I'm stuck somewhere between a sore throat and a hacking cough. This is not a pleasant place to be. I lack the satisfaction of a damn good cough because it hurts too much, and the somehow reassuring dryness of a raging sore throat is disrupted by this phlegm thing. Gurk, I'm disgusting myself now. Ick, ick, ick. I want to go to sleep until I'm better, but I have a German test tomorrow. And the day after as well...

Bust.com? I'm supposed to feel empowered by a slightly more euphemistic, but definitely not feminist term for my breasts? But hey, it has John Cusack on the cover. I'm so cheap.

Today in the referrals: Foucault and prostitution? Some search questions make me cringe, some make me laugh, but this one just makes me interested.

PS: Clicking on the link sadly bursts the bubble of my intrigue. It's a perfectly mundane search for nothing related to Umberto Eco's Foucault. How sad.

What else did I do this weekend? Oh yes... I entered the serious procrastination zone. I mean, I am a master of the art on a good day, but when I'm in a seriously stressed spot, then I exhibit pure genius. This time, in the form of redesigning the appearance of Abe, and discovering Vampire: the Masquerade.

When I'm really searching for things to do, I change my desktop. Of course, once I've done that, then I have to change my windows theme to match, don't I? I actually really liked my last desktop and theme - it was all greys and blues and it featured a great picture by Meilin Wong, who is an incredibly talented artist. Now, I have another fantastic picture I swiped off Elfwood. It's a evocative half-portrait, slightly abstract... beautiful colours. But it's on a black background, which makes the theme-matching hard. You see, black 3D objects really don't look very good at all. But that's a long, and fairly dull, story.

And as for the second, well it wasn't a real, true discovery, I suppose. I have heard of V:tM before. I've even browsed through the rule book. But I've never had an opportunity to play it, and I tend to steer away from system roleplays in any case. But I came across, in my meanderings, a roleplay that looks absolutely marvellous. Slightly more free-form than system (and now I'm degenerating into roleplaying jargon, someone slap me... thank you) it looks like something I'd really like to be involved in, so I applied to join. If anyone else is interested, this is the place.

Right, that's enough of that, then.

Yesterday, close to tearing out my hair over how to start that horrible essay thing (which is now finished... nonsense, but well-worded and finished), I was rescued from my spiral of despair by a little blonde Meow at the door. K^r saved me and took me to the 'Tobanical Gardens' (as she calls them). I took Olivia (the portable typewriter, my pride and joy) with me, and she brought her chaos chemistry (or whatever interesting combination she is currently studying). We flaked out on the eucalypt lawn and in between chatting, being menaced by birds and children, and listening to the band that was performing, I actually managed to churn out the rough draft in about two hours. Not to mention feeling insanely relaxed, considering the situation. I love the Tobanical Gardens! I intend to go there much more often that my prior rate of about once a year.

Oooh... someone I know likes me, according to someone suspiciously named "Pimpin' Cupid". Urgh. In any case, it is a warm fuzzy to be listed as someone's crush, but I firmly refuse to participate in the nonsense of signing up. (Hey dude, it's selling out.) Apologies to that someone, but thank you in any case. It was indeed a warm fuzzy.

Fantastic, now I'm diseased. Having successfully fended off the Plague^TM all year, I'm now coming down with it. I blame Friday night, and the psycho dancing in the cold thing, after which I coughed for about ten minutes straight. It seemed bizarre at the time. And now I have a sore throat, which is never just satisfied with being a sore throat when it infects me. Oh no, it must Bode. And it bodes ill. As in, I shall be, very, in about 24 hours.

Damn lecturers giving me vague and broad take home exam essays.

I will do some blogging in a more Carpish sense.
I will answer my email (sorry folks).
I will tell you about the wonderful things I've done this weekend.
I will sleep enough, in my bed, by myself.
On Monday.

(No points; did you think I'm just going to give the suckers away?)

Dammit, A.... ring!! Otherwise I'm going to spend all my time up here and not down there and then not up here doing work. Grrrr... *sigh*

Good grief, this Pol Sci take-home is absolutely psycho. But Valete (our own end of year extravaganza) is progressing nicely as I type. I am, by the way, up here typing and not down there dancing because I'm waiting for A to call me back.

I wore a very very short red dress (with a split up to next Tuesday), but J² was the one who really stole the show (I keep forgetting and typing his real name... one of these days I'll forget to change it in time). He wore a maroon suit, black shirt and aqua tie, with black and aqua incredibly funky make-up. And with his interesting hair, he looked almost Bowie-esque, a compliment I'm sure he would be absolutely tickled pink about. A picture of the pair of us was taken at some point, and if you're very very good then I might scan it in and let you all see.

The fire alarm went off at 4-fucking-50 last night. In the morning. I woke up to the bell ringing downstairs, and of course it took about two seconds until the beep-Beep-BEEP-BEEP started upstairs. First thought: 'You must be fucking kidding.'

But they weren't, so like the responsible fire warden that I am, I get up, grab the torch, put on a dressing gown, and head bleary-eyed out into the corridor to stand on the end of a red phone and listen to it ring for a while. There's a smell of smoke in the corridor. Well, of course there would be; they're hardly going to have a fire drill at this time of night, are they? So we are evacuated, herding various folk in sleepwear, drunken or otherwise, out into the cold, cold snow. (5 points, this is a rare one.) Three people managed to someone sleep through both the annoying beeping, and the whoop-whoop-whoop of the evacuate alarm. Lucky bastards. We still woke 'em up and dragged 'em downstairs, of course.

I was going to get such a good night's sleep last night, but of course it took me ages to get back to sleep after all that lot. I seriously considered not bothering at about 6:30 when I was still awake, but I gave myself another fifteen minutes, and the next thing I know the alarm (my clock alarm, that is) is going off, and it's time to get up. And the horrible plastic smoke from someone over-nuking a cake in the microwave (that's what set off the alarm, the stupid morons) is still lingering in the corridor.

Oh, what a beautiful morning. (No point, too easy.)

You know, in all the world I've only ever met one person who swore like me? Incidentally, Mallory, my computer has been known to randomly restart when I'm not even touching anything, but then, there's a lot of difference between the personal relationship between Abe and me, and the haphazard, throw-away one you have with a lab computer, and some things are just not on. I mean, it's like the difference between a marriage and a whore-john relationship. You can have a headache once in a while when you're married, but a prostitute better put out on the dotted line, or she's in breach of contract.

Um... did I just say that? I think I should sleep.

Sleep. Now. (One point? Maybe?)

Oh my god!!! Lizz, that website that you're linking to, the one about Safran? That's the webpage of an infamous ex-member of my college. His name's Zos, and honestly, he has reached legend status here. I don't know if he actually did the things they say he did, but even if he only did half of them... damn, he's a whacked-out guy.

Gee, it's a small world, ain't it?

J²'s hair is blonde. Except for the bits that used to be dyed black (the tips), which are a sort of coppery colour. He looks so funkably cool, it's almost illegal. The plan was to dye his hair pink after blonding it, but this result was just so cool that the pink concept has been set aside for another day. After having him wandering around as a little black stormcloud for so long it's a little disconcerting to suddenly have him blonde again. Well, it's again for me, since he did it a couple of times in first year, but it's new for everyone else. And most startling.

Damn, he looks cool!

I just had a discussion with J² regarding which of the hoons wandering around outside next door pre-formal dinner we would pick off with an airgun, had we one easily to hand. I went for the football twits standing in a group, aiming to smack one in the right buttock and have the rest run away. J² wanted to get a girl in a pink dress. I think he just has something against pink. Which is amusing, because K^r is going to die his hair that colour before our formal dinner on Friday.

It's insane, how little of anything I'm actually doing these days. I have to pull myself out of this slump. But of course, by the time I do that for the exams, it will be the holidays, and I'll be able to slump all over again.

At some point, I will write.

I will.

MMmmm.... sheets straight from dryer onto bed. Sweet dreams are made of this. (No points whatsoever, that's far too easy for anyone even approaching the target age group for this insane collection of ramblings, what do you mean you're not a child of the 80s? GO TO BED! (PS: Anyone mentioning that Manson fellow will be summarily sneered at.))

It's amazing that just when my physically known friends are starting to annoy the hell out of me (and I am this close to slapping some of them and telling them to get the fuck out of my life), my cybernetic friends suddenly make me realise that there are wonderful kindred spirits out there. Thank you Mallory and Lizz. Not for doing anything in particular, just for being you, the most wonderful things you could possibly be.

Today in the referrals... Sexy wenches? Wow, I rate at number seven behind a whole heap of porn sites. Wow. That person must have been highly disappointed. Although, honestly, who goes looking for porn using the word "wench"? I would have thought slut, bitch, teen, whore... Britney...?

Updates in my life:

- I am not qualified for Honours until the end of next year. Basically, I have a year of my degree to go. I could have told them that. They didn't need a special appointment, to print out my record, highlight bits and perform complex mathematical functions (well, addition, but that's tricky in the Arts department).

- I am going to be a tutor (RA) in my college next year. Yay me. I'm very worried they're going to make me move off the floor I've been living on for the past three years, though. Silly people. I mean, I obviously like it here, it's not that I'm too apathetic to move to a different floor (no, really, it's not). And obviously I'm going to be a better tutor with people I know.

- A turned 22 on Tuesday. He is in the middle of writing his thesis, though, so nothing more was done than a card and a cuddle. Just you wait, though. I'm saving up time and money to do something really nice for him. It's only fair, after all, since he took me to the Cure. And since he's just all around such a wonderful guy to me.

- I need to buy a Pixies CD. A lent me one of his, but he took it back today and I spent all my time humming the tunes. I'm suffering withdrawal already. Time to hit the second-hand CD shops.

It feels like a regression, this new addiction to online gaming I appear to have developed. Well, not new, because it could hardly be a regression if it were new, now could it? But you see my point. Suddenly I MU*, I online-strategy-game, I hobnob with 13 year old males with no typing skills beyond acronyms and stylised swearwords. What am I doing?

Do you really want to know what happens when you're in a room full of guys looking up "perky breasts" on the internet? Well, for starters, if they'd been using Google, they would have found a lot more porn than they did, and since that was what they were actually looking for, it is a valid point. Why were they looking for porn? To put in my shared "Uploads" directory, naturally. Specifically, they wanted 2 gig of it. When I left they were arguing about Ian Thorpe's feet. They get distracted easily.

So do I, since the point of this entry was to draw the general reader's attention to the wonderfully useful 10 things you should know about breasts. I like number 2, especially. I think I'll make it my screensaver. Oh yes, special attention should also be paid to the linked movie about puberty. It's really quite helpful. And screamingly funny.

Head is throbbing and refusing to maintain any more than minimal goldfish memory span. Oh, go away.

Right so, my inbox is down to 347 messages, and that's enough random nonsense quoting for one evening, thank you. In all this, I thought I should probably explain my continual references to 'points', so see your left (other left, yes, that's it, fourth line down or so) for a little explanation. My inspiration for getting off my lazy butt and finally qualifying my continual additions was seeing the dear blogger at Isomorphisms qualifying her points system. A case in point of leading by example?

Example of odd email behaviour from someone who isn't J²:

This email is intended for the use of the individual addressee(s) named above and may contain information that is confidential, privileged or unsuitable for overly sensitive persons with low self-esteem, no sense of humour or irrational religious beliefs. If you are not the intended recipient, any dissemination, distribution or copying of this email is not authorised either explicitly or implicitly) and constitutes an irritating social faux pas. Unless the word absquatulation has been used in its correct context somewhere other than in this warning, it does not have any legal or grammatical use and may be ignored.

No animals were harmed in the transmission of this email, although the dog next door is living on borrowed time, let me tell you.

Those of you with an overwhelming fear of the unknown will be gratified to learn that there is no hidden message revealed by reading this warning backwards, so just ignore that Alert Notice from Microsoft. However, by pouring a complete circle of salt around yourself and your computer you can ensure that no harm befalls you and your pets.

If you have received this email in error, please place it in a warm oven for 40 minutes and add some nutmeg and egg whites. Whisk briefly and let it stand for 2 hours before icing.

Example #2 of J²'s odd email behaviour:

Subject: scissors are a boon to society

Apparently, 1 in 5 people in the world are Chinese. And there are 5 people in my family, so it must be one of them. It's either my mum or my dad. Or my older brother Colin. Or my younger brother Ho-Cha-Chu.

But I think it's Colin.

PS: I sent this back to J² with a note saying: "Gee, you send me some weird shit". He just came in and said: "What the fuck?" I now, at his request, have a folder entitled "J²'s weird shit" into which I have put all his best gems. Including those only notable for their subject lines, like "bah diddly qua qua" and "If he comes near me I'll rip his tits off" (10 points for extreme rarity value).

Example #1 of J²'s odd email behaviour:

Subject: I love americans, don't you?

The court system of the United States is without a doubt the finest in the world, but look at the evil decisions that have been made by juries and judges lately. Our government system, a representative republic, is without a doubt the finest in the world, but look at the evil laws that have been passed lately. The executive branch of government is one of the most respected titles on earth, but today we have people in that position who not only trample on the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness of all unborn citizens, but are trying to make all of us pay for the abortions that they inhumanly demand. The young were honored throughout history as models of simplicity and peace, but today's youth are insubordinate, violent, stressed-out, and angry.

Tell me: where could such evil come from? Are we caught in the toxic tail of some comet? Are the effects of artificial flavor and color in our foods slowly catching up with us? Perhaps, as they proposed in the last century, traveling faster than 20 miles per hour slowly destroys your brain?

We have no need for such foolish explanations. We already have one that not only makes sense, but is supported by 2000 years of Church teaching and the word of God Himself. It is in the devil's best interest to destroy the good things in our world. If the devil could somehow get inside the minds and bodies of enough people, he could begin a reign of terror of apocalyptic proportions.

Ahah! It appears to have been the fact that I had precisely 0 bytes free on C drive (an extraordinary feat that I achieve with alarming regularity) that led to Abe's sulkiness. Having now remedied this, I and Abe are both happy.

In the process of remedying this, I have, as previously stated, been cleaning out my grossly overpopulated inbox. It's highly amusing (and not, in some areas, like old emails from A), but by far the oddest stuff comes from J². Don't just take my word for it, though... I'll find some examples and post them up.

What the-??? It appears that my browser has entirely lost its ability to see style sheets. Or not, because my page seems to be working. I feel very confused and my computer seems more possessed than ever. Oh Abe, what did I do to deserve this? I'm sorry, I really am...

Something very weird appears to be happening here at Blogger. Fonts are going incredibly odd all of a sudden. Maybe it's just Abe having a hissy fit.

Meanwhile, I've run out of room on C drive again, so I'm going through my inbox, deleting some of the 1130 emails dating back to October last year that I don't really need to keep. It's proving a highly entertaining task. Why on earth did K^r write a Wesley Willis song about J²?

So Drew is probably going to be disappointed at me about this, like he was about my gleeful Gladiator watching, but I just came back from watching Mission: Impossible 2 for the second time. Way back when I first saw it, I noted that John Woo was exceptionally cool, but that the movie was far less complicated than the first one.

I reiterate that statement. John Woo is the Master of Coolth. His humble origins show through in his flamboyant visuals, which I simply love. They also, unfortunately, show through in the depth of the storyline and character whatsit. John Woo makes simple, spectacular films.

I found it highly annoying that the Film Group audience continued their trend of laughing at anything possibly amusing. I wanted to bask in the over-the-top drama, but was denied that pleasure. They even laughed at the South African accent. Why?? I mean, I understand laughing at the overblown Aussies, because that was patently ridiculous, but since when was a South African accent occasion for mirth? See, the only reason I could come up with was that they thought it was a really bad attempt at an Aussie accent, and that just makes them even more twitful than I already considered them.

I think I'll go and look at the poster, and remember the glorious scene where Tom Cruise makes his entrance framed by fire and preceded by a white pigeon. Pure class. And no laughing morons.

Honestly. Every time I think to myself, "Dee, you're surrounded by morons, what are you doing living in this place?" a little voice speaks up from the other shoulder and says: "It could be worse, Dee. You could be living next door."

This is true.

It just amazes me that people can be that stupid for that long without apparent pause for breath. It's awe-inspiring. Someone call the Guiness Book of World Records.

The college next door is recovering again. I wish they wouldn't be so noisy. Or at least, not so drunken and tone-deaf in their noise.

PS: The substandard backyard band playing next door has a .com website? Good grief. (Not that there's anything wrong with that...)

I like this mudding lark. At the moment I'm winning an obstacle course (we only just started, so early days yet), having a conversation with a vampire who's been shot, and hovering above the main street of Heaven.

I appear to have inherited "The Host-plant in Relation to Insect Behaviour and Reproduction" from A. I'm sure it's going to do him much more good than me. I'm currently reading "Makers of Modern Strategy: from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age" and a chapter or so of "Vanity Fair" each night before I go to sleep. Damn, I feel intellectual...

Aaah, the return to childhood...
Little bunny Foofoo,
Bouncing through the forest,
Catching all the field mice
And bumping them on the head.

What I think is really amazing about this is that it has undeniable rhythm and ease of remembrance, and yet has no rhyme. Yes, it is late and I am reaching the culmination of my evening of religious social fasting and loud music listening.

Incidentally, I can't remember how the rest of that little non-rhyme goes. Anyone could help me would be a nice person.

Time for bed.

Now I'm getting random email (three times) entitled "Your enquiry about scrum machines through Mr Dobson". No, this is not some subtle and euphemistic solicitation to a porn site. It may be the oddest spam I've ever got. Or it might be another of those poor lost souls whose email will never ever be found again.

Either way, it is a small spot of insanity in an otherwise (intentionally) mundane evening.

Oh yeah, I was supposed to be telling you about the Cure, right? Robert Smith looked, to me, old and tired. I glimpsed him through the heads in front of me and felt a sympathetic connection. But he looked so at home, so complete, with his eyes closed and his voice resonating. He filled the space with his weary, but total satisfaction. He was kind, shy and giving to the fans, who buoyed him up on their loving, screaming adoration.

As for the music, it was good, it was loud (they played a last encore of "Killing An Arab" that was almost unrecognisable), it rocked. I wanted to hear "The 13th" but "Fascination Street" was good enough for me. And the lighting was so mind-blowingly fantastic. The overall visual design was just great. It was a good (if foot-weary) experience, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Since when is the top billing in LA Confidential given to Kevin Spacey? I mean... no, I won't say that, that might spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it yet, and you should see it, because it's great. I guess that shows the regional variations, though. Needless to say, Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce got top billing in Oz, being the local boys and all. Kevin Spacey. Pah. (I mean, I like the guy and all, but no way did he have the major role in the movie. Not even close.)

On my nightly rounds:

- Jonathan Brandis? Guilty as charged, your Honour! (But John Denver?? Go to your room!)

- Mallory gets self-conscious about her grand writing which she calls "high-flown". But I adore reading it. It is so easy on the ear. Never am I more sure (and I'm always sure) that she has talent than when I can wallow so decandently in her words.

Incidentally, I should be at Pol Sci drinks at the moment, but I don't feel like hauling myself all the way out to O'Connor (yeah, it's not far... if you've got a car) just to see how amusing my lecturer is while tipsy. I have no doubt he's highly entertaining, but I'm just so tired. And apathetic. Don't forget the apathetic.

Yes, yes, I have redesigned. It was about time too, since the archives have been too wide for the right hand column for a couple of weeks now. This design probably looks awful if you're in 640x480, but since my stats tell me only 2% of my visitors uses that DOUG-forsaken resolution anyway, I figured it was a chance worth taking. Yes, this is highly simple. Tip: sometimes complicated isn't better. Sometimes it's just complicated. I like this. It lulls me. I do care what you think, so let me know.

PS: I'm also not going to rearchive, or change the images from the previous version. I plan to do this from now on. Which means my archives should be an interesting melange. If this doesn't work, of course, all plans are subject to change without notice.

Oh yeah, baby!

Real updates to follow when I get back from shopping. I'm starving, I must eat, or I'll take a bite out of the keyboard.

It rained all over the place yesterday. It was cold and wet and horrible. I finished the essay and handed it in, gloriously triumphant. Do not mention the word "facilitate", especially not in conjunction with "communication".

I am going to the Cure tonight.

I have a tutorship interview tonight as well, which I'm feeling really quite apathetic about. All of a sudden. I don't know if I really want to be a tutor (RA, I think the Yanks call them) at college. I mean, putting up with people all the time and not being allowed to be nasty to them? Bah??

This is strangely addictive. Want to train up your faeries to be the toughest mofo's on the block? Graaaaagh!!!

Ladies and gentlemen of the United States: I am told this is highly amusing. Dial 1-800-888-3999. Listen to the menu system. Choose #7. Laugh. (Apparently. Being in Australia, I have to take other people's word for it. Tell me what you get, please. Inquiring minds want to know.)

Why oh why am I getting a bi-monthly newsletter from the Sweetheart Nudist Dating Service?

I need a few more hours in my life. Anyone got some they don't need? Please??

I really need to redesign in here as well, but until I get those few hours (or Wednesday... or Thursday if I don't get this essay in on time), it's not happening.

I've progressed to a new level of essay wankerage: the inclusion of the original metaphor. Even as I wrote it, I was unwholesomely proud and also cringing. And then, then! I included an example. Only a very vague example, but one nonetheless.

I just used the word nonetheless.

No, hang on, that's just getting paranoid, Dee.

Could be worse. I could be using the phrase "thus engendered", like I did in the first paragraph of my essay.

Yes, it's essay time again. Thank goodness I only have one, and not three like the last time. Essays are like Jane Austen novels: they leave me talking like that for a while afterwards.

She's seen through my little secret! Right, that's it, I'll just have to kill her.

By our powers combined, we are Captain Domain? Hey, do I have to be the token girl, like the blue one from Vultron or whatever that thing with the five cats was? (Update: It is very definitely Voltron. Damn I loved this as a kid.) The only point in the Power Rangers' favour was that they had two token females. Apart from that they sucked major donkey. I mean honestly, why didn't they just turn into the big guy from the beginning and jump up and down on the little baddies?

PS: Bah? I follow a link declaring to have essays about "Transformers, Thundercats, Vultron" and I get Does pregnancy actually hurt???

Actually, scratch that bit about In Excelsis. I have been thoroughly entrapped by a fantastic roleplaying MUSH called Firan. Absolutely brilliant. If you're interested, please do drop in. I play Dryopi.

Trembling, famished, headachy and fatigued. Why did I drink so much last night again?

Meanwhile, I'm not the only one who's unimpressed by Miss Critic. (Although, take it from me, an argument with Stuy can be highly invigorating.)

PS: Thanks for the MUD recommendation, Stuy. I actually found one I so much like the look of at dale.limitless.org:8888. It's called In Excelsis and it's about war in heaven. Lots of politics, lots of scheming, and pure role-play. What can I say... I'm not a true bunny-killer.

PPS: And I think, that must be her sister. That must be her sister, right?

Oh no, another whinging teenage girl with a penchant for insulting people doesn't like my site. Whatever shall I do?

Incidentally, I am including that permalink, even though I'm almost certain it won't work. Back to the old days of Dee bitching about permalinks that don't work? No, just a little trip down amnesia lane.

Personally, I don't see why there needs to be any 'useful' information on my site. I mean, maybe I slipped and some made it in there somewhere, but honestly, does my website have to have a point now? Will I be banned unless I'm deep and meaningful? It's about my life, it's about my writing, but most of all it's about me. I don't have a point. I am not useful information. And excuse me, but I refuse to be insulted by someone I have no respect for. But I guess being sixteen and having a webpage like six million others is not a crime. She'll grow out of it. One hopes.

I am so incredibly drunk, this means a trip to IRC...

Time for another one of those pesky college functions. This time the dress is: "Semi-formal, with a touch of sport or art". Yeah, thanks. After much mulling about it, and frequent decisions to boycot the entire event, I have eventually decided to go as a Bohemian-writer type. Clad in all black, I feel suitably the part. Look out, college, here I come...

PS: I'm still waiting for the dress to be: "Formal, with a touch of class". That'll be the day.

I've suddenly become very interesting in MUDding again. If anyone shares this interest and can recommend come good ones, please do.

For me, this interest really started some time last year, when I found a MUD called Age of the Throne. It was set in Musketeer-time Paris, and it was a delightful combination of questing and role-playing. I had a tremendous amount of fun on it, and spent far too much time each day playing in Paris. However, then the bourgeois (oh, how ironically appropriate) people who ran it decided to make it pay-per-play, and no matter how much fun I was having, I wasn't going to pay for the pleasure. So I quit, and MUDding exited my life (stage left, pursured by a bear).

So I went to Scream 3 expecting mindless entertainment, and was not disappointed. We nodded in sage approval at the return to the killer being beaten up all the time, always a good thing. Every time they started the "someone's going to be very dead in ten minutes" music, I looked at my watch and wondered why I was there. I don't like this sort of movie. But it was funny enough in the rest of it to make it vaguely worth my time (since I wasn't planning anything else anyway).

J² and R screamed seven kinds of hell at the new 'fucked-up' version of Red Right Hand. They declared that Nick Cave has achieved the essence of selling out. I suspect he's laughing all the way to the bank. Maybe this is the same thing, and I'm just not alternative enough to appreciate the concept of selling out.

I was kind of disappointed that Randy missed one of the major and main points about trilogies, though. There must, MUST, be a huge showdown at the end between the good guy and the bad guy (it doesn't, no matter what J² says, have to be with a once-undisclosed relative). Hence, the good guy must survive up until that point. Randy's "anyone can die including you, Sid" was a blatant attempt to increase the tension and, well, quite frankly... I think he sold out.

Guaranteed way to freak out the parents with minimum effort #1: Wander into the kitchen and casually say: "Hey Mum, how do you know if you're pregnant?"

(Story explained: writing a storyline for this fantastic roleplay involving my character becoming pregnant (well, what did she expect, she'd been shagging the guy silly for a couple of months) and me now knowing anything about this, I needed the advice of someone who did. When I finally scraped my mother off the ceiling and explained the situation to her, she was extremely helpful and the storyline is still going strong. It's a damn good storyline, and a fantastic roleplay.)

I am going to watch Scream 3. Why? Because my so-called friends talked me into it. This could be amusing...

You know you're in trouble when you type too fast for your computer keyboard to get all the key strokes. Dammit. Too many essays.

I was just struck by a conundrum (I was also struck by the word that I couldn't remember yesterday, which was "diplobrats", but back to the conundrum). I have always had more male friends than female, but somehow on the internet I relate much better to women than men. Maybe it's because there are far more girls in this sordid little internet caper than there are guys. Probably not.

What the hell? IASBM. Truly, madly, deeply.

You know, it's possible that The Cure is the only group in the world that could write a song dissing this season's fashionable colours, have it do well in the charts, and still retain all their credibility. I am starting to appreciate Robert Smith more. At this rate, I'll be worshipping him properly by next Thursday.

Why I love college, reason #27:
U: Who's going to hotwire my car?
J²: Me!
U: How?
J²: Through sheer force of personality.
R: With his nipples.
Me: Yeah, wire him up and he goes: "Graaaaagh!" and your car starts.
N: With his nipples?
R: Stanley and Denise.
U: His nipples are called Stanley and Denise?
Me: Which is which?
R: Stanley is the one that looks like a normal human nipple, and Denise is on his back and bright blue.
Me: J², lift your shirt up.
J²: No, shan't. I'll show you my wound, though.
Me: I've already seen your wound.
J¹: How did you get it?
J²: Rough sex. No, actually in a mosh pit.
N: You had sex in a mosh pit?
Me: And no one even noticed.

Le sigh. Now I'm going to miss Mallory as well. But I'm glad she's taking a break. Recharge, Mallory. You know we all want the best for you.

I just got this in the mail (not me, actually, but some random who will never receive it now, muahaha):

It is time to elect a new world leader, and your vote counts.

Here are the facts about the three leading candidates:

Candidate A: Associates with crooked politicians, and consults with astrologists. He's had two mistresses. He also chain smokes and drinks 8 to 10 martinis a day.

Candidate B: He was kicked out of office twice, sleeps until noon, used opium in college and drinks a quart of whisky every evening.

Candidate C: He is a decorated war hero. He's a vegetarian, doesn't smoke, drinks an occasional beer and hasn't had any extramarital affairs.

Which of these candidates would be your choice?

Decide first, no peeking, then scroll down for the answer.

One scrolls....

Candidate A is Franklin D. Roosevelt
Candidate B is Winston Churchill
Candidate C is Adolph Hitler

I'm not sure what the point of this was, but to me it just highlights the stupidity of choosing a political leader on his personal actions rather than his actual policies. Something which I should have thought was blatantly evident in any case, but you know these people that forward emails to everyone in their address book...

I just saw the coolest mode of transportation I've ever witnessed. A little scooter, completely covered in plush ladybug print fabric. I was laughing so hard I almost got run over by the very uncool Holden coming the other way.

A: fuck
A: i just broke my spatula
Me: Damn. That was careless of you.
A: it got bent one time too many
A: inevitable, given the work involved.
Me: So it's given up in disgust. Can't say I blame it.
A: you always take its side.
A: i have just found another spatula
Me: I feel a special bond with the spatula? (I could probably spout a suitable feminist diatribe here, but it's late and I'm tired)
Me: You fickle thing.
A: i think tnat thisone is made of tougher stuff
A: oooh
A: feel that raw power, extract.
Me: oooh?
Me: You show it who's boss.
A: i can feel it bending, but at least there is more resistance
Me: But the life of a spatula is a transient, fleeting thing, and all too soon it too will succumb to the desire to break itself apart to escape it's daily torment.
A: yeah

At the end of our hallway someone has put up a huge cardboard poster of Mission: Impossible 2. It covers the entire wall, floor to ceiling. That much Tom Cruise is definitely a Good Thing.

Everyone's going to the Powderfinger gig but me. I said I didn't want to go, but now I do. Aren't I a whinging little brat?

Oh well, I shall bear my soul in patience for the Cure next Thursday.

I miss my Drew (Mallory's Drew too...). I miss Laura as well. (For the record, I called Drew "lyrical" and Laura "wickedly sly". Those descriptions still apply.)

Now that I think about it, what is the female version of "lecher"? It's like "stud". As far as we can tell, the female version is "slut". Which is very unfair. And now I can't think of the female version of "lecher". It's really not fair at all. I can't have three boyfriends and I can't be an old woman who leers at young men. Well, I can be, but I'll be misrepresented by my own language. It's enough to make me become Chinese.

The first incestuous blogging I did was a little post on the visage.cx blog going on about how this bunch of girls on some UBB somewhere found Tarsh, Atley and that riothero guy (Mark, is it?) to be really quite cute. Now, this was about four months ago, or something, so I'm sure the guys will really love me bringing this up again, but I just realised (while randomly having reached Tarsh's site again) that they're all too young for me.

Dammit. I feel like such an old lecher. Or something.

You know, it wasn't so bad when I was just getting letters for other people. But now I'm getting e-cards for other people. This is a bit much.

Why do women put up with men? Well, I may not be the most qualified person to answer this one, since I have more difficulty putting up with women, but I take it we're not really talking about a purely platonic sense, but in more of a sharing-your-life, till-death-or-legal-substitute-do-us-part sort of way. In which case the answer leaves the pragmatic and starts to meander through the ephemeral. Being desired is a tremendous high. Hands on bare skin. Feeling safe and comfortable in strong arms (I know it sounds like a paperback romance, but those books have to get at least a few things right). Being cherished. Because they have the ability to make us melt.

Or maybe that's just me.

Nicci is the most incredibly splendiferous wench on the web! She won Survivorblog. Woohoo!!

J²: What's wrong with me? Am I being genetically altered??
Me: Yes. They're programming you in your sleep.
J²: Cool. How do you explain the first quirk, though?
Me: That was the beta testing. It didn't work quite the way they expected.
J²: What, they said: "He'll never make a chef; hey, how about a serial killer!"?

I was bombed by my first magpie ever this morning. How I managed to live in Australia for twenty years and never have a close encounter of the sharp-beaked black-and-white kind before, I really don't know, but I managed it.

Anyway, I was walking along a path I usually walk along, but for obvious reasons have not been frequenting in the last month. My thought process went something like: "There's a magpie over there looking at me, but that's all right because it's on the ground and oh look, there's another one here and it's sort of greyish and it's not flying away from me it's just hopping, that would probably be because it's just a young one and oh shit."

That's about when the magpie hit me.

Continuing on about my friend with the olympic connexions (no, not Austen, Thackery, but it puts me in the mood, you know). His illustrious job was to lead the swimmers from the pool to the place where they had to pee into a bottle. This sparked a large conversation about whether it is more difficult as a man or a woman to pee into a bottle. The guys refused to believe it was harder for us. We refused to explain in detail with diagrams precisely why it was, indeed, so. Can you blame us?

One of my friends was involved with the testing of athletes at the games. He just returned today, and is getting great mileage out of his "I met Grant Hackett/Ian Thorpe/Inge de Bruin" stories. The problem is that he's such a nice guy that you can't even muster up the desire to smack his smug face. And he has lots of truly amusing stories to recount. He's going to get plenty of bar space over this one.

Dirty peanutbutter jokes? All right, I changed my mind, this is my favourite search query to lead to my site.

Good grief. I'm listening to some CD bought by J² because he vaguely remembered the name and it was on the $5 rack by a group called Insurge (or, if you want to be poncy, iNsuRge). This could, without any exaggeration, be the soundtrack for the whole S11 movement. Good grief. The first four pages of the CD booklet are the sort of slightly misguided and terribly optimistic political rantings that make me wince, shake my head and laugh. Nastily. I don't like laughing at these sort of people, but I'm afraid it's the only thing I can do.

Because I haven't said it before, I'll say it now: Drew has a magnificent voice and a talent. His music is fantastic. Thank you eternally Mallory for showing me.

All right, I take that back. Abe is still sulking. Email keeps closing down every time I get a language warning (mail in Chinese/Japanese/Russian... I get more of it than you might imagine). I guess I need to lavish a little more attention on him. Though why I'm getting so much Chinese spam is indeed a mystery to me.

I am back. I have been back for quite a while, but Abraham was languishing in the tender care of A, and was not retrieved until this afternoon. Then, K^y declared I wasn't allowed to turn it on. She thought I was addicted and should be weened off. Much she knows, I'm sure.

But finally, I could stand it no longer. It probably didn't help that the conversation I was spuriously involved in revolved around hairstyles, a subject I have next to no interest in. I caved, I ran to my room, and welcomed Abe back into my life. He sulked for a bit, but I reassured him that I loved him, so now, I think, we can continue with perfect equanimity.

Hello world, it's nice to be back in my little place.

Yeah, I know I said I was going, but I just found this page and I just have to link it because it's just so cool and I have to keep using the word "just". But anyway:

Found after a link salaciously titled "Nudie Pics".

Tee hee hee.

I'm a-goin' back to Canberra. Yessir. Tomorrow. So don't expect any further communication from me until Saturday, probably.

I am getting so many bizarre search referrals. My favourite is definitely "viscous dog pictures" though.

Bah humbug and a surrey with a fringe on top. In spades! (Yes, it's definitely time I went back to university. One month off is too much for any poor girl used to a permanent internet connection and frequent and total privacy.)

Perform following while wearing large floppy hat, big sunglasses and making suitable sweeping gestures in keeping with the lyrics or merely for the hell of it. Kiss-kiss looks towards the audience are also necessary. Failing this resort on the internet, I shall include zany (look, R^y! It's the word "zany"!!) links as interest dictates.

Baby you can drive my car,
'Cause yo! I'm gonna be a star.
Baby you can drive my car,
And maybe I won't tell your parole officer.
Meep meep, meep meep; Yeah!

(Deep and meaningful guitar solo...)

I am going to see the Cure as a depressant aid for A. Not that I don't live in some sort of mildly amused awe over Robert Smith (I can even concede at least a semi-divinity for him), but I don't feel the spittle-inducing delight over his presence that characterises, say, J². But A says he wants me there, because the Cure depress him and he wants someone to hug when he feels that way. All things considered, I guess I would prefer it to be me and not J². Not that there's anything wrong with that... (Bizarre, isn't it? I never even watched Seinfeld and I can still quote it. Why is this sitcom entered into the cultural communal consciousness?)

Does this font make me look fat?

With just about 36 hours between me and the return flight to Canberra, my sanity level is approaching the horizon and accelerating.

Ta-daa!! I can eat spaghetti while typing. (You would be more impressed if you could actually see me doing it.)

I have curly hair again. I feel all Nikki Webster. I shall bite my tongue now. (And incidentally, Shauna, I perfectly understand what irritates you about that child. And indeed all child performers. Especially ones that grow up into Tina Arena.)

More about that stupid Battlefield Earth:
Me: And I think John Travolta should be sent to his room so he can think long and hard about what he's done.

A: he is a scientologist. in this situation, he had no choice. this was a form of hero worship, i would imagine.
Me: Were I L. Ron Hubbard, I would denounce John Travolta as a traitor to the cause. It really is a bad movie.

A: were you l. ron hubbard, you would probably think that this was as good as movies got.

Go Nicci, you're so fine, you're so fine you blow my mind!! (Does interesting pseudo-cheer thing with pom-poms made out of clowns' wigs.)

I am feeling so incredibly apathetic about my email at the moment. It has to do with this limited access thing, I think. So if you try and don't get through to me, hit me over the head with a salmon and try again. And I apologise mightily.

And PS: Yes, Mallory, we should definitely do something about this. For starters, I think I need to hear it, because I'm apparently missing out big time! (I thoroughly approve of voices that prompt hormonal imbalance. Umm... did that come out right?)

I watched things like Rage and Video Hits (music programs) last weekend, which reminded me of why I don't do that usually. Apart from the fact of not having truly ready access to a television, there's a certain desire not to subject myself to that sort of brain-numbing nonsense. Why does it all have to be dance music? And why do they all have to dance like that? And why, oh why, must everyone have the latest fashions in clothes, hair and attitudes? Gurk.

K^r: Hee hee group vomiting
Me: LOL
K^r: Forget group orgies...
Me: Vomiting is the way of the future, dude

Statement of declaration for this week:

1. I will take time to myself.
   
2. I will attempt to make my peace with the cosmos.
   
3. I will be wicked at least once.
   
4. I will be an angel at least once.
   
5. I will miss A (just to have something that will absolutely no trouble whatsoever).
   
6. I will go to bed now.

Shauny.org!! What more can a good girl ask for?

John Travolta has been summarily sent to his room for being responsible for the atrocity that is Battlefield Earth. I want him to think long and hard about what he's done. Sure, I can see the bones of the story in its written, novelised, LONG form being potentially quite good. But recycled scene ideas, wooden acting and (above all) scrolling scene changes ala Star Wars do not a saga make. I firmly believe this movie is only good for Mr Travolta's own mildly entertaining performance as the madly chuckling evil-doer, and for the take-the-piss value.

And every time I saw those fighter pilots I thought of the Brownies out of Willow. Honestly, how are you expected to take anything seriously after that?

I never feel as seedy in Canberra as I do in Gladstone. The morning after the night before is always worse here. I don't know why. Perhaps the heat, the humidity, is what makes feeling hungover so much more of a trial. It's a thought to bear in mind.