What they said...

I bet there are so many people who read it wrong and went in there looking for something totally different to what was actually on offer!

*teehee*

Ich bin Berlinerin! *teehee*

Blah blah blah blah blaaaaaaaaaah!

Tired and uninspired and in need of a holiday, even though I've been off sick. Still, it wasn't relaxing being sick and trying to not cough up a lung. When I accumulate some holidays from work, I'm going to try to go to Germany. Or Spain. Or Canada. Somewhere nice :)

Other than that, we went up to the snow again today. There was only a teeny tiny itty bitty bit on the very top of the summit, but there were some gorgeous robins there. I want more snow, dammit!

And less Australian Idol, which has to be the worst show on TV. Utterly pathetic karaoke competition of a national scale. Pfft. Not that I have anything against karaoke - I enjoy proper karaoke. But to mass produce it for TV? Blah. And the people on it all sound the same. Closer your eyes and they're about as interesting to listen to as a band saw.

I keep dreaming of being in Russia.

Although it's not Russia, because it has elements of the Barossa Valley or Adelaide in it, which is unusual. But I've had such peculiar dreams about it all. I mean, the other night I dreamed of being in a park in Russia. The park had all of these architectural elements that reminded me of being the area behind the institute in Nuriootpa, but then I was speaking Russian with other people there and it was snowing on the grass and ice was forming over the little streams in the park. My dog and I were playing fetch or something like that, and enjoying the snow.

Then I dreamed of living in a Soviet-style apartment block with rugs on the walls and catching the train with people and carrying a suitcase with Russian script on the labels. And I met someone who spoke English and was happy to see them because I could talk to them in English, even though they also understood Russian.

Bizarre!

Duck!

See a penny, pick it up, all the day you'll have good luck

Well, after kicking around the house this morning trying to get in contact with work people about the conference thingy I'm meant to be at, all the while watching Der Krieger und Die Kaiserin and attempting to NOT think about how much work it'll take to clean the yard after the windstorms of the weekend (one small tree has literally been shredded, so that will take time to get fixed...), I decided to choof along to work because I may as well get a start on next week's stuff, right? Yeah. Or the week after's. You know... whatever.

So I headed out the door at about 9.50am or something like that, and on the way down the street after the street after mine on my walk, I found one shiny pretty 5 cent piece. The penny saying popped into my mind, so I picked it up and put it in my bag, thinking of other things that could make a new rhyme for the penny thing, some of them revolving around words that rhyme with 'luck.'

I guess today has been a bit of a better day, tho! I mean, my cold thingy is clearing up and my ear doesn't hurt hardly at all, which is genius! AND best of all, I can actually THINK! Because my brain had been on severe holidays for the past week (ie: to the point where I couldn't remember if the things I had on my shopping list were things I actually wanted..!).

And I got an e-mail from the lecturer dude who wrote that article I posted about last night, which was awesome! He told me that he wants me to try to get some of the articles I did for his class published, and wants me to keep in contact with him and let him know how I'm going, which I'll prolly do after I get sorted out after this weekend AND finish my damn tax forms. They've been languishing half-done on the table under some things and frightened the hell out of me when I found them yesterday *lol* I was like, 'Dum de dum de dum, dust dust dust... move papers... aiiiiieee!!!' *faint* At least I have until October, but still... heh!

The weather's nice today, too. And my parents are arriving, so they get to see how awful the place looks after wild windstorms *sigh* It ticks me off badly because I'd just cleaned up everything on Sunday and it was looking soooooo nice and then this massive wind/rain/hail/etc storm comes along and wrecks it all :( *shakes fist at clouds*

Best of all - Larie's coming for the weekend next weekend!!! YAY!!! We'll have a great time and hopefully the weather will be decent *lol*

Shopping, shopping, shop-ping! *does the shopping dance* This is freaking awesome! :-D

Interesting article by one of my old lecturers:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/choking-on-a-scandalous-feast/2005/08/31/1125302626094.html

Just copy and paste it, I can't be bothered to do the linky thing. Heh... time for bed!

come and set me free!

Banks - our pens are chained down, because otherwise you'd stab us to death with them!

Thanks to Comedy Inc for that one.

Decongestant medication stuff is brilliant! So hopefully I'll be back working tomorrow, if I can figure what the f*ck is going on with everything - been trying to get in contact with ppl about it and haven't been able to so far. One could say feeling slightly screwed (and not in the fun way *lol*).

Must go and try to organise something about tomorrow... altho it is 11.05pm right now, so who knows. Maybe it's just time to sleep!

Or I could just book into a Finding Your Inner Goddess seminar that's going to be happening at one of the local stores in the near future *lol* Haven't you always wanted to get in touch with your inner goddess in a teepee after all? What better way could there be to spend a weekend? Especially if it's with extra hippies who don't wash very often. Mmm...

Song of the day: Hard On For Jesus by the Dandy Warhols. This song I really really really want to do at as a P&W thing at a church, just to see whether they get it or not *lol* Especially at a church like Paradise in SA ;) I mean, it's about time I started baiting pentecostals *puts on devil horns* *lol* The song just makes me think of the movie Saved! and what could potentially happen there.

And for now, I leave you with...

Oh yeah, jesus
You got me going.
And I know, just like I know,
No way of knowing.

I gotta have faith,
I gotta believe
That the lord of lords and
The king of kings
Come and set me free.

Jesus.
Jesus.

That’s all folks...

Stannnnn by your maaaannn...

Ahhh, there's nothing like a rousing country and western rendition of Stand By Your Man to make time spent waiting in the doctor's surgery simply fly by!

*bout of sarcastic coughing*

But on the bright side, I'm getting better ~ hurrah! No thanks to Stand By Your Man... but yes. The doctor said that I should take tomorrow off as well, but I'd be not very popular with my boss if I did *lol* So I'm going to head back to work, apply my nose to the grindstone, etc, etc.

And just when I was starting to enjoy daytime TV! New ambition in life: to write soap operas *lol* It would be cool to write in the stage directions: deep meaningful prolonged pouty look at X, combined with flashing semi-angry, semi-I want to do you like a crazed moose eyes.

All together now, Stand by your man..!

*teehee*

So muss er seinen Nächsten lieben

Better than chocolate. Better than sex. Better than skydiving. Better than winning the lottery. Better than blueberry muffins. Better than sunny days like this. Better than anything!

What is it?

Halleluja by Rammstein! I've waited for so many years to hear this and I finally downloaded it yesterday. What can I say? It's amazing - I think it's one of their best songs, nearly as good as Wilder Wein. It definitely matches in well with the sound of their 2001 album, Mutter (I believe it was part of the limited edition 2 CD version of that album, which I never got my hands on *curses*). However, it also makes me think of 1994's Schwarzes Glass. Now all I have to do is find Kokain and Wut Will Nicht Sterben and I'll be cheerin'!

Remember to love your neighbour ;)

Halleluja - Rammstein

Er ist fromm und sehr sensibel
an seiner Wand ein Bild des Herrn
er wischt die Flecken von der Bibel
das Abendmahl verteilt er gern

Er liebt die Knaben aus dem Chor
sie halten ihre Seelen rein
doch Sorge macht ihm der Tenor
so muss er ihm am nächsten sein
auf seinem Nachttisch still und stumm
ein Bild des Herrn
er dreht es langsam um

Wenn die Turmuhr zweimal schlägt
halleluja
faltet er die Hände zum Gebet
halleluja
er ist ohne Weib geblieben
halleluja
so muss er seinen Nächsten lieben
halleluja

Der junge Mann darf bei ihm bleiben
die Sünde nistet überm Bein
so hilft er gern sie auszutreiben
bei Musik und Kerzenschein

Wenn die Turmuhr zweimal schlägt
halleluja
faltet er die Hände zum Gebet
halleluja
er ist ohne Weib geblieben
halleluja
so muss er seinen Nächsten lieben
halleluja

Wenn die Turmuhr zweimal schlägt
halleluja
nimmt er den Jungen ins Gebet
halleluja
er ist der wahre Christ
halleluja
und weiß, was Nächstenliebe ist
halleluja

Dreh dich langsam um
dreh dich um

*Click here for a translation to English for those of you who might be a bit rusty with their German. And don't blame me for any potential trauma you suffer from the potential meanings the song contains.

So my Nanna's funeral was almost a week ago, but there's something that still bugs me (apart from her being dead, which isn't right, you know? She was like the eternal Nanna, and now she's not... makes no sense).

The thing that's bugging me is that a guy was there who I was friends with when I was younger. We always used to talk and hang out and stuff, and when I saw him last year, we had a nice time catching up.

Anyways, at the funeral AND the wake, he avoided me like the plague (and I know it wasn't my deoderant because everyone else descended on me, and one guy even spent five minutes talking to my t*ts rather than my face for f*ck's sake).

The only conversation we had was basically: (me) 'Hi!' (him) 'Hey, how are you?' 'Good thanks, and you?' 'Yeah, not bad. How's your work going?' 'It's really good, I love it.' 'I'm glad you're happy with it. Well, I have to head off.' 'Ohh... well, I'll see you later then.' 'Yeah. Take care.'

The whole time he looked like I'd cornered him and proposed that we do something indecent on the tea and coffee trolley.

*sigh* Kind of sucks! I mean, when you see old friends, you don't really expect that kind of reaction.

But other than that, the funeral was a really fantastic celebration of my Nanna's life, and catching up with the rest of my friends and relatives was wonderful.

"When our eyes met, I felt that I was growing pale. A curious sensation of terror came over me. I knew that I had come face to face with some one whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself." Oscar Wilde

But the sodomy's quite nice

Oh my goodness, I haven't laughed so hard in forever!

I was just talking to Jesus about the uncyclopedia, in particular the WMD (W's missing donuts), and there was a link from that to 'sodomy' which they defined as being a soldering term.

Jesus and I keep reading and browsing and somehow the sodomy thing comes up and Jesus says, 'Hahaha, sodomy is good!' and I literally almost fell off my chair laughing. He corrects himself by saying, 'The entry is so good.' Which is worse... and I'm crying with laughter by that time.

Finally we arrive at the statement, 'The Uncyclopedia article is well written.'

*giggles some more*

Heh... that was my entertainment for this unholy hour of the morning. Thank you Jesus :D

And please, no comments about being a special part of that entry *LOL*

http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Sodomy

http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Fetish

Och aye!

This flu is the flu from hell! I don't think I've been this sick in ages. And now the damn thing has migrated to my chest, so it's not just stuffed sinuses, I get to kill myself coughing. Hurrah.

And I can't shake this Scottish accent! Which I guess is better than the Spanish accent I was stuck with yesterday. Ugh... Really! My brain just doesn't function enough to switch back to speaking normally, and I know the people down the street looked at me really bloody weirdly when I spoke today (as in, where did this young lady get her Scottish accent from!? Didn't she sound British?).

I hate being sick! *shakes fist* Don't want to go to the doctors, but I think I might have to. I don't want to accidentally cough up a lung or something like that.

Ooooowwwww pain agony and not enough cold and flu medication :(

*teehee*

The three bears come home after a night out on the town. They look around the house and notice that something's wrong.

Baby Bear says, "Someone's eaten my porridge!"

Mummy Bear says, "Someone's eaten my porridge too!"

Daddy Bear says, "Screw the porridge, someone's nicked the telly!"

*teehee*

To dream the impossible dream!

*le sigh*

Life is one series of crushing disappointments after another sometimes. I had been thinking of doing the settle down, buy a house, work here for a number of years thing, but now I don't know that it'll work out that way. But maybe that's just a reflection of me thinking 'This is not my life, this isn't what I feel any more, this isn't what I want' lately. The Winter of my discontent?

Maybe it's time to turn my face to the road again and step out into another unknown or fall down the rabbit hole and maybe find the key that opens the door.

Or maybe there's another plan to it all. I don't know... This trusting a higher power thing is sometimes so confusing and stressful! I've been doing it all year, and should know that He always comes through with something in the end, but it still puts me on edge not knowing. Although who knows what He has in mind... It could be anything *lol*

Makes no sense at all... things aren't what they seem... - Burger Queen, Placebo

In happier news, I'm going to make stir fry veggies with noodles in a plum and soy sauce tonight. Mmmm...

You know, if I saw this sing while driving, I'd probably laugh so hard I'd crash the car.

Still, if food be the music of love, play on... But don't ask me about anything more with that because my brain ceased to function as of half an hour ago. All I can think of is cooking, and seeing what there can be done with leche... dulce leche is it? You know, where you boil up a can of condensed milk and use it as caramel. Or using flat leaf parsley with boiled eggs sliced length-ways on sourdough bread, possibly with some Persian feta spread underneath and the bread toasted very lightly.

Although if I made that, I wouldn't actually be able to taste any of it at the moment. This flu thing has taken over my tastebuds as well as my mind. Very industrious of it, to be sure! Maybe with the way I feel, I shall call it the Ozzy Osborne flu.

Shaaaaaron, the bloody dogs 'ave eaten me slippers again...

You know what's really good? Bottled sour cherries in their own juice with a teaspoon or so of cornflour (to thicken) a bit of sugar and a nice amount of cinnamon are divine when cooked up and served over ice-cream.

And somehow I just managed to poke myself in the eye with the corner of a tissue o.0 Owwww... See what I mean about Ozzy Osborne? Yeah... And when my landlord came in to talk to me about getting the shower fixed in the morning tomorrow, I couldn't even manage to make a squeak! *lol* Seriously, my voice disappeared and I was just like, '........' *ahem* and tried again *lol*

But back to food thoughts. I plan to make my famous banana and raspberry bread tomorrow to put in the freezer for my parents when they come to stay. And then I want to get into trying some other things, including experimentations with roast capsicum and tomato blended together for pasta sauce, lemon things, exploring sage, looking at something to do with coconut and fig - something makes me curious as to how they'd taste together, buttersnap cookies as a pie crust (all mashed up), hummous, concocting my own blend of tea and possibly making some bread.

Busy weekend coming up! Ugh... but not ugh... at least the shower will hopefully be fixed. Just when I'm coming to love baths again *lol* Seriously, how good are baths? They're fan-f*cking-tastic, especially with lots of foam and relaxing salts and so on and then filling the tub so full that it almost overflows *lol* Did you know that using a handful of oats wrapped up tightly in a face washer and then put in the bath is really good for your skin? Yuppers...

Seeing how my mind is wandering, I think I'll go now...

Mad Hatter and March Hare

I don't know what it is about drinking tea lately, but I'm getting addicted to it *lol*

But it's not the regular tea - it's herbal tea, which has a much more pleasant taste and aroma (ie: not that of wet twigs). At the moment, I have about seven or eight different types of herbal tea in the cupboard at home, some of which are in teabags and the others that are just loose leaves/bits (including hibiscus tea... mmm).

So every night after I eat, clean up and prepare for relaxation time, I break out the tea (with teacup, saucer and proper teapot included in the equation). It's relaxing, comforting, warm, healthy...

AND makes me feel like a total Nanna *lol*

Other than that, I feel so sleepy. And fluey. Icky! And annoyed about the shower at my house, which my landlord still hasn't organised anyone to come and fix. And cross about my dog's injuries sustained over the weekend (no wonder I worry about him staying with other people...).

*kicks some things*

*coughs up half a lung*

*sigh*

Yikes!

I have returned!

Well, the funeral went well.

And the time in SA was brilliant. Lots of catching up with friends and seeing people who we haven't seen for ages and ages. And I met some relatives who I'd never met before. They're all from around the Barossa and are so lovely!

I saw lots of friends from school, which was great, too. I miss them loads! And I really want to move to South Australia. Victoria's way too cold and boring.

Too tired to write more.

Honogurai Mizuno Sokokara (the original Dark Water) is on tonight on SBS, and I really really want to watch it, but I seriously can't bring myself to do it!

I've watched just at tiny bit of it, and perhaps it's because of the patch in the bathroom ceiling where water drips through in my house, or perhaps it's the ghost thing, or the lost thing, but it frightens the goodness out of me o.0

*sigh*

When the roof gets fixed, I'll watch it.

Quote of the night

I may be fucked up, but I burnt my leg warmers for you! - Nick Giannopolous, The Wannabes

НОЧНОЙ ДОЗОР

I really tend to hate thrillers/horrors, but I really want to see Night Watch (or in its original Russian, НОЧНОЙ ДОЗОР (Nochnoy Dozor)) when it comes out. Okay, so it was released last year already in Russia, but apparently it's going to at least be in England, France and Spain in the next month or two!

Seriously, apart from it being Russian AND good quality, there seem to be heaps of reasons to see it *lol* It's funny, though, that a lot of Russian people are like, 'Oh, it's so crummy! Poor quality!' But then we usually tend to dump on movies from our own countries that do well and don't stick to the 'purist' version of what we want to see in cinemas *lol* The movie was produced and marketed with the help of Russia's TV1, and apparently 50% of the budget was used on advertising and PR, which is rather impressive.

Anyhow...

Set in contemporary Moscow, Night Watch revolves around the conflict and balance maintained between the forces of light and darkness -- the result of a medieval truce between the opposing sides. As night falls, the dark forces battle the super-human “Others” of the Night Watch, whose mission is to patrol and protect. But there is constant fear that an ancient prophecy will come true: that a powerful “Other” will rise up, be tempted by one of the sides, and tip the balance plunging the world into a renewed war between the dark and light, the results of which would be catastrophic.
Night Watch is the first installment of a trilogy based on the best-selling sci-fi novels of Sergei Lukyanenko entitled Night Watch, Day Watch and Dusk Watch. The film is the official Russian contender for Best Foreign Language Film for the 2005 Academy Awards.

Sounds good to me :)

Prepare for funeral...

Pack clothes tomorrow night. Clean house. Do things. Wash hair. Try to work out how to program the VCR for the Canterbury Tales on Sunday. Work out travel plans for the morning.

Do stuff... Eeehh... this is too much for my brain *lol*

AAAAARRGHHHHH!

It's funny, but I never trusted most of the news reports from the original Gulf War (not the current Gulf War II: Doin' it for Daddy).

Tonight a program about media and government lies reminded me all about it. Some of the pictures triggered memories of having seen them before.

Ahh, the media and war...

Stock footage, no actual coverage of on-the-ground-in-the-war-zone events, prepackaged Pentagon clips, surgical, clean and zero death. Unlike the Viet Nam war reporting...

Oh, but we get a soundtrack for the war now. We get some nice music for the wars these days. Hey, let's watch some people having the f*ck bombed out of them while listening to some inspiringly snazzy imperial music! Yay! Break out the popcorn!

The government telling the media to not broadcast. People getting fired for showing footage. Never showing war for what it really is. How can you show the battlefield as a clean and non-violent environment, anyway?? How does that work?

Oh, nothing like manipulating the truth, too. We're marching down a highway of death, so who needs the truth? Who needs freedom of the press?

As a journalist, this depresses me so badly (and as a human). Sometimes I'm so ashamed of the media and being some part of it.

The truth. How hard is it?

*BTW, click on the image to enlarge - I love a political cartoon in the morning...

Guns or Butter?

I noticed the other day that the Nestle Double Blend hot chocolate (DO NOT BUY IT! It tastes like the armpits of slave alpaccas... I'm forcing myself to get through this batch, though, before I buy another brand of hot chocoalte entirely - waste not want not and all) packets, there's a pithy little 'saying' at the bottom of each serving.

Today's gem was, 'Chocolate or men . . . mmm?'

Which immediately made me think, well, what is the choice here? Is it about which one we'd prefer in our mouth? Or which one we'll get to change the shock absorbers on the car? Or which one we'd prefer to pour boiling water over? Or which one we'd want to drink to the very last drop? And is this really moronic advertising or is there some actual point to it?!

So not only does Nestle Double Blend hot chocolate taste bad, it's also stupid.

Besides, is there any real contest between men and chocolate? Sure, chocolate won't leave you for the local hairdresser who makes a crack addict look like a saint. It won't get you up the duff. It won't lie to you. It won't ever taste so unpleasant that you won't swallow it. It won't insist that women should be barefoot and pregnant.

But it doesn't actually *do* ANYTHING. It's just a bit of ex-cocoa bean that's been mangled and added to and changed about and wrapped in some foil and a nice bit of paper and charged an exhorbitant price for. It doesn't buy you flowers or perfume, or more chocolate. It doesn't love you. It doesn't do anything other than BE chocolate.

So thank-you Nestle, but I'm choosing men.

teeth... *bites things*

Call me kinky, but the dentist visit today was awesome! Especially with the metal bits and bobs and clamps and so on... *ponders* ;)

And best of all, the two fillings I got didn't hurt at all! Hurrah! Although my mouth is still numb (two hours later... *lol*). It's an odd feeling. When I put a glass to my lips to drink, half of my mouth doesn't realise it's there and it feels like I'm missing something of my face... unusual sort of sensation.

I forgot to ask my dentist about oral piercings, though, which I'm cross at myself about. I want to know what sort of affect they can have on the teeth and gums, so I'll have to try to remember to ask her fist thing next time I see her. I've heard that tongue piercings can cause problems for teeth, and I wonder about how lip and labret piercings would work, seeing as they're so close to the frontal teeth/gum area.

Of course, I could just say, 'What the heck, let's just do it,' when I go serious shopping next in early September (Larie, you'll have to hold my hand for it! *LOL*). Must remember to talk to work about it more though...

And if/when I get them done, I'll post pix. Now that will be exciting, won't it... *smirks*

Quote of the day

"You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it." —Malcolm X (aka El Hajj Malik El-Shabazz)

Snow kicks a$$!

*sigh*

It might sound silly, but I miss my friend Oliver cruelly.

Words into the ether with him alone, but I miss it.

Maybe I'll just write a long e-mail to him and hope he writes back *lol* It's been too long.

Is this the return to Oz?

Didn't go shopping today because it's more than blowing a gale outside. Things are particularly interesting when the leaves on the trees are being blown by the wind so that they're horizontal to the ground *lol*

Anyways, I figured that it wouldn't be good to head out and about in case I got whisked away and ended up in the Land of Oz where I'd meet a tin man without a heart (know enough of them anyways... *cough cough* *lol*), a cowardly lion and something else... it's been too long since I've seen that movie.

Red shoes, red shoes...

Would you take red shoes off of a witch who had been crushed beneath your flying house? Would you click your heels together and say, "There's no place like home, there's no place like home, there's no place like home"?

Ah hell, why not *lol*

Pokarekare Ana

Pökarekare ana
ngä wai o Waiapu,
Whiti atu koe hine
marino ana e.

E hine e
hoki mai ra.
Ka mate ahau
I te aroha e.

Tuhituhi taku reta
tuku atu taku rïngi,
Kia kite tö iwi
raru raru ana e.

Whati whati taku pene
ka pau aku pepa,
Ko taku aroha
mau tonu ana e.

E kore te aroha
e maroke i te rä,
Mäkükü tonu i
aku roimata e.