Aaron in Bring It On is like Ken on crack.

Today, I played Werewolf.

Opening like something out of a movie, where Seeker tries to follow the Black Spiral Dancer he is hunting into the Umbra, using a window as a reflective surface. He fails the roll to sidestep, though, and goes head-first through the window, seriously scaring a poor college student and leaping back out again. My character, Bianca, arrived on the scene two seconds later, mobile phone in hand, to say: "What the fuck?"

Two days later, they meet again, summoned by the local Sept. Getting into the cairn takes a little while for starters, involving Bianca busting a magical clock (she's an impatient girl) and meeting up with Nikolai, the albino Metis. We all go off in search of a Grand Klaive (a great big fuck-off silver knife).

In the first encounter with the man who has it, Bianca intimidates him severely while Seeker growls at him in wolf form (in the process, A botches his form-shifting roll so badly he is stuck in wolf for three hours). Some Get of Fenris heavies show up, and we run for it.

Second attempt, the Klaive has been moved to a museum. We go in through the Umbra, and materialise in the guy's office. Niki locks the door, Bianca's first move is to whack a hand over the guy's mouth, while Seeker grabs the Klaive, finding out in the process that it does weird things to your rage; makes you angrier, and more likely to frenzy, or go berserk.

The guy triggers an alarm, and we decide to get the hell out, picking up the P's character on the way. The corridor blocked by Get heavies again, the window seems the best option, and this is where we find out just how cool being a werewolf is. Niki makes the leap across the alley to the fire escape on the building opposite. Bianca throws the P's character across, but he misses the top landing, and botches the catch attempt on the next floor so badly that he falls to the alleyway below. Four storeys. Meanwhile, Bianca tries to jump, and misses to plummet five floors down.

Three minutes later, Bianca is fine again.

Meanwhile, one of the Get heavies throws himself out the window in a swan dive, semi-automatic in each hand. Through a beautiful roll of the dice, both guns jammed and he hit the ground. Hard. He was dispatched through a combined effort of Seeker and Niki.

Meanwhile, the other five heavies hit the street, and show up in the head of the alley. At this point, we are supposed to bolt. Somehow, we don't. Somehow, we end up taking them on. This was not the plan. They are five (to our four) and they are all higher level than we are.

Niki sets one's head on fire. Seeker tears them to shreds, crippling one and injuring two more. Four of them frenzy, one running away. One down, four to go.

Bianca grabs the Grand Klaive, going into a frenzy in the process. Everyone gets the fuck out of her way, and in the process manage to do a little damage to other folk. Meanwhile, their frenzies are meaning they are hacking at each other as often as us. The P's character shoots one, knocking him unconscious, and then killing him. Niki and Bianca together take down a couple. Four down, one with not much health at all to go.

And then I remembered the tutor's meeting, and had to run. I left Bianca still in full frenzy, one injury away from unconsciousness, and armed with the Klaive. They needed to take her down before she finished up the enemy and started in on her friends. And they needed to do it without killing her.

I hope they managed it. The poor girl's in a lot of trouble anyway. But she does have a mobile phone dedicated into a tattoo on her palm, and that's gotta be worth something.

I am worth $1,935,550.00. Anyone want to... well, not buy me, because I'm not finished with me yet. Maybe just rent me? I'm sure we could figure out a good rate.
(Thankyou to Miss J.)

We went to Maccas, and I got an Author Snoopy. He's so cool. He looks like he's meditating over his typewriter. Or at least, he did in the picture. Mine looks a little like he's just fallen asleep. I know the feeling.

I absolutely, positively and totally cannot play Risk. Not in the 'I'm no good at it' sense, because I really don't know whether I am or not. I'd probably be passable, but it just...

Well, let's put it this way. My major is strategy and diplomacy within international relations. This game does not abide by the things I know.

There are no logistics. No problems with terrain, societies, or other issues. I watched B^k romp all the way from the western Sahara across South America and into Mexico in one turn.

One: She would have lost a good third of her army in the Amazon.
Two: Supply lines stretching that far? I shudder to think.
Three: Do the people mind that they've just been conquered by a foreign military power? Aren't they rebelling?

See? I just can't play this game.

Later, I watched K^L storm down from Kamchatka to Australia, and noted that not even the Japanese managed to do that.

Resolution that will never, ever be realised: To finish this damn fic by the end of the weekend. The ideas are starting to get backed up. I need to clear some space.

Of course, I also have to do seven chapters of politics reading and spend most of tomorrow role-playing Werewolf, but I'll have time to finish the fic. Of course I will!

exx is back up. Finally. There you go, Miss J.

(The problem is that I have to upload the files one at a sodding time, and with something like exx it takes forever, and sometimes particular files don't work, and I end up tearing my hair out. Which is why I'm going to wait a little on uploading the MU* section.)

Steve Irwin started out life running a small 'dangerous animals' park in south-east Queensland. In fact, his 'Crocodile Farm' was just down the road from my grandparents' house. I used to stay with them for two weeks after every Christmas, and there was a set list of things that we would always do. Go to the beach (my grandfather taught me to bodysurf at the age of 8, and as tradition in my family dictates, the first wave he ever put me on was a dumper. It took me a good two years to work up the courage to try it again). Go to the Deer Park. Go to the Big Pineapple, even (we have big everythings in Australia).

But we never, ever went to the Crocodile Farm.

Thank DOUG.

"It's a wonderful idea...
...but it doesn't work."

(From Poe's 'Walk the Walk'.)

You know you're reaching new, uncharted levels of apathy when you're considering not going to class because you can't be bothered to put on any suitable shoes for going out.

Bah.

Fucking scavenger hunt. Now I'm starving and there's no one to take me out for food because everyone's off bloody scrounging up sexually suggestive road signs and DOUG knows what else. They just don't have their priorities straight.

Meanwhile, the whip that they made me for the slave auction routine has shown up on the scav hunt list, but surprisingly I am not having people beating down my door trying to get it. This is very disappointing. Only one group has asked me for it. It's really quite sad.

Meanwhile, I'm still starving. Are keyboards edible? What about scanners?

(I go, in search of food.)

"I love Rogue and Wolverine, they're both so cuddly and sweet!!"

AAAAAAAAARGH!!! Wolverine? Cuddly and sweet? What universe is this girl from? What is she smoking, injecting or otherwise ingesting? Wolverine will be cuddly and sweet about as soon as I start loving all humanity regardless of their faults.

Just as a little caveat note: I'm not picking on the girl who said this in an email to a discussion list in particular, but on the huge crowd who feels this way. They are all twits! I might not be the world's biggest Wolverine fan, but I like him the way he's supposed to be. Rough, tough, bad-ass and growly. Not bloody cuddly and sweet.

Now I'll go back to playing with my Scotty doll. Sorry, as you were. Carry on.

We were suppsed to: be doing the Floor Crawl, moving from floor to floor and drinking and doing the usual college thing.

Hah!

We actually: ended up playing Twister all night, round after round, cramming up to seven people on the board at once. Full-contact Twister, with heaving, pushing, even crash-tackling allowed. The combination of Twister mat and carpet meant that it slid all over the place. Twice I got heaved off head-first, in a stunning removal by various people. More times than I could conveniently count, I head-butted opponents off the mat to cries of: "Hey! Bitch!"

And proud of it.

Oh, and J² kicked out one of the ceiling lights. Don't ask how. It just comes easy to him.

It's all fun and games until someone loses molecular cohesion...

Lookie at my newly-compacted sidebar. 2000 carp-a-licious archives removed to their own separate listing to make way for newer, shinier fish. Or something.

Yeah, I finally got around to doing it. Now I'd better finally get around to doing my German homework, since there's only half an hour until I need to leave for class. Bah.

This week is Bush Week, which means it's another week of mayhem in college. Including Murder, which I have mentioned before, but since it was about this time last year, I'll recap.

You get a slip of paper, with some vague details about the person you must stalk and, eventually, 'kill' by getting them alone. Made more difficult by the fact that someone is stalking you at the same time. Person with most slips wins.

Now, I love this time of year, because the paranoia is so thick you could practically cut it into slices and sell it at a market stall. I would reveal all that I and assorted others are doing to capitalise on this delightful sentiment, but the Enemy is everywhere (yes, that's you, Puss) so I shan't. Muahaha.

However, I will display the playlist I created in honour of this marvellous event. I call it the "It's not paranoia if they're really after you" playlist. Or maybe the "Someone's at the door!" playlist.

The Cure - Killing An Arab
Rage Against The Machine - Killing in The Name
Guns n Roses - Live and Let Die
Bon Jovi - Blaze Of Glory
Garbage - I Think I'm Paranoid (live)
The Offspring - Come out and play
Rolling Stones - Time Is On My Side
Our Lady Peace - Superman's Dead
Faith No More - Surprise You're Dead
Poe - Angry Jonny
Queen - Who Wants To Live Forever
Filter - Hey Man Nice Shot

What a great time to be a kid! Not only do we have dear ole Harry making imagination accessible again, but there's also the delectable Lemony Snicket writing absolutely dreadful books that kids adore (and I can't blame them, because I just about laughed my ass off at the website, the books look fantastic, and kids are like that, no matter how much we want to deny it).

Honestly, it's brilliant. Such a wealth of reading matter to really get kids into using the full depths of their imagination. It really does give me a warm fuzzy.

Oh yeah, I remember how this weekend thing goes again now. How did I ever get through without it? Up for breakfast, read the papers, back to bed and lounge, drowse, stretch cat-like and purr, settle down post non-lunch for lazy afternoon academia and creativity with some sort of weird Milo/machine-coffee combination that I think I could really grow to like.

If anyone needs me, I'll be thinking in adjectives.

The Bodice-Ripper Manifesto (now forming into an actual concept, tentatively titled 'The Replacement') is coming along nicely. An afternoon spent with lists, media and two North American exchange students, trying to come up with acceptable names for our cast of stars. We end up with "Lawson Dempsey" and "Eryn Ashworth" as our Hero and Heroine respectively, and an eccentric old man named Alastair.

This will never, ever in a million years see publication, but gee it's fun.

Just for Molly, This is Poe.

Stunning female vocalist doing impressively inventive things within the mainstream-alternative zone. She is my latest obsession, and she's really very talented. "Haunted" is a beautifully evocative concept album with some damn fine music on it.

I might even go so far as to say that she's my Tori Amos, Fiona Apple, that sort of thing. She's my inspirational female artist.

Maybe.

What the fuck???

I'm scared. Make them stop, Mummy!

Oh my good goddess, I'm so indescribably bored.

After one more horrifically bad grotty romance (you know the sort, paperback historical romances), I had a hissy fit. J^e and I long ago decided that we could write one of these things, and now we've decided to actually have a go. This led to a long conversation last night, involving syphilis, slave girls, spies, Russians, Mormons, and various other interesting ideas. Today, I have written "The Bodice-Ripper Manifesto".

I'll keep you up to date with this magnificent project, rest assured.

Now, back to being bored...

To clarify:
This morning, in a fit of fiscal irresponsibility, I brainwashed G^j into taking me out to Woden where there is a new JB HiFi store. I know this retail outlet of old, it being where I bought my Rammstein "Live Aus Berlin" a couple of years ago in Melbourne. They have el cheapo CDs, and moreover, they tend to have imports that no one else does.

I hoped, I prayed, that they would have Poe where all other hopes had failed.

They did.

Rock!

So, I am now the proud-and-grinning owner of "Haunted", and am listening to it the second time through, and I love it all. It's brilliant. She's brilliant. And I want her manicure.

That really was the highlight of my day. Sorry.

I have Poe. I love Poe. I love JB Hi Fi which allowed me to get Poe. Life is good. Rock.

What am I listening to at the moment? Well, when I'm feeling particularly bored, dispassionate, or in need of procrastination (or something, when I want to hear something that isn't on my current lot) I make up a new MP3 playlist. I have just done this. I needed to hear Babes in Toyland's "Sweet 69" and that didn't entirely mesh with the current list, entitled 'Goth'. So I made a new one. And because I'm also in boredom mode, you can read it. I call it Angry Young Women. With a couple of exceptions.

Weirdest AOL message ever?

"M: boo senor my tibbits belong to noone! Keep your hands to your self!"

When I grow up, I want to be an art-rock terrorist.

(I don't know either, but that's a great phrase, and I collect interesting words, phrases, lines, sentiments, thoughts, theories, extrapolations, musings...

I collect the interesting bits and pieces of the English language, as bastardised daily by the general populace.)

Every time I think I've made it free of Archmage, it sucks me back in again. Silly, stupid game.

Not at all surprising that it's as addictive as hell, is it?

"You're not the first to think that everything has been thought before."

I love Paul Dempsey with a stunning, platonic, intellectual passion. That one's from something on Something for Kate's Echolalia. "Three Dimensions", I think.

Can I just register at this point how happy I was that that blonde was voted off that show, and I neither know nor care who actually did win it in the end.

Well, that would be true if not for the fact that Shauny just told me. Bad Shauny. Well, no, not really.

But I still don't care.

I could get used to getting back HD essays. Of course, in order for this to happen, I have to get used to handing in HD essays, and this could be more difficult.

But I think this could be a good semester. Which probably means it won't be, since last semester just about killed me and I got good results. Is this bad karma in action? Is it a latent subconscious masochistic tendency? Is it just one of those weird coincidences that doesn't actually mean shit?

Does anyone care?

Bueller?

I think you're right, Shauna; blogging about spam is the next big thing, and here's my snippet for today.

Precise spam is all the go now, apparently. I have some delightful eager-to-serve chap called Joe J wanting me to know all about something involving: "New Work At Home Make Up To $1137.00 A Week". $1137, mind you. Don't get greedy and start wanting an even twelve hundred or anything, because then we'd have to send angry young men in trenchcoats around to your house with Black and Decker drills and small vocabularies. I'm not sure which is the deadlier weapon, actually.

Haircuts are catching? I got all my hair cut off a little while back - rendering me now short and spanky. Um... yeah. Or something. But anyway, now Melissa's got the chop as well, and I recall Shauny talking about darling hairdressers some time as well. 'Tis the season to be shorn, apparently.

And it is fun. We like, endorse and are fully supportive of haircuts. Haircuts are the funky shit.

More of Dee's Helpful Advice for Life^(TM):

If you're going to be flying out the next morning, especially if your flight time requires you to be awake at 6 in the morning, do not get drunk the night before.

If, however, you are somehow incapable of not getting drunk, please, please, please make sure you do not come home at 12:30, remember that you have to get up at 6 in the morning, and go straight to bed while still too drunk to be undertaking such an action, with the result that the room starts spinning and you subsequently spend the period from 1-1:30 dashing to the toilet to be sick every five minutes.

And if you absolutely must go through the above, try not to be one thin wall away from your parents at the time.

Not throwing up on your bedding is also always a good idea.

So, how was everyone else's weekend?

Is it just me, or is Pepsi more carbonated than beverage?

Things you don't see everyday: A ute with what looked like a medium-sized frangipani tree planted in the tray. It waved madly as the ute swung aroiund the corner, and disappeared around the bend.

I'd have a lot more respect for people who drove utes if they turned the back into a sort of portable window-garden.

Observations upon reading the newspaper over breakfast:

The peope who write for the Courier Mail's little IT section are either morons, or they're seriously babying it down for their readers. I'm not sure which is worse.

Example #1: an article on Yahoo Messenger, about how there's this Wow! new program that lets you exchange messages instantly!

This is news? Where have you people been? Personally, I prefer AOL instant messenger, and have been using it since my first year at university. Which makes it three years and counting.

Example #2: an article on a little utility that allows you to edit the info of your MP3 files. But! It only works on Windows2000 or NT4.

So what?? Go into WinAmp and you can edit the information as you see fit. And it works on any sodding platform. (This leads me to ponder my own assumptions, and now I'm wondering what people use to listen to MP3s if they don't use WinAmp?)

Oh, and an honourable mention to the twit who sent in a letter asking for a program to tell him where he had free space and where he could delete files, because he was running out of room on his hard drive. Clever chap. Yes, what you really need is to install another program and take up even more room on your computer.

Gah.

Oh, and my other major observation was on that insidious phenomenon known as Big Brother (not linking, no way). I just have to say (sorry Shauna) that that blonde nitwit (Sara-Marie, if you had any doubts) annoys the hell out of me. She's far too insipidly silly and vain to gain even a skerrick of respect from me.

And frankly, I'm going to be glad when the whole stupid thing is over.

I'd like to make it perfectly clear at the outset that this is not a "things to do before I die" list. I don't like that concept. Because then, once you're finished all the things on the list, there's not much left to do but die. I mean... that's what comes next, isn't it? And that's nonsense. So this is just a 'Things to do' list, in no particular order. It doesn't include 'shopping' or 'worm the cat', though.

1. Watch a volcano erupt. Not through a television screen, but in person. I don't care if it doesn't look as good, I just want to be there and act as witness to the earth throwing up. And yes, this was prompted by the Etna eruption.
   
2. Go sky-diving. This has always been on my list. I like falling. I do. I loved high-jump once we learned to do the Flop. When I took myself out mid-air at netball, it was brilliant. I desperately want to sky-dive one day.
   
3. Write poetry (mediocre or otherwise) while sipping coffee in a street cafe in Paris. Just because, dammit.
   
4. Swig vodka straight from the bottle in Red Square. For the same reason. (Note to self: learn Russian drinking songs before doing this for maximum fun.)
   
5. Meet all the wonderful people I've ever spoken to on the internet. Even if it's just for two seconds.
   
6. See my name on the cover of a fantasy novel. Preferably because I've written it, and not because someone's deludedly used my name as the title of their novel. (Though I'd have to buy that book just on principle.)
   
7. Actually perform the commando mission through the Canberra Centre into Grace Bros. that J¹, J² and I planned way back in first year.

Walking along the street, and I see ahead a guy wearing a black band T-shirt. I wonder what band it is, and wonder if it's a band I have any respect for. I decide too far away to see anything that it's probably a Limp Bizkit T-shirt, and hence I will have to treat him to a full-powered 'you are dirt' patented Dee ignore. I am right, and I do. He, in turn, glances at my T-shirt - Rammstein. I wonder if my lack of respect is reciprocated.

And as I walk onwards, I grin, and think: "My band could take your band."

The madness of the Evans family at work:
Dad: What shall I wear? Shall I wear my cummerbund?
D: Not just your cummerbund.
Dad: And my blue underwear?
Mum: Your cummerbund is green, it wouldn't go with your blue underwear.
D: I wasn't aware your cummerbund had to match your underwear.
Dad: But of course!

While I remember, I finished The Proof House (by KJ Parker). It is brilliant. It is a stunningly well-written fantasy. It assumes that the people reading it are adults, and can think for themselves, and that just about blew my mind. The characters are stunning, the action excellently described, and the conclusion so incredibly satisfying. This is excellent fantasy, complex and intelligent. There should be more of it.

Sometimes I wonder if my mother is faking Coeliac disease just to stop me and my father from double-dipping in the margarine when we're making toast.

But that's an unprecedented level of convoluted anal retentiveness, even for my mother.

I ranted about the inclusion of the 'dh' in various fantasy words. What is with shoving an 'h' after a perfectly innocent consonant in fantasy, anyway? Has 'h' somehow become the new fashionable 'weirdifying' letter? It used to be 'y'. I don't mind things like 'kh', because that's perfectly pronouncable, but there are two options for 'dh', and I never know which one the author intended. This throws off the rhythm of my reading because whenever I see the word - such as the name of the world in my newly begun read, Beyond the Pale by Mark Anthony (a fantasy author should know better than to use a name like that). The world's called Eldh. Now, should that be 'Eld' or 'Elthe'?

And while I'm at it, what's with naming worlds? Worlds don't have names, because you name something to distinguish it from something else. Planets have names, to distinguish them from other planets. But the world has no name, it is just the world. That's how it works.

"Gee," Mum said, "and people think I'm pedantic."

I laughed. "I've just honed my nitpicks."

Someone wants me to see the video Britney wanted banned. Why don't I get high-quality spam anymore? Quantity does not make up for quality, you know. Sending me the same plea for money eight times will not make me give it through annoyance. It will, though, apparently give me a sudden inability to spell... that word. Yanno, the word that means 'something seethrough'. Like lingerie. Shere? Shear? Fuck! (Yes, I am aware that the last attempt is not even close.) I think I'm losing my mind. Don't worry, I'm sure it's around here somewhere.

Musings on Tuesday and notes found hiding, in no particular order:

1) There's a house up the top of the hill with what the owners probably consider the world's most perfect lawn. I find it frightening. I skirted it, though I'd tramped across countless other lawns on my meanderings, because it was too unnatural to set foot upon. If a lawn could be a skinhead, this one would have a swastika tattoo and fuck-you boots. It was a bare fuzz, trimmed penal-code short. Like moss. Like it was fake. It bothered me, long after I'd moved on into greener, as it were, pastures.

2) Two grown men, opening a box post-marked, not gift-wrapped. Leaning forward, Christmas-eager, as they pull out silver static-wrapped packages. Glossy manuals, clear-windowed bills. Then a sip of coffee, and return to business, a man with a tie and no Santa-wish.

But I know, I saw, and it made me smile, and think, for two seconds, that maybe there's hope for humans after all.

3) Eating donuts (I swear, the little place in the Gladstone mall makes the best donuts in existence; nothing else even comes close) and staring blindly at the baby-photo stall, where a bored girl waits for even more bored mothers to bring their darlings to be turned into starlets for the time it takes to pose for a photo. There's a scary photo that looks like a toddler mugging a baby, but N points a little further along, to a blond cherub clutching a football, wearing a jersey.

"That's the most frightening one," she says. "The kid has a jersey. That's scary. And they'll probably expect him to live up to it. Like most Gladstone boys."

"And like most Gladstone boys," I replied, "he probably will. And then some girl, like most Gladstone girls, will marry him, and they'll produce something just like he was, and get a photo just like that taken. And the jersey is the scary part of that photo?"

"It's what it symbolises."

Sage nod. Dispose of cinnamoned bag and fight the urge to buy a pen to correct the horrendous grammar of the mall managers on a public sign. If I go on a killing spree, you'll know the reason. Someone's left an apostrophe out of a sign again. A girl can only take so much, after all.

OK, so sometimes (a lot of the time) staying at my parents' place drives me nuts. The town is small, there's few of my friends left here, there's nothing to do. There's pay-by-the-hour access which is giving me withdrawal symptoms because I am the Net Vampire. But this having nothing to do thing is sometimes a great relief. Like it is now. This is, in essence, the holiday from life that I've been craving for so long. I can play Merchant Prince all day, if I like. I can lie back and read, and when I can't keep my eyes open, I can nap for three hours, and not wake up in a mad panic. I can spend half an hour just playing with the cat.

Under all this relaxation, I can literally feel my energy being returned. For the first time in months, I'm starting to get inspired to write again.

And I will write today.

By all the Stanleys dead and gone, I swear it. (5 points)