not a turtle

it has a flavour

"...okay but banana flavouring tastes nothing at all like banana. It's far more disgusting than most other flavours. Like watermelon, y'know."

"Umm... no. Seriously, if you cut up a watermelon and bit into a slice that tasted like watermelon flavour, you'd call the police."

quotable quotes #7551

"I do so love your pillowy bosom"

"...yeah, but I only judge people for how they look, not what they think or feel."

"How do you want to hang the tinsel on the tree?"
"Downward spirals are always good."
"Not if you're Amy Winehouse."

"She shows surprising emotional depth for someone in the Army Reserves."

"If you're going to tell people on national television that I tried to stuff my underwear into your mouth, you need to stress that it was CLEAN underwear."

"...it's like a knife through my heart, Byron."
"But it's true!"
"I know. otherwise it would be a spatula."

in which he writes a letter

Dear Internet,

It's been an awfully long time since I wrote you last. 68 days, 14 hours, 51 minutes and 36 seconds, to be precise. I don't have much to say in my defense, but over the coming weeks and months I hope to make it up to you in some small way.

The world is a very different place to the one I left you with on the sixteenth of November. Many wonderful, not-so-wonderful and interesting things have happened since:

• Our antediluvian moth eaten mold magnet of a (former) Prime Minister and his retrogressive and downright offensive cronies were ousted in the very first Federal Election I have voted in.   

• I started my new job, but you already knew that. It's going swimmingly, and I no longer dread going to work.

• Björk attacked a photographer at Auckland International Airport. Mathematicians have now calculated that Björk can statistically be expected to attack a photographer once every 10.62 years.

• A half dressed, Lynx-scented blonde child by the name of Corey Worthington Delaney threw a party to which around five hundred other half dressed, Lynx-scented children came. Hilarity ensued and police were called. In an uncharacteristically efficient and overenthusiastic response, Victorian police sent a helicopter, several squad cars and upwards of twenty officers in riot gear. One of the children threw a bottle. Victorian Police Commissioner, Christine Nixon announced to assembled media the following day that, despite the lack of any legal or legislative provision allowing her to do so, she intended to bill Mr Delaney's parents for the $20,000 she believes the police operation cost. In the ensuing media furore, nobody pays any attention to Christine Nixon's astonishing claims that she can simply invoice people for the policing of the state. Within a week, everyone has forgotten Mr Delaney's name.

• Celebrities kept dying (Brad Renfro, Heath Ledger, Suzanne Pleshette). Not the ones I expected might (Amy Winehouse, Britney Spears, Nick Nolte [don't you think he looks like an ageing prostitute named Bernice? <Oh Lord. I hate brackets inside brackets {AARGH!}>]). Although I'm not a fan of Heath Ledger, his death affected me more than I could have imagined it might. I was a little too young when River Phoenix and Kurt Cobain died to understand why people were as devastated as they were. Now, it makes sense. I suppose these things remind us of our own mortality, and he was only five years older than I am right now.

So as you can see, the world has been busy carrying on its business, and I've been busy with an array of mundane tasks and endeavours.

I promise to write again soon.

All my love,

Byron

and still, he stays

As we are leaving the house to walk to the supermarket:

"What are you doing?"
"Nothing."
"No really, what are you doing? What are those in your hand?"
"Socks."
"Socks?"
"Yes. I plan to put them on."
"But you're... currently wearing shoes."
"Yes. What is your question?"

what's black and white and read all over?

Often, reading the newspaper only seems to reinforce my long held notion that the world is completely fucked. Usually this feeling comes as a result of actual news. Rarely does it stem from the way an article has been written, although it has been known to happen.

Allow me to present to you an article from yesterday's Brisbane Times:

My immediate reaction to this was what the flying fuck is a goon bag?
Like "king hit", which is possibly the most revolting and unnecessary of these colloquialisms used by Fairfax publications in place of actual words, it's a term I've never heard before.

Thinking that there would be explanation offered for this odd and unfamiliar term, I started to read. As it turns out, the headline is downright misleading. The assault in question actually occurred more than two years ago, and the article concerns the sentencing of one person involved in the assault. Now I hate to be pedantic, but if you're going to be this imprecise with headlines, then why not see how far you can push the envelope? Last week when everyone was pretending they had something new to say about Princess Diana's death, why didn't you go with "Tragic Princess Dies In Car Accident, aged 36"? Oh that's right, because people would notice you were rehashing a years-old article to fill space on a slow news day.

The author of this article, Christine Kellett, who the Brisbane Times website tells me "...enjoys reading, eating out and entertaining friends and family from south of the border.", and whomever her editor is, seem to be of the opinion that "goon bag" is a term their readership is familiar with.   

Anyway, back to the point. I still didn't know what a goon bag was. I read on.

Right.

This bag of goon can be used to knock the glasses off someone's face? Interesting.

So this goon stuff must be quite dangerous then, if she's threatening to break the bag, I thought. I needed to know what on earth a goon bag was. It seemed like tragic Aussie Slang, so perhaps Urban Dictionary would be able to help.

It was:

Right. So this is an article about somebody hitting people with a plastic bag full of liquid. This must truly be the zenith of your journalistic career, Christine Kellett. I strongly doubt any of the injuries sustained by any party during the assault were a direct result of being "bashed with a goon bag".

I think perhaps this nonsense can be explained away by remembering that this is the Brisbane Times. Our neighbours to the north aren't exactly renowned for their intellectual prowess. Perhaps everyone in Queensland knows what a goon bag is. Perhaps they regularly purchase and consume them. I don't know.

What I do know is that the differences between Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne can be summed up quite neatly by this little screen capture from two weeks ago:

On the left, we have the most read article in Melbourne that day, a juicy political scandal. On the right, Sydney's most popular article, an international sport star caught up in a drug scandal. And in the middle, what have Brisbane-ites been reading? An article about A TALKING CHIPANZEE.

anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung

No doubt some of you are familiar with the song ‘Get Here’ by Oleta Adams. You may not think you are, but if you’ve ever listened to adult contemporary radio, you’ve heard it. The song, apart from being a surprisingly comprehensive list of the modes of transport available in the modern world, is a sickeningly heartfelt piano ballad. It is also lodged in some deep and completely inaccessible recess of my brain that I cannot seem to wrest it from.

It’s the kind of song one might expect to hear as an accompaniment to ice dancing, or even some kind of choreographed gymnastic ribbon twirling. It is not the kind of song one wants playing over and over inside one’s skull.

You can reach me by sailboat, climb a tree and swing rope to rope
Take a sled and slide down slow, into these arms of mine
You can jump on a speedy colt, cross the border in a blaze of hope
I don't care how you get here, just get here if you can

I think I might vomit.

at the lye-berry

In four weeks' time, I will start work here¹.

No longer will I spend my days lamenting my work-day contribution to the ruination of society. There will be no more attempts to defend the highly offensive (and completely indefensible) practices of my manager and the HR department of the immeasurably odious corporation by which I am currently employed.

Also, this means a great (and severely clichéd) weight has lifted from my shoulders.

Blogposts will be forthcoming. Often.

      1. No, I am not now, nor will I ever be, a librarian.

            

english lesson #4

Dear People Who Get To My Site By Googling Without Further Adieu,

There are far too many of you.

I titled a post Without Further Adieu as a joke. Several of the women I work with are fond of this highly amusing yet incorrect turn of phrase. When you say without further adieu, what you're actually saying is without further goodbye.

What you mean to say is without further ado, which as I'm sure you're aware, means without further fuss.

Maybe you've lost the ability to speak correctly because you've been burning the candle at both ends of the spectrum, or maybe you're just pulling my leg over my eyes. But honestly, can't you read the handwriting in the wind? Don't you follow where I'm coming from? It's just plain wrong.

a·dieu      /əˈdu, əˈdyu; Fr. aˈdyɶ/

interjection, noun, plural a·dieus, a·dieux
–interjection
1.    good-bye; farewell.
–noun
2.    the act of leaving or departing; farewell.

a·do      /əˈdu/
–noun
busy activity; bustle; fuss.

[Origin: 1250–1300; ME (north) at do, a phrase equiv. to at to (< ON, which used at with the inf.) + do do1]

over the shoulder boulder holder

Some of you may remember Mya, or Mýa as she now wishes to be known (which as far as I can tell from three minutes on Google would be correctly pronounced either m-YAAH or mEAR), from her 2003 hit single "My Love Is Like... Wo", her star turn in Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, or her scenery chewing histrionics in 2002's "Chicago".

Even those of you who don't remember her will be pleased to know that the effervescent young model/actress/singer has decided to put her celebrity to good use. She has recorded the "Stop Breast Cancer for Life" campaign's first ever theme song, a catchy and socially relevant tune entitled "My Bra".

Although I'm all for supporting breast cancer research and/or awareness, I have to say that it is without a doubt the vilest and most saccharine pox ever thrust upon society. Allow me to share with you the chorus:

"My bra my bra my bra my bra
My light at the end of the tunnel
My bra my bra my bra
My legs when I start to stumble
My strength, my sun, my heart
When it's just too hard to take it
When it's just to hard to make it
Through another day
You're lifting me up
My bra my bra my bra"

Now, apart from the seemingly bewildering use of her bra as a metaphor (or substitute) for the love and support of friends and relatives, or her inference that should she be unable to walk, her bra will simply pick up the slack, don't you find it strange that she's singing not about breast cancer, or even breasts themselves, but about an item of clothing which holds the afflicted organs? How long do you think it is before we have Kanye West recording "My Jocks" in support of prostate cancer, or America Ferrera's hit charity single "My Glasses" to raise much needed funds for research into macular degeneration?

But wait kids, there's more. "My Bra" is the centrepiece of an advertising campaign and a much anticipated TV movie.

"...the song appears in the Lifetime original movie The Matters of Life and Dating, a humorous peek into post-mastectomy life starring Ricki Lake and Holly Robinson Peete, airing on Lifetime on Oct 22."

A humorous peek into post-mastectomy life? Okay. I'd buy that starring pretty much anyone else, but Ricki Lake? Have you seen Mrs Winterbourne? Holly Robinson Peete... whose most impressive resumé entry to date is Hangin' with Mr Cooper? It's all too awful to contemplate.

I'll leave you now with Mýa's heartfelt perfomance of what is bound to be this year's biggest charity single smash, "My Bra".

quotable quotes #128835

"You know how hair products claim they'll add life to your hair..."
"Yes."
"It's just occurred to me the only way they can really do that is with lice or nits."

"What's that movie called... the one where Marianne Faithfull becomes a prostitute?"
"What? In real life?"

"No... see I didn't think the look in her eyes was that creepy."
"Okay. Our two dogs, when they were dying, that was the look they got in their eyes, wounded, darting around like crazy, frightened you might kick them."

"This woman [on the TV] is Hungarian right?"
"Yes."
"That's not her natural colour. The only way you can get orange in Hungary is by rolling in paprika."

"Wait. What if they didn't buy any chocolate?"
"They're single women. Without boyfriends. They have chocolate."

"Didn't he leave Mary-Louise Parker when she was six months pregnant for Claire Danes?"
"Claire Danes is not really incentive to leave anything."
"...except a cinema"

"The Veronicas are much the same as Hungry Hungry Hippos, except without the hip, just the ho."

without further adieu

In preparation for a possible plunge into the job market once again, allow me to present to you a set of rules I have established for Recruitment Consultants and HR Managers everywhere. Some guidelines for those special little petals that preside over the unnecessarily complicated interview process.

Before I launch into them, for those of you who've never had the pleasure of dealing with recruitment consultants, let me share with you something it took me all of seven minutes to figure out when, at eighteen, I had my first interview at a temp agency. A recruitment consultant is something receptionists named Kelly-Ann become after deciding that photocopying, occasional filing and forwarding chain emails is no longer as fulfilling as it might have seemed. Sadly, receptionists like Kelly-Ann often lack the basic interpersonal and literacy skills one might expect of someone who, on the surface, looks as though they may possess some degree of intelligence.

Don't believe me? Allow me to offer evidence. First, there's this. And then...

Are you receptionist, administration, secretary, waitress,? Would you like to earn upwards of $30,000 per hour? Well have I got a job for you:

...or if you're carrently look on a job in customer service:

...or perhaps you're simply looking to dance while your career provides a catchy yet inoffensive soundtrack:

...and if none of that appeals, maybe you've just been waiting for that perfect job to walk up to you in the street and announce itself abruptly:

That's right kids, all of these very special job ads were written by the Kelly-Anns of the world. They're the ones who decide whether or not you're right for a job they aren't qualified to do, at a company whose name they can't spell.

Without further adieu, as my current manager likes to say, here are the rules:

1. Do not keep talking about how fantastic a job a job is after I have told you it doesn't pay enough for me to be able to eat and I have no interest in it.

2. Do not attempt to convince me that an outbound sales role would be perfect for me. It is not my fault you have positions to fill yet lack the actual skills to do so.

3. Read my resumé BEFORE you call me.

4. Use the spellcheck function once you've finished writing a job ad.

5. Do not use exclamation marks in a job ad.

6. Do not use mixed metaphors in a job ad.

7. See the shift key on your keyboard? If you hold it down, it will give you capital letters. They come at the beginning of sentences and names.

8. When writing a job ad, use question marks at the end of questions, and full stops at the end of statements, not the other way around.

9. Do not advertise a job with the headline "MONEY! MONEY! MONEY!" if the job pays AU$29k.

10. Do not comment on how much my name sounds like Byron Bay. It's not funny, cute or interesting. I could tell you how much your name (Siobhan) sounds like the noise my dog makes after she eats grass, but that would just be rude.

the joys of the workplace - part two

Yesterday I spent three hours cutting out, laminating and again cutting out roughly eighty little pieces of paper for a training exercise.

This morning when I arrived at work, all the little laminated pieces of paper had disappeared from my desk.

Five minutes ago, I discovered the remains of my handiwork in the bottom of a bin. They had been cut into tiny pieces and coffee poured all over them.

After surveying my colleagues and assessing their responses, I’m now 99% certain it was the National Training Manager who so viciously drowned and dismembered my training cards. How do I know this? Well, when asked if she knew how they might have met their end in the bottom of a black plastic garbage bag, she responded “Oh By-RONNN, they were a stupid idea. I don’t know how they got in the bin, but it’s probably the best place for them.”

Maybe I missed the part on induction day about using scissors, caffeinated beverages and trash receptacles to communicate in preference to actual words.

Also, the IT guy is sitting at his desk (which faces the entire office) watching a Girls Gone Wild! DVD with an enormous pair of headphones on.

the joys of the workplace

What do you do when the goings on in your workplace have made you so unbelievably frustrated, confused and angry that your head is quite literally in an exorcist-like spin and there is not a single like-minded person in your department or even the building?

I think the answer might be that you leave. I don’t know. I’m just throwing it out there to see what it sounds like.

If I were to leave, my next job would be the eighth I’ve had this year. Also, if I were to leave it would mean dealing with recruitment consultants again, which is roughly three times as painful as giving birth to a toddler while being drawn and quartered.

Why am I so riled up, you might wonder?

So far this morning, my colleagues have:

• Reduced an 18 year old girl to hysterical tears over a twelve second phone call about which she was right and the customer was wrong.
• After discovering that a middle aged male staff member had been googling (during his breaks) "depression", "anxiety" and "what to do if you're lonely", disciplined him for violating the internet policy, thereby humiliating and upsetting him to the point where he hid in the bathroom for twenty minutes. About an hour after he returned, my ever so sensitive colleague then gave him "feedback" about how badly he had been working, threatening him with written warnings. Unsurprisingly, he threw his phone on at the wall, narrowly missing her and walked out.
• Displaced me from my desk, unceremoniously dumping everything that had been on my desk and in my drawers into the top of an enormous filing cabinet before I got to work, and announced to me when I arrived that I would "just have to find a desk wherever I could". Why, you might ask? Because someone from the another office will be working in this building for THREE days, and she couldn't possibly "find a desk wherever she could" for her TEMPORARY STINT IN HELL.
• Also, I've been counting the Krispy Kreme doughnuts my boss is eating. She's up to nine.

So I emailed the above to my friends, and the lovely Audrey responded thusly:

"It's like The Place That Sends You Mad in The Twelve Tasks of Asterix. I dare you to go and ask your boss if she can direct you to Permit A-39."

...and I thought well, it's not that bad.

...and then somebody handed me a new training manual, the bottom corner of which I have reproduced for you here.

Did I mention that this is the best job I've had all year?

quotable quotes #303809

"...oh my mother does pilates. Not because she wants to be offensive, though. More for exercise."

"I wouldn't wish that on anyone ...except maybe Avril Lavigne"
"Then we'd have to hear her sing about it."

"I'm just... better than you."
"No you're not."
"...well I have more MySpace friends than you!"
"That's so fucking sad."

"My kindergarten teacher used to wear stirrup pants all the time"
"Byron, all kindergarten teachers wear stirrup pants."

"What's wrong?"
"It's just that all these people are getting on our tram, and so few of them have brushed their hair."

"I like her, but I think that if we were in the wild, I'd go into fight response."

"I firmly believe Russia should never have been allowed man-made fibres until they proved they could use them responsibly first."

"Okay. There's fruit salad for dessert. Does anyone not like strawberries?"
"Lili hates them. On fabric."

my fear. let me show you it.

A small, squinty and unattractive woman from The Other Side Of The Office (also known as the land of the telemarketers) just asked me a question that began thusly:

"You look like a sexual person. What do you think of..."

I didn't hear the rest of the question. I ran away and pretended I was photocopying my hand.

against abortion? don't have one.

Last Thursday, I posted my thoughts (read them here) on the bill very soon to be before Victorian Parliament that aims to remove abortion from the Crimes Act (1958), thus rendering it no longer a criminal offence.

 

Since then, the crazies have come out of the woodwork. I've had emails, and one very special comment from a girl who calls herself Sharlie.

Sharlie says:

"If abortion is removed from the Crimes Act it would mean that abortion would be legal at ANY stage of pregnancy for ANY reason. That means right up until the moment before birth a fully viable baby could be aborted."

Wrong. Section 10 of the Crimes Act (1958) is about child destruction:

"(1) Any person who, with intent to destroy the life of a child capable of
being born alive, by any wilful act unlawfully causes such child to die before
it has an existence independent of its mother shall be guilty of the
indictable offence of child destruction, and shall be liable on conviction
thereof to level 4 imprisonment (15 years maximum).

(2) For the purposes of this section evidence that a woman had at any material
time been pregnant for a period of twenty-eight weeks or more shall be prima
facie proof that she was at that time pregnant of a child capable of being
born alive."

Nobody is proposing changes to section 10 of the Crimes Act. Child destruction (ie. abortion of a pregnancy beyond 28 weeks) is still very much a crime.

Sharlie says:

"...Well, actually, I'm sorry that you are that naive. I work as a crisis pregnancy counsellor and I have heard it all. A great deal of women agonise over the decision and are greatly affected after it is done for many years, but I have also recieved calls from women who 'just didn't want to get fat.' "

The first part, about the agony, that's what I said in my post. Did you read it?

The second part, about not getting fat... it worries me you're using that example to make a point. The kind of girl who tells you she "just didn't want to get fat" is not as stupid as you might make her out to be. As a counsellor, I'm sure you deal with people every day who don't say what they really mean. People who can't articulate their feelings. People who are lying to themselves. People who say the opposite of what they feel. It's one of our biggest flaws as human beings that we like to hide from ourselves and our emotions. That girl is actually saying "I'm lost. I don't know what to do. I'm so confused I can't even think straight. HELP ME." It frightens me to think that you spend your days counselling anyone.

Sharlie says:

"...people like you... think that the answer is about making abortion like getting a tooth pulled out."

Now, I hate to repeat myself, but I'll do it anyway.

"I’ve often wondered what goes on inside the heads of militant pro-lifers. Do they, in their nightmares, imagine McDonalds’s style franchises offering drive-thru abortions on the side of the highway?  Do they honestly believe that for people considering an abortion it’s not an agonising, life altering decision? Do they think people have abortions for fun? “Abortion on demand” is a strange concept."

Well, it's a different analogy, but really... we're on the same side of this point, aren't we?.

Sharlie says:

"I'm sure you'll count me in your group of verbally vomiting militant pro-lifers..."

Indubitably.

You say that you're a "crisis pregnancy counsellor". This means that by definition, you have to be impartial. You might be pro-life, pro-choice, or even eat babies for breakfast every morning, but if your job is to help people dealing with unexpected / unplanned / unwanted pregnancy, you need to leave your personal feelings at home. Otherwise, you're not a counsellor at all. You're a persuasionist.

Sharlie then spends the rest of her comment behaving as though I recommended that every pregnant woman in the western world have a late term (perhaps at 8½ months) abortion immediately.

Honestly, people. If you're going to rip apart my argument, start with some facts. Then perhaps you might move on to discussing something I said, instead of something I didn't.

english lesson #3

re·mu ·ner·a·tion
1. the act of remunerating.
2. something that remunerates; reward; pay: He received little remuneration for his services.

re·nu·mer·a·tion
1. not a word.
2. do not say it. if you say it, you suck.

if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament

The Victorian Parliament may vote on the decriminalisation of abortion as early as next month. 

The decriminalisation of abortion. Read that again, just in case you missed it.

According to article 65 of the Crimes Act (1958) – yes folks, nineteen fifty eight:

65 Abortion

Whosoever being a woman with child with intent

to procure her own miscarriage unlawfully

administers to herself any poison or other noxious

thing or unlawfully uses any instrument or other

means, and whosoever with intent to procure the

miscarriage of any woman whether she is or is not

with child unlawfully administers to her or causes

to be taken by her any poison or other noxious

thing, or unlawfully uses any instrument or other

means with the like intent, shall be guilty of an

indictable offence, and shall be liable to level 5

imprisonment (10 years maximum).

Abortions are currently performed according to the Menhennitt ruling, which states that abortion is lawful "...if necessary to protect the physical or mental health of the woman, provided that the danger involved in the abortion did not outweigh the danger which the abortion was designed to prevent." Anyone performing or having an abortion is still committing a crime, they are merely excluded from prosecution by the ruling.

Labor MP Candy Broad's proposed private member's bill to remove abortion from the Crimes Act is unlikely to pass, according to Health Minister Bronwyn Pike because it "basically creates abortion on demand". Ms Pike is also unnerved by the bill as it removes abortion from the Crimes Act but "doesn't replace it with anything". Ms Pike has mentioned that regulations surrounding abortion could be added to the Health Act, but goes on to say that  "...I don't believe this is an improvement and I don't believe this bill will pass. Not in its current form."

So our politicians are not against the change, they're just going to let bureaucracy get in the way, and stand idly by as any and all proposed changes suffocate and die. No surprise there. What confuses me is that in all her time as Health Minister, Ms Pike has done absolutely nothing on what she admits is "an important issue". An issue that you might even say was within the scope of her portfolio responsibilities. Maybe she meant to do it and forgot.

Abortion remaining a crime in this state would please a great many, Right to Life Australia president Margaret Tighe included. Ms Tighe climbed onto her soapbox early yesterday to vomit this all over anyone who'd listen:

"Any legislation that says that a certain class of human beings can be killed is a gross abuse of human rights. If this legislation is passed, wild ducks in Victoria will have more protection than unborn children."

I’ve often wondered what goes on inside the heads of militant pro-lifers. Do they, in their nightmares, imagine McDonalds’s style franchises offering drive-thru abortions on the side of the highway?  Do they honestly believe that for people considering an abortion it’s not an agonising, life altering decision? Do they think people have abortions for fun? “Abortion on demand” is a strange concept.

It worries me that there are people in the world who believe that for some, abortion is a convenient post-coital contraceptive. I’m sorry, but nobody is that fucked up.

I’m not a woman. I couldn’t even begin to understand what it must be like to make that choice. What I do know is that the burden of choosing not to be pregnant is complicated enough without the added knowledge that although you're not likely to be charged, you have committed a crime.

It's time to make changes. How, in 2007, can we governed by a law written in 1958? A law written in a time before indigenous people were not only excluded from voting in elections, but were recognised only as part of our flora and fauna.

Wake up, Australia.

the great scissor war of 1994

Somebody took my scissors. I left them right here on my desk. There are scissors in every drawer in the building, and a massively overstocked stationery storeroom, yet somebody saw fit to steal mine.

If only they knew what happens to scissor stealers.

One afternoon when I was in grade five, Emma Jenkins stole my scissors. They were those awesome multicoloured scissors with a pencil sharpener built into the handle. Everyone thought they were most excellent. Anyway, Emma "scissor stealing crackwhore" Jenkins decided that they were now hers. This may have had something to do with me stealing her pen a few weeks earlier but I DON'T CARE because EMMA JENKINS IS A BITCH. I took my scissors back from her and she started crying. Not just ordinary little-girl tears, but wailing as though I had just run over her cat, melted down all of her My Little Ponies and decapitated her mother. In that order.

Needless to say, this attracted the attention of Mr Pinelli, our teacher, who rather aggresively informed me that if I didn't immediately hand him the scissors, my thus far uneventful primary school education would come to a swift and speedy end. I saw red. I watched as my fingers tightened around the cold, closed blades of "Emma's scissors", my arm raising itself higher, my wrist flicking backward and the scissors flying out of my hand in the direction of Mr Pinelli. That's right, folks. I THREW MY SCISSORS AT THE TEACHER. 

There was no injury. They were plastic scissors with tiny metal blades on the inside. They landed in his crotch. This was the first (but most certainly not the last) time a teacher swore at me. He only said "bullshit", and the end of the word kind of drifted off into a cough once he realised what was coming out of his mouth, but still. Not only had I thrown scissors at the teacher, I had made him swear. My classmates stared blankly at me, unable to decide if what I'd done was something they were supposed to laugh at, mumble quietly about, or gasp over.

After the immediate public shame, caused not by the scissor throwing itself but by being forced to collect them from where they had landed in the teacher's crotch, punishment was handed down. I got a wednesday afternoon detention, and Emma Jenkins got my scissors.

The story does end happily, however.

Later in the week, Mr Pinelli discovered that on the underside of the scissors that nearly damaged his precious pleat-fronted khaki shorts, MY NAME was written in permanent marker. MY NAME, lovingly written there by my mother, who had bought me the scissors.

I got my scissors back, and Emma Jenkins GREW UP TO BE A HOMELESS CRACKWHORE AND HAVE A CRACKBABY*

* not necessarily true

what the tabloids taught me this week #3

We can just quote a "source" as saying it, right?

FAMOUS magazine tells us the following:

...and then fills a page and a half with absolutely nothing to substantiate such a claim. There's not even a picture of Jessica Simpson crying whilst on the phone. I would have at least expected that. The one valuable piece of information that we are provided with is that Jessica has "embarked on a frenzied weight-loss program since last month's split with John" and is looking "more like her trim, taut, Daisy Duke self". Meanwhile, John Mayer has lost 10-15kg in the last month, but not a single word is said about that. Apparently he has become strangely attractive by osmosis.

And over here we have the lovely "Xenu" range of beach accessories

Katie Holmes has finally lost the plot.
How can I tell, you might ask? Some of you might even think that she lost her marbles a long time ago, but I can assure you, this is not the case.

Sure, she married Tom Cruise, but she got paid plenty of money to do that. And yes, she had Chris Klein's baby a few months before she "had" Suri, and walked around with a prosthetic belly on so that gullible people might think Tom put something in her that wasn't a syringe... but she got paid for that too.

What I'm talking about is this:

The woman has a belt on. With a swimsuit.
She has accesorised her beachwear. Please note, dear readers, that I have scoured both the tabloids and the internets and I'm one hundred percent certain it's not built in or part of the swimsuit itself. She has actually made a conscious decision to put it on OVER THE SWIMSUIT. She's clearly insane.

Bewigged at the beach

Speaking of inappropriate beachwear, Beyoncé Knowles, much as I am wont not to speak or even think about her, has outdone herself this time.

The woman is on holiday. On holiday in a hot, beachy type place. There is no need to traipse about town in a wig, and there is certainly no reason to wear a wig while swimming. There is also very little need for such ridiculously inappropriate shoes or a belted romper suit. There is an intervention waiting to be staged here.

And the rest

• Britney Spears has a "KINKY SEX LIFE!" We know this because "Sleazy producer JR Rotem", who allegedly slept with Ms Spears, has spoken publicly about her "voracious sexual appetite", letting us know that he "fucked Britney wheelbarrow style" and that "she was good at everything - an animal in bed". Well I know I'm scandalised. Who would have believed she was into such kinky outlandish things?

• Who, NW, OK! and FAMOUS continue in their staunchly held belief that Jake Gyllenhaal and Reese Witherspoon are dating, and prove this to us by photographing them seperately and then placing said photographs on the same page.

• Adam Brody (who is apparently someone from the now defunct OC) has fallen on hard times. All of the work offers have dried up. We know this for sure because he was photographed taking out his own garbage, and as we all know, NOBODY WHO IS GAINFULLY EMPLOYED TAKES OUT THEIR OWN GARBAGE.

• Pamela Anderson is "still hot". This seems to be primarily because she still has enormous breasts and has very little to do with anything else.

• Rather than risk being indelicate with their personal pronouns, FAMOUS have chosen to refer to Alexis Arquette not as David Arquette's brother or sister, but as his "tranny sibling". You would think that since the man has legally become a woman, it's reasonably clear that she is a she, not an it.

I'll leave you now with one last gem. Possibly my favourite.

The staff at WHO Magazine have expressed their inexplicably violent hatred for Holly Valance in a photo shoot:

in which he rants about something he vowed never to speak of...

I don't like Paris Hilton.

You might not have known that, but that would be mostly because I choose not to talk about her. The rest of the world does more than enough of that. She's not newsworthy, interesting or even mildly amusing. Now though, after her twenty second walk from the front doors of a jail to her waiting limousine not only made the evening news on all three major free-to-air television networks in this country, but was also the LEAD STORY on two of them, I have had enough. Time to break the silence.

Paris Hilton was sentenced to forty five days in a county jail. You all know that. What most of you don't know is what she did that warranted jail time. "But she only drove on a suspended licence!", I hear the tween girls and ditzy reality television contestants cry.

Wrong.

Let me break it down for you, and then you let me know whether you think jail time was warranted. 

September 27, 2006 - Hilton is arrested and charged with driving under the influence of alcohol with a blood alcohol level of 0.08% (it's illegal to drive with a blood alcohol level of 0.08% or over in California).

November 29, 2006 - As a result of the DUI charge, Hilton's driver's license is suspended for four months. She is placed on 36 months probation and fined $1500. She is also ordered to enrol in an alcohol education program within 21 days.

January 15, 2007 -  Hilton is pulled over for driving with a suspended license and signed a document acknowledging that she was not permitted to drive. She was not permitted to drive home.

February 27, 2007 - Hilton is once again caught driving with a suspended license. Not content with violating only the terms of her probation, Hilton was caught doing 70mp/h (112km/h) in a 35mp/h (56km/h) zone late at night with her HEADLIGHTS TURNED OFF.

May 4, 2007 - Hilton is court. She has so far failed to enroll in the court ordered alcohol education program, the deadline for which fell 21 days after her first court appearance in November 2006. This, combined with her flagrant disregard for the terms of her probation, the fact that she continued to drive on a suspended license, even after being caught doing so and signing an acknowledgment indicating she understood exactly what "suspended license" meant, and her supremely intelligent decision to drive at DOUBLE the designated speed limit in the dark with her headlights turned off led Judge Michael T. Sauer to believe that as "...straight probation has thus far failed as a rehabiliative device...", 45 days jail time might just be what she needed to knock some sense into her.

If you don't believe me, her original DUI charge is here, and the prosecutors’ motion to revoke her probation is here.

She might be a scared, messed up little girl. She might be as stupid as she seems (although I doubt it). She might even have found Jesus, as she claims. These things I do not know, and I will leave to the tabloids to speculate upon.

All I know is, she was jailed because she displayed a complete disregard for the law.

Personally, I would have jailed her much earlier. Why, you may ask?

Well, there's this:

Because, quite frankly, nobody needs to know what lives up there.

And this:

...because I want the twenty or so minutes I spent watching this back.

And finally:

...because a music career is not something you can purchase with blowjobs and daddy's money.

To Paris' supporters - take your FREE PARIS t-shirts, your petitions and your hair extensions and shove them as far up your meat purses as you can get them (Sorry Audrey).

To Mika Brzezinski (the newsreader below) - Thankyou. THANKYOU. I can only hope others follow suit.

That's all there is, there isn't any more.

things that are fucking stupid...

Goatse

For those of you blissfully unaware of this idiocy, Wikipedia will explain it to you. Now, goatse itself is completely fucking stupid, but what irks me more are the geeks who think "unintentional goatse" (examples here and here) is interesting/blogworthy/hilarious.

It's not. It's the internet age equivalent of poo and wee jokes.

Peeps

Again, for the uninitiated, go here.

"Oh wow look at me, internet! I'm so clever, I made 'art' out of chicken shaped marshmallows."

"I'm clever too, only I put them in the microwave and smear them on bits of paper."

...or if you prefer:

"I'm so intelligent! I conduct 'scientific tests' on chicken shaped marshmallows."

...and for some, Peeps are the cornerstone of culturally significant spiritual celebrations:

"...you should know about a ritual that my friends and I perform every spring.  It's called Peepfest 97.   It is celebrate at college campus through out america...ok it's only celbrated at two place..."

Peeps are so not cool.

Amy Winehouse

Amy.
Amy, Amy, Amy...
Your music is reasonable. Your shtick is mildly interesting, though others have done it better (and without the substance abuse). My problem lies with what you have done to your face, hair and body.

You used to look nice. Pretty, even.
Also, you smiled.

And now...

...you look like what might happen if Juliette Lewis were left homeless after being viciously attacked by a group of eyeliner wielding bandits led by Amy Lee, Lindsay Lohan and Rupaul.

Recently, I've become aware of the existence of several things that have completely changed my life. Hopefully they can be of benefit to you.

Please look into the following:

Washing your hair
Soap
Food
A removal system for the seemingly unending series of woodland creatures taking up residence on your head.

it's one of those "OH HI. I REMEMBERZ I HAS A BLOG" posts...

The desperation is over (sort of).

I started a new job this week. It sucks a lot, and I'm still going to interviews, but this means things will get better.

More soon.

quotable quotes #1908

"I was trying to figure out if I actually have to be pregnant in order to take maternity leave...
I mean, can't I just turn up at work a few months on and just be all 'Oh... it died'?"

"You should see her around her friends... they all crawl around on their knees desperately trying to reach up and lick her labia."

"...but Oprah genuinely believes she's doing the right thing."
"Uh, yeah. So did Hitler."

"Oh please! ...as if Tom Cruise has ever stuck anything in that woman ...except maybe a syringe."

"I've found out [primary school] teaching is 30% teaching and 70% laminating, and I've only done 10% of this week's laminating"

"Just imagine muppets are singing it. It's much less offensive that way."

"What is calisthenics anyway?"
"It's for girls who are too fat to be gymnasts"

"...he was dating this girl called Sinnamon, everyone called her Sin for short. He's a catholic, which might explain that."

the one in which he starts to lose the plot...

It's official. I am unemployable.
I can't even get a job in a supermarket. That's right, boys and girls. I applied for a job mindlessly scanning people's groceries late last week, and today was told via email that after careful consideration (read: the toss of a coin) I have not been selected for an interview as other applicants were better suited to the role.

This was one of five rejection emails I've received so far today. I've also learnt that I'm not skilled enough to provide administrative support at a Place Where They Have Paintings on The Wall, I don't have the right level of experience to answer the telephone for People Who Sell Mobile Phones, I'm just not the right candidate to organise tables and chairs in meeting rooms for a Small Educational Institution and I definitely don't have the level of sales experience required to stand behind the counter of An Overpriced Music Store.

Now, excuse my frustration, but I've done these fucking jobs already. I've worked in arts admin, I've worked in retail, I've slogged away in a call centre, I've been a foreign exchange teller, a restaurant manager and I've even worked in fast food operations and development. I've taught music and drama to children, been a stage manager, musical director and production coordinator. I've been a rehearsal pianist (and that means, among other things, listening to Alyssa-Jane Cook "singing"). If none of these things have prepared me for any sort of career at all, then I give up. Tell me, universe (or deity of your choice), What am I supposed to do?

Maybe I should be aiming lower. Perhaps I'll start applying for jobs at McDonald's and KFC. Maybe I'll descend into the depths of hell, slap a price tag on my soul and start applying for outbound telemarketing jobs.

Anyone with a suggestion as to how I can gain employment, feel free to comment. I know there's nothing wrong with my resumé, I've talked over my applications with HR managers and recruitment consultants and they're fine. I though I was more than qualified for all the jobs I've been applying for, but I suppose not.

Alternatively, if you'd like to offer me a job, I'll give you my first born child, a reasonable sized chunk of my soul and an enormous hug.

the one in which he is unemployed...

After more than four months of looking, I still don't have a job.  You might remember the awful call centre job I mentioned a post or two ago. On the last day of our three week "training", I walked in to find out that I no longer had a job. To cut a long and tedious story down significantly, they had ended up with more staff than they could fit in the building and needed to shrink our group of twenty down to a group of twelve. They picked eight names from a hat. Mine was one of them.

Disgustingly unacceptable HR practices aside, this means I am in the shit.

Interview after interview, I sell myself like a madman. I've got it down to an art. Nothing can throw me. I even have the perfect answer to the "What do you think your biggest fault is?" question.

Still nothing. The way I figure it is this - I'm not getting the entry-level call centre jobs because they think I'm overqualified and only there to pay the bills while I look for something better. I'm not getting the mid-range admin / customer service / call centre roles because I don't have "relevant tertiary qualifications and/or five years industry experience", and I'm not getting the arts admin jobs because although I've got the experience, I don't have a fucking arts degree.

Can somebody please tell me why three years of sleeping in lecture theatres, crying in the park and drinking coffee while wearing a berét would better equip me for any of the jobs I've been passed over for?

To top all of this off, today I found out why my former employer (Which bank?) is so reluctant to re-hire me. It turns out that my former supervisor has been sabotaging me. Even though I thought we left things on good terms, and he assure me that anyone calling him for a reference check would hear wonderful things, the filthy little cunt mean evil man has been saying rotten awful things about me.

Honestly, I've never been so fucking miserable. I'm completely broke, I'm tired and I've had enough. Every time I walk into a room with some moronic recruitment consultant or hiring manager (who is ALWAYS called Nicole or Natalie), I lose more little pieces of what dignity I have left. Melodramatic? Perhaps, but you try sitting opposite a smiling simpleton and telling them why you would be the best person to flog health insurance to the frail elderly. 

I know this post is a load of self indulgent rubbish, but I don't feel like writing anything at all, so this is the best I can do.

quotable quotes #7314

"Those men have so much paper towel in their trolley. Why?"
"Maybe they're having a bukkake party."

"I just realised why Emmy Rossum annoys me... I want her to be Anne Hathaway."

"Just cause she's ugly and kinda fat you think she might be a nice person, but no."

The folllowing two quotes were overheard in my training classroom this week. Neither was said with any sense of irony.

"Maybe she can't speak English at all."
"Der. Then how could she work in a call centre?"
"Maybe she's a translator?"

"I wonder what flight attendants wore back in the 1850s"

...and my personal favourite, a phone conversation I overheard on the tram.

"I don't care how shit youse feel Karen! He's gotta go to school. Look, you're not gonna get breathalysed this early in the morning. Fucken drive him to school! Just pretend you're not drunk, and bring my fucken tennis balls! And don't wash them!"

people watching...

For the last four days I have been sitting in a classroom with a strange group of people who are all lacking interpersonal skills and/or common sense and/or intelligence.

After almost two months of job interviews and three months of job hunting during which I applied for over two hundred jobs, the point came where I had to take the first thing that came along in order to keep food on the table. Consequently, I am now in "training" for an unendingly tedious call centre role answering the phones for a major telecommunications provider. What I've learnt since we started on Tuesday could be summarised in a short paragraph, and it wouldn't even need a whole lot of punctuation. It's all unbelievably simple, which for me is completely frustrating, yet for others it seems to be a major intellectual undertaking. To give you some idea of just how depressingly simple my classmates are - I had to explain voicemail to two people. Nothing intricate, just the basic concept, much like an answering machine. I kid you not.

Among the over made-up girls with hair extensions, english backpackers, girls whose voices are louder and more jarring than is ever necessary, kiwi refugees in need of sunlight and seventeen year old former hairdressing apprentices, there are two supremely interesting (read: mildly upsetting) people. The first of which we will call Loretta.

Why Loretta? Well, if any of you have ever seen Moonstruck, that's who she looks like. Cher's character at the beginning of the film. She has butt length curly hair which is always in a ponytail. Not an ordinary ponytail, mind you, but one of those awful ponytails that starts at the very base of the neck. (There should actually be a word for this horrifying hairstyle. If you feel compelled to invent a term, let me know.) She wears massively oversized jerseys and/or shirts, always two - layered one on top of the other and every day so far has come to work in what I would describe as MC Hammer-esque billowing black pants, constructed of something halfway between velour and crushed velvet, which are elasticised about two inches above the ankle. The ensemble is rounded out with brown suede moccasins.

Loretta isn't new like the rest of us - she's doing a refresher course because she's been on maternity leave for the last six months or so. Strangely, she rarely mentions the baby that recently ended it's extended stay at Casa Del Utero, and never by name. The closest she's come is a vague expression of interest in becoming pregnant again "...yeah I wanna save up and stuff, so I can like, maybe get another baby. Haha." Oh, and the "Haha", that happens at the end of every sentence she says. More disturbing than her travel plans "I don't really ever wanna leave Australia, but if I did I'd go to London so I can go to Madame Tussaud's and have my photo taken with all the celebrities. That's the only thing I really wanna do that I can't do here." or her powers of perception "...yeah those people on The Biggest Loser are gross. They weigh, like, three hundred kilos. That's like twenty times more than me." is that one little sentence about her future childbearing ambition. She wants to "get" another baby. Does she have some secret connection to Angelina Jolie? Can she just "get" babies like our favourite maniacal angular-browed U.N. ambassador?

Still, despite her depressing mundanity (which The American Heritage Dictionary tells me is actually a word. Whodathunk.) she makes for good people watching. This is an important thing in a classroom where there is no proper teaching being done, nor any actual learning.

The second of these sad but fascinating people, we'll call Barry. Not his name, but fitting. His actual name is also kinda truck driver-ish, which really doesn't suit him at all.

Barry is short. Really short. His arms are not quite long enough for his body, and he's reasonably rotund. He has below shoulder length curly hair which is always gelled into a high ponytail or a bun, and sashays about the room as though he's Tyra Banks. He's the kind of person that introduces himself thusly "HI! I'm Barry! OmigodIloveyourshoestheyaresohottIamsojealous! Fierce! *finger snap* Oh... and I'm GAY. I hope you don't have a problem with that."

Barry is the kind of guy that brings on this guilty sense of shame somewhere deep inside me. I can't stand him. For me, there's being gay, and then there's this. This bizarre set of behaviours adopted by some of my own people. Personally I don't understand the appeal of talking only about makeup, wigs, boys, dance music and how slutty everyone else is. I don't understand why an ability to walk in heels is like some kind of honour badge for gay men. I can run in heels. I can pirouette and jump off a table in heels (I played Angel in an excerpt from Rent once), but you don't see me trumpeting this all over the place like it's some sort of monumental achievement.

One of the first questions the girls in the training group asked him after they found out he was gay (They asked. Not sure why. Blind and deaf people could tell at a distance of thirty paces.) was "Do you dress up?" Now, if someone asked me that question, I probably would have looked at them blankly and asked what they meant. Not Barry. He was in his element. What followed was a bizarre description of his "artform" as he liked to call it. Barry is "really into boob tubes... they're hott" and "...only use[s] MAC Makeup. Everything else clogs your pores, honey!". 

Barry is a "drag queen", or so he says. I think the reality of it is that he often goes out looking like a tranny hooker and makes a lot of noise. There's a difference. I know. I dated a professional drag queen for more than a year - it's a world I know well. In the biz, they like to call what Barry does "Skank-Tranny-Drag".

So. What I don't understand is - why do these men develop obsessions with all things female? Why the silly affected sweetie-darling voice? Why the hip swinging walk? Why the constant bitching? Why the cutting comebacks to everything that just aren't funny? Why the obsession with frocks and shoes? Is there nothing about the world that exists outside of the time they spend dressed as a woman that interests them at all? What's really kinda sad is that for a lot of these guys, that's true. For whatever reason, they prefer their escape into the glamourous "female" world they've created. It's easier to deal with than mundane everyday life. I've met hundreds of them. Sometimes, they come to their senses. Other times, they don't. Some of them end up miserable wrinkled old men in sequinned dresses and plastic heels, box-stepping as they mime to Dusty Springfield before they finally realise that there's more to life than tits and tiaras.

What I understand even less... is the obsessive interest a lot of women take in these men. The girls on my table today spent just over an hour asking Barry what foundation, eyeliner and lip gloss they should be using. What would he know? He just a short stumpy little man who cross dresses at the weekend. Why do they expect him to know? Do they want to look like drag queens?

What occurred to me as I listened to their conversation this afternoon was that to the girls, Barry is a novelty. Just like the latest toy - they don't ask him any particularly personal questions, and they don't seem to see him as anything more substantial or enriching than the latest issue of Cleo.  So at work, he's a toy. A place to go for fashion tips.

I did drag once (outside of a theatrical role). For one bizarre evening, I was Geneva Convention.
The strangest thing about being in drag is the way people look at you. All of a sudden you're a celebrity. Everybody wants to talk to you. Those who don't just stare at you from across the room. In all honesty it made me really uncomfortable. I guess I don't have a glamourous diva inside me busting to get out. I'm pretty happy with who I am, and I definitely don't want to hide it behind three shades of paintstick makeup and a set of false lashes.

Not so for some. At home, when he looks in the mirror, I'm guessing Barry sees only Roshawnda (his drag name of choice) looking back at him. These men tolerate the rigmarole of everyday life, just so that they can get home, put on their wig and heels and head off to a noisy smoky club where people will spend the evening telling them they look fabulous and showering them with affection. Things that just don't happen for them in the real world. I can see how you lose yourself. After a while the man you started out as simply doesn't exist.

These, my children, are the days of our lives.

so is this what they mean by dying with dignity?

Bury the poor woman already.

She is rapidly decomposing in a medical examiner's fridge.

Dignified, much?

The death of a relative/friend/wife/lover/child is not the time to squabble over who she liked best, who deposited their seed in her or who she confided in.

Bury the woman where her will states she wanted to be buried.
If she didn't specify what she wanted, bury her in the state she lived in. It doesn't matter. She's gone, and not coming back, and the more you squabble over her rapidly decomposing body, the less respect your fellow human beings have for you.

Personally, I don't care what happens to my body after I'm no longer on this earth. I used to say I'd want to be buried wherever the people surviving me want. After all, a grave or memorial is there for the survivors much more so than the person who has died. Now, I'm not so sure about leaving it up to others. Look at what happens, even when you've expressed your wishes.

The world is a sad and strange place.

Also, on a slight tangent, please appreciate how odd the following situation is:

"The estate of [recently deceased] Anna Nicole Smith is locked in a legal battle with the estate of [recently deceased] E Pierce Marshall over the fortune of [long deceased] J Howard Marshall."

Everyone's dead, yet the battle rages on with nobody to claim victory.

quotable quotes... real post coming soon...

"Nicole Kidman is like a WWII epic... 60% of the color was removed from her in post-production."

"As if the sight of Andrew G would make anyone drop anything."
"Except maybe their bowels...?"

"I actually like [Calista Flockhart] as a fascist pig..."

"Did you just deface Ellen Burstyn's wikipedia entry?"
"I may have altered it to imply that she passed away. I may also have implied that the cause of death was bursting. So no, not really."
"You are awful"
"Oh my god. What if Ellen Burstyn dies in a tragic bursting accident and I've somehow foreshadowed it with my online vandalism!? What if it's my fault!?"

in which large persons are persectued on television...

On Sunday night, I nearly expelled my dinner all over the television watching this:

That's right kids, it's a man DRINKING TRIFLE.

The Biggest Loser makes me feel ill. Now, I have no beef with morbidly obese people. Morbidly obese people definitely enjoy beef, but I have no beef with them. I do, however, have a problem with morbidly obese people who seem to believe that something other than their own actions have made them enormous. The first episode consisted mostly of interviews with the contestants, all of whom used a variation on the following - "I just think it's time to fight back and beat this once and for all". Fight back? FIGHT BACK? Nothing attacked you and made you into an enormous lard filled hippopotamus. Drinking trifle and skolling yard glasses full of Cheezels (this happened just after the trifle) made you into an enormous lard filled hippopotamus.

Most of the contestants are lovely. Some of them are beastly (on the inside). All of them will be very pretty once they're thin.

And then, there is Monolith Munnalita:

Munnalita has shopping centre h