I've become such a curmudgeon. I'm reading another book, now, but it's not up to my high standards, either. Must every Australian fantasy author write as if to five-year-olds? I'm so tired of See-Spot-Run plots and simplistic sentences. I'm such a bitter, cynical critic.

The Male is in London, getting lost with minicab drivers, and my mother is saying how he should have taken a Black Cab, because those drivers have to have the Knowledge.

Yes, with a capital letter. It's mystic, it's magic, it's something for initiates only. There's a novel in that, and no mistake about it. A cabbalistic, Rosicruician novel.

I've been writing. Actually writing. Hear that, gilmae? Get your little Bundabergian arse in gear, because I'll be a-sending you stuff tomorrow.

Why am I suddenly writing? It's combination of being so bored I could quite happily comb the cat just to have something to do (take away my internet and my ready access to lots of other people and I am a very bored Dee) and the fact that I just finished reading a mediocre-ish fantasy novel. It was one of my Christmas gifts, and it wasn't really all that bad. But it was... bland. It was a small story, just about a couple of people, not involving the fate of the world, or of nations, or even of large groups of people.

I mean, honestly! I read fantasy because it's epic. Big. Broad. Swashboggling. If I wanted to read a story about a handful of people with no real bad guy beyond one petty and very human schemer (who gets thwarted in the end), I'd read Enid sodding Blyton (which I will, don't mistake me, but that's not what I was looking for here). It wasn't even brilliantly written. In the not-so-gran tradition of Australian fantasy, it was very simply told. With grammar mistakes the copy editor should have picked up.

Anyway, the book was The Magicians' Guild by Trudi Canavan. (Yes, the one with the disputed apostrophe, gil.) I'd been looking forward to it, too. I hope my other Christmas books are better.

Flight up: Virgin Blue. Delayed. But good otherwise. Jokes in the safety demonstration meant I listened for the first time in five years. Fellow next to me reading the Hobbit. Fellow across the aisle reading Robert Jordan. My theory regarding the percentage of public reading that is fantasy/sci-fi remains accurate.

Christmas: Family-ridden and enjoyable. I scored a huge pile of reading matter and, most-coveted, Boxing Day tickets to Lord of the Rings. Plus the official movie guide, which I browsed avariciously, increasing my anticipation to a terrible pitch.

Lord of the Rings: Brilliant. Magnificent. Magical. That was it; it put back into the story all the magic that had been present the first time I read it but had subsequently been drowned in pages and pages of grey, bland narrative. But it was there. It was there in Elijah Wood's exquisitely fragile Frodo, who put tears in my eyes on several occasions before the emotion-choking finale. It was there in Orlando Bloom's fantastic Ninja Elf, the Legolas that kicks arse. It was there in Viggo Mortensen's excellent Aragorn, in the delightful hobbits, in the marvellous use of silence in the sound track (which I simply must own) but most of all in Peter Jackson's devotion, dedication, single-minded determination to make this the best movie in the history of everything ever.

You succeeded. Hats off, Mr Jackson.

(Note to this: I went to see the movie again yesterday with Nards and her young man, as their Christmas present, and this time I paid a little more attention, and could tell Merry and Pippin apart easily. Once I'd established the names, their personalities became obvious. Pippin is younger, he's more eager, he's sillier, and always hungry. Merry's a bit grimmer, older, more serious, but obviously devoted to his friends.)

So, that's really what I did on my holidays. How were yours?

(To the "I'm looking over..." tune)

I'm getting over
the worst hangover
that I've ever had before.
The first one was whiskey,
the second was gin.
The third was a beer
with a cigarette in.
There's just no explaining
that last shot of Baileys.
I don't drink that crap at all!
I'm getting over
the worst hangover
that I've ever had before!

(Hope your festivities were merry in every way.)

Soon, very soon, I will be packing everything up and leaving. Then, there will be no more Dee until I reach my parents' computer sometime around about the New Year. Just thought people might like to know.

LOL! Link followed from the TestMeister Mallory: this one was truly worthy.

Take the "What kind of Squirrel am I Test!"

I hate that last half-centimetre of coffee in the bottom, that you forget about and that all the coffee and milo and biscuit crumbs congeal inside so that it's about as thick as sludge can be by the time to remember and tip it up.

Wonder it doesn't land on my nose with a wet plop.

Today I got a mystery package. Addressed to me, no return address. Ooooh, I thought, and shook it, and grinned, but didn't squeeze it, just hurried to open it and see who it might be.

I tipped it up, and pulled out... a cake fork.

???

And then I realised, and collapsed laughing. Last holidays, working with one of the biggest fuckwits to grace the earth, I sent an email to J^e outlining how I could like to disembowel him with a cake fork. She agreed the idea was most pleasant. A little while back, pissed off with the world, I had a bit of a rant to her via email. Her return email made little mention of my rant, but the subject line was: "The cake fork's in the mail".

I didn't think she actually meant it.

So now, I'm not sure what to do. I'm split between sending her an email thanking her for brightening up my day, or pretending nothing happened and just sending her back something fiendish and silly. Except I can't think of anything particularly fiendish, silly and appropriate at this point.

W.O.B.C.O. - the Movie
Scene: the Boss' office. The Boss is a woman who bears a striking resemblance to the Wicked Witch. She's looking stern as Our Hero walks in and closes the door behind her.

Our Hero: Look, about this morning -

The Boss: (holds up a hand) I don't want to hear it. (Stands up, starts to pace as OH stands before the desk.) I mean, didn't we teach you anything? You just can't be that irresponsible with a vacuum cleaner. There are innocent people out there. People we're here to clean for. It's a responsibility. After what happened, can you honestly say that you're worthy of that responsibility?

Our Hero: (staring straight ahead, hands gripped behind her) M'am, I thought I saw a cobweb. I'd swear it was there.

The Boss: (shaking head as she sits down again) And yet three separate witnesses all claim not to have seen it.

Our Hero: I'm a trained cleaner, M'am. It's my job to see dirt others don't.
The Boss heaves a deep sigh.

The Boss: Yes, well, until all this business is cleared up, I think it would be best if you took a break.
For the first time, Our Hero's composure breaks. Her eyes widen slightly, maybe in concern, maybe in surprise.

Our Hero: You can't mean -

The Boss: (holding out her hand) Your keys and your gloves, Cleaner. Our Hero doesn't move, paralysed. I said, your keys and your gloves!
Moving in painful slow-motion, Our Hero pulls a ring of keys from her pocket, unclips their chain from her belt and drops them into The Boss' hand. Even more slowly, she reaches behind her, pulls a pair of purple rubber gloves from her back pocket. She weighs them in her hand, and then, reluctantly, holds them out.

Our Hero: (as the Boss puts keys and gloves into a drawer) Something's going on, here. I'm going to find out what, and prove to you that I'm right.

The Boss: (sternly) Just don't go cleaning anything, all right?

(Only two more days of wobco cleaning duty. I think that's a very good thing.)

For Christmas, I would like a new mouse. There's really no point denying that mine's completely fucked any more.

Click, you bastard, click!

The fanfic section has been redesigned. I finally caved, and decided to let it truly evince my major fixation. Anyway, the fic I finished the other day is up in there, if you're interested. Plus, the links section was reordered and updated. Including gilmae, who had to redesign his site especially for the occasion. Behold the power I wield, all unthinking. Such effort deserves more than a paltry little link in a section no one ever visits, so, y'all, go and visit gilbo.

Four times I was lucky, in response to Jett, and thanks for getting me thinking. Too often, we don't remember our good fortune.

Lucky #1: The God Boots, thus called because we believe they were a message from God. Shopping with J², can't remember what for. We walk past the shoe section, and I see them. Knee-high black suede with a clumpy heel but they're still great. I just have to try them on, though I know they won't fit, because I have skinny legs and boots never fit. There are two sizes - 7 and 7. I'm a 7. They fit perfectly, foot and ankle and calf. They were made for me. I can barely believe it. The price tag says $38, and I'm stoked. We get to the checkout, and they ring up as $25.

"Don't say a word, bitch," J² says, shaking his finger at me.

Lucky #2: Grade 11, I was elected as part of my school's delegation to the regional constitutional convention. I wasn't elected the speech-giver, though. Probably because I wasn't popular - too much of a bitch, even then. However, with three days to go before the convention, I was called up by our organiser, my history teacher, and told that because a private Rocky school had two speakers, we were allowed to have an extra speaker too, and I was it. Take this double period off and go and do some research, write a speech. I wrote it in two days, which is the absolute best way to go into public speaking, still riding high on the adrenaline of composition. It was the best speech I've ever given in my life. I've never again managed to recreate the feeling of surfing on the attention of the audience, of feeding off them and back to them and taking it all to tremendous heights. I won the competition, and got to attend the national constitution convention in Canberra. That was a great experience too, but giving that speech remains one of the highest points of my life.

Lucky #3: Mr Chambers. The single biggest influence to shape my personality and creative life since my parents. He was my grade 9 English teacher, but he very nearly wasn't. For the first term, I had Mr... can't even remember his name now. He was awful. I hated him. With a passion. I went on a crusade, hell-bent on getting out of his class. I almost managed it, too. But then they said: "Look, we'll still move you if you like, but this guy's retiring at the end of the term anyway, so do you want to just stay in the class?" I said yes. And the rest, I guess, is history.

Lucky #4: Teetering between ANU and Macquarie, flipping through accommodation brochures, making decisions based on nothing more than glossy photos and which uni's propaganda had the better grammar, I chose where I am today. And met excellent friends, had life-changing experiences, and encountered the man I love.

That was definitely the luckiest moment of all.

I finished it. Less time than I thought. Good night.

I am going to stay up tonight and finish a fic. If I'm going to waste my bloody writing time writing tripe, I might as well finish the sodding tripe, even if I have to stay up until breakfast to do it.

This could get ugly.

So, if you should happen to turn on your AOL IM and see me still there, drop me a line. Chances are I'll need it.

Cultural morning. Commercial afternoon. Manuscript treasures at the National Library, Rodin at the Gallery.

I crouched down beside the display case that contained a fragment of the Logia Iesus, the Sayings of Jesus. Just a fragment, a third of a page, suspended in glass. It was tiny and insignificant compared to the sprawling maps, the thick pages of the Gutenburg Bible. But it made me hold my breath, because here was part of a document containing gems of Gnostic wisdom. Maybe this page was even part of the Gospel of Thomas. Did it have energy all of its own?

Yes, I am re-reading Foucault's Pendulum. What makes you ask? (And on the way home, I noticed we were travelling along route 23, and I stifled the urge to jump out of the car at the traffic lights and make off with the sign.)

Rodin has always been a favourite of mine. I love the relationship he has with the bronze, and the way he lets us share it. I love the way he pulls forth something different, having tried everything. My favourite? Not The Thinker, not The Kiss; too trite, too popular, too over-exposed and passe. A piece in the first gallery, tucked away at the side. Nothing important. It was called The Call To Arms. A soldier dying, and above him, a vengeful angel, the elemental valkyrie, a spirit of blistering, pure anger, of wrenching grief, of ebuliating victory and eviscerating defeat. The spirit of war.

It was stunning, it was compelling, it made it all worthwhile.

Good morning. I stayed up late last night writing. It felt good. Not writing anything worthwhile, though. That felt bad. I feel a little like life's on hold. Just marking time until Christmas.

I'd better get a move on a do my Christmas shopping, though.

TitaniaFae: Back in a sec... I need a banana.
Maj: okay
TitaniaFae: Back. With banana.
Maj: lol if you were sans banana, I wouldn't be able to talk to you. You know that, right? I only bother to speak to you because of your banana.
Maj: now put the banana on.
TitaniaFae: The banana can't talk. I bit its head off. :-)
Maj: ROTFL
TitaniaFae: I know you only like me for my soft fruit. I've grown reconciled to it.

Some nitwit in Bundaberg (which he describes as "what God had in mind when he created Eden" - I'm laughing as hard as you are, gilmae) has decided that English needs to use a system of phonetic spelling.

Moron.

For starters, phonetic spelling really doesn't make things that much easier, I find. Both German and Arabic are spelt exactly like they sound. Which is all well and good if you can figure out what the sound actually is. It all comes down to word recognition, regardless of how phonetic the spelling is. Only true phonetics (one of the most complex systems I've ever come across) doesn't require much word recognition.

Secondly, he does away with dipthongs (two vowel sounds together). The problem with this is that he seems to think the 'a' sound in 'hair' and 'pear' is the same as in 'eight' and 'invasion'. No. Wrong. Bugger off.

But that's really by-the-by. My biggest problem, the one that makes me want to stop off in Bundy on my way home and shoot this wanker, is that he's ruining the beauty of the English language. My language. My beautiful, beautiful English. Hell, while we're at it, why not just start describing things as 'double-plus good'?

My message to this guy: There's nothing wrong with English. You're just stupid.

Ugg rocks. Basically, anyone who can watch Tank Girl and laugh even more than me is cool. That movie is so underappreciated.

"Ladies, lock up your sons!"

There is no better song to dance like a manic elf to than Happyland's "Don't you know who I am".

I've got really indelicate about showing bra straps in my old age. I used to stress about making sure they weren't showing, or wearing a strapless bra if it couldn't be guaranteed, but those things bloody hurt, and I really just couldn't be arsed any more. My mother would be so disappointed. Then again, maybe not.

Have I mentioned before how much I admire a man who can dance? (Yes, Puss, that would be you.)

I'm stuffed. I'm beyond stuffed; I'm buggered. Good night.

Cleaning would be twice as boring if I wasn't working with the mad girl I am working with.

Sadie: I hope lunch is soon. I'm ravished.

Me: *blink* And... sex makes you hungry?
Sadie: Oops. I meant famished, didn't I? Famished.

After wavering for a goodly long while, I've decided: I actively dislike those chromeless popup window things. I was predisposed to dislike since they're popups, and I hate popup windows. They're unnecessary. Design without them, people. Think outside the box. But chromeless ones definitely no-doubts-about-it require you to have images on. And I don't. Ever. Neverereverer. So they piss me off.

This post was brought to you by five hours of bar work and a Porter. I'm going to bed.

Lunch these days is liquid. Four teaspoons milo, one sugar, one coffee, three-quarters full of machine coffee, and top it up with milk. I'm currently experimenting with adding one teaspoon of hot chocolate as well. Early results indicate a success.

From coffee (practically) virgin to full-on caffiene addict in one year flat. Is this some sort of record?

I went to Challenge in a can, vaguely looking for some fic inspirations, not that I really need another fic on my plate, but Kate's so good with the inspiration, and maybe just a short one...

My challenge was: Mystique, wanting, grass.

Anyone for a Stoned!Mystique fic? Snigger.

Hey ma, look, it's me. Sorta. I had fun playing with dolls. I fiddled with it a bit afterwards too, since she was too busty to be me, and her hair was a weird red, whereas mine is slowly reverting to its natural dust-mud brown. There's still a lot of black in there, though. But the hair's about right now, and the wardrobe was pretty accurate all along. Note spikey collar, fuck-off heels and smirk.

I'm reluctant to answer the phone because if I hear his voice it will just reinforce to me the fact that he's a long way away and going to go further and going to be longer before I can see him again.

Plus I really hate phones.

Meanwhile, to the fucker who left the sand in the 2H bathtub: Up yours. If you're going to come inside with half the volleyball court on yourself, at least have the bloody decency to make a sodding effort to wash it away, and not leave it to dry like cement on the bathtub so that some poor innocent cleaning chick (namely, me) has to scrub at it and get wet and curse your name unto the tenth generation.

If your kids have horns, that'll be my fault.

And now I'm getting spam from Clarice Starling. Doesn't she have better things to do? Like, I dunno, catch serial killers or bond with Hannibal Lecter or shoot something?

KFC now does buckets, so we got one. The girl (who looked about half my age) looked at me like I was nuts as I bounced up and down and chortled with glee at finally getting to purchase a bucket of chicken. We came home and ate it watching reruns of The Nanny and Becker. I love Becker. The show's awful, but the character makes me laugh just by existing.

I spent more time with J¹ today than I think I have in the rest of the year put together. I'm sure he's very happy with his Evil attachment, but sometimes I wish she'd just drop off.

Back home, we have a plastic Christmas tree. Before anyone calls me a heathen or anything, think about it. I live in central Queensland. Conifers? What about a nice palm tree?

In any case, during the year we keep our Christmas tree in a box in the cupboard in the spare room, and about this time of year I drag it out and start putting it together. I'm the only one who can be arsed. I do it because the Christmas tree provides a good rallying point for presents. We can put them all underneath it, and then when it's time to leave for the family gathering in Brisbane, we don't forget any. It's happened before.

I am a decorating-nazi. Each year, I will look through the generations of Christmas decorations we have in rotting old plastic bags, and I will declare: "This year, the Tree will be silver and blue!" Or red, or gold. Those are about the only choices. And then I will drape and hang up and all those sorts of things, standing back to analyse the decoration to tree ratio and move a bauble half an inch south. I'm terrible. Really terrible.

Of course, all my hard work's undone in half an hour when the cat comes in, takes one look at the tree, and attacks it. Plus, never have those fake icicle silver drapy things in a place where 'gale-force' is the usual wind speed.

All of this was brought on by the fact that yesterday Sadie (my partner in cleaning crime) and I had to move the college's small (and real) Christmas tree and redecorate it, since everything fell off in the process. She turned out to be hideously allergic to it, and only found this out after wrapping her arms around it in an effort to keep it upright. See, she declared, tree-hugging only leads to pain.

PS: I had a dream last night in which I met Row. A friend and I were on the run from something or other, and for some reason ended up taking shelter with Row at the place she worked, which was with three other guys, one of whom was absolutely gorgeous, and of course, the bad guy. There was an underground bunker. (What, you want my dreams to make sense? Don't you think that's a little unlikely?)

Up at this hour, the Male safely away on his transport and feeling both melancholy and exhausted, I wanted to interact with someone. But there doesn't appear to be anyone, and I wonder briefly if the world outside my box of a room has ceased to exist. If I turn my head a fraction of a centimetre, I'll see stars and trees and lights out the window and maybe even a person - perhaps that naked guy in the kitchen again - but that would break the spell, so I'm just going to enjoy my universal solitude for a minute.

And then I'll hit Post and Publish.

Toto Coelo. I Eat Cannibal. This is what it's all about. (Or maybe it's all about Joy Division's "She's Lost Control". I'm so fickle.)

Flash of inspiration, and I was going to make an 'Apathy' webring. And then I just couldn't be arsed.

Nipple enhancers? What the fuck? I mean... buh? I don't get it. Obviously, I mean, bloody obviously, I'm missing some vitally important part of modern fashion. I look at this product and I remember my mother telling me about putting bandaids over her nipples so that they wouldn't be seen when she couldn't wear a bra under a dress. My aunt, also on hand, and I looked at each other in horror, and said: "Didn't it hurt when you took them off?"

In any case, I think I have an attitude about nipples like society used to have about women's legs. Yes, I'm sure they have them, but I don't want to know about it and I certainly don't want to sodding see them. Put it away.

And now the Male is leaving, for good, and I don't want him to go.

I really don't want him to go.

We went out last night to dinner, and along the way walked past the cinemas, to see if anything good was on. "Look," he said, "Trent Reznor's getting into movies." He pointed to the Harry Potter poster, to Alan Rickman's bad dye job (man: delicious, hair: nigh on a catastrophe) and I laughed. Later, after a good Italian meal and half a bottle of wine each, we returned to watch the movie itself, deciding that Harry Potter pissed would be an amusing venture.

In the foyer, queueing for tickets, we saw the Lord of the Rings trailer.

Meep!

Jaws hit the floor, and I was reduced to little whiny noises for a good ten minutes.

However, Harry Potter was fun. It misses, of course, all the beautiful subtly and detail of the books. But it was delightful. Mr Rez- ah, Rickman was simply lovely, and the kids were perfect, but one casting decision/acting performance that I'm amazed hasn't received more comment was that of the kid playing Draco Malfoy. How perfect was the little blond smirking snot? He was great!

Him and finally seeing Quidditch were the two absolutely best things about that movie.

After listening not even quite all the way through the new Kittie CD, I think I can finally put in my band order. Like a pizza order, yanno. Now I just have to find some place that delivers.

I want music with good percussion, complex rhythm and a strong bass. Searing guitar is good. Loud, growly, attitude-filled but musical songs; metal with intelligence and class, please. And vocals, preferably female, of the crystalline purity of deep, dark, underground pools.

Lyrics? Who gives a fuck.

Kittie came so close. Why does she insist on snarling like... well, like a waif trying to do a Rob Zombie impersonation? Dozy bint.

Between about 4:30 and 6pm tonight I'm going to be in Starbucks, reading and generally hanging about ruining their image. This is primarily for Puss, so he knows where to find me, or rather, where to find the Ultimate X-Men comic I will be picking up. However, should anyone else care to pop in and say hello, who am I to quibble?

Microwaves tell you recipes to cook in them now? Soon we'll have ones that will go out and do the bloody shopping for you too.

Except for the days when they just couldn't be arsed, and then you'll come home to Chinese takeaway and a note stuck to the microwave door saying: "Don't try anything, I have a headache."

There's something very important I forgot to tell you.
What?

Don't cross the memes.

(Sub/pop culture fun for hours.)

PS: I should have put this up a few days ago when it was official and all, but I've joined up with the inspiration that is Soul Kitchen. It's a group writing blog on weekly topics, and frankly, it just looks like a lot of fun. Have a look. Gives me some inspiration, and somewhere to put my little flashes of writing beyond my 'Facile' bit in the Visible Ego section, which I'm sure no one reads.

Fuck fuckity fuck. Bugger. The university, for no reason other than the fact that last year I worked a total of about twenty hours for the university redesigning a site that was never used, has decided to change my student number. So what, I say. And then I remember that my email address utilises my student number, so off I go to Student Services to ask them if this will change things.

Here's your new number, they say.

Thanks, I say. Now do I have to use it?

You'll use it to collect your pay and to access your ISIS details, they tell me.

Hoo-bloody-ray, I reply. I don't get paid any more and ISIS can bite my big toe. What about my email?

Oh, um, well... we don't know.

At which point I snapped and killed the whole bumbling, inept, useless fucking lot of them with a sharpened paper clip and my newly-collected Gnosticism essay.

They suck. A lot. But hey, I got my results today and I passed everything, and got a 78 in Historical Jesus, which means that since my essay was only a distinction, I probably caned the exam with a big stick. Which is amusing, because I thought it was a rather onanist exercise.

Help! Help! The vacuum cleaner is attacking me!

Wonka's Wicked Chocolate Mudslide. Get some. Now. Not only is it absolutely the best chocolate known to humans in this plane of existence, but they're also doing the five Golden Tickets things. I want a Golden Ticket! I want one now!

(If I was one of the five children from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I'd be Veruca Salt.)

I've gone test mad.

If I were a work of art, I would be Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa. I am extremely popular and widely known. Although unassuming and unpretentious, my enigmatic smile has charmed millions. I am a mystery, able to be appreciated from afar, but ultimately unknowable and thus intriguing. Which work of art would you be? The Art Test

(Hah! This one about made me fall off my chair laughing. I'd rather like to be... I dunno. Monet's Waterlillies, or something. I like Impressionists.)

If I was a James Bond Villain, I'd be Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Once again, I could have told them that without taking the test. They want me to be played by Donald Pleasence, but I prefer the early Blofeld, who had no name, and no face, and was just an arm that stroked a cat. I liked the cat. Nards and I used to declare that the James Bond Cat was the highest form of life.

It occurs to me only now, after all these years of ignorance, that Blofeld (or SPECTRE's No. 1, as he was then) must be what Inspector Gadget's Dr Claw was a take-off of. Oh dear, I feel so slow. But never fear, I get there eventually.

H^m: I talk to more than my computer. I talk to the telephone as well. And even, occasionally, a fax.
Me: I've been known to talk to vacuum cleaners. Usually while kicking them.

H^m: Hey, don't hurt my friends!
Me: Oh, you wouldn't be friends with these vacuum cleaners. They're bad.

H^m: They come from the wrong side of convo, huh?
Me: Yep. And they hang out with rogue irons and those Birko kettles we're not allowed to use.

H^m: Ew. Irons.
Me: Told you they weren't your sort of appliance.

Hitting 'auto-summarise' in Word does interesting things to my novel.

I remember when the Baby Sitters Club started. I remember when the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles started. I remember when I was too old for the movie of the former, and knew the entirety of the movie of the latter off by heart. I remember the thrill when I first truly discovered fantasy, finishing David Eddings' Pawn of Prophecy in two nights with childish glee. I remember when the only way I could read in bed after 8:30 was to do it clandestinely by the light streaming through my window from next door's dining room. I remember when perming your fringe was cool. I remember when wearing knee-high socks scrunched artistically down around your ankles was cool. I remember the 80s were full of stupid fashions like that.

I'm feeling old and memory-lane-ish tonight. DOUG knows why.

Once again, I slept and dreamed. This time, I was heavily involved with some guy who turned out, upon drifting towards consciousness, to be called Mark. My name was Mary. We were very close and very happy, and we shared a room, which kept changing as we moved around in some sort of bizarre complex looking for a better one. We were happy, that is, until his mother showed up, and started being a bitch to me. She wanted to go something, I think feel me up, that sounds about weird enough, and I told her to go to hell. At which point we started having a wrestling match, and of course I took the tramp down! Mark apparently wasn't very happy with me beating seven kinds of shit out of his mother, though, and we broke up. Quite bitterly.

This is what happens when you sleep during the night.

Obviously my subconscious is on drugs.

I'm happy that Lizz is back and now she's filling out interesting surveys that I think I should too, because it looks interesting.

1. What are the 3 rarest cd's/tapes that you own?
Hmm, not sure. Definitely my Zeitgeist promo single CD. I mean, the thing's official, but it's still burnt, with a single computer-printed page insert. I won it at a goth night. Yay me. Second would be, I guess, the Funker Vogt CD "Maschine Zeit", which I also won at a goth night. And after that, I really don't know. Maybe Letters to Cleo "Aurora Gory Alice". Or maybe the Preaching to the Perverted soundtrack.

2. What are 3 most common cd's/tapes you own?
Crowded House's greatest hits album and Metallica's "S&M". Seems like every second person owns those. And maybe Queen's greatest hits. That's a common one. Or Alanis Morissette's "Jagged Little Pill". Yes, I was once a teenage girl.

3. Name 3 movies that nobody will believe you've never seen.
Apocalypse Now, apparently. Everyone who hears now, with the Redux out and all, can't believe that I haven't seen this movie. "Call yourself a movie goddess," they say. Hmph. And I can barely believe I've never seen The Exorcist. No one would ever believe I've never seen Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but that's because I've seen it at least five times...

4. Name 3 movies that you're reluctant to admit you love.
There are none such. Because every movie I love I love for very good reasons that I'm quite willing to expound upon in defense of my selection. I mean, even Tank Girl. I love it. I think it's great. It's just so much fun!

5. 3 authors you've read most (or all) of the work by? (4 if you include JK Rowling).
(Bah. JK Rowling doesn't count; she's only got four books so far.) JV Jones, and I'm dying here; when's the next one coming out, Julie? I've read almost all of Eddings, except The Losers and High Hunt, but that's twenty books anyway, so isn't that enough? What else. I don't know. I've read the entirety of the Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan thus far, and a fair slug of the mediocre Conan books (and I'm still waiting for Conan the Constipated). Plus I've read all of KJ Parker except the first book of the new series, which I'm dying to get my hands on.

6. Your 3 favourite PC games?
Carmageddon, the Carmageddon Splat Pack, and Carmageddon 2? OK, Carmageddon as one game. I loved and adored a game called Pirates! Gold, but it's fairly old now, and runs too fast on my computer to be playable. I don't buy a lot of games these days, but I guess Baldur's Gate would have to be right up there too. It's a great game.

7. 3 blogs you think more people should read?
Mine! Ahem. Sorry. Maura.com isn't really a blog, but I think everyone should read it. Maura has a way with words. Miss Melissa makes me giggle and think. She's great. And I would say Shauny, but everyone reads her already, right?

8. If everyone else answers no to this question, will you too?
Let me ask the committee.

I slept, and dreamed, and dreamt that instead of Melbourne, the Male and I were moving to Sydney, except now we both came from Gladstone. We were looking at a house which was, apparently, the first ever built on reclaimed land. 'New' land, people kept calling it, struck with awe. I didn't understand, and said so, since half of Gladstone is built on reclaimed mud flats. It was a big house, anyway, and kept on getting bigger, the way things in dreams do. It was meant to be a beach house, and then the beach was right behind it, and there was a row of showers and lots of space.

And then there was a showdown of some sort, a strange and morphing experience, as I understood, the way one does in dreams, that the only way Arthur (don't ask, I don't know) was going to emerge victorious was if he got in touch with his feminine side. He managed it, and we all settled down for a celebratory coffee, with water boiled in a saucepan, as some random guy plotted to create a huge corporate empire made of really funky architecture.

This is what happens when you sleep in the afternoon, boys and girls. Let that be a warning to you.

[Warning: the following post contains vitriol, swearing and academic, philosophical drivel. It's not too late to turn away.]

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the gene pool, the Illuminati show up. Not The, just the. They're not really anyone special, they just like to think they are. (Or maybe that's just what they want you to think.)

In any case, I was only amused until I read Prime Directive #6, which states: "No human may hold a superior position unless he or she has obtained degrees in physics and biology. This is because those whom are educated in these fields, posses a higher understanding of reality, and thus posses an advanced/developed mind. Education breeds education and enlightenment."

Fucking bigoted rationalist narrow-minded wankers! Maybe - in fact, definitely - I'm influenced by having just studied at some length the breakdown of the positivist rationalist (ie: scientific) frame of reference as a workable model, but that's a load of tripe. Let's go through a couple of basic points here. One: the Enlightenment Project - science making the world so much better, solving all our problems and making the world into a utopia - fucked up. It created the machine gun, the nuclear bomb, anthrax, etc. The Scientific Dream is a nightmare. Two: Anyone possessing sufficiently advanced studies in Physics would know that objectivity and certainty don't count for diddly-shit in Quantum Physics. In which field there are eight (last time I looked) proven, certain statements of reality, and none of them agree with each other. Three: Oh, just read Nietzsche, you ignorant sods. Or rather, read about Nietzsche. I wouldn't want your heads to explode before you'd learned the point.

Just as a brief concluding, gleeful dance: Maybe if you looked outside your tiny, rationalist box you'd learn how to use English properly. Good fucking grief. The language in this and the rest of the 'Prime Directives' is sodding awful. Grammar is obviously of no use to the Master Bloody Race.

Finally: No human may, hmm? So aliens are exempt? (Yes indeed, there it is, down at #17.) What about carrots then? I have a very intelligent stuffed tiger.

"If I were a character in The Lord of the Rings, I would be Eowyn, Woman of Rohan, niece of King Theoden and sister of Eomer."

Hey, I could have told them that before I took the survey. Eowyn might just be my favourite. If I have a favourite. She's an excellent character, the original warrior chick. And she's in some of the best scenes in the books. The scenes that make me pause and think: Well, maybe Tolkien can write after all, if he puts his mind to it.

Take the test yourself. Link courtesy of Mallory.