'd like to be able to prove that I can master Twitter and garner a successful following (see 12 followers. Needs some work)

And two, I kind of need evidence that I'm alive and kicking online from time to time, even if it is in 140 character format.

Three, I guess it's another avenue for me to tell bad jokes, make bad puns, talk all things pop culturey in a way that you don't really read about here. It's going to be useless Mush trivia time. Hurrah!

So um... yeah, if you're on Twitter, follow me and I promise I'll follow you back- unless you're nuts or a troll or both.

Well I'm binning *that* career option

I follow a few blogs - mostly Asian lifestyle ones and I normally read them and think:

"God, I would not mind being paid to write, to put on makeup, to go on holiday and record what I ate for dinner."

That really does sound like the life to me (yes, I know. I'm not aiming very high.)

 And then I bumped into a forum called Guru Gossip (not linking to it- sorrynotsorry)and it's essentially a forum where girls tear on girls.  More specifically it's a dumping ground for forum readers to rip female bloggers to shreds.

Absolutely everything is up for claw-swiping dissection. How often you wash your hair, whether you've photoshopped your last picture, how ugly you used to look, how ugly you look now, eyes are too big, eyes are too small, your makeup is not in fashion, your voice is annoying, you've switched jobs more than once.. I think you get the idea.

All of the stereotypes on girls being their own worst enemy brought to life- although I haven't seen the word slut yet. Which is nice.

And suddenly being a lifestyle blogger doesn't sound so appealing to me. I'm never 100% happy with my appearance, it's true. But I don't need it to be magnified with people telling me they hate my teeth or something and I don't need you to tell me that the last thing I wrote was really dumb. I imagine that if I had to deal with that kind of criticism every day, I would spend a lot of time writing from under my bed.

 So I guess I will keeps my posts untagged and keep doing things which are bad for SEO and be happy with the small amount of hits I have. Go your good self, little blog.

What happened in February

I have rediscovered my love of Britney (not that it ever really left me) and while it's more conducive to running, it doesn't really put me in the mood for writing (what would be good for writing? Enya?).

So if you've missed me (which I know is a mighty assumption) I've been:


 Busy ducking falling trees - That's next door's carport. The street wasn't much better. At 1:30 in the morning, there was a gigantic smashing noise which woke us up and ND hauled me flailing into the kitchen. Both of us thinking the stupid tree outside is finally going to fall and make its way through my window. Well it did, and it didn't, the tree(s) came down the other way- as you can see, some cars not so lucky. And you know at the very least I am reassured  that ND is going to schlepp me to safety if I ever need it.

Making homemade dumplings

 Not bad eh? Although I can't take credit for most of it (or all of it- I helped some!)

Celebrating CNY- It feels like I won't be getting red packets too much longer, so... I'm squirreling the excess money away. Like a miser. I can't think of any other instances where I get free money. Tax return? No, right?


Swallowing powdered collagen to stop my face from collapsing in on itself (kind of like a black hole)- the stuff is rank though and it smells like... I can't even describe the smell- 17 year old silica packets is the closest I can think of. The things I do to keep society from throwing me under a bus.

Watching a lot of River Monsters. It's my new favourite show. Five props for a program that can give that much serious profiling to Amazonian catfish that crawl up your butt in groups (groups!) and then eat you from the inside out in bullethole fashion (and for some reason everyone or another all these poor bodies wash up on a Monday. It's like they work on weekends.) - everyone else can keep their reality shows, I think I will stick with learning about violent parasitic, marine life. Huzzah!


Speaking of violent parasitic, marine life (that was an awkward segue) I tried watching Compliance yesterday. I made it through 15 minutes. I don't want to ruin it for you so I don't know how to explain it to you without my destroying it for you- I guess what I'm ineloquently trying to say is that I think everyone should have a go at watching it and then maybe reassess how susceptible we are to (intentionally or not) abusing our own personal power. If you come out and go, that's just dumb, I would never do that! Go back, take off your moral superiority hat and try again.

If you can't make it through the first fifteen though, I completely understand and this link will help you finish off the story- which is bizarre and insane. That's the only way I can describe it.