With a bow in my fist I exhibit decided socialist leanings and a propensity for shooting completely over the target. It's very democratic - the arrow could go anywhere, but it usually veers to the left.

Two days on Keppel was added to by two days spent with N and her young man. Far too much alcohol was consumed and the young men of Gladstone didn't stand a chance. Which might explain why they made such a poor showing. I feel like a rung-out rag, so I am now going to flop off to my rest. Ciao.

I'm going here for two days (and no, not for the singles weekend, I'm not single and have no desire to meet the sort of slightly desperate nice guys who would people those sort of ventures). So nyah, nyah, nyah.

Why on earth is romantic fiction so damn awful? (Answers on the back of a postcard, 50 words or less, please.)

It's amazing what a wander around the botanical gardens will do for your inability to think up good character names for your fantasy fiction. It's almost as good as the olympics.

I think I'm just an unpleasant person. For one vicious moment there, I wanted Cathy Freeman to come second, just to see the look on Australia's face.

Pictures of nuns? Yeah, so some of the links look genuinely amusing, but how on earth did anyone get to my page from "Pictures of nuns"??

(Now, the Massey Girls Panties one I entirely understand.)

"What I thought of The World According To Garp now that I've finally read it." - an opinion in D(ee) minor.

I don't read much mainstream fiction. I prefer to call them 'normal' books, actually. I read fantasy, not 'normal' books. There's quite a mindset adjustment necessary when I start to read one, therefore. The 'normal' novel has a different focus than fantasy, and probably all genre fiction. Genre fiction points the camera at the characters and their actions. 'Normal' fiction points it a bit higher than that.

I don't much like what's happening in Garp. It's sordid, it's mundane and, to me, a fan of crumbling empires and glorious political struggles, uninteresting. But the way the story was told, and the values woven into it, were more fascinating.

More than anything, I adored the concept of "The world according to...", which is just as well really, considering how I titled this blog. The concept seeems, well, real to me. How you see the world, how you live your life, what you observe, and in observing, cause to be true, what you leave behind.

And that's what it's all about.

I have a confession to make. I just finished reading The World According to Garp. For the first time.

Yes, when I called my blog "The world according to carp", I was just being punny. I'd heard of the movie. And sitting there tapping my fingers on the a-f and j-; keys as I do while I'm waiting for inspiration to strike, it struck with this particular pun.

Now that I've read the book, I find I am very happy with my name of choice. Further evaluation of this after dinner.

I had a lot to say, and then it all went away...

Feline tragedy averted: the ƒtunning ƒaga continues… My father’s duel with the postie, Part II. (If you weren’t aware that this had a Part I, you’d better read it below first so you don’t spoil the ending for yourself.)

Where was I? Oh yes. It all started when I was very young. Or, at least, younger than I am now. One weekend, with much smug muttering, my father sallied forth to move the mailbox. All the way across the driveway, he moved it. That should fix it, surely.

It didn’t. The postie still blithely proceeded to do much as she always had, to the detriment of our nature strip.

Obviously not an adversary to be underestimated. My father took a good think (a few years of it, in fact) before he sallied forth once again.

A stone barrier of some half a metre already guarded one side of the driveway, he reasoned, and the postie didn’t drive all over that, now did she? So out he went, laden with stones, cement and fiendish glee.

Unfortunately he didn’t have enough of all three, and the wall failed to be high enough to present an impediment to the postie’s progress. Anguished wails were heard throughout the land, and my father subsided to gnaw his own liver, waiting for his chance.

And lo, this week it came. Possessing the stones, cement, time and raging need for revenge, my father once again sallied forth, this time to lay a truly prodigious wall. Well, at least it’s a step now. The works came complete with blockading wheelbarrow and sign imprecating all and sundry to beware of the step.

Now we await Monday, to see if finally, after many years of battle, my father will emerge victorious.

My father has an ongoing feud with the mailman.

I don't know how mail delivery works in other countries. I have vague notions about slits in doors, and sedate postmen with satchels being chased by dogs. That's not how it works in my town. In my town, the postie has a motorbike on which she (usually, for some odd reason) zips from driveway to driveway, poking the letters into the letterbox. That's what it's there for, after all. Although it also comes in handy when you're looking for a house you've never been to before.

In any case, I digress. We live half way up a hill, like just about everyone else in Gladstone. (We don't all live up the same hill, of course, otherwise it would be fearfully crowded, but you get my meaning.) The postie comes down the hill on our side when she's delivering the letters. Our neighbours have their mailbox on the side of their driveway nearest us, so you see it's far simpler for the postie to just keep going down the footpath. Unfortunately, this gouges a small ditch in the grass near our driveway, and this makes my father see red.

It all started when I was fairly young.

... and now the cat is... well, caterwauling underneath my chair. I'll be back to finish this story later...

Bah. Yea verily, and humbug also.

Well.... no, I'm afraid not. (Just like most other little bloggy cliques, right Lizz?)

Aaaawww... /me blushes. Shaggable? Little ole me? Meep!

PS: Have I mentioned how much I dig the syndicate? They are some sexy wenches. And that has nothing to do with the fact that most of them are old friends (or at least acquaintances to whom I'm prepared to give the benefit of the doubt) of mine. If I had enough online access at the moment to actually keep up with my regular reads, they'd be one of them. Mwah!

#@$&!!! Look, internet, all I want is one piddling little font called "Ottowa". That's not too much to ask, surely? (Apparently so, because I've been meandering through font sites for the past twenty minutes and none of them have it. I'm about to go spare. If any of you have this font called Ottowa, I'd be more than incredibly happy if you'd email it to me. Danke very much!)

Excuse me if I'm not blogging quite as much as I sometimes do, but you see, I've got a novel to write, a book to read, a computer game to master, my mother to help, the Olympics to laze in front of, the piano to play and my cat to lavish love over (plus my wife to murder and New Zealand to frame for it, of course... oh wait, I don't have a wife... oops). I never knew lazing around could be such hard work.

I hate this separation. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. I hate hanging on for every word that slips from his fingers through the wires to my screen. I hate analysing every nuance or imagined nuance of his speech. I hate it when he uses some words, and leaves others out, conspicuous by their absence, and I wonder if it's all over. I hate being this fragile. I hate wondering. I hate the fact that he'll think this is a problem and maybe it is and I just can't see it. I hate the urge to cry. And yes, ever so briefly, I hate him for his part in this. And then I hate myself for that thought.

Then I get over it.

I am almost appalled by how little grace the female artistic gymnasts actually have. Sure, they're nowhere near as bad as the men, but it still seems to be all about power. Faster, stronger, higher, but never mind prettier, more flowing, more graceful. I'm dying to see some rhythmic gynastics, because at least there I can be guaranteed grace and style, but the bastards at channel seven aren't showing us any.

It amuses me how, whenever I look at the word webloggers, it always looks like "we bloggers" to me. And I suppose that isn't too far off the mark, really.

I have a typewriter of my very own! I'm so thrilled. It's a little Olivetti Lettera 32 (old), a portable in a case with a new ribbon. They still take precisely the same size. It's amazing. I love it. I love typing on it. My darling little typewriter is just wonderful. I think I'll go and gurgle quietly in the corner for a while.

Now that I have returned to a relative, if somewhat spittle-stained, sanity, I shall explain why I like typewriters so much. It's the process of writing, you see. The act of creation needs to be physical. The flow of ideas needs to be solid. It's far too easy to erase the words from the screen, to pretend they were never there. That is anathema to me. It makes me shiver. To destroy an idea in cold blood is a crime.

But I think far too fast to write it all out longhand. Typewriters are, of course, the answer. The solidity of reality combined with a certain speed of delivery. Magnificent implements. I do hope the fellow who invented them was properly rewarded.

It's amazing how askance your family looks at you when you ask your father the best way to render a hard-drive unusable.

Interesting sentiment. Not likely to be very effective, all things considered, but it's nice to feel like you're doing something, I guess.

I came to a potentially very valuable realisation last night: I am surrounded by morons.

Now, I know that my regular readers (do you have any idea how conceited I feel using that phrase?) will be surprised that this is a realisation, considering how frequently I use that phrase, but the full truth of it hadn't yet hit me until last night. I mean, there aren't just a few scattered morons out there. They're everywhere.

We went out to a fairly typical Gladstone pub last night. There was a somewhat entertaining band. The place was full of drunken twits. To crown the twitdom of the evening, some bright spark (pun intended) set off a few bunches of fireworks. Under tables.

It was then that I fully realised it. The idiots are everywhere. Not just on the internet. Not just in college. They are everywhere, clogging up the world. And unless I want to become a hermit (not an entirely uninviting idea) I'd better get used to dealing with them. Or at least more adept at ignoring them.

I adore climbing. Why don't I do it more often? I don't know. N and I took some menfolk and went indoor climbing yesterday. It's a great place, with six metre and 11 metre walls. And at the top of one of the 11 metre walls is a bell. And I rang it. Oh, aren't I proud of myself?

There's nothing quite like climbing for a full body workout and real satisfaction. Damn, I sound like an ad. But have a go, if you can. It's fun.

The mass exodus away from webring.org to the delightfully Yahoo!-free ringsurf.com is a joy to behold. There's only a few people holding out with the old system. Let's see everyone buckle! Go on! I dares ya!!

Well, that was an interesting opening ceremony, wasn't it? I nearly died laughing when they handed the torch to Dawn Fraser. All that nonsense about her being out of the running because she was with What's-his-face, and then I noticed that he was stepping up to do his formal bit... and where was she? It was a stunning lighting ceremony. And a good ceremony all in all. You did us proud, folks. Well done; your execution has been stayed indefinitely.

/me blows a large raspberry to the world at large and especially at those people who say she uses IRC too much.

I just had a conversation with my mother about religion. I get an inkling that maybe she finally understands how I feel about the whole thing. That's something at least.

She prays for me, for my conversion. That makes me feel... degraded. Like my opinion, my desires are nothing. Like it doesn't matter that I have found my way, my path, something through which I can feel the Divine (something I could never do through church). She says she loves me and will continue to pray that I be saved.

I don't quite say that if I prayed, I would pray for her to have more compassion, a wider mind, and more belief in my abilities to look after my own soul and relationship with the Divine.

Anyone who is accessing this page using a modem anywhere near as slow as mine (33.6, apparently), I sincerely beg your pardon and thank you graciously for bearing with me. This monstrosity takes so long to load!

My dear girl, I love your design as well. Always have, always will. It's simply gorgeous. Don't change unless there's something inside your creative gullet clawing its way out. (What a particularly gagging metaphor...)

Tick, tock, tick, tock... the connection really is appalling from here. 2.4 KB/sec. It would rust shut if it went any slower...

The great games search has started. Last holidays I spent all my time downloading freeware or abandonware games from the internet, playing them, getting bored with them, and downloading more.

I admit, though, having received two phonecalls for my parents since they left half an hour ago might have something to do with my desire to stay online for as long as possible. I feel like a secretary.

Is flipping through every book on my shelf (100+) looking for the sex scenes a sign of sexual frustration?

Speaking of being a corrupted university student (which, if you've just joined us, I do below...) I didn't have time to relate an amusing incident from college before I left. Sitting in J²'s room, with him picking bits of burnt basil out of last night's empty pizza box. He'd been whinging for the past half hour about how bad he felt, and he hadn't even had anything to drink the night before. A hangunder had been suggested. Pick, pick, pick... choke, hack, gasp.

"That's pot!" he finally managed to say.

Evidence was gathered, second opinions sought. All was revealed and explained, except how the marijuana came to be on the pizza in the first place. And that, my friends, will remain a mystery forever more, I imagine.

During my online ramblings tonight:

My dear Lizz ever since I read that excerpt somewhere it has stuck in my head and I have longed to quote it so many times, and now I can. Bless you a dozen times over. And once more for good measure.

And Shauna, you're making me all nostalgic for the delights of Supabarn. I have to say that my first thoughts upon hearing the phrase "Crocodile Uppers" were... 'So crocodiles like to get high too? I wonder what sort of hallucinations they have. (There's nothing more depraved than a crocodile on an ether bender.)' Maybe I'm just a corrupted university student. Hang on, check that. I am a corrupted university student. Mystery solved. (PS: I adore the new design. It made me giggle. (Beat me with a wet noodle - I just used the word 'layout'. Don't worry, I quickly removed the evidence.))

The first story on the news tonight was about the S11 protestors. I watched the entire thing, and then laughed out loud for one very simple reason.

The reason for the protest was not mentioned even once. Not even eluded to.

They mentioned the brutality of the police, the violence and complaints of the protestors, but not the reason for the whole thing.

I imagine the protest organisers (gung-ho students... I probably go to university with them) sitting back tonight going: "Number one story! All right!!" But their protest is getting the publicity, not their cause.

He called me last night and my heart melted to hear his voice from so far away. I miss A very much and I've barely been here 24 hours. His absence is like a gap. Something I can't quite put my finger on. I wish...

The most sweetly, quietly delightful thing I have heard in the past week: Z saying: "I like my wife."

I have arrived safely. I am back on terra firma. I hate flying. I am glad to see my cat again. I am only online briefly tonight. I am rediscovering the joys of modems and paying by the hour. I will be more eloquent tomorrow. I am going now.

This will be my last communication from Abraham Lincoln to the world in general. *sniff* I don't want to leave my poor little computer in boxes for a month. I mean, my parents have a much better computer (which they don't need, but that's the way the cookie crumbles, I guess) but it's not Abe. It's not mine. It just doesn't have the same feel, and I don't know all its little quirks, so they keep taking me by surprise.

In any case, that is a tangent along which we do not need to speculate at this time. Suffice it to say: I am away to sunnier climes, and will be back to dazzle with my wit and wisdom in about 48. Ciao, tutti.

Soaring high in the sky,
he may be small, but only in size.
Astro boy, Astro boy,
he is brave and gentle and wise.

I can't remember any more. Isn't that sad?

Oh, you evil, evil wench, Mallory! Now I have that song stuck in my head too!

It has a bit more of a history with me, though. An ex-ressie of our college used to play the piano at all our formal events. And always, at the end of the night, when the principal had left the hall and the wine had flowed far more freely than it ought, he would start up "Piano Man" and the entire hall would join him, swaying in time and singing with gay abandon, if not quite with technical accuracy.

I've been spending so much time with A recently that now that he's not here it feels like something's missing. No doubt within a week of my holiday I will have accustomed myself to the absence. I'm not sure if I want to. Just one more thing I'm not sure about. Amongst so many, it hardly seems important.

Hey Melissa! I don't have any wisdom teeth! How cool am I? After a couple of thousand dollars worth of orthodontics in my early teens, the dentist figured we'd better check on those slippery suckers, and took an X-ray. And what do you know, not hide nor hair of any pesky little wisdom teeth. I feel quite smug about this, all things considered. Not that I really had much to do with it in a conscious sense.

A day of decadence and drudgery. Lazing around, revelling in the delightful "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho. It's a simple tale, simply told, but it warms the heart. Oh dear, don't I wax rhapsodical.

But somewhere in there I needed to begin tidying up the room. Much junk was summarily evicted from my life. Poor junk. Much other junk was simply moved around the room, so now I have to move it all back before I can go to sleep.

I hate packing.

Yes, I know I said (or rather, implied) I was going to go to sleep, but I just had to check my reads before I did, and then I just had to comment on this... you know how it goes.

"Guppy in a handbasket", Tom? (And yes, that is the only part of that post I feel the need to question. My brain works on different frequencies usually, and now... well, I'm surprised I'm even on the same bandwidth as the rest of the world, but I appear to be. It's a miracle, there's no other explanation.)

How odd it is to surf randomly to a site and find there the HTML fragment of a ring you created nigh on two years ago now.

How odd to find that that ring now has 191 members.

My innate sense of story-telling requires me to find a third odd occurrence (that word again...) to complete the set, but I shall give it a cheerful if vague two fingers and wander off to find more relaxing pursuits.

I have a deep fatigue settling in my bones. Not the tiredness of too little sleep, though that is a contributing factor, but the solidifying drag of too much for too long with too few breaks.

Soul-stumbling, I called it once before.

I feel like I'm sinking through the aether. I will come to rest in Queensland, where the angels will tend me and I will be rejuvenated.

Just a few more days, and a few more tasks.

Jono, if you're looking at this, you're a bad, bad boy. Respect my privacy please, if you don't mind.

I did it. I redesigned. I had fun too. I think I can live with this for the next month. :-)

There is nothing quite as annoying/amusing as having someone commentate in a David Attenborough voice while you're playing Puzzle Bobble.

I don't know what it is about that game that entrances spectators so much. I mean, I perfectly understand my obsession with playing it, but why do people watch me? I don't get it.

The good thing about college is you overhear conversations like:
"She was sitting on his lap the entire evening. She didn't move once."

"Maybe they were having sex."
"I just said she wasn't moving."

"They're only 13. Maybe they don't know you're supposed to move."

The bad thing about college is you overhear conversations like:
"Get out of the shower."

"Why?"
"I'm dying."

"You are?"
"No, I just want you to tell me what you think of this dress."

I need a holiday very badly. Oh, what a coincidence! One starts this weekend. Queensland, here I come...

It was a depressing day. Overcast from the beginning, and then, disconsolately, apathetically, it began to rain. I puddled my way over to university to hand in my Aufsatz with an umbrella over my head and my cuffs dragging in the mud. I should have worn the boots.

On the way, I passed a crow tearing at the carcass of a duck in the gutter. Feathers were sprayed in the direction of traffic. Hit and run, case closed, your Honour. I thought of American Beauty and wondered if he would find this dead bird so beautiful.

The creek was high and awash with muck, though not so much as it might have been. It rains so frequently these days, things barely have a chance to dry out or build up. Like the world is trying to wash itself clean.

Then I saw the ducklings, little balls of fluff coloured like their parents, gambolling through the grass and tugging at it with tiny beaks. It's hard to be depressed in the presence of ducklings.

My room looks like my life exploded in it (not far from the truth, all things considered) and I have to have this all packed up in three days? Help!

Would it surprise anyone to know that one of the potential next Popes is apparently declaring that anyone who isn't Catholic is going straight to hell? It certainly doesn't surprise me. In fact, I'm wondering why this hasn't been a part of the official Catholic body of belief thus far.

The only thing that renders me mildly startled is that somehow they've managed to find someone even more conservative than dear old John Paul. Well done, chaps.

Ich muß denken, daß der Maler Max Ludwig Nansen ein bißchen verrückt ist. Wenn er malt, bewegt sein ganz Körper, aber nicht sein Arm. Er hat ein eingebildete Freund. Er heißt Balthasar und ich glaube, er beeinflußt Max zu viel.

Yeah, I know my German's awful, that's why I'm stopping this farce and going to bed. Or maybe to design, and thence to bed. Ja.

(PS: Anyone who wants to correct the above and send it back to me will earn my undying gratitude... no, really, you will!)

Julianne Moore as the new Clarice Starling in Hannibal? Hmm... not bad, I suppose. I have to admit to not being a monstrously huge Jodie Foster fan, but I thought her performance in Silence of the Lambs was very sharp. I appreciate Julianne Moore - she did beautifully in everything I've seen her in (An Ideal Husband, The End of the Affair, Magnolia... search IMDB yourself if you're interested).

You know, when Silence was shown on TV last year, it was edited in the most appalling fashion. Bits cut with little or no care as to whether continuity was preserved or even whether the remainder of the movie made sense. It really detracted from the experience.

Curious point #2: for ages IMDB always came up in German on my computer. Even if I specified I wanted the US or UK version. It was quite amazing. This was before Abe and I reached our agreement, of course, while strange phenomenon were regularly manifesting themselves in my computer as Mr Lincoln struggled for recognition. Poor dear. All he wanted was a bit of attention.

Anyway, I am very much looking forward to Hannibal. Dr Lecter always gives me a delightful chill.

I'm actually really glad I'm graduating at the end of next year. I'm having enough difficulty finding points I want to do for next year as it is...

So I very much like the design of "Sporatic", but would be much happier if 'sporadic' was spelt correctly. A 'd' in 'window' would be a good thing too.

But kick-ass design.

Why do I have to be here in Australia? I would settle for even a moderately generous offer from the Devil for my soul for the opportunity to get my Masters at this place. I think I'm in lurve. (Honours with Dr Mac notwithstanding...)

Very bizarre indeed. I, of course, feel the need to follow any link mentioning Henry Rollins. A is obsessed with him. He likes his attitude. His overall approach to life, the universe and everything. Yes, that's right, Henry Rollins is a dolphin.

Uncalled-for and totally arbitrary PTerry reference!

Eggs! Eggs! Eggs!

I remember, some time in first year, ordering pizza from someone else's room for two giggling boys - J² and B. You see, they'd been smoking slightly illicit substances, and now had a feverish case of the munchies, but they couldn't stop laughing long enough to order for themselves. I felt like a baby-sitter.

I am happy. I am more than happy. I am grinning from ear to ear and bouncing off walls. (Ouch.) I talked to Dr Mac, who I want to be my Honours supervisor in 2002, about the concept. There was much random discussion involving me trying to explain what I'm interested in, then we finally hacked out a rough sort of proposal. After which, he said it sounded extremely interesting and he'd like to supervise.

Two words: Woo! Hoo!

If I used the phrase "Page 3 girl" would everyone know what I was talking about? This being directed primarily towards occupants of the USA, who don't have such quality publications as the UK.

The New Zealander this morning had a page 3 girl. Not in the grand tradition, of course, because it is only an Antipodean journal, and could not approach the grandeur of the tabloids of the Motherland. Actually, she was a hockey player. No one ever did manage to explain to me why a hockey player was cuddling a cat in a somewhat see-through costume (the woman was in the costume, not the cat) on page 3. No doubt the editors had a good reason, though.

You know, I once got told that I couldn't use the word 'fuck' in my journal, because at the time I had a delicate design, and the effect was too incongruous. Shortly after that I changed to stark orange and blue, funkified everything, and swore as much as I liked. I was younger then. At least a year.

While I'm at it: Fax paper. (10 points for obscurity value, this is the big one...)

Question: Which does Dee need to do more?
1: Her German Aufsatz/Arabic test/Pol Sci essay work and then pack up her room?
2: Redesign the site?

I mean, I know what I'd rather do, and if I don't redesign now, it's going to be a long, dull holiday at home without my 86MB of junk.

Can't we do both? (1 point)

You have 120 hours. Your time starts now...

Hands up all those guys who have a problem with PDAing (Public Display of Affection, for those who don't attend an educational institution). Come on, be honest. Yes, that means you at the back too.

It's quite amazing, really. It's taken A quite a while to become comfortable with the concept of walking around in broad daylight while holding hands. At least, this is the impression I get. Maybe I am entirely mistaken. I don't want to bring it up, though, because he occasionally takes offense at little things I say in curious jest.

But back to the point, which was spurred by the fact that A kissed me quite significantly today, out in the open and everything. It took me a few minutes after we parted ways to realise why I was so startled by this occurrence. (Side note: You'd think someone like me who uses the word 'occurrence' so often would know how to spell the bloody thing without having to look it up every time. Wouldn't you?) It's because it happens so rarely.

And then I realised that most guys I know are like that. Holding hands in a dark movie theatre - no worries. Might even cuddle in the company of mutual friends. But public snogging? Leave off, love!

A heightened sense of social responsibility? Shyness? Not wanting to appear 'wussy'? Who knows.

It's just nice, you know, the PDA. It makes me feel warm inside. Very loved. Special. In front of God and everything. So guys, let loose, just for a few special moments. Do us a favour.

And who knows, we might do you one. ;-)

I think, no, I know, I would be a far more frequent reader of SURVIVORblog if the design wasn't too big for my screen. I love the concept, I really do. I think it's fantastic. But there's this nasty left-right scroll bar on my screen. And I'm running an 800x600. Come on, I'm hoi polloi here. Cater to me!

The other day when Blogger wasn't working I was going to make an outrageous statement taking any and all goth credibility I may have acquired by recognising "Bela Lugosi's Dead" and damning it by declaring that I didn't like Sisters of Mercy.

But I've changed my mind.

Strange how music grows on you with time and listening. Even Tool has been known to be bearable. Everything except country music. That will never grow on me. No matter what.

I have 86MB of Junk. Jee-zus.

Ringmasters, far and wide, hear ye, hear ye! Despair not over the Yahoo!ification of Webring! Help is nigh! Hie ye unto RingSurf!

Seriously, it looks just like Webring, except without the insidious presence of the Creeping Death Yahoo.

This morning I saw two black swans and a little grey fluffball of a cygnet. It was puddling along in between its elegant parents, looking cheerful and child-like. A day that starts with a smile is sure to be a good one. Or at least better than average.

Little annoyance commentary: (LAC?) People who change the formatting of their text with mouseovers. Emboldening, italicising, capitalising. It throws the text alignments completely out of whack and mucks everything about. Bad, bad, BAD! A plague on both your houses and the little dog you rode in on. (Yes, even a doyenne of design can fall into the trap...)

GRRRRRAGH!! *smacks Blogger up the side of the head with a large trout*

Meanwhile, though, I suppose Monday wasn't really as awful as I made out. I just spent a lot of time catching up on my role-playing - such sterling gems as Imperial Secrets, which I firmly believe is the best free-form RP of which I have ever had the fortune to partake. And then, of course, I absolutely had to find and read the entirety of Oscar Wilde's "An Ideal Husband" (Hi Drew!), giggling all the way. Previously (on Dawson's Creek) I had visited the library and done some mildly interesting and quite confusing reading for this forthcoming essay, which I managed to wangle an extension for at the lecture that morning. The lecture (on the melodramatic "Spies, Speed, and Cyber-War") also allowed me to make the following observations/quotes which I found highly appealing at the time:

• "We live in the memory of the past and the anticipation of the future."
  
• There is 37 minutes flight time on a ballistic missile from the USSR to the USA.
  
• "Counterintelligence produces paranoia."
  
• MIGs just look so cool!

As you can see, it was a highly productive lesson.

Johnny's been a very bad boy... Go on, you know you need it.

Tom Stoppard is exceptionally cool. Plus "The Real Inspector Hound" is much easier to perform than Anarchist, thus explaining at least partly why the Burgmann play was so much better. There's extra enjoyment from watching your friends hamming it up to the extreme. (Not quite EXTREME! with an exclamation mark, but they'd only been practising for a week... give them a break.)

Mondays. Don't even talk to me about fucking Mondays.

Sunday was cool. Sunday was fine. Sunday I bummed around, and did reading, and watched the BBC version of Anarchist. I couldn't get into Blogger for some strange reason, but otherwise, it was a good day all in all.

But Mondays. Don't talk to me about Mondays.

I'll tell you about it tomorrow. Unless Tuesdays turn out to be worse than Mondays.

Pop quiz, hotshot: There's only odd socks left in the drawer. Whaddya do? What do you do?

More spam than thou.

More bizarre spam than thou as well: "NON-SURGICAL LIPOSUCTION RESULTS GUARENTEED IN 48 HOURS"

Liposome, online wills, pregnancy tests and all major credit cards. I've got it all right here, baby.

New additions to the life-montage that is my door:

- A flyer that reads: "Invite A BUNCH OF POSERS to all your special occasions!" It goes on to elucidate that the aforementioned posers are, in fact, a group of musicians willing to dress in costume and ponce about playing music of your choice.

- An Optus ad that has three bovines grazing on a snowy slope. The caption reads: "Yak, yak, yak."

"That's not as mad as it sounds."

"It's fucking deranged!"
"What I'm saying is that what I held in my hand may in fact have been a galosh."

..."Galoshes are ridiculous. An anarchist wouldn't be seen dead in one!"
"Precisely!"

Last night I went to see a mildly amusing amateur rendition of Accidental Death of an Anarchist. It was, as mentioned, mildly amusing. It didn't hold a candle to the side-splittingly funny BBC version A has on tape, but then again, those people were professionals. And it is a very difficult play to pull off. Much requisite good timing. Abundant expression of outlandish personalities. Over-acting, if you please. Hard for self-conscious university students unaccustomed to public speaking and all.

The Maniac was played by a woman. A expressed scorn for the concept before we went it, but even he had to admit she was the high point of the play, and in fact managed her part with aplomb (inasmuch as a raving lunatic can have aplomb). The patches of additional modern information (as Dario Fo requested be inserted) were actually the most interesting parts, and led both A and myself to conclude that maybe they should have taken a more original slant on the rest of the performance, instead of upholding tradition so rigidly. It is, after all, a politically fluid play.

I now have a hankering to see the movie again.

"I could be very useful to you. I know how to make a nitro-glycerine suppository!"

*sigh* Honestly, don't you people have anything better to do than copy each other's blogs? Was the hidden list of URLs really so amusing that it had to be put up in ten different places? It might have been even slightly amusing the ninth time if you hadn't all copied each others' actual post as well. There's only so many times one can read: "Look deeper" without getting quite exasperated.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Look, it was funny the first time. Now I'm starting to wonder...

Shit. A is unwell. As in the non-natural secretion of blood unwell. The trapdoor has fallen out of the bottom of my stomach but my lunch is still sitting there like lead. I've got the fidgets. I've got the chills. But there's nothing I can do but sit here and think about how I can live without him, but I don't want to. I want to hold him and make it all better.

If you want me, I'll be somewhere else.

I am in agony here. I definitely slept on my neck the wrong way last night. I have to keep it perfectly straight, or pain ensues. I spent an amusing five minutes in Arabic imagining what would happen if someone came up behind me and yanked on my hair. Most likely situation: I go down in a screaming, writhing heap at their feet. Fun for the whole family. I need a massage. I go in search.

Oh good grief.

Go away, I am not here for this and I did just lose every scrap of respect I still had for you. IASBM and I'm tired of it.

It is an indication of the sad state of the Australian education system that just about everything I know about English grammar I learned from my mother and/or learning other languages. But honestly, how are teachers supposed to instruct us in the convoluted paths of English grammar when they barely know it anyway? And the next person to (in)correct my grammar will be glared at. "Give the book to Linda and me" is perfectly correct.

However, I am highly, gigglingly impressed at the Metacubed guerilla tactics. I fell for it, I'm honest, I'll admit it. I find no shame in being sucked in by something so sly and clever. If you were here, I'd buy you a beer.

I'm a stupid bitch? (I'm sure you didn't try very hard to resist.) Thanks. Thanks a lot. I should get another ISP? Ignoring the fact that I can't do that, why should I do that to accommodate sites that can't be bothered accommodating me? Likewise, I'm not going to go to all the trouble of turning the images on to visit one site, then have to turn them off again before I leave. Especially not a site I'm not particularly interested in reading anyway.

I merely surfed to the site, found this flaw, which is one of my pet hates. It prompted me to write a note complaining about it. It could have been any site, but it was this one, which just makes it all the more thingummy. But now my week is complete. No one had called me a bitch in absolute ages, and I was starting to get withdrawal. (That was sarcasm people!)