You Are a Dreaming Soul

Your vivid emotions and imagination takes you away from this world So much so that you tend to live in your head most of the time You have great dreams and ambitions that could be the envy of all... But for you, following through with your dreams is a bit difficult You are charming, endearing, and people tend to love you. Forgiving and tolerant, you see the world through rose colored glasses. Underneath it all, you have a ton of passion that you hide from others. Always hopeful, you tend to expect positive outcomes in your life. Souls you are most compatible with: Newborn Soul, Prophet Soul, and Traveler Soul

What Kind of Soul Are You?

Ugh, I hate being sick.

It makes my brain hurt.

But I love snuggling up on the couch with loads of blankets and pillows, watching Lano & Woodley DVDs and drinking cups of chai latte (latest addiction *lol*).

Out, damn 'flu, out!

Sunday Snaps

Sunday Snaps

Sunday Snaps

Sunday Snaps

Sunday Snaps

Late-night clips of Aussie hiphop from the early '90s on TV are kind of weird, but at the same time, really oddly kinda cool. I mean, hiphop in a flannelette shirt... Makes me laugh *lol*

Was talking about early 90s music with a friend earlier today, actually, and fashion in a round-about sort of way. Hmm. Still not entirely sure that the early 90s were any better than the 80s, but at least there weren't many leotards.

Anyhoo, Hilltop Hoods are hosting Rage, and that's why there are the hiphop clips on. Hilltop Hoods are really good live. Or they were when I saw them... *sigh* Nothing like screaming along to Nosebleed Section and having random (shouted-over-music) conversations with people near you.

Back in the day... *lol*

C'mon baby and rescue me!

Remember my Renovation Rescue... Please!? blog entry from last week?

Weeeeellllllll...

Today I went to the same hardware store at the end of lunch quickly to get another tin of undercoat and a roller. Strutted straight in, past the counter, up to the paint section, grabbed myself a tin of undercoat and a roller and headed back to the counter. Plonked the stuff down on the counter and smiled at the guy behind it.

He gives me this kinda bizarre look somewhere between being impressed and puzzled and says, "Well, you certainly knew what you wanted," in a way that sort of make me think, "for a woman," wasn't far away from being tacked on to the end of the comment *lol*

Just because I'm in a skirt and high heels and carrying a handbag doesn't mean I don't know what I want from a hardware store *lol* But yeah... it was a really good feeling to have that blokey kind of moment. Now I have the sudden urge to opperate power tools... No, only joking about that! ;)

I've been looking around for things to adequately sum up the odds and sods I saw of the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony, which I flicked to while thinking to myself, "I really have to give up watching The Glasshouse. It's becoming more sheeeeeite every time I watch it and I really would like to hit Wil over the head with a bag of lambchops."

Anyhoo.

The Auscultre blog has a pretty apt summary of the opening ceremony *lol*

I'm about to venture into reading some newspaper reports of the whole thing, but am not sure if I'm at all inspired by the whole thing. The Age will trumpet about it of course. Hopefully they'll have special lift-outs and a feature on the Queen's hats. Actually, I quite like the Queen. Just the rest of the family I'm not so sure about there... Charles "Tampon But For The Ears" Prince of Wales, Prince Phillip of the inappropriate and racist comments, the brother of Charles who is balding and looks like a harrassed civil servant... Andrew's kinda hot for an older bloke though.


Can't you just imagine what the Queen's thinking here? *lol*

Say one more inappropriate thing, Phillip, and I'll wallop you in the nadgers with my handbag. Don't push me on this! Remember, I'm the Queen around here."

*Brit accent* Fings I well 'ate

Oh my GAAAAAAWWWWWWRRRRRRRRD...

There's just been so much in my life that I HATE, HATE, HAAAAAATE lately that it's insane. For a start, I hate that the weather's been colder so painting has been put on the backbrush at the moment. I hate that I haven't been motivated to do much else than think about paint, painting, gardens, house changes...

More than that, I HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATE the smoke detector going off its nut in the wee hours of this morning, causing me to wake up and think, "Ohmilord, I'm going to burn and it's so not funny ironic that the first thing that comes to mind is Disco Inferno!"

So I venture forth with fear and trepidation and can't find any smoke or flames or anything whatsoever. By the way, the smoke detector has a relatively new battery, put in the day after New Year's, so you'd think that with it deciding to wake me from my slumber with its cheerful screaming that it wouldn't just be alerting me to the fact that the battery was on the way out.

So I figure I'll look around (after calling my parents in a wee bit of a panic - poor things). Talk about confronting fears!!! I'm quite scared of uncontrolled fire, same with the roofspace (it's like Spider Towers in there... arrghh... those little cretins with their eight beady eyes and salivating poisonous fangs!), and outside in the dark at night. 'Specially with the peeping tom thing that's meant to be going around town.

ANYWAYS... I prod the manhole cover open with a broom, drag out my stepladder thing and clamber up, only to find that it's not quite tall enough for me to see around the roof on, although I can see into it. And there's no smoke up there. So I go back to my room, grab the highest pair of heels I have, pop them on and climb back up the ladder. Nice, no smoke. No flames.

Figure just to be on the safe side, I'll go outside and check out there. Grab the poker (a girl's best grievous bodily harm friend - lightweight enough but packs a punch and has the double gouging bits) and a torch and head outside, poker swung nonchalantly over my shoulder (mess with me buddy and I'll have no hesitation about finding out what colour your insides are). Nothing out there, either. Other than some spiders and a lot of bark, leaves and twigs.

Back inside, take the battery out of the smoke detector, get the new smoke detector out of its packet and set it up, figuring it's probably about time to go to the new-fangled fancy model. It registers nothing. Comforted, I head back to bed after an hour of being up.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGHHHHH.

And then I can't sleep.

And that stupid darn Disco Inferno song is stuck in my head.

Not a fun night at all! :-p

Still, on the other hand, I now totally understand how useful it would be to have a husband or whatever. Then *he* could get up and check everything and be all brave and whatever. Ah well... guess it's a learning experience. Like everything else in life...

I only get on my knees for Jesus!

Is it just me, or is this just a tiny, itty bitty wee bit... err... wrong?

*shakes head*

Umm, time to get back to work, I suppose, and stop having brain holidays. Sometimes it's really hard to concentrate when you know you have like two jobs to be doing and only one pair of hands and one brain to somehow fit between them both. Gosh darn.

I hate to sound cynical, but when I started reading Simone Warne's home renovation column, which comes to us thanks to news.com.au or some other Fox thingy linked in to it, I though, "When you were renovating your home?? You gutted the kitchen and added a family room, garage and new kitchen single-handedly with the aid of some spackling and a nail-file???"

And then I read on.

And no, it was the workmen who did it all while Shane was away and she worked nights and tried to sleep while they were hammering and banging away. The poor lamb.

I dunno, it's probably just me, but it annoys me when people are like, "Ohh, yes, we did this, this and this as well as inventing a solar-powered banana-peeler," when it was actually all done by the workmen who are trained professionals who can probably tell a virgin paint-job like the one I'm doing on my home from 100 paces through a blindfold.

Things are always much more impressive when people actually do the renovation work *themselves.* One of my friends parents actually renovated their whole house before selling it and did it themselves. It looked fantastic and we all knew that the time and effort they put into it meant that rewards in a great selling price were really felt by them (rather than having forked out loads to get some people in to do it for them).

Of course there's stuff that you will have to hire professionals in for, like building, but there is quite a lot of renovation work that you can do yourself if you try hard and put your mind to it. It's a learning experience at least :)

Anyhoo... more interesting: www.coloureverything.com.

Julia's not got what it takes? Balls! by Kaz Cooke

It made me laugh... It made me cry (with laughter)... It made me exclaim, "Yes, yes, YES!" in a kind of strangled joy...

After me saying it for ages, and after Labor party people last week saying it and with columnists saying it now, the Labor party needs to grow some bollocks! And realise that Kim Beazley has about as much chance of becoming Prime Minister as I do. It's not that he's a bad person, it's just that he's unvotable. He doesn't make me want to get my election on, frankly!

Australia needs a viable opposition to be able to snatch political power back. As it stands, the current opposition seems to be much the same as the Liberal party and that doesn't make for very appealing voting. They're a push-over party, there's too much in-fighting, the leader doesn't come across as actually being a leader (unlike weasel-pants PM who b!tch-slaps his party into line), etc, etc...

Sadly, there are perhaps too many issues to address with the election not far off (next year). A change of leader would help a heck of a lot. Then something would need to be done about them reigning in all of the factions and getting them to work together cohesively rather than going off to whinge and sulk in their respective corners all the time. And then grow some bollocks!

Go Julia Gillard.

Argh!!!

Bad nights are... well... bad.

Last night I got a call because one of my friends was threatening suicide or something and he wanted to talk to me. So we talked. And I was really, really freaked out by it all because I know he has a handgun, so him talking about using it wouldn't just be some idle threat thing. He calmed down and I'm hoping he'll be okay and hasn't decided to do anything stupid overnight :-/

Got to bed around midnight, couldn't sleep, and when I finally drifted off, had these really terrible nightmares. One in particular stands out. It started out nicely enough with me out shopping and finding a gorgeous pair of shoes to buy. Somehow it went from that to getting a call on my phone calling me in to work. Except my work was like some police forensic kind of thing and we were going over new technology that would regenerate crime scenes in a 3D/hologram kind of way.

All of the crime scenes were of children who had been shot.

One had been shot in the back of his head by his father while he sat at his computer. Another was a little girl who was shot through the chest. There were others, but it totally freaked me out and I woke up. And then couldn't sleep again... ugh.

I think I'm in love!

Yup! Totally! Smitten! Knocked off my feet!

Yes, I'm in love. Totally in love with the way the walls I painted today look in the spare room! Okay, it's only undercoat so far. But I cleaned the walls and painted two of them with undercoat twice. So bright! So shiny! Beautiful.

It's really nice to have light colours on the walls. Much better than feeling like I was living inside a depressed plum. The pic's of one of the painted walls with the unpainted next to it. Damn that purple!

Quote of the Century

Was talking to my friend Bill today and we were both talking about meetings and work and things like that, and Bill said:

"Mmm... management's like a tree full of monkeys. They look down and see people smiling, everyone looks up and just sees assholes."

*BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA*

*falls over laughing* That still cracks me up :) Classic stuff!

Why would God make us all so different if He wanted us to be the same?

In the Sun
Joseph Arthur

I picture you in the sun wondering what went wrong
And falling down on your knees asking for sympathy
And being caught in between all you wish for and all you seen
And trying to find anything you can feel that you can believe in

May God’s love be with you
Always
May God’s love be with you

I know I would apologize if I could see your eyes
’cause when you showed me myself I became someone else
But I was caught in between all you wish for and all you need
I picture you fast asleep
A nightmare comes
You can’t keep awake

May God’s love be with you
Always
May God’s love be with you

’cause if I find
If I find my own way
How much will I find
If I find
If I find my own way
How much will I find
You

I don’t know anymore
What it’s for
I’m not even sure
If there is anyone who is in the sun
Will you help me to understand
’cause I been caught in between all I wish for and all I need
Maybe you’re not even sure what it’s for
Any more than me

May God’s love be with you
Always
May God’s love be with you

Renovation Resuce... Please?!?!

Okay, so I HATE the colours the walls are at home with a passion by now. It wasn't so bad for the first year, but now I'm into the second year, those damn colours and horrible suede effects have to go. I have voted them off of the island. Although it is said that it's a bold move to paint a room in a very strong colour, I have to say it is an insaaaaaaaaaaaaaaane move. Looks like shite, makes it hard to paint over.

I want to do the place in Dulux Clotted Cream.

So today I went to the hardware shop to find out more about repainting. Thank God I'd talked to a guy I know who used to do interior paint stuff and he gave me loads of tips before I went to the store or else I would have been so stuffed.

The local hardware store is a total balls-out place. It's like you should swagger in there in stubbie shorts and Blundstones, growling out, "Gudday mate, just here to pick up me gigantic big blokey tool set and prepare to drill some holes in things before goin' down the pub in my ute with 17 aerials," and knowing everything there is to be known about ANYTHING that's in the store. The sales assistants are just there to look manly. They know you need no help...

Here comes me, knowing closer to sweet FA about what I'm meant to be doing than I probably should. Ask for help at the counter, figuring that I probably should have shown more cleavage so as to appear more helpless. Guy wanders up to the paint section with me. I ask him questions. He gives me a look that looks like a combination between gormlessness and wondering why I don't know it all already.

Following conversation ensues (me in italics):
"I have suede-effect painted walls. I want to paint over them all."
"Okay. So you want to paint all of the walls?"
"Yes... *thinking, I just told you that sunshine* All of them."
"Okay."
"Soooo... will I need to do an undercoat?"
"Umm..."
"The colours of the paints are quite dark already, so I think I will need to undercoat it all."
"Yeah, you probably would then."
"I'll need to sand it back, too, won't I?"
"I guess?"
"*thinking, You guess?!* Yeah, I'd say I would. Don't you have to do that to smooth the surface before applying coats of new paint anyways?"
"Yeah, you do. So you'll need to sand it, yeah."

Finally he shows me to the undercoat section, with me feeling like I know more about painting than he does even though I've never done it properly before in my entire life. Buy some undercoat (because I really don't want to think about paint until I manage to screw up the spare room with the undercoat, y'know) and misc painting stuff. Exit thinking, "I think my home renovations will be married to Bunnings from here on out!"

Nerdy Rant?

Okay, it's definitely nerdy, but I absolutely love The 7.30 Report.

Kerry O'Brien is a great interviewer - he doesn't let people get away from the main points, unlike so many others, and the whole show is *actually* about current events (unlike A Current Load of Twiddle or Today/To Tell The Truth Or Not Oh To Hell With It).

Tonight's show had me almost screaming at the TV about the stuff that Nick Minchin was saying about industrial relations reforms ANNNNNNNNNND about how the Government knows that the vast majority of Australians "violently oppose" them.

Did you notice that!?

HE SAID THAT THE AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT KNOWS THAT THE AUSTRALIAN PUBLIC DOESN'T LIKE WHAT IT'S DOING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*screams*

*ahem*

Doesn't that just show you what the Government thinks of the Australian public? Oh Australia, PLEASE wake up and smell the manure!

*bwahahahaha*

I like getting chocolate from work :)

It's definitely needed after this morning... Morning... morning...

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGH!

NEVER, EVER, EVER, EEEEEEEEEEVER going to stay up late again. EVER! And by late I mean 3am. When I have to be up for work at 6.30am. Frig, Telstra will love me when they send their bill for this month... but I guess it's some variety of off-peak time or whatever. Still, I hate to think of what it could cost! Argh! Didn't think of that. Dammit.

Still, it's nice to talk to friends. For insane amounts of time. Til insane hours of the morning. About all kinds of insane things. And do lots of laughing. You know the kind of thing.

But...

I want bed and I want it NOW!

*slumps over desk asleep*

Wait, I promised myself I wouldn't stay up late again after Saturday night! And I did on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Oh well. There's always tonight. Mmm, early night.

*Garfield-like tantrum*

*waits for paper shreds to settle*

*ahem*

Okay, I have to say, I get annoyed by incompetence. Particularly my own when it comes to the garden, which is preparing to suffer under my nihilistic urges... but that's another matter entirely. Somehow I come to realise that I don't have the ability to do everything and must find a Russian mail-order husband or something who can do the maintainance work *lol*

Annnnnyways...

Had an insurance policy with a company that I'd asked to be cancelled in January. Then got a note this month telling me that the usual amount had been debited to the specified account. Rang them to see why, and there was no record of me calling them to ask for it to be cancelled.

In the weirdest way, I felt like they thought I was lying about it or something :-/ I guess being in insurance, you get a lot of people doing dodgy things so would naturally wonder why people said things when they didn't mean them or whatever.

*le sigh*

And last month my Telstra bill disappeared between Telstra and my mailbox. AND it wasn't thanks to some kind person seeing the bill and thinking, "Ohh, I'll pay that for her, the garden looks like it needs the money." So I had to run around to find new ways of getting my money to Telstra. But the people at Telstra on the helplines are really lovely... So that was less painful.

*thinks happy thoughts*

Much as I hate to admit it, I think my dog is actually going blind (and I've just been trying to excuse it all or say that it's just him being clumsy).

*sigh*

I left a drawer out on the little chest of drawers this morning, and this evening when he wandered into the room walked directly into the drawer, then couldn't quite figure his way around it.

ARGHH! So now for Christmas I want a seeing eye dog for my dog :) Although if I'm honest, I don't think my dog will make it that far. He's getting ancient. Don't want him to go to the big kennel in the sky tho just yet :-p

Oscar dresses bad... horrible... eye pain!


AAARRGHHHHHHHHHH! This is the worst! It's like something from a bad 1980s prom or something like that. It makes me want to scream and hide under my desk!

Whoever the stylists were for the stars, especially Michelle William's stylist for letting her out of the house in a yellow dress that makes her look like she's on the verge of shuffling off this mortal coil, should be beaten severely with a coathanger.

Tastes like Chicken

(Manny is making a roast chicken do a striptease on a wooden spoon)
Bernard: What are you doing?
Manny: Stripping the chicken.
Bernard: What for?
Manny: Well I could make chicken soup, chicken salad, chicken sandwiches...
Bernard: You could make a chicken cravat but it's just hassle. We'll get a take-away.
Manny: There's loads of things I can do with this.
Bernard: It's a chicken! Chicken is finite! You've got to move on. How are you going to cope when somebody dies?
Manny: Well I'll just use the legs. It's thrifty.
Bernard: It's disgusting, is what it is! This is how Jeffrey Dahmer and that lot get started. They can't let go. Old boxes of fried chicken lying around. And, and then a friend says "I have to leave town" and *vreoowrr!* *vreoowrr!* Out with the Black & Decker. There's bits of them lying around like nibbles. You've got to see a shrink.
Manny: (holds up the chicken wings) Have a wing! It's crunchy.
Bernard: Can't you see you're not right?

- Black Books, Hello Sun, Series 2

And if you get bored, check out this website about Dylan Moran :)

Must be love, love... err?

You ever had one of those moments where it's totally and utterly uncomfortable and there's that silence that sort of trips of for a second or two too long while your brain tries to process some kind of appropriate answer for something someone's said or asked of you?

Had that happen yesterday with a guy I know from back in Sydney. For some reason, yesterday he said when we were talking, "Tell me you love me." I was like, "Are you quoting from a movie or some song or something?" and laughed. He then said, "No, I'm not quoting anything..." I was really gobsmacked.

So my usually lightning-quick brain went into panic mode and kind of shut off while I was trying to think, "WHAT THE HELL DO I SAY TO THIS!?" Cue uncomfortable silence where you can hear crickets chirrupping in the background and the grass growing. Brain panics and decides best response is to say, "I love you."

Altough it comes out sounding far more like a deeply uncertain question, in tones akin to one asking, "And you want me to walk across this pit of molten lava on this tightrope while reciting the Dead Parrot Sketch why?" when you're already half-way across.

Argh.

A Decayed On...

No, I don't mean decade.

Just When I Thought I Couldn't Loathe You More... on the AusCulture blog

Now that's an interesting way to celebrate 10 years of John Howard as Prime Monster o.0

But it's kind of an improvement on the Festival of Wankery Over All Things Howard that has been coming from the usual suspects (thanks Packer and Murdoch for making so many special moments truly not special). I mean, even writing articles about Peter Costello with subheadings "This shallow, lazy, lucky and opportunistic Treasurer does not deserve to run the country..."

But then, hey, neither does the current Prime Monster.

After all, lying and manipulating is not a good thing. And what makes his comments about Muslims any less offensive than Costello's comments about Muslims? Or many of the other comments about Muslims that have been coming from the government since 9/11? What about his comments about refugees? People who opposed the invasion of Iraq?

NYARGHHH!

At least Alexander Downer is finally getting some form of his memory back about the AWB thing. Just a shame that the opposition isn't maximising their opportunities with this. But then they have been far too good at back-biting and turning on each other for the past ten years. Dammit!

Arghhh

Much as I love and adore all of my friends, I really don't like it when they call late at night (and by late I mean after 11.30) *lol*

Last night one of my friends called and we ended up talking for like an hour and a half (I hate to think what that would have cost seeing as he rang my mobile and stuff... yikes). So I got to bed at a time that was closer to 1am than anything else. Ugh... Bad when I have to get my carcass up and moving at 6.30 or so.

Bah humbug.

I need bed. Sleeeeeeeep. BED! *Garfield-like tantrum*

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

*pop!* *blinks*

Awake?! Why!! Oh cruel world!

At lunch today, a guy at work spotted my keyring. I could tell because of the weird look on his face *lol* Why? See the pic. I have this lil' guy on my keyring *lol* He's called Bondage Bear by those who know him (and love him *lol*).

That all led into a funny weird silly conversation about how you could use the bears to bring up whether others are into bondage or whatever. Kinda hilarious really :)

People at uni were kind of disturbed by Bondage Bear when they first saw him. But he's so cuddly and cute and an interesting conversation point (as evidenced by today *lol*). So I say, "Long live Bondage Bear!" Leather, restraints and gags are optional in relationships, though, of course... ;)

Bondage Bear is actually called "Jock" originally. Check out: Bad Taste Bears for the whole range of his "family."