My dog's going to be 16 in 2006...

As much of a freaky, crazy little fleabag as he is, and as much as he does embarrassing stuff like licking his bollocks when people come to visit, he still rocks.

Not sure what I'll do when he passes on... hmm... I think I'll have to get him cremated and keep his ashes on the mantlepiece or something.

But only if they come in a nicer container than the ashes of people do. Those containers are so dull and boring!

Sure, you might get the excitement of the crackle crackle crackle of flames, but think of the box that you go into afterwards! BORING!

Ugh, it is so freaking hot here today that all of the plants in the garden are looking wilty, the decking is burning hot and even the ciccadas and crickets are quiet!

And my dog is hogging the fan *lol*

Some part of my mind tells me that if there isn't a termite problem with the house, I should spend that money with the government grant on getting reverse-cycle air conditioning. Mmmmmmmmm...

Or spend it on buying a nice leather couch.

Or a holiday overseas.

Or a fantastically gorgeous pair of shoes.

Or something like that.

Modern-day Little Miss?

Hmmmmmmmmmm...

Kind of makes you wonder what Roger Hargreaves would be up to with his books these days...

Need sleep! *lol* Too much Black Books and the hot weather and insomnia... And it's well after midnight, but since when has that ever mattered in the past?

Mmm, you can tell it's the holidays!*

*if you can't read this, you might want to see your optometrist.

Ye gods...

How thin is Jessica Rowe?!

She looks like a mobile skeleton. Good heavens. When people get that thin, it gets to be somewhat terrifying. Looks like they might gnaw the legs off of something in a fit of hunger or something.

It's an old one but it's a good one...

Lover I Don't Have To Love
Bright Eyes

I picked you out of a crowd and talked to you.

I said, "I like your shoes."
You said, "Thanks can I follow you?"
So it's up the stairs and out of view-
No prying eyes
I poured some wine
I asked your name, you asked the time...
Now it's two o'clock-the club is closed and we're up the block
Your hands on me; pressing hard against your jeans
Your tongue in my mouth, trying to keep the words from coming out
You didn't care to know who else may have been you before

I want a lover I don't have to love.
I want a girl who's too sad to give a fuck.
Where is the kid with the chemicals?
I thought he said to meet him here, but I'm not sure
I got the money if you've got the time
You said, "It feels good."
I said, "I'll give it a try."

Then my mind went dark-
we both forgot where your car was parked
Let's just take the train
I'll meet up with the band in the morning
Bad actors with bad habits
Some sad singers they just play tragic
and the phone's ringing and the van's leaving
Let's just keep touching; let's just keep, keep singing...

I want a lover I don't have to love
I want a boy who's so drunk he doesn't talk
And where's the kid with the chemicals
I got a hunger and I can't seem to get full
I need some meaning I can memorize
The kind I have always seem to slip my mind
But you..But you...you write
Such pretty words
But life's no storybook

Love's an excuse to get hurt
and to hurt
Do you like to hurt?
I do, I do
then hurt me..then hurt me...then hurt me...

New Years Revolutions

Been thinking about the New Year and all of that stuff. Have decided to make some resolutions and REALLY stick to them.

# Lose weight. Exercise into oblivion stick-thinness... no, not really, I don't want to be a twig. I just need to lose weight or I'll die of a heart attack at an early age.

# Eat more healthy foods.

# Learn some new things. Or revisit some old learning. It'll either be belly dancing lessons that they have locally or getting back into my Spanish and German.

# Renovate the house and gardens.

# Do more art. Buy some canvases and stuff and really make an effort to return to doing art regularly. That sort of thing.

# Finish my license!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

# Pay off the house as quickly as possible.

# Work really hard at work. Not that I don't already, but next year is going to be really busy I think, and I'll need to prioritise and so on.

# Save up for holidays overseas. I owe some people a visit.

And that's about it at the moment, I think. Hopefully 2006 will be a totally amazing year and that it's not going to end up being deeply odd or something like that *lol* Or at least not so deeply odd that I find it deeply odd... hmm!

Merry Christmas!

I'd like to be the first to wish you a Mr T-style Merry Christmas...

"I pity da fool who don't have a Merry Christmas!"

*teehee*

Hope you all have great days and that no-one kills anyone else with half a frozen turkey or anything like that!

And remember not to pull Santa's beard. He doesn't like that kind of thing, strangely enough! :)

*zzzzzzz*

Feel... like... bollocks...

*drags self to desk with fingernails, fumbles blindly, stickytapes eyes open, slumps over*

Strictly speaking, staying up until 1am after the staff Christmas party was not the most tactical of manoeuvres. But it was a good night. Nice 'n enjoyable. Great food. Sat with fantastic people ~ Shane and his wife, Maria and her husband, Greg and his family. All very enjoyable people to talk to and joke around with :)

Should have forced myself into bed when I arrived home, tho.

Must not hallucinate, must not hallucinate... or am I hallucinating that I'm at work when I'm really at home thinking about all of the work that needs to be done around the house in the coming weeks of the holidays? Nyaarrghhh!

Morals with Morales?

The US government shouldn't get so disappointed about elections that don't turn out the way they want them to in other countries. After all, they don't actually run those countries and shouldn't have any say in who the people elect. But things must really have been making them cry into their Kleenexes lately. First, Chavez gets elected. Then the Iraqi elections don't turn out in the way the US had hoped (erm, isn't the point of elections to let people choose who *they* want?). And now Bolivia has elected Evo Morales.

After five centuries of white rule in Bolivia, Morales is the first indigenous leader of a country in South America (since the continent was colonised, of course - they didn't tend to import people from overseas to be leaders before that just so that they could experience the soul-crushing ecstasy of living in poverty while the ruling class get progressively richer). It's a good thing, considering that there are a whole lot of indigenous people living (often in poor conditions) in Central and South America so hopefully it'll go some way to helping represent their voices in political matters in the world.

Bolivia has significant gas reserves, but instead of it being used to help the people in the country, it's been exported, predominantly to the USA, while the Bolivian people have continued to live in poverty (free market?). Morales, like Chavez, opposes free trade (unlike some of the other Leftist leaders in countries like Brazil and Argentina, who follow a more conservative economic policy). Besides, with new economic powers starting to emerge, like China, there are things changing in who needs to rely on who.

Bolivia is the third-largest producer of cocaine, behind Colombia (158 terrorist attacks in 2001, snort some coke, forget alllll about it) and Peru (see the Andes, have your own personal blizzard in your nose, have a nice time). And people are saying that Morales will make the production of drugs acceptable, even though he's never been tied to drug production, unlike the majority of other leaders of political parties in Bolivia. People need to not that he has promised to legalise production of coca leaf, but not cocaine. There's a difference (not just that you can't get the leaves up your nose as easily).

And realistically, what right does the American government have to send in planes to drop herbicides on the Bolivian countryside where coca farms are? Sure, they don't want drugs coming into America, but isn't it better for other countries to deal with their own drug problems? What would happen if Indonesia and Singapore invaded Australia to destroy all of our marijuana crops??

Funny thing is that a former US ambassador to Bolivia actually went so far as warning Bolivians not to vote for Morales. That was during the 2002 elections when that ambassador was still the official ambassador to Bolivia. He told them that aid would be cut off to the country if they elected Morales. The threat worked then, but I guess people have gotten sick of it by now to the point where they don't think US aid money helps them anyways, so why not start the change from the inside out? Or does the American government only like other countries to have democracy when the outcomes suit them? Hm.

The ascendancy of the Left in politics is perhaps a reaction against the imbalance of Right stuff we've had in recent years in global politics. You know, things like economic rationalisation that has lead to greater poverty for some while others get rich at their expense, invasions of other countries, increase in acceptance of discrimination against minorities by using the "terrorist" or "anti-family" tags, abuses of human rights, etc that all happen when there's a power imbalance for either one side or the other.

Morales will probably be characterised as an "evil socialist," but realistically, he's probably just going to be practical about things with the economy to see that the best is done for the majority of people in the country, not just the wealthy majority. Things will take time. Poverty isn't going to just disappear with a snap of his fingers or a waving of a magic wand.

Morales said on Sunday night, "Beginning tomorrow, Bolivia's new history really begins: A history where we will seek equality, justice, equity, peace and social justice."

Muy bien.

How an awkward boy joined a sordid online world by Kurt Eichenwald

This is deeply disturbing.

I mean, that kids are being sexualised to the point where they're actively participating in their own exploitation is really scary, like some variety of technological Lolitas. Other than that, I don't know what to say. It's just really freaky. And it sort of makes you wonder what parents are thinking or whether they monitor what their kids are actually up to online.

And aren't kids being taught about not doing that kind of thing?! Or about the whole thing of, "If a stranger or someone you know wants to do something inappropriate with you or tries to touch you in a way that makes you uncomfortable, scream, run away and tell responsible adults, because those other adults are evil, satanic b@stards," or whatever it was that we all got to learn in Primary School?

Stranger danger so isn't just about someone down the street who might offer you a lolly these days. It's definitely an issue with the 'net, even though the majority of people who use it won't have problems because they take the log-off-and-don't-go-back-there path if something weird happens. Maybe that needs to be taken into account when people are telling their kids about things that are out there to worry about.

Voulez-vous Sinful Delicious?

Sin, sin, sin, sin, SIN!

Okie, having read those words, what are you thinking? (Other than that I'm nuts, 'k!)

I was surprised by the word this morning when one of my friends used it and it made me start to think about the issue of sin and people's avoidance of the word and whether we're blasé to the whole thing. Perhaps we avoid using the word "sin" because it sounds all Spanish Inquisition/Dark Ages/Salem Witch Trials and confrontational. After all, it is a pretty finger-pointing word that you really can't rebut or refute, considering that we're all sinful and have fallen short of the glory of God.

But then I guess you get the thing of "Oh, they're a bigger sinner than *I* am, you know!" and we're always so good at seeing the specks in other people's eyes while we wander around with a length of 4x2 in our own eyes. But let's be honest. We're good at doing the sin thing, even when we don't want to be. And when we want to be, too, because sometimes sin is so damn fun.

No, I'm not saying we should go back to the Dark Ages and lock ourselves in convents/monasteries and crawl up 99 steps on our knees, kissing each step on the way, each time we feel we've done something wrong. I'm just thinking about sin and our responses to it. Maybe we don't want to call it "sin" because it's uncomfortable to do so, when we really should be uncomfortable with the sin (or sins).

I guess it requires or demands a change, too, for us to do something different and make an effort to not do the wrong thing. Sin's so everyday now anyways that it's sort of not seeming so pressing or whatever. I mean, we're all mostly desensitised to people being blown up in Iraq, stories of child abuse, murders (unless particularly gory like with Snowtown), blah blah blah... It just happens. And then with personal sins... well, that's all personal, isn't it? And if no-one finds out, then what's the matter with that?

Except for the fact that God knows all about it. At least He's willing to forgive us totally and forget about the sins completely IF we tell Him about them and ask for His forgiveness, which is pretty awesome :) But are we asking? I dunno... Are we too busy being like the Pharisee who was proud with his prayers and showing off with them rather than being like the tax collector who was humbling himself before God?

And now for something completely different

Freak out! o.0

This.

THIS.

*THIS* is why I think Tom Cruise is a total creepy freak.

That hair grip thing he's doing. That just looks so wrong. I dunno, maybe it's a bah-humbug-romance-be-damned-knee-jerk reaction, but it reminds me of a thing that a guy who dated one of my friends used to do. He then went on to turn out to be a "differently sane" style of person who made Mark Wahlberg's character in Fear look like someone you'd love to have move in next door and take care of your small children, all under the age of five, for the afternoon.

And the way TomKat talk about each other! It sounds so fake and syrupy and robotic (don't ask how you get a syrupy robot without it going rusty, 'k). And the creepy way what they say is exactly the same, but just replaces "she" with "he" at the appropriate points. And Katie looks so hollow-eyed...

But yeah, I think he's a jerk.

*ahem*

Hate, Torture, Inanimate Plastic, Matel

What do pre-pubescent British girls hate more than school, not having the right lipgloss and Muslims? Barbie. Barbie Hate is real, I tells you!

So, what did you do with your Barbie dolls when you were just a lil' bit too old for them?

I packed mine up into an old suitcase, along with Disabled Ken (one of his legs was broken off in a tragic incident when I was about 3 or 4), MC Hammer Ken (yes, he had the big pants, even as a doll, and came with a nice taped message about stayin' off the drugs, but I think I must have been on some to have gotten him in the first place..!) and all of the Barbie knick-knacks I'd collected over the years (you know the sort of things ~ clothes, shoes that don't actually fit onto Barbie's feet, Barbie car, Barbie doctor set, and so on).

I still have that suitcase, although I haven't opened it for Lord knows how long. Not even sure if the catches work on it any more! (The suitcase is pretty old ~ it belonged to my Nanna and then my Mum and then Barbies). Who knows, the Barbies may have even been eaten by mutant silverfish *lol*

Reading this story made me think about having *not* tortured Barbie, Ken and Skipper into an early plastic pink Barbie coffin. Maybe things have changed from when I was little with the way Barbies were treated when finished with, maybe not, who knows. Perhaps kids are starting to take out their feelings about frustrations with being female/other females/adult females/feelings of stereotypes/need for scapegoatey things on Barbie!

I mean, in this study, boys expressed nostalgic feelings about their dolls like Action Man, but when it came to girls and Barbie... "The doll provoked rejection, hatred and violence." Maybe it's to do with the girl thing of wanting to occasionally destroy other girls ;) Girls aren't team players by nature, at least not with other females.

Who knows... maybe it's just Barbie Hate.

Ewww! Talk about pre-Christmas programming gone awry... o.0

There's a show on about the Plague.

Ermmmm, is that sort of program kind of weird for the festive season?

Or is it saying, "Hey, it's an important time to watch out for fleas and remember, if your neighbours develop some strange growths and turn green, lock them in their houses! Santa won't be visiting there this year!"??

So very gross/wrong/naff/ewww!

o.0

"People are like snowflakes. They're all different. And you have to shovel them off the sidewalk in the morning." - Michael, Queer as Folk.

Hmmmm...

Final episode of Queer as Folk ever on tonight. Strangely enough, I think I'm going to miss it, even though Shameless is going to be on next week instead. It's unusual, but it's been a great show. And Gale Harrold is easy on the eyes ;) (how many men can actually look good in sleaveless shirts, I ask you!?)

But I think the snowflake thing, minus the shovelling off the sidewalk in the mornings, is something the show has made some small attempt to demonstrate. Good to shake up perceptions and stereotypes somewhat I guess. Funny how it still brings up surprises and perception challenges after years.

But dammit, not going to cry at the end! Not going to! I hate it when shows I like end. I still remember being traumatised when A Country Practice ended when I was little *lol*

Joke of the Week

Pulling up at the traffic lights, a motorist is approached by a person with a tin for donations.

He asks what the person is collecting for, and is told, "We're collecting money to free George W Bush! He was captured by insurgents who are threatening to douse him with petrol and set him on fire if $1 million isn't paid in ransom."

"Ohhh," says the motorist. "How much are people giving?"

"Well," says the person with the collecting tin, "they're usually giving around two litres..."

Would you give your kids a nuclear power plant for Christmas this year?

"The number of people killed by radiation as a result of the Chernobyl disaster, the world's worst nuclear accident, is so far 56... the U.N. said on Monday." - Chernobyl Forum press release, Vienna, September 2005.

With the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster coming up next year, it's interesting to see what's being said about it and that there still hasn't been a recognition of the true impact that the nuclear melt-down had not only on Chernobyl, but also on many other countries in Eastern and Western Europe. A lot of people died, not just 56. A lot of people were effected - displaced, lives chopped up, relatives lost, livelihoods gone, all that sort of thing. Oh, and then health problems, birth defects, genetic mutations, etc.

Nuclear scientists say that the radiation will be a problem for 600 (optimistic end of the range) to 900 (more realistic end of the range) years in the area. The sarcophagus over the reactor, which covers 95% of the core, is in need of replacement. 70% of the radiation was carried by the wind to other countries, including Russia and Belorussia, immediate neighbours to the Ukraine, and it also drifted over the rest of Europe. My friend Toby still remembers that as children in Germany, they were not allowed to go and play outside when the wind was blowing from the East.

Radiation levels in the area are still high, although they may have decreased somewhat with the years passing and absorbtion into the soil of alpha and beta particles. Yes, the decay cycle is happening, but that doesn't make it any safer. For example, there were some areas polluted with Plutonium-241, which isn't all that radioactive for the first 14 or so years of its life. However, it breaks down into more dangerous components, including Americium-241, which produces alpha particles and gamma rays. The half-life of Americium is around 433 years. Following that, you get Neptunium-237 (the most "stable" Neptunium isotope), with another rather large half-life.

And if the gamma rays haven't gotten you, then you might have problems with particles of alpha and beta radiation. These are the cancer-causing things. Cancer takes time to develop, so how can we know just how many people exactly have died because of cancer they developed due to the Chernobyl explosion?

Organic organisms are also effected by the radiation in the soil. This can mean that plant matter can actually be more radioactive than man-made structures in the area, including buildings and roads and whatnot. To suggest that people could start moving back into the outer reaches of the area is rather stupid. Many of the towns in the far reaches of the Wolves Land did have residents stay there, but not in any great numbers - perhaps 10 - 20 people. Now many of those towns are deserted as people have died or left.

These ghost towns should be warnings to us about the dangers of nuclear energy and its power for silent destruction that makes it not worth the risk.

Of course the levels of radiation vary from place to place in the Chernobyl and surrounding area. A typical city in Europe will register around 10-12 microroentgens per hour. 1000 microroentgens make up a milliroentgen and 1000 milliroentgens make up one roentgen. Maths was never my strong point, but it's safe to say that one roentgen is 100,000 times what you'll find sitting around being nuclear in any typical European city. When the Chernobyl reactor went into meltdown, in the following days it emitted between 3000 and 30,000 roentgens.

People were sent in without proper protective gear to "fix" the area... instead they just got to make intimate friends with gamma rays. These people were called "Liquidators," and there were literally thousands of them sent in over the period of a year to work on Reactor #4. These included firemen, police, members of the army, etc. People who lived in the area estimate that around 10,000 liquidators died from their exposure to the radiation. Perhaps it's just rumour, but how can you be sure? I mean, most people die in the days, weeks, months and even years following exposure to radiation like that, so it's hard to pin their deaths directly onto that, but then why would so many die so soon in ways "unrelated" to the nuclear exposure?

Considering that benefits, pensions and special allowances are extended to some 7 million people classed as "victims" of the Chernobyl disaster, maybe it's time that we got over the era of Soviet silence about mistakes and have a serious look at just how many people have died or been permanently effected by the meltdown.

End poverty... oh not now, we're busy!

Spicks & Specks was great last night, and there was one comment made by Allen Brough that almost had me lying on the floor, convulsing with gleeful laughter. He had to belt out some lines sung by Bono from some Christmas song, which he did, and then made the comment of, "Gee, I feel so self-righteous after that!"

*bwahahaha*

Okay, okay, for those of you who like U2, sorry! But seriously... I'm glad that I'm not the only person who thinks that Bono is often on some kind of tour of self-righteous duty. Oh, and I read this morning that he's been named as one of Time magazine's Persons of the Year. I dunno, I guess if I were serious about wanting to cut poverty in Africa, I wouldn't be buying $8000 sunglasses, but cheap rip-off ones from Groove or wherever and donating the remaining $7976 to a charity or something like that, but maybe that's just me...

And then with Sir Bob Geldof with Live 8 in July... hmm...

Realistically, what difference has the Live 8 thing made a few months on? Has it changed the world from 20 years ago when it was first held with its "hideously white" lineup? (errmmm, let's not mention that things have gotten worse) Did it have the huge desired impact of making G8 leaders fall on their knees, crying, "We must protect the poor of Africa! I am personally going to donate my parliamentary salary to a small village and work to make trade fair!" No. They made promises instead. Just promises, not resolutions, and we all know how good politicians are at keeping promises... *note sarcasm* Just like after the last Live 8.

And it was kind of bizarre that Bob Geldof was quite explicit about the point of not raising money though the concerts for the starving masses it was setting out to get money for. To me, Live 8 just sort of seemed like, "Here, if you listen to us tell you about people dying, we'll get some famous people to play music for you! Look! Shiny things! People dying and shiny things go so well together! We're making a difference and we're special because of it!"

And then there was the whole way it still comes across as colonial, imperialistic crap. Sort of like they can't fix it themselves because they're too busy being stupid and starving so the brave white people from the Western world have to fix it for them.

Approximately 5 billion people live in developing countries. 40% of those living in poverty in the world are in India, where 81% of people live on less than $US2 per day. Half of the world lives on less than $US2 per day. A quarter of the world's population lives in severe poverty. Nearly 1 billion people entered the 21st Century unable to sign their own names, let alone read. The developing world pays $US13 on debt repayment for every $US1 it receives in grants. Approximately 790 million people in the developing world are chronically undernourished, with two-thirds of them living in Asia and the Pacific. An estimated 1 billion children live in poverty.

Surely there are bigger issues facing Africa than poverty alone. There are HUGE problems with HIV/AIDS, which killed 500,000 people in Africa in 2001 alone, and that seems to be something no-one wants to go near addressing or start criticising large pharmaceutical companies for not working to provide legitimate help to those who can't afford their price-gouging medicines or demanding that governments start working on serious programs to educate their people about the disease. The HIV/AIDS pandemic is something that's only going to magnify poverty and chronic hunger problems as people who work with food production, infrastructure and so on die. The deaths of those 500,000 people in 2001 led to a food shortage in 2002/2003 that effected 14 million people.

Chuck in global warming, lack of education and subsequent lack of ability to go on and break out of the poverty cycle by getting well-paying jobs or at least gain higher qualifications, minimal infrastructure, restrictive social hierarchies in some countries,
and HIV/AIDS just adds weight to the pressure that people are already under. Then you get all sorts of corruption and cronyism in many African governments where money for aid never actually gets through to the people who need it.

Providing more aid isn't the issue. What's really needed is education, infrastructure, fair trade (no, that's not free trade because that doesn't help anyone in the long run, but fair trade), an end to corruption in governments, police forces and so on and putting a stop to civil wars that have run on for decades. Once those sort of things are addressed and implemented, THEN poverty is going to be impacted in a way that's so much more beneficial than throwing a few dollars their way.

It's like the old saying about giving a man a fish or teaching him to fish. Which one's going to be of the most help in the long run...

But then I guess the only way for capitalism to survive and Bono to continue to be able to buy $8000 sunnies and Bob to get $20,000 per appearance for talks is to have poverty elsewhere... hmmm.

Absolutely beee-zarre!

I think that children blur people's minds!

A friend of mine, who I haven't talked with since about January or so (moving around and everything, being busy, all of that), just logged on to his MSN and has a photo of him with a baby.

I asked him if it was his, and he said yes. It's about four months old or something like that (and I didn't even know his gf was pregnant, altho I'd never met her), and now he and the girl are getting engaged.

The weird thing is that when we used to be in contact, he would always complain about the lady he was dating, talk about breaking up with her and all of that sort of rubbish. And now they're getting engaged? o.0

I mean, does having a small humanoid thing suddenly make things change around totally or something like that? Like someone came and took away the old brain this guy had and squashed it with a hammer before replacing it with something else entirely?

Meh... weird.

And the same thing happened with one of my old friends back in NSW who stayed with his dopefiend gf due to having a kid with her, but they both hate each other.

Not that I think kids should be deprived of their parents, but if you're going to make the others miserable by staying together, that has some sort of effect on the child who's also a part of the equation. Hmm.

When I woke up tonight...

*LOL*

I'm not sure what to think of it, but this morning a guy I know described me like this:

"You're a whole lotta trouble waiting to be unwrapped."

*lol* I kinda like the description... it's accurate *lol* And when I told another friend about it, he just said that when people who don't know each other agree on a point, it must be true!

Once you go black, you'll never go back

Women have known through the ages that wearing black is slimming.

And now, apparently there has been a scientific study done into it, and it's been proved that black is a colour that makes bumps, lumps, unhappy bits and fertility goddess hips look much smaller (or hides them a lot more than other colours).

Little wonder Coco Chanel hit the nail on the head with her Little Black Dress idea. And I think I'm going to go with my LBD for the staff Christmas party this year. Either that, or some Brazillian crazy fiesta carnivale style thing with a big feathered headdress... *LOL*

Just joking about the carnivale thing... ;)

Ho ho *herrraaaaccckkkkk furball* ho!

Stupid Kris Kringle thing at work!

What have I gotten so far for it? ALL of these chocolates. Chocolate this, chocolate that, Jesus, I'd expect a chocolate desk chair at this rate.

Now, there's nothing wrong with chocolate.

But a couple of months ago, I had a bit too much of it and subsequently DO NOT WANT TO SEE THE DAMN STUFF FOR AT LEAST... well... God knows how long. And just because I'm not stick-thin DOES NOT mean I want chocolate.

They could have bought me mangos and I would have loved them forever.

When the Kris Kringle thing is revealed next week, I just hope that I don't smack the person over the head with a block of Cadbury Dairy Milk o.0

In seasonal, happy Christmas love, of course.

Walking through the jungle, a hunter found a dead, ferocious-looking rhinoceros with a Pygmy standing proudly beside it. Amazed, the hunter asked, "Did you kill that rhino?"

"Why, yes," said the Pygmy

"How could a little fella like you kill a beast like that?"

"I killed it with my club," explained the Pygmy.

The astonished hunter exclaimed, "Wow! How big is your club?"

The Pygmy replied, "Ohhh, there's about 90 of us."

How to make men do what you want, Lesson #1

http://herzeleid.com/en/video

New Rammstein video for Rosenrot.

Oh my God.

It's not the best quality in terms of the actual tech bits (or maybe that's just because I'm on an Apple, so who knows), but the whole "story" of the video is amazing! And somewhat disturbing. I find it interesting how Till has been killed off in video clips with the past two albums ~ Ohne Dich and then now in Rosenrot.

Once again, the video is disturbing, for many reasons, and it's once again incredible because of that. "Was sie will bekommt sie auch" makes disturbing sense! I like how it explores the exploitative power that women can have over men in such a twisted way, and the effects this can have. It's like ultimate power or something, but corrupted ultimately at the same time. And it also reworks Goethe's Heidenröslein idea into something much more interesting (power reversals, perhaps?).

It's nice how it's not total feminine wiles, either. Add in the total masculinity that is Rammstein (mmmmmmm.... real men!) and it's an interesting balance. Plus the religious symbolism. And blood, pain, roses, death, fire, Snow White figure as the evil queen, being knowing when "innocent"... That sort of thing. Rurality, old ways, narrow-minded...

Really hope that they're going to release another DVD soon with their videos and some more live performances on it like Lichtspielhaus. The videos for the things from Reise, Reise were all fantastic and Rosenrot promises the same so far.

Ewwwwww!!!

Holy crap, what is it with me and attracting the total freaks?!?!

I was sitting at the bus stop after being at the dentists, waiting to head back to work. This guy comes up, plonks down on the seat near me and starts nattering away to me. So I talked with him for like half an hour. He was totally cracking onto me AND HE WAS OLD ENOUGH TO BE MY DAD!

He asked how old I was and he seemed disappointed when I told him I was 22, and he's like, "You look so much older! I thought you were 27 or so. Damn."

I was like, "Thank God, ewwwwww, please make that bus ARRIVE."

When he asked if I was married, I just should have lied and said, "Yes, yes I am married, to a desperately jealous man. In fact, my husband stabbed the last man who spoke to me. Through the eye. Repeatedly. It was tragic. But I love him."

That never would have happened if the dentists weren't running late today *lol* If I'd gotten in at the time I was booked for, I would have been out and on the bus an hour earlier, rather than getting to be hit on by some old guy who wants to tell me about his life and give me his phone number and stuff while bollocksing on about how gorgeous I am.

Why do strange people ALWAYS talk to me?!?! Maybe I'm too nice, or look too friendly. I shall have to work on this. Possibly with tattoos and a couple of prominent facial piercings...

Nyarghhh!

Oh, and to top that all off, I fell and bashed up my OTHER knee *sigh* So now both my knees are stuffed and I'm hobbling around like a cripple..! (sans wheelchair)

Today is beeeeeezarre.

My poor teeth! My poor bank account!

Dentists today.

I hate going to the dentist.

No, I'm not scared of the injections, drillings and fillings. They're all kind of cool in their own way. Especially when you have something like a clamp kind of thing set around your tooth to do some rebuilding and stuff :) (yes, I am fascinated by metal, injections, things like that, shuddup!)

What I am scared of is the dentist telling me off!

I brush my teeth twice a day and try to floss regularly, and I've still got holes in teeth! :( But they're holes that are apparently kind of old and should have been picked up by dentists I've visited in the past, so I guess that's some variety of cold comfort.

Still, I hate it because I know that I try to look after my teeth.

*le sigh*

One-way radio plays by its own rules by David Marr.

David Marr is one of the few journalists I really do admire, and I'm glad that he's been the one to point out what people like Allan Jones have been doing and saying on their radio programs.

Individuals like Allan Jones, John Laws and Stan Zemaneck (or however it is that his name is spelled) are an embarrassment to Australia. Anyone who's different, anyone who thinks things through reasonably, anyone who isn't part of the all-Australian stereotype comes in for a bashing on their programs. Not only is it stupid and narrow-minded, it's also divisive.

Yes, there *are* problems with gangs in Sydney. But that isn't an excuse to encourage people to attack others. Really it should be a time to call for people to work together to find solutions, think about working with the laws that we have more, enforcing tougher sentences for gang-related crimes, encouraging understanding and tolerance of other cultures and working to dismiss these stupid stereotypes that seem to have been building up for years that relate to Arabic people or immigrants in general.

We also need to look at the ways in which this stereotyping is alienating people in our communities and creating ignorance in others.

I think it's stupid that people are blaming Islam for the problems that Lebanese young people in gangs are having. The majority of Lebanese people in Australia are Christian anyway. A lot of their gang issues stem from a lack of education (usually dropping out of school early) and the subsequent problems with getting jobs because of this. The majority of those involved in gang stuff are apparently not practicing Muslims, anyway.

This comment was made on the Sydney Morning Herald by a Lebanese man: The Lebanese community must tackle the issue of angry young men, with little respect for authority, little appreciation for education, and an overall very poor global intellectual capacity.

These articles are also quite good:

Name-calling casts wide, unjustified net by Nadia Jamal

Where the 'other' fears to tread by Clifton Evers

Yobs dishonour all the Anzacs fought for (letters)

If phone companies ran Christmas...

There is a butterfly in my office.

He (or she) keeps on flying back in, no matter how many times I try to shoo it out so that it doesn't fly further into the building and die a lonely, cement and machinery-surrounded death.

Or end up squished beteween the pages of some book.

Oh well...

I'll keep it as my Office Pet for the day :)

Personal morality issues resolved!

I think I was just having one of those weird questioning moments with the wrong, right, wrong thingy. Perhaps it was just thinking too much about things that don't need to be thought about - just done, enjoyed, laughed about, all of that.

Works for me :)

Okay, okay, so it isn't a funny situation with the Cronulla stuff, but it is a pretty good photoshopped moment!

right, wrong, right, wrong, right, right?

Can doing the "wrong" thing lead to doing the "right" thing? And what if neither of the things were really "right" or "wrong"? And is the "right" thing really the "right" thing after all? What if the "right" thing is actually "wrong"?

*blinks*

Okay, I'm starting to confuse myself now.

But I'm wondering whether God would allow the "wrong" thing to happen or for people to do the "wrong" thing so that He could get something else to happen that would be "right" in the long term? And how on earth would we know His will about that sort of thing anyways, other than perhaps pondering it with our own kind of warped moral compasses?

I mean, the whole "wrong"/"right" thing seems so opposite that it's kind of hard to reconcile God with allowing things that He says aren't all that good to happen so that He can get something else to happen, which may or may not be good, really, depending on how things pan out in the long-term rather than just the short.

*ponders*

Who knows... God works in mysterious ways.

I have a lot to ask Him if I get to meet Him, that's for sure.

With a touch like that it may remain 'virtual' - so if your confounded computer goes down on you, I'd make the most of it...*

WIn and bear it, SMH's 2005 Couch Potato Awards.

Now here's some television that I've enjoyed over the year! *lol* Well, apart from Supernanny and Survivor, which I think should be jumped on repeatedly with steel-capped work boots. But thank goodness some other people recognise quality TV when they see it ;)

The year's highlights for me really have been Spicks & Specks, the best music/quiz/comedy/lie on floor in convulsions of laughter show to ever be aired on TV, Shameless, the most cringe-worthy but likeable show on earth, Lateline, which I discovered with my late-night wakefulness and quite enjoy, Casanova, the most funny and cleverly constructed Beeb period mini-series in living memory, and Despreate Housewives, but only the first half of the series as it did get old quickly.

*Casanova website thingy..!

"My respect for tolerance will p!ss all over yours!" - Keisha, Bromwell High

This is why Waltzing Matilda should NEVER be the national anthem. People using it as an excuse to attack others and stake some kind of nationalistic patriotism-gone-nuts claim to "ownership" of Australia is just the sort of thing that forgets that our true national anthem talks about advancing Australia, not sending it back into some kind of racist dark ages, and welcoming all people from around the world.

Will the people who rioted be branded as "terrorists?" Maybe they should...

I find it ironic that the people who were rioting and stuff in Sydney were telling Lebanese and Middle Eastern people to "go back home" because they "don't belong here." Maybe they should consider that NONE of us actually "belong" here or can claim the land as our own. I mean, the Aboriginals were the true inhabitants of this country until Anglo-Saxons came along and pinched it, so realistically we're all people who "don't belong."

It's a shame to our country that there are idiots out there who act in this way. And other idiots who excuse it. And even more idiots who try their hardest to inflame the situation (such as members from the Australia First Party) by saying that too many "undesirable" people are allowed to move to this country (strangely, they don't include themselves on that list of "undesirables").

Personally, I'm glad to be out of the Sydney area. People up there aren't generally as tolerant or as open-minded and accepting as people in Melbourne and Adelaide are. There's also a greater feel of the potential for violence there that you just don't get in many of the other capital cities in Australia. It's not an issue of needing more police, as the NSW Opposition leader claims, but a total adjustment of attitude.

And we need to do something about the way that politicians and the media seems to promote intolerance of the Muslim community by the way that people are stereotyped and things are worked into some kind of racial statement if anything goes wrong or a couple of people do something moronic.

Especially since 9/11.

Merry Chrastmas! (those who've seen www.engrish.com will know what I mean)

Finally starting on doing Christmas cards and I realised that I don't know most of my friend's addresses!

Since the beginning of this year, most have moved or left uni or whatever. Some have even moved overseas and we'd just been doing the keep-in-contact-via-email thing. Which is kinda slack! But c'est la vie...

But I'm actually doing a lot of cards this year. And thinking about writing up a totally silly generic Christmas letter to send out with it, like you often get with cards from people... Hmm... It'd be something like:

"Dear X,

Christmas this year is going to be different. Since we found out that Santa sees us when we're sleeping and knows when we're awake, we've thought it was creepy and weird and took out a restraining order against the old bearded bastard.

However, we're looking forward to it anyway!

Little Freddy has done well at school this year, once he recovered from the tragic hydrochloric acid incident early in the first term. The teachers seem to perhaps be giving him sympathy A's, but we think he deserves it.

George ran off with our gardener, Alfred, in September, which proved to be somewhat of a scandal for the people at the local golf club. But as I said to them, they're not the only ones who like to have a stick in their hands from time to time!

Hope things are well with you. Don't forget to send lots of presents and do come along to the dinner party at our house on Christmas eve. There'll be piranahs and other nibblies.

*muah, muah*
Della"

Other people's lives, other people's houses

Something on TV tonight made me think about sometimes how strange it is when you visit other people's houses and go to another room or something and it's so frightfully quiet there and you feel almost like you should tip-toe through the room as quietly as you possibly can.

Or else you feel like you want to pause and soak up the silence and perhaps find out something about the silences of other people's homes that are really far more foreign than the silences of your own. But then it's kind of strange to sneak through the silences in another person's home!

Perhaps that's why I always want to make people feel as comfortable in my house as possible ~ let them know that they can do what they like and feel happy and stuff. Nothing worse than being a guest in a home and feeling like you can't move without asking for permission.

Are you feelin' lucky, punk?

'Cos today's your lucky day! I've decided to blog about one of my absolute favourite recipes...

Mmm... raspberry and banana bread...

Or is it banananananananana? ;) Ba-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na! Make those bodies sing! Woot! *dances*

Della's Famous Raspberry and Banana Bread

Two cups of plain flour
Two teaspoons baking soda
One cup of sugar
Two eggs, slightly beaten
Two ripe, mooshy bananas, peeled (natch) and mashed up
150 g soft butter
Couple of teaspoons ground cinnamon/nutmeg
However many raspberries you so desire to throw in (use frozen ones, because to use fresh raspberries for anything other than eating as they are is sacrilege!)

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and butter up a loaf or cake tin. Put all of the ingredients EXCEPT FOR THE RASPBERRIES!!! *ahem* in a bowl and mix them together. When combined, add the raspberries and fold them through the mixture gently (if you mix them around too much, your cake will turn a bizarre grey colour (cement-coloured cake = no-no!). Pour the mixture into the tin and spread it around evenly. Cook for 45 minutes or so, or until it's nice and brown and sharp metal objects (skewers, knives, medical equipment) that you use to test the middle of the cake come out cleanly.

Et voila! Nice and easy.

I thought you liked housework, Cinderella!

The end of the working week is approaching on gilded wings. It’s been an unusual week. I mean, it’s sort of seemed to suddenly slip from being Monday to Thursday afternoon without so much as a “Hey, the week’s rushing by like a cow’s afterbirth,* maybe we should slow down a bit, relax, take a long coffee break and enjoy it all?”

Now that I’m having a moment to myself to think as I wait to hear back from the bank lady (hopefully she calls soon), I’m wondering how the house buying could really feel so anticlimactic, how I can make my life more interesting with getting back into art and what sort of things to look for with Christmas presents when shopping tomorrow.

I hate it when life becomes mundane!

*shakes fist*

I’d forgotten about things and being myself lately with the house stuff and stresses relating to this, that and the other, so it’s time to go back to being normal again, rather than trying to be terribly adult and grown-up about things. Because that definitely doesn’t work for me!

It’s time to be creative once more!

*ahem*

Carry on :)

*Those of you who have ever lived on a farm with cattle will know what I mean, especially when it comes to the older cattle.

Quote of the Day

"Loneliness sometimes gives me a quantity of creativeness - you're drinking another glass of wine and you're feeling even worse. Art doesn't work without pain; art also exists for compensating pain."
- Till Lindemann

The Other Kind of Country Women's Club by Daniel Lewis.

Interesting article, not for the completely faint-hearted.

The rabbit dude in Donnie Darko still freaks me out.

The dead eyes.

The blood from the wound.

The grotesque road-kill look.

But why *are* you wearing that stupid human suit?

Dammit, it makes me cry *shakes fist*

The day I tire of politics is... ermm... well... today, I think!

When oft I hear John Howard speaking, it comes across as, "Blah blah blah blah eyebrows blah blah scary terrorists blah I will protect you from them by taking away your freedoms blah blah blah."

When oft I hear Kim Beazley speaking, it comes across as, "Blah blah blah blah whinge blah blah don't agree with what he said but will vote for it anyway because the Labor party has no balls blah blah blah."

Seriously can't believe they all caved in that much so that the "anti-terror" laws were passed last night 53 votes to 7. Seriously can't believe the Labor party might think that it can win future elections if they think that being an opposition party means agreeing with everything the government says. Seriously can't believe they will pass the industrial relations reforms while promising "We'll rip up these reforms when we're elected to power!"

Perhaps it's lucky that the Labor party doesn't have any balls, or far too many people would probably want to be kicking them in them at the moment, I'd say.

Ho ho ho... hooch!

So we have a Kris Kringle thing happening here at work with a budget of $10. Work has chipped in five of those ten dollars and tempting as that might be to spend on hooch and hookers, I've got to figure out something to buy for someone.

At least I know the individual who'll be inflicted with happy Kringley goodness from myself.

Thank God.

I hate it when it's someone you don't know and just think, "Right, chocolates it is then..." And it's not someone who I'd spend the $10 on buying a lump of coal for, along with a note from Santa that says, "You've been very naughty this year! Next time I see you, I'm going to put you over my knee!"

Although for some that would be an incentive to be naughty all year, I suppose... *mreowr*

Anyways, gift ideas, gift ideas, gift ideas!

I've had one thought about constructing a "merry Christmas" note thing out of magazine and newspaper lettering, cut up and pasted together like a ransom note, but as for the gift itself? Hmm...

Oh well, going shopping on Friday so hopefully something will spring to mind then. Although my bank balance and spending desires are going to be traumatised by today ~ I get to pay my deposit for the house and do all kinds of bank things and so on. It's unexciting in its excitingness.

...and Donald Rummsfeld plays Chicken Little

I'm watching The Cutting Edge at the moment, and I've not really been fascinated by it so far, except for a few points about neocons, myths that countries use and so on.

And Donald Rummsfeld is one of the few men whose looks have improved with age.

Unfortunately, it's quite obvious that his ability to tell the truth about countries America considers to be an "enemy" hasn't improved with those looks. He was getting practice in for Iraq by doing the same thing with the Soviets.

Quite weirdly hilarious that they used the non-existant weapons of mass something-or-other to try to do things to the Soviet Union. Heck, they even got things wrong about things that did exist (with the air defence system and so on). The argument was that if they didn't find that it existed, it meant that it did anyway and that the Soviets were just really good at hiding it.

Lennin must be smirking in his glass coffin.

Although it's a shame that the people of Iraq are currently having to suffer through Rummsfeld making things up again. Would have been better if they'd tried to do something with crimes against humanity to oust Saddam rather than creating their own crimes against humanity catalogue to replace it.

*sigh* Silly Rummy.

Christmas and Death

It's raining and dismal today, so maybe that's influenced the following, but I usually enjoy rainy weather, so who knows...

This afternoon, Theo came around with a card to be signed for the man who used to be the general manager here who's in the final stages of his battle with cancer. It's impossible to know what to write, but I hope that what I did write won't sound trite to a man who's not expected to live to Christmas.

But then you can never tell. One of our friends back home died last year a couple of days after Christmas. She had cancer and it was her final aim to stick around for Christmas with all of her family. She managed that and then that was it. Funny what the will to live will do and where it will get you.

Still, it's hard for the family, and the first Christmas without someone around is probably the hardest, I think.

When my Pappa died in May 2000, Christmas just wasn't anything like it used to be. I mean, for our family, he was Christmas. He'd do all the decorations, gently unwrap all of our old German glass decorations and make the tree look stunning, bake mountains of gingerbread biscuits with blanched almonds on top, probably look forward to the whole thing more than the rest of us. Christmas 2000 sucked without him, really. Plus, in retrospect, it's when my Nanna's dementia really sort of started to show its very early stages.

This Christmas I have no idea what's going to be happening yet, but it's the first one without Nanna. For the first two Christmases in NSW, we brought her home from the nursing home she was in after breaking her hip. It was kind of stressful, but also lots of fun, particularly with having all of the traditional Christmas food. Last Christmas, Nan was too delicate to travel, so we had Christmas lunch in her room at the nursing home. Lots of laughs, good food, all of that.

Good memories, at least, I guess. But it doesn't bring it back.

Honestly, presents, consumerism, shopping half to death, Santa, reindeers and all that bollocks be buggered. Family and friends are what really matters. Sucks that death has to be one of the major things to remind people of that, though.

John 14:1-3‘‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”

Oooh, I meant to write about this earlier, but forgot!

I think it was on Saturday evening, there was a David Attenborough documentary on ABC about deep-sea creatures and it reminded me of all sorts of things that I’d seen and learned in the Marine Biology course thing that my friend Krystal and I did at the Flinder’s Uni open day when we were in Year 12.

Not that I’d really forgotten about it, but I’d forgotten about how much I’d been tempted to say “Screw it” to the journalism thing and gun for doing Marine Biology.

It was kind of funny with that day we spent at Flinders, because a whole lot of other people who were there to check out the course were all of these kind of preppy girls who had an attitude of “Oooh, dolphins, pretty fish, nice sea things” to what marine biology would be all about, and they all seemed pretty shocked when what we really looked at in the labs were these sea worms, very unusual sponges and “boring” things like that. Kind of funny!

But the best bit was watching a whole lot of pics that the lecturer had taken when doing some deep-sea exploration (and from other deep-sea explorer’s explorations, too). They were AWESOME!

Especially the bit about the pools of water that’s extra salty and the sea doesn’t merge with it in the Gulf of Mexico. Things just float around on the pools and they’re surrounded by hundreds of muscles that use nutrients from the pools, along with delicate tube worms that do the same. Fantastic stuff!

Oooh, and these white starfish that have arms that are literally up to two metres long and are spindly and vaguely creepy.

A lot of the deep-sea creatures are really freakish, but by the same token, it’s pretty amazing, particularly with things like bioluminescence, withstanding immense PSI pressure, not relying on the sun for energy, that sort of thing.

The grotesque just adds to their appeal, really.

Hmm… how different life might have been if I’d done Marine Biology instead.

http://www.teachers.ash.org.au/jmresources/deep/creatures.html

*teehee*

Amusing embarrassing moment for the day:

Singing along cheerfully to I Believe In A Thing Called Love by The Darkness and having a colleague walk into the office *LOL*

Bet they didn't think I could do mock 1980s glam rock...

*teehee*

Zzzzzz -.-

In the immortal words of the Gumbies of Monty Python...

"My brain hurts."

And no, I won't be appearing on Wednesday in a version of Anton Chekov's The Cherry Tree :-p

Ugh.

Lately I've been having the most intense and peculiar dreams, which keep waking me up or disturbing my sleep, and it's starting to get annoying! One of my friends, who had been appearing in them in the most nonsensical ways for about a month and then disappeared from them for a week or so, has made a return, and that just adds to the surreal kind of feel to it all.

Need sleep. Don't want dreams. Must not fall asleep on keyboarslajkddnvccccccccsjkdddddueeenmzlxmzzzzzzzzzz

Hmmmmm...

The most interesting comment on Speaking in Tongues tonight was from Father Bob, who said something like, "What really worries me is that people are too focused on not being human, they're wanting something to come and take them away from being human."

Something along those lines at least...

And then how that would sort of distract them from looking at issues of the world around them and working to help out with problems and stuff.

Interesting idea. But I don't think it's just something that is just an issue of the more "mystic" religions. Isn't there something in the Bible that says that we shouldn't be so heavenly minded that we're of no earthly use?

Will think of this more later ~ having a brain power failure at the moment and need sleep!

"A turnstile of incompetence..."

The PM doesn't blame the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs, and Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone who will never be the next PM, for a former Saddam Hussein bodyguard being allowed to live in Australia.

What's better than that in terms of incompetence and utter astoundingly moronically ginormous stupidity? Having innocent civillians still locked up in detention centres or being sent back to their home countries (where a high percentage of returned refugees are killed within two months of their return). Yay! Let's give those who commit crimes against humanity a visa and turn innocent people away! *note sarcasm*

(Currently trying to repress images of Saddam singing to the bodyguard, "Aaaaaaand I-iiiiii-iiiiii-iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii will allllllwayyyyyys loooove yooooo-oooooo-ooooou." Begone bad mental images, begone!)

But the PM does blame Peter Costello, who people tout as the replacement for lil Johnnie, for daring to suggest Robert Gerard as a candidate for the Reserve Bank of Australia board. Turns out they both thought the idea was top banana, though.

Funny how DIMIA never gets any blame for the monumental stuff-ups it manages to consistently create.

Hope springs eternal

Wow, when I saw this news thing on the Sydney Morning Herald site with the line of "Secret Service agents catch a White House intruder" I thought that they'd FINALLY wised up to George Dubyah Bush!

Dangnammit.

It was just some seemingly differently-sane person...

Oh wait, that still sounds like George Dubyah...

I mean it wasn't the President who was caught by the Secret Service agent people who seemed to be surprisingly relaxed about the whole issue, seeing as they didn't do the American thing that's done in Iraq of shooting so many holes in the person that they'd whistle when they walked (not that they could because they'd be kind of dead, but you get what I mean).

Hmm!

But I love the new honesty that the Americans are going with for their new plans for a successful withdrawal from Iraq.

It's their "oil spot strategy."

Surprisingly enough, I think there are a lot of people who would have called it that long before this moment in time, but perhaps with a different emphasis.

Perhaps they should just call it "We Know The Iraqis Will Be Glad To See The Back Of Us Seeing As They Didn't Seem To Want Us Here In The First Place So Let's Try To Gather Together Any Remaining Dignity That We Can Find And Try Not To Make It Look Like We've Already Gone Down Past Plan Z."

Heh... at least we know now that WMD stands for Where's My Dignity.

*ahem*

My apologies for the gratuitious swearing in the previous blog :)

Just when it comes to my little dog and anyone or anything trying to hurt him, there will be fireworks!

And in a bizarre way, I think I now understand why it is that parents will do anything with an adrenaline rush to protect their offspring from harm. I honestly didn't think about what the psycho dog could have done to me until my Mum pointed out what could have happened o.0 Kind of scary, really.

I mean, flip-flops aren't really the most well-known psycho dog repellants... And my dog is "chewtoy size" as a friend pointed out!

Thank goodness for adrenaline! And pointy toenails!

*lol*

Yes, I AM angry!

Far out.

Going for a walk is dangerous when you get attacked by a huge dog.

I decided to go for a walk with my dog (who's pretty small, pictured left) and it was pretty nice until a huge boxer kind of dog broke off his leash and attacked my dog!

The big dog came up from behind us and bit my dog on the back and tried dragging him and shaking him and then let go and tried to bite my dog's head!

In that moment, I kind of had one of those total adrenaline surge freak-out things and just started kicking the hell out of the boxer (with the leg I injured earlier in the day...) even though I was only wearing flip-flops and the boxer was going nuts trying to bite my dog...

The family finally arrived and restrained their dog and apologised. I was so infuriated though! Bastards.

They all drink lemonade...

I bought the Black Books DVD collection today and have been watching them since arriving home... happy moments!

Now onto the third series and the first episode of that was weird!

One of the characters reminded me a lot of someone I know in terms of personality *lol* The character was the guy who owns the rival next-door bookstore where Manni goes to work, and does the whole, "I'm saying this as a friend..." thing and all of that while being totally bitchy...

*teehee*

Now onto the book for children episode.

Hilarious!

And to think that there's only been three series of Black Books so far! There should be more! Especially for when it's miserably rainy and cold outside and you want to be able to enjoy sozzled hilarity ;)