Dude. Couples. The practically married kind. Fucking scary.

People who are never seen one without the other. Who live together, or so close that you just know his shirt, her bra and a pair of shoes they both wear on occasions are all tangled up together. Who have some sort of alien domestic bliss. Who have conversations driving along about shopping and family bureaucratic problems and the road conditions. People who are going to end up in the suburbs in normalcy.

A person who used to be a friend, maybe not a terribly good one, but something unique and apart, and probably still is one, but I'm friends with him, not with both of them.

I can't quite put my finger on it.

Fucking scary.

In my next life, I'd like to come back as the Funk Soul Reindeer. All it does is sit on top of my stereo. Mostly looking at me. Sometimes looking somewhere else. Its head is suspended on a little hook inside its neck, so that its head can bob slightly in the breeze, or a lot when someone gives it a donk on the nose. It has big, liquid brown eyes and a dent in its nose where someone tried to shove its head through a cardboard box. It's going a little threadbare in patches, and it only belongs to me by right of possession, since I nicked it from the rubbish stash after last year's summer cleanout. It's cheap, tacky, almost kitsch, but it doesn't have to do anything but sit on top of my stereo, nod, and occasionally get terrorised by the entirety of the Croquet Club on a cheap Scotch bender.

I could handle a life like that.

("Do you believe in reincarnation?"

"I'm not sure I believe in incarnation."
"What's that supposed to mean?"

"How the fuck should I know? Go away, you're ruining my inscrutable vibe.")

bleh
i dont even have the energy to capitalise or punctuate
arent i a bad dee

Fear me, you lord and lady preachers;

I descend upon your earth from the skies.

I command your very souls, you unbelievers.

Bring before me what is mine!
(Queen, "Seven Seas of Rhye")

Because one can't quote too many song lyrics, yanno. Especially good ones, random ones, ones that aren't about love and getting it or losing it or wanting it or hating it. Why aren't there more random songs? And I don't mean random in that pretentious At The Drive-In way, where they just dribble random crap in an attempt to sound meaningful and symbolic and bollocks. We need more random lyrics. More fun lyrics. More songs like Faith No More's "We Care A Lot". And there needs to be good music stapled to the good words. Nice bass and some complicated melodies that just make intrinsic sense. Everything should be a little bit more like Muse.

And while you're at in, can you get me a Mars Bar? I'm having a craving.

How to have fun with eavesdropping sales assistants:
"Is this bag big enough?"

"I don't know. Think it'll fit my purse and a handgun?"

Meanwhile, current cleaning 'gratuities' fund at $4.95 (enough for a Happy Meal with extra Happy), a pen and a coconut. There was briefly a copy of Alan Ball's "Politics and Government", but it seems to have been unhappy with this world, and ended it all by jumping out the window.

I used my own weight in tissues today. Just call me Sneezy.

So they tell me I get a free standard drink as staff drinks at the bar. (Just they, not They, because why would the CIA/NSA/Illuminati or other shadowy figure of your paranoid delusional choice want to inform me that I could imbibe alcohol without monetary outlay? Actually, don't answer that. No... do.)

In any case, free drink. One. Per night. But only after I'm finished, because we're not allowed to drink while working. I'm contemplating working my way through the beers one at a time, just so that I can become some sort of connoisseur. A connoisseur of something I don't drink, but hey, it'll impress guys. Or something. Right? I'll be able to tell them beer's awful with real authority. As opposed to the mock-authority I clothe myself in presently.

As I look out my window towards the college next door, there is one light on in the entire building. It is in the kitchen on the second floor. There is a naked man in there.

Well, this is a first.

Typical room-cleaning schedule:
1. Enter room, replete with cleaning gear - vacuum, duster, bucket, etc.
2. Wander vaguely around room, sort of not quite poking around the edges of your cleaning job.
3. Comment on the messiness/cleanliness of the room. Ask whose room it is.
4. Argue about whose room it is. Look for graffiti to verify. Check phone messages. Laugh at them.
4a. Would you believe someone has five videos that are 50 days overdue? 50 days! And one of them's Notting Hill. How embarrassing is that?
5. Upon deciding the room belonged to X, proceed to bitch about X for ten minutes. It doesn't have to be true, either; libel is our middle name.
6. Boss walks past. Actually get on with cleaning.

Today lunch was tacos (blerk) and the milk was strawberry (double blerk). We are not amused.

And work was long and the legs are sore.

"I was talking to preachy-preach about kissy-kiss.
You buy me a soda.
You buy me a soda.
You buy me a soda and try to molest me in the parking lot;
Yep. Yep, yep, yep."

(The Pixies are weird.)

The maintenance boys are working across the hall, and their radio is playing one of those songs by Powderfinger that sounds exactly like all of those other songs by Powderfinger. It might not even be Powderfinger, just some band playing a song that sounds like all those Powderfinger songs that sound alike. You know the ones; mellow, sugared crap.

I think I'm allergic to getting up. Shortly after I get up, I always seem to sneeze at least fourteen times. I thought it was just hayfever, because the other day I was working outside first thing in the morning, but I haven't really gone outside today. Then I thought I was allergic to mornings; not a bad surmise, I thought. However, I went back to bed this morning, and when I got up at lunch time, I did the same thing. So it must be an allergy to getting up. Either I'm never going back to bed, or I'm never going to get up ever again. Or maybe I should sleep standing up.

I just love days off, don't you?

Oooh, Kittie's got a new album. Even though I missed them in concert, and am still kicking myself for it, there is yet more Canadian-teeny-screaming-angst-rawk goodness for me! I crave!

We're eating at the college two doors down for the week, while they manhandle the floor in our dining hall. Personally I don't see why we can't just go through the servery, and eat outside. Most people do in summer anyway. However, gaily - yea verily and saucily also - we saunter down the street (or rather, we cut through the college in between, making rude gestures at the rosebushes) and enter, wide-eyed, the foreign domain.

Of course, we're all desperate to find something, anything, everything wrong with the food, just to reassure ourselves of our own superiority. Food looks beautiful, tastes adequate, but there isn't much variety, and aren't the serving staff unpleasant. We miss Jo. Jo's lovely. Jo mothers everyone. But there's chocolate milk here, on tap, and it's really good if you get a coffee from their machine (weak and watery, even more so than ours) and add it. The toasters look like alien contraptions. But the real killer is that breakfast only goes from 7:45 until 8:45 sharp. Unlike our own long haul of 7 til 9:30. I imagine that's a real bitch if you've got an 8 o'clock lecture.

But the chocolate milk's nice.

Sometimes antisocial is just so much easier.

Experiments with answering machine messages #1: The Passive Machine

"Apologies are offered; this phone is unable to be answered at the present time. Messages detailing caller, time and return number may be left, and at a later date they will be returned. The beep should be waited for."

Last night I considered 'Zen Blogging'. This means that I would blog what feels right. I would get in touch with my inner blogger, and let the spirit guide me. The blog content would be mystical, spiritual and probably smell nice too. And have good Feng Shui.

There would probably not be much of a discernible difference. However, I could claim that anyone who complained just wasn't enlightened enough to understand. And order them to go align their chakras, or something.

Besides, isn't everything better when it's Zen? Everything we do should be Zen. Zen typing, and Zen coffee-drinking, and Zen nappy-changing. I'm going to go and have a Zen shower.

Why doesn't anyone make quality music like Europe's "The Final Countdown" any more?

And isn't it just symptomatic of a certain breed of 80s music that they can get super-angsty about flying into outer space?

Last night I read my new comic, and was impressed by it, but still not impressed enough to get over the small hitch that it's about a month or more late. To all you slack bastards at Marvel: get your finger out. (Then we went to Maccas, consumed a variety of chicken products, and came home.)

B^k and I watched Dungeons and Dragons. About half way through, we stopped watching in any earnest (the little earnest we'd actually started with) and simply started MST3King it. With special reference to Star Wars. ("The Force is strong with this one.") Honestly, that movie had so much potential, and just bollocksed it up.

"This movie," B^k said, "would be so much better if it just didn't have Snails in it. At all." Such insight.

And now, I am off. Not, unfortunately, to see the Wizard, but to work. No rest for the wicked. Want me to come and 'clean' your room? (Or should that be clean your 'room'? Told you quotation marks were fun.)

Randomly putting quotation marks around words is more fun than anyone should be having without the threat of arrest.

Try it.

Or rather: 'Try' it.

I have this recurring image in my head of someone waving their arms around, screaming: "I am a tree! I am a tree!" Can anyone tell me why? Buggered if I know.

The good thing about working is that I'll have lots of money to pay for things like, say, the weekend excursion and a bridesmaid's dress and comics and coffee and other good things that start with 'co'.

The bad thing about working is that it means very little interesting happens during a day to blog about. Or even interesting thoughts, since after the first half-hour of vacuuming my brain goes on strike and shuts down for the duration.

The other bad thing is that people look at me funny. Might have something to do with the fact I'm gaily singing "I fuck dogs" as I vacuum. (Well, I tried singing "Anarchy in the UK" but that led to too much bouncing around as I worked.)

I slept for four hours yesterday afternoon, and had a very strange dream. The printer menu and the McDonalds menu were the same thing, and while I was desperately trying to print out my essay which was due ten minutes ago, all I kept getting was a Big Mac. I'm sure this has deep, dark significance.

At the moment it's so cold that I don't want to put my jeans on. Y'see, they've been sitting on the floor all night, and I know they're going to be bloody freezing.

It's November, dammit! I demand warmer weather! Take pity on the poor benighted Queenslander!

From Mallory
Spell your name backwards. snave eisle anaid. Some sort of weird French?
Where do you live? Wherever? Where I happen to be. My parents' house in Gladstone, my room in college... I need very little space in the physical world because I truly live inside my head.
Describe yourself in three words. Hungry, hungry hippo. OK, being more serious: Silly, creative, real.
Who is your worst enemy? Actionman! He is the archnemesis of Apathy Girl! (What sort of stupid question is that? I have no enemies. I have people who piss me off, but no one I'd gratify or dignify with the title 'enemy'.)
If you could have any animal for a pet, what would it be? A ferret! I want a ferret! (Cat or cats, actually.)
Have you ever used a spork? Um... yes, all the time. They're useful. Nards calls 'em 'cat fork spoons'.
Do you even know what a spork is? Yes. It's a cat fork spoon.
What is the latest you've ever stayed up? What time is it now...? (Um... define stayed up. I've gone 48 hours without sleeping in a bed. I've gone until midday with no sleep.)
Ever been to Belgium? Why would I want to do that?
What's your favorite coin? The chocolate kind.
Wallet. I searched long and hard to find one which was 'masculine' (ie: folds in half) but that also had the coins and notes going in the same way. Can't I just wear pants with pockets for the change?
Hairbrush. I use my fingers. No, really, I do.
Toothbrush. Whatever came to hand. For months I used one I'd filched off the Male when I forgot mine.
Jewelry worn daily. Not really. I wear a watch, and sleepers in my ears. I constantly consider a ring, but I don't think my fingers deserve it and anyway, it's just too much trouble.
Pillowcase. I have one with a hand-painted kitty dancing Hawaiian. The rest are really quite dull.
Blanket/bedspread. Log-quilted by my mother. Plus I have a college doona for when it just gets too cold.
Tea cup. I have a big black mug in Cafe J^e. Despite sabotage by unknown agents, it remains in use.
Sunglasses. Just like every other $19.95 pair, really.
Underwear. Well, wouldn't you like to know.
Shoes. Boots, long. Boots, short. Sandals, everyday. Sneaker-type things. Strappy high heels. I will give my firstborn to anyone who would provide me with patent leather spike-heeled boots.
Nail polish. Used to give myself an intricate, patterned manicure once a week. Then apathy set in. No.
Handbag. Black shoulder-bag thing, given to me by the Male.
Keychain. Alas, for Marvin is no more. I have the chain from which he used to hang, though. Plus my blood donor blood-type ring, and one that reads: "Sick my duck".
Favorite shirt. But there's so many. I like my red satin shirt, and my 'spank me' shirt, and the little goth princess shirt I'm currently wearing, and my brown velvet shirt too.
Favorite pants. The leather ones. Not good for daily wear, though.
Perfume. I don't wear it very often. I usually forget. I have a nice one that the Male gave me. S'called... Very Valentino? Or something.
CD in stereo right now. Not indicative, since I'm in one of my biannual alphabetical listen-throughs of my collection. I think it's Letters to Cleo and Lunachicks in there right now.
Tattoos. No. I wouldn't even seriously consider permanently marking my body with something I'd consider foolish at 45.
Piercings. Just my ears. I've been on/off considering an eyebrow for years, but I don't think I'll ever get it done.
Outfit. Just got back from dinner out. Standard non-thinking 'out' clothes: grey dress pants, black top with gauze black overshirt. Serious earrings, Bonnie and Clyde boots.
Hair. In need of redying. My natural hair colour is so boring.
Makeup. What is this thing of which you speak? (Actually, mascara and lipstick are going-out staples, but pretty much never anything else.)
In my mouth. My teeth.
In my head. Well, now it's the Cranberries 'Zombie', thank you very much...
Hearing. The fridge rattling. One of these days I'll figure out why it's so bloody noisy.
Wishing for. A webcam. More time to sleep. Warmer weather; I'm fucking freezing!

One of these days I will get a stereo that doesn't get stuck at the beginning of track 9 of the Cruel Intentions soundtrack, at the end of track 1 and 6 of Funker Vogt's Maschine Zeit or skips during Bjork's "Possibly Maybe" and Garbage's "Queer".

One that doesn't switch itself off in a sulk when I bump its extraneous cords would be nice too.

During my weekend away I attempted to surgically remove the tip of my little finger with a tin of tomatoes. I failed this time, but I remain certain it can be achieved. Now I'm left with a band-aid around a very sore cut, and I realise now as never before how much I actually use the little finger on my right hand. Who would have thought it.

Meanwhile, three different people have told me since Friday that I should attempt NaNoWriMo in the (then) fifteen days remaining. "Come on," R^y said. "You can do it. You haven't got anything else to do." I resisted the temptation to tell him to go boil his head and eat it. I'm writing, and writing hard, but I'm not NaNoWriMoing. Just novel writing in general.

I'm baaaaack. Revitalised and full of verve for the week ahead. Nothing relaxes like doing bugger-all in an apartment just across the lake. We lounged. We read stupid girls magazines. (I'd like to state at this point that Cleo is better than Cosmo. Both ran 'How to get hitched' articles. Only Cleo suggested that you propose to him. It was, naturally, the last option, but at least they included it. Unlike Cosmo, which had six pages of ways to inveigle a proposal, but not that. Honestly, it's as bad as the bloody Rules. Except it wants you to have sex.) We cooked. We watched TV. (How can anyone hate The Avengers? That movie is so much fun! I want a John Steed of my own.) We MST3Ked the weather. We took over the world.

It was fun. There should be more of it.

They've finally caught up with me. I'm fleeing the country, heading to somewhere unpronouncable in central America.

Actually, I'm just going away with the remaining Wench Girls for the weekend. Back on Monday. Don't set fire to anything in my absence.

My friend R^b is in the States at the moment, as the final leg of a world-wide tour he's currently embarked upon. He's been sending us irregular updates, filled with his usual sparkling wit. Today's installment should, I thought, be shared. Things he's seen in America that made him laugh:

• Jews for Jesus (with the star of David as the "o" in the "for")
  
• 24 hour bowling (when you just have to at 4am)
  
• A sign just outside of Chicago: Alaska 3284 miles (no need for a break then)
  
• Mcdonald signs with "Billions and Billions Served" on the sign. They've finally given up counting.

I'd almost forgotten what real sleeping in was. Not the decadent feeling of "Well, I'll just set my alarm clock to 9 instead of 8 because I deserve that extra hour", but actually not setting the alarm clock at all.

I woke up at 9 anyway, the Male long gone (I did not do that movie-esque roll over and stretch out to find blank space, but rather muttered: "What time is it?" and when I got no response, realised I'd better sit up and look for myself).

And now I have the wonderful, beautiful realisation that after breakfast and ablutions, I have nothing that needs to be done for the day.

Oh, apart from wandering into Civic and buying a pistol. I might just get one for Nards as well. Good Christmas present.

I am finished.

Finished. The essay, the exam period, the year, my degree. Finished, finished, finished.

Well, except for that pesky Honours thing next year, but that's practically post-grad and it won't have the same interminable, boring undergraduate drain about it. It'll be interesting and challenging and maybe even, DOUG-forbid, fun.

And I'm finished. No more German, no more lectures, no more bothering with lecturers and tutors who don't take me seriously.

I'm fucking finished. RAH!!

Ahem. So. How about those Mormons.

The pink Power Ranger is not acceptable. Powerpuff girls are. The pink Voltron member is controversial (I maintain the girl was blue, despite all evidence to the contrary) and very, very cool.

I have 81 footnotes in my essay. I think I may have gone overboard.

When you're in college, what you wear to the shower is suddenly a valid point. Not that it's one of the Standard O-week Questions or anything: Hey, what's your name? What're you studying? What do you wear to the shower? No, not that. It's just that from day one, you're going to be tripping down the corridor every morning (well, I hope every morning) to the communal showers, and you're going to need to wear something. Although nudity is always an option. But that's a different story.

In general, first-years start out going fully clothed. Occasionally even including shoes. They get undressed in the little shower cubicle, ablute, and then get fully dressed again.

This is stupid, and hence never lasts long.

Soon, like the rest of us, they're prancing gaily down the hallway wearing nothing but a towel. If they're J², they might even have a tendency to whip the towel off before the shower door is fully closed.

Myself, I've never been a fully-dresser, or a toweller. From the first, I've gone to the shower wearing my Playboy Bunny dressing gown. It's one of those little towelling warparound-and-tie robes. It's black. It has the Bunny on it. It's cool. It was my Dad's, and he gave it to me when I kept stealing the one that he used, which was blue and had an anchor on it. Everyone has always admired my Playboy Bunny dressing gown. It's very cool.

(This post brought to you by the fact that I passed a first-year leaving the showers fully dressed this morning. It's the end of the year, and she's still doing this? Some of them, apparently, never learn.)

You know you're reaching the depths of procrastination when you consider reordering your CDs so that the spines would form a rainbow.

And then you realise there's far too many black ones to make that workable anyway.

Like Melissa, I want, want, want, need to see Lord of the Rings. The need to view it now is coalescing like a swallowed marble in my stomach. (With blackest moss the flower pots... 3 points.)

You see, it's very simple: Tolkien was my real introduction to fantasy. Oh sure, I read Victor Kelleher as a pre-teen, and it fed my imagination, but it was Tolkien who really started me off. How? Well, there used to be this game called Hugo's House of Horrors. It was one of those walk around, type in commands adventures. It was the first one I ever played. It was also, incidentally, how I learned to type. It was slightly fiendish - took us days to figure out how to get in the sodding front door (tip: break the pumpkin). Anyway, towards the end you come across this little old man with his fishing rod. He shows up in games two and three as well. He asks you silly questions. Like the first one, which was: "What is the hero's name in 'The Hobbit'?"

"Huh?" I went. "What's the Hobbit? Muuuuuum!!"

Mum told me it was a book by some guy called JRR Tolkien. She suggested I go and talk to Mrs Thiedecke, the school librarian and my bestest friend. So I did, and Mrs T pulled a book from the shelves and handed it to me.

I have a theory that the first dragon you ever see is how you will see dragons forever. This cover was mine. It's stunning (and search as I might, I can't find a picture of it on the internet), featuring Smaug standing on top of the mountain, wings spread, spewing into the dusk sky not fire, but some sort of insidious vitriol, curling through the air. It is absolutely glorious. I looked high and low for that edition when I was purchasing my copy of the Hobbit, and finally found it at a second-hand store. I bought it so fast, it made my head spin.

In any case, I devoured it (and finished the game) and moved on to the main series. It was mind-expanding stuff. I adored it. Later, after years of fantasy-reading, I would return to it, and be disappointed. It wasn't as glorious as I remembered it. It was a bit dull, and the characters were a bit cardboard, and there was lots of 'the good stuff' left out in favour of lengthy descriptions of rowan trees. I hold the bright, fervent hope that the movie will be everything the books were for me the first time round. And considering there's such a major part made of Arwen, I think I might just be in for satisfaction.

Please, let it be good. Maybe I can hibernate between now and Boxing Day. I'm dying here.

When I grow up, I'd like to be:

• taller
  
• a cyberpirate
  
• hostess on a gameshow
  
• enjoying a jetsetting lifestyle
  
• a cannibal
  
• a psychic superhero
  
• a werepoodle
  
• David Bowie
  
• something really metal
  
• an anime schoolgirl
  
• not intimidated by cheerleaders
  
• a cheerleader
  
• older.

There are fifteen things I would rather be doing this afternoon, and nothing I should be doing more than studying for the exam tomorrow. It's suddenly occurred to me that my usual 'I went to the lectures, I can bullshit, I'll be all right' attitude isn't going to get me through, because I didn't actually go to all the lectures.

Oops.

I've got the moves. (Oh-way-oh.)

I rarely get notes from the GM in Werewolf. When I do, they are invariably involving something very, very fucked happening to my character. This one was no exception.

"Soon you will be attacking your pack (you have no say in it.) You will not hold anything back, attack them as if they were bad NPCs. You cannot say things like 'Sorry guys, I can't help it' even out of character. You will fight for six turns. After that, you can take a turn to yell STOP! or FUUUUUUUUCK!!! if that's more appropriate."

So, I turned to the leader of my pack, plunged both clawed hands into his chest cavity, and smacked his head on the ceiling. Even he respected the pure class of that move. Then, unfortunately - or maybe fortunately - the little Tibetan warrior guy in our party picked me up and threw me down the corridor. I hit the wall so hard, it knocked me out.

And that was just the beginning of the fun and games. Today's Werewolf session was seriously entertaining. I love this game.

PS: Today, I finally came up with a title for my novel. It didn't quite hit me out of the blue; I'd been thinking about it for quite a while. I always had faith that as I wrote, some title would make itself appropriate. So how do y'all think 'The Lost Throne' sounds as a title? I quite like it.

Call me a silly little geek girl, but I just wasted far too much time at this gamer jargon site. I giggled. A lot.

I particularly liked this entry in the lexicon:

"...failing a random... encounter," phrase
to run into a person whom you dislike or try to avoid; Ex: (Mike enters room)"Oh no, we just failed a random Mike encounter!" (This refers to the practice of rolling in D&D to check if your party runs into wandering monsters.)

This phrase, my friends, is going into standard Dee-usage.

(I also like "Align your chakras" as an admonition to calm down.)

Ridley (Justin Whalin) in the D&D movie is just so cute. Honestly, it should be illegal.

I have a take-home exam to do. But I have chocolate. It's all good.

My Viking name is Eðna Swiftbear. Or Dís if I put 'Dee' in as my name. I think I like Dís better.

"You're a fearsome Viking, but you aren't completely uncivilized. The other Vikings make fun of you for that. You have a thirst for battle -- unfortunately, you're not terribly good at it. You probably know which end of a sword to hold, but you're not a fearsome fighter by any stretch of the imagination.

"You would have a very tough time making a long sea voyage in a Viking longboat. You possess some skills which other Vikings respect.

"You have a fairly pragmatic attitude towards life, and tend not to expend effort in areas where it would be wasted. You sometimes come off as a bit of a snob. Vikings are not snobbish people -- they either like you, or they kill you. Try to be more like a Viking."

Hmm... I'll bear that in mind. (Thanks, Megsy.)

Dungeons and Dragons. The movie I've always wanted. And now I own it on DivX. I rule!

Well, wanted since I saw it, and wanted without actually paying money for it because it's so bad I have to own it, but too bad to spend for. But still, the point stands.

Don't fear the reaper.

Me: Did K^L steal your pliers?
J¹: Uh...
J¹: No...
Me: Are you sure?
J¹: Pretty damn sure.
Me: OK.
J¹: My pliers are crap though. Not sure why anyone would want to steal them.
Me: K^L wants to be a plumber when he grows up.
J¹: He just wants to meet bored housewives.

The world needs more gratuitous, random Shakespeare-quoting.

"Unlike many of Blyton's female characters, Darrell is strong-willed, intelligent and charming, if unbearably pompous throughout. Darrell's many friends include Sally (nice), Alicia (sharp), Mary-Lou (sweet), Irene (mad) and Clarissa (ugly). Darrell's enemies include Moira (domineering), Catherine (sycophantic), Gwen (self-obsessed) and Maureen (wimp). Darrell's friends normally become Sports Captains, Head Girls or star in the school pantomime. Darrell's enemies either fail their exams or lose a close relative." - from a review of In The Fifth At Malory Towers.

After discussing childhood books with J^e this afternoon (how did we get to that? Who knows) I was hit by a sudden, absolutely violent urge to read Enid Blyton's Malory Towers again. I loved these books. Loved. Adored. Worshipped. Of course, discussing them with J^e I was struck by the conclusion that there must have been something kinky going on between Darrell and Sally. At the time I wouldn't have thought of it. I don't think I even knew what a lesbian was. And Alicia? With all those spanking threats? Vixen on the rampage!

I have no time for people who do not get excited about new felt-tip pens in pretty colours.

From Kurt Rudolph's Gnosis: "This means, it [Manicheism] shares a position with Buddhism, Christianity and Islam, but, in contrast to these, lies in the past."

As opposed to the other three, which lie in the present, future, and in fact every chance they get. Never trust a clergyman.

po-lem-ic n :the art or practice of disputation -- usu. used in pl. -- po-lem-i-cal also po-lem-ic adj -- po-lem-i-cist n

Use it - or better yet, do it - three times today!

I hate it when lecturers ask me how long an extension I think I need. I teeter between asking for lots of time, but being thought a slacker or something, or asking for only a little time, and then stressing myself out and probably not getting it done on time. It's much better when they say: "Right, you have three days." Then, when I'm facing the deadline and sweating every extra second, I can at least have a mantra like: "Fucking evil bastard" to get me through.

I think I'll bite the bullet, and ask for next Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the internet won't work. (Dee smacks it upside the head with a large trout.)

You disrepecting me? Take him out.

(Oh yeah, I'm old-skool.)

This cough is progressing to the point where I wouldn't be surprised to hack up a toenail or three.

Wow cool. It does know how to rain properly here. If it really puts its mind to it.

Grey and green, a blend of the same colours, outside my window, and beautiful cool air sweeping through my room, tinged with moisture even though the rain would have to go straight up to actually get in the window, but it was raining that hard.

So, I hear there was a horse race today.

I also hear there was a horse called 'Freemason' who fell over and took everyone else out. See, the Illuminati are in control. How could you have doubted it for a second?

I could handle being a magpie in my next life.

Across from my windows, I see the college next door. On the top floor, all curtains are closed tight against the morning light and the sight of our college. Except one room, right at the end.

If I had a gun, I'd shoot out the windows. Just because.

J^e: "You're nuzzling me with a strange cat!"

(We just had a tea party in front convo. There was coffee (I finally broke my fast and partook again), there were gooey chocolate biscuits (Weston's Chocolate Addictions - on special at Supabarn now and full of yummy goodness!), there was a plethora of stuffed animals. We terrorised everyone who came past. We giggled. B^k sang 'The Greens' featuring Jeremiah as lead vocals, and the Danae-Bear on backup vocals.)

Overheard:
Guy 1: "What're you doing tonight?"
Guy 2: "Nothing much."
Guy 1: "Come up and watch television later."
J^e: "Is this entire conversation a euphemism?"
Me, in best Mae West imitation mode: "Come up and see me some time."
J^e: "We'll have 'coffee'. The line then, of course, is 'I don't drink coffee'."
Me: "Dang. Then we'll just have to cut straight to the sex."

I have no voice. No voice. I have some weird little squeaky thing that sounds like this squirrel handpuppet I have which has a little squeaker box in his chest. His name was Bushy, and we bought him at a fair in Rochester in England in 1990. Well, the original one, anyway. He got left on an underground train in London during the World Cup game between England and Germany that year, while Mum rushed to get us back to the hotel before the soccer hooligans let out. I was inconsolable, so they sent away for another one. Imagine my delight. Anyway, Bushy the second occasionally had to get washed because he got really grotty, and then water would get into his squeaker box. You had to squeak it a lot to get all the water out, but for a little while there, he just sounded really sick.

Well, that's what my voice sounds like now.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to Cafe J^e.

To the person who read and got offended at me. You know who you are, if you're reading this.

Amazingly enough, this site isn't about you. It's about me. It's mine. It's my space and my thoughts and the place I put things I find amusing or noteworthy or things I just don't want to forget so I write them down. It's like some sort of pixellated think-space.

If you go trawlling through that, you're going to find things that I wouldn't necessarily say out loud. You're going to find things that you might not like. And I would have thought you were old enough and intelligent enough to figure that out for yourself. I didn't think I had to put a damn disclaimer on here: "If you know me in real life, don't read this. If you do read it, then I abrogate all responsibility from myself for any offense you may take."

I will not censor what I put in my personal, private space, in order to pander to you.

And that is all I'm going to say about this. I'm not going to rant futher. I'm not going to even mention your name, or give any futher indication as to who you might be. Because like I said, this isn't about you, and I don't care about letting the rest of the world know.

Now, back to the regularly scheduled mayhem.

Wow. Deja vu. Just sitting there, playing FreeCell, listening to my playlist go from the ethereal (hah!) sounds of Massive Attack's "Teardrop" to the slightly self-indulgent, slightly nasal sounds of Incubus' "I Miss You" (they're good, but you can't argue with my claims, you really can't). And all of a sudden I've been here before. Usually it's just sort of inexplicable. Yes, I've been here before. Weird, disorienting, but not known. This time, I could have named the moment.

Only problem is, I'm wrong. Because I remember what I was listening to the first time round, and while Massive Attack might have been on the playlist, Incubus certainly wasn't.

Weird.

What she said: "Why is the world blessed with stupid people?"
What I said: "I believe the verb is 'cursed'."
What I realised ten minutes later I should have said: "Who pissed in your Cheerios now?"

She is starting continuing to annoy me.

Earlier:
J^e: Hey, she called me nitwit, and she just called you incompetent. I think we've got our Dee back!

Look out world, here I come. These drugs are the funky shit, man.

I got a sudden, intense, inexplicable desire to watch Clueless last night. Unfortunately, that appears to be the one movie that H^m doesn't have in his collection. I borrowed Final Fantasy instead, but it didn't work. Eventually, I had to fall back on an old faithful: X-Men.

There's a guy down the corridor who thinks that just because I watch a lot of movies, I have the same taste in them that he does. This is bollocks, since his taste in movies extends only to ones where:

a) A lot of Asian guys do horrendously violent things to each other with guns;

b) A lot of Asian guys do horrendously violent things to eath other with their bare hands;

c) Someone has sex with an Asian woman, and lots of violent things happen in general;

d) The movie is dubbed or subtitled from an Asian language, preferably Chinese, but that's just a beginning point, because it's really only good if there's a lot of amusingly violent things happening.

He keeps offering to loan his movies to me. I keep turning him down politely. I'm sure it would broaden my horizons, but there's some directions I'd prefer them to be narrow, really. And Russel Crowe with schoolkid sideburns fucking an Asian chick and some guy shooting someone else by accident sounds just like one of those directions. Thanks, but no thanks. I'll stick to Clueless.

I'm a chemist all by myself. I'm packing medication from four different people, plus the stuff I bought myself. Lemsip, Asproclear, Panadol, Nurofen, H^m's hard-core zombifying painkillers, Flu nighttime tablets, three different types of throat lozenges. Oh, and my prescription anti-biotics.

So far, none of it is working. My throat still feels like every swallow is sandpaper. My voice is now reduced to a bare croak, too phlegm-filled to even run a good sex line with.

But at least I got some sleep last night, which is better than the two preceeding nights, and hopefully this penicillin crap will kick it soon and start bringing my raging throat under control. Before I stop making jokes about decapitation being the best option and just start looking for the guillotine.

Much thanks to the terrific Matt for letting me know how to get around my little php problem. Hopefully, now, the dotComments work. Let's see...

It works, it works! Hooray. Sorry, all old comments have fled. You'll all just have to comment lots again. (And no, gil, I did not do this purely because you corrected my spelling, and I maintain for many reasons that I was right anyway, but I'm not going to spell them out here because that would just be petty so nyer. Tee hee hee.)

Fuck. It goes like this: BlogBack updates. All my old comments are lost unless I go through one at a time and convert them. I might just do that. But I'm not going to live through this again. So I decide to install dotComments. But then I remember that it needs to be .php for that, and my server doesn't automatically load index.php, for some bizarre reason. So I pause. I vaguely contemplate going looking for .cgi comments of some description. I am too sick to do this.

I'm going to convert the old comments. Muy.

Well, the most recent, anyway. Sorry to the old comment-leavers. It's not that I don't value you, it's just that I raise apathy to an artform.

I like the way FreeCell says: "There are no more legal moves." Like, there are lots and lots of illegal ones, but we're the Card Police, and you're not going to J-Walk right in front of us, are you?

Funniest thing seen all week: Picture of Kim Beazley, the terrifying Leader of the Opposition (terrifying because he might be Prime Minister this time next month) on TV. The television channel's code in the bottom left has been truncated, so that all that is there is a great big "bs". Couldn't have said it better myself. I want that picture. I want it framed and on my door.

Finally, a huge big best wishes and good luck to everyone participating in NaNoWriMo. You all rock, and I am entirely envious. You go, girls and boys. (Shauny, if you need moral support, drop me a line. That goes for just about anyone, actually. I'll only be able to give physical moral support if you're in Canberra, but if you don't mind etheral moral support, drop me a line anyway.)