I couldn't pass it up.

The Male's lovely father picked me up from the station, and informed me that unfortunately I would have to chill for a bit at his place of employment since he still had a few things to do. No problem, I say, as we pull up in front of the most impressive building I've ever seen in downtown Melbourne. And if you've ever seen downtown Melbourne, you'll know that topping the plethora of churches and gorgeous old sandstone buildings is really quite an achievement. Since he's the biggest cheese, he gets to park right out the front. Right out the front. We swan inside, and I exchange much giggling with his two secretaries (yes, women's most primeval form of communication is the giggle, even I recognise this fact) before one of them shows me up to the library where I will do my aforementioned chilling.

There's a computer. "Feel free to surf the net!" she says.

Like I said, I couldn't pass it up. I'm sitting in a room in the Australian College of Surgeons which contains things like "Operative Surgery" journals, the cutest red armchairs I've ever seen, and some hideously expensive and random pieces of art. I just had to blog.

Meanwhile, notes on the trip down:

• Bacon and egg mcmuffin worth selling my soul for, but the boy on the register just wanted $2.45.
  
• Skanky teenage deliquents of both genders. What is the point of this one trouser leg rolled up thing? Maybe he's just a teenaged Mason.
  
• Some very nice manflesh around, though.

PS: If you're not already reading J^e's blog, you really should be. The girl has class, wit and intelligence. Of course she does, or she wouldn't be my best friend.

So anyway, I'm going to Melbourne for Easter. For no reason in particular. Have fun, eat chocolate. I'll be back in a week.

(PS: Why do they call it the drying room when nothing ever seems to get dry in there? Why not call it the Staying Slightly Damp room instead? Truth in advertising, people!)

My lecturer is the most elegant, well-dressed anarchist in the world. He wears a button-down shirt with matching waistcoat (albeit with the sleeves rolled up). He wears a fob watch on a chain, tucked into his pocket. His hair is short, combed, parted on the right. He's a conservative mother's slightly damp dream.

"As an anarchist, I have a problem with the notion that states are necessary," he says with a tailored shrug. "Oh well."

Hey, I have a blogger code: B6 d t k s u- f+ i o++ x- e+ l c+. And here's me who's always avoided getting codes of any sort (AFE, goth...). Get one too so I don't feel so conspicuous.

My DOUG, I come up fifth on a Google search for guts? Surely there are more pertinent sites about guts out there.

People will join a clique called Restricted to Black that has nothing to do with restrictions, or black, for that matter. Has nothing to do with anything. Is, in fact, completely fucking pointless. But they'll join it in droves.

Definitely going through a heavy-duty sarcasm/apathy 'I hate people' kick. Happy Easter.

Dinnertime conversations involving Zen Constructs of Doom (and Somalia), because There Is No Spoon (tm). Furthermore, a gentleman is not a pot, because you use a frying pan to hit people over the head. Or a bottle. Or a chair, but only if it's wooden. And if you're female and over retiring age, you can use your handbag.

Dude, I'm totally Ferris Bueller!


Who's Your 80s Movie Icon Alter-Ego? Find out @ She's Crafty

And all before breakfast, too.

You know how you're supposed to take the name of your first pet and then the name of the first street you ever lived in, and hey presto get your porn name? Well it doesn't work for me. Because I end up with P.C. Walters, and it sounds like I write gritty crime novels.

More on the dream front; apparently last night everyone was having weird dreams. Must have been the interesting Herb Chicken for dinner. G^v had a dream that involved me, Matrix-style, whipping an uzi out of my coat and strafing the crowd. In the process of wrestling the gun off me, the spotlights above us were shot out, just to add the falling glass to the overall coolth factor.

Please note: if you are going to have dreams involving me, this sort are highly approved. Other good scenarios involve explosives, fighting the forces of evil in suitable attire, and conquering the world using only my toothbrush. Thank you.

Fever dreams, involving my old primary school being taken over by occult forces or something, and then going to Japan, which looked suspiciously like Paris, and being felt up by some radical anti-paper activist in a fluffy restaurant.

It's quite a relief to get up and go and have breakfast, really. No one ever tries to feel me up in the Burgmann dining room.

If you're interested, and I know you are, Hamilton (of Quirkified, my now former hostee) has ceased keeping his site. Hence its lack of existence.

There's a letter on the principal's noticeboard downstairs (which everyone reads all the time, of course) declaring two ex-ressies persona non grata (which is then explained for plebs). Speculation abounds as to what exactly these two did to get this sort of thing done to them. It was thought that perhaps they groped the Staff Tutor's wife (which is a pretty brave thing to do, since I have a great deal of respect for her and that should tell you all you need to know about her), but then someone declared that no, what had happened was that they had organised that stripper that showed up on Toga.

"And that's worse than the entirety of Bruce Hall doing a nudie run through the middle of the dancefloor?"
"Oh, absolutely. They weren't getting paid for that."

PS: In case anyone's interested, I've decided to move all my ranting, raving, brain-storming and drafting of fanfic off this weblog so that the normal people can come here without fear. If you're abnormal and fearless, you can read all about it in my resurrected livejournal. Now with Domino.

Do not meddle in the pants of Wizards, for they are cotton and prone to shrinking. (From the LotR Pants page.)

It's amazing the responses you cen get when you walk into the most middle-of-the-road club wearing a inch-spike dog collar.

Actually, it's fucking annoying, because people seem to take it as an invitation to come up and impale themselves upon it in some sort of misbegotten attempt to pick you up.

So we gave up and went back to the goth night. Final score at the end of the night: J^e: 3, Me: 1. (Although there's some dispute about whether another attempt should count on my score. I maintain sitting two feet away and not saying anything to me does not constitute a pick-up attempt.)

With the bed made and studying dutifully at my desk (not the piled-high computer desk, but the other one), and even with the curtains open, I felt so well-behaved.

Lucky for the Rammstein blaring in the background.

My mother owes me a thousand dollars. Just what I've always wanted to tell her. Muahaha.

On a related note: I hate HECS. But I love living in a country where my university educations costs effectively nothing, or a few thousand upfront. Student politicians who whinge about education being free will be sneered at. With extreme prejudice.

Things of note:

• Blueberry pancakes at breakfast. Since when? Also, reaffirmation: people who fuck with the toaster will all be gone in the first set of purges.
  
• Another 500 words. I feel like a Writer. Yeah.
  
• I'm running perilously close to the HECS deadline. Again. Bugger.
  
• Red shoes still hurt my feet. "But they look so comfortable!" B protests. Yeah.
  
• Goth on a bicycle!!
  
• More Zombie than you can shake a stick at. Should you feel like shaking a stick.
  
• I have a ring. Cheap, slightly tacky, covers the first section of my middle finger. Five bucks. Dinky little bag from oh-so-label store. I am a sellout.
  
• My ears are stuffed! I demand a new pair.

I could grow to like this Honours thing. In response to email sent I receive note from Honolulu; Dr Mac says I ask good questions, and he's off to San Fran and New Orleans. I feel so terribly clever, and maybe I could become an academic, and fly off to happy US places.

Johnny Depp, I tell you. The man is positively indecent.

DOUG save me from academia. I just almost used the phrase 'temporal proximity' in an email.

Just to clarify to whoever this is relevant to:

Just because I listen to loud and angry music - Metallica, Kittie, Rammstein, Weissglut, Rob Zombie, Marilyn Manson - it does not, ipso facto, follow that I adore Tool, want to have Maynard James Keenan's babies, or will be shelling out hideous amounts of money to go to the concert next month. I don't want to go with you. Yes, I'm feeling OK. Don't look at me like that, or I'll rip your nose off.

No, I don't think Tool are the best band in the world. I think they're long-winded, too impressed by their own importance and don't produce anything that I could listen to frequently with any sort of equanimity. The occasional song is decent, in small doses, and with the seven-minute intro cut off, fried in pig fat and slapped between two bits of bread.

The more rational, reasonable explanation I give is that Tool are too 'alternative' for me. Too Seattle, still, too light guitars and experimentation. I like my music hard, fast and fun.

Thank you. That is all.

It is very dark in my room, with dusk settling outside and the curtains closed besides. I feel I should be quiet, hushed, still, so as not to disturb this perfect not-quite-dark.

So the all-nighter's over, and there's so much clarity to viewing dawn from this side. I feel the sleep deprivation not at all, which might have something to do with the fact that I spent all afternoon in bed, having aforementioned weird dreams involving motorcycles.

Bridget Jones' Diary was fun. I spent most of the time rolling in the bottom of my seat in agony over Bridget's antics or poor Colin Firth's rehashing of previous triumphs, but it was still fun. It certainly had its moments.

Swordfish didn't, I think, gain anything from being watched totally sober. Hugh Jackman is always good value for money. John Travolta is an ugly little man with issues and no talent, however.

Pulp Fiction was... dull? Long-winded. Slow. Interesting, indisputably. Classic in parts, and possibly in whole. But boooooooring, nonetheless. (Mind you, so much of the Male's dialogue now makes sense.)

From Dusk Till Dawn is always something special. How on earth do you come up with that notion? Did Rodriguez say: "Hey, violence and exploding corpses and vampires; shit yeah! But you figure out how to get them to the bar, man." Or did Tarantino start writing, and just decide things were getting too fucking boring?

The Faculty: still wonderful fun. Giggling joyous fun, especially at 5am. ("Elijah Wood's in this?" one viewer said, reading the box. "Yeah," I replied. "He plays the fragile little one who everyone picks on... big depature from his Frodo role, really!")

I am a diseased little person. Not a happy camper. One bad thing about living in college; mass diseases. Bleurgh.

(But it does mean that when I crawl into bed in the afternoon I get to have weird dreams involving me having a motorbike.)

Reasons for not celebrating St Patrick's Day:

1. I don't wear green.
   
2. I'm not Irish, I'm Welsh (the bits of me that aren't Australian, that is).
   
3. I'm not Christian, and certainly not Catholic, so why should I celebrate one of their Saints?
   
4. What he did to get canonised was 'drive the snakes out of Ireland', which basically means he got rid of the native, Celtic-pagan religion. I don't stand for shenanigans like that.

Reasons for celebrating St Patrick's Day:

1. I like Guinness.

Plus someone posited the reason: "Because you can get pissed."

My response was: "I'm Australian; I can get pissed any day of the year."

Just saw Chocolat. Wonderful. Magical. Giggling-happiness.

I want a Johnny Depp for Christmas. Please? I'll be good.

"Think of it like this," I said, waxing lyrical. "Relationships are like rubber bands. If they're stretched tight, then when you cut them the ends are going to fly everywhere. But if they're just sitting there, not getting worked, then when they're cut, you barely notice the difference. And at the moment, we're all just ducking so we don't get our eye taken out by a bit of ballistic rubber band."

Scrabbling around for my 'Superpower Inventionism in the Middle East' course guide, thinking: "Damn, I hope I didn't send it to Meghan in her Mystery Package."

Fortunately, I didn't. It was just hiding under the chair with my Empire Magazine collection, and assorted other intellectual junk.

I am having weird, weird, weird dreams these days, and would very much appreciate it if my subconscious would just stop now, thank you very much.

But I made a princess, and she married the Prince, and lived disgustingly happily ever after. So see, I am a good mother after all.

Now I'm going to shoot my Snoopy in the head with sucker gun.

J^e: Did you just get invaded by a rubber band ball?
Me: Yes.
J^e: Have you surrended yet?
Me: No. I evicted it by the sheer force of my ignore.
J^e: Wow.
J^e: Japan should have tried that.
Me: They should have.
Me: Nuke? What nuke?
J^e: I didn't see a nuke, did you?
Me: Nope, no nukes here.

Your mission, should you choose to be silly, is to go back in time and kill Che Guevara before that stupid photo that everyone wears plastered on their chest was taken.

I just want to see what people would wear instead. Somehow I can't see crusty old Castro becoming a pop culture icon.

The Others. Fantastic movie. I might even be able to stand a second viewing, and DOUG knows, I hate suspenseful movies. You know how some people just love that feeling of entrail-knotting anticipation? Well I don't. In fact I downright loathe it. But this one had an ending worth the stomach-ache, even if they did belabour it a little. And the suspense was really damn well done.

Can you believe some bastard's probably stolen Pulp Fiction from the local video store?

We really wanted it too. It segued so nicely into our planned all-nighter. Bridget Jones' Diary, linked by 'the Hugh Factor' (it's tenuous, but we were grasping) to Swordfish, which then leads through John Revolting to Pulp Fiction, thence obviously via director to From Dusk Til Dawn and ending up in the wee hours with The Faculty, which evil, evil Meghan has implanted in my brain.

What on earth fits in there apart from Pulp Fiction? (Before you suggest it, Res Dogs is also iffy.)

Oh, the trials of my life!

If you were my Muse, where would you hide? I've looked everywhere, even under the bed. Bloody thing's probably pissed off to the south coast of France again.

I really like the look of this new comment system thing. The question now becomes: could I be arsed to change?

Now taking bets.

I have an absolute plethora of Marilyn Manson. I gave in. Strange little man.

Completely unrelated: boursouflure; it's French for 'blister'.

(I don't like the drugs, but the drugs like me...)

There is a magazine called American Cheerleader. Really. G^j's cheerleading troupe in Montreal gave her a subscription for Christmas, and the latest issue just arrived. So much squealing was heard, you'da thunk Johnny Depp just walked past. Naked.

Excuse me, I have to go and read about how to add a twist to my drab old ponytail.

I should make random pleas like that more often. I get mail and IMed and contacted all over the place. I'm just an attention slut, I proudly admit it.

If you care, Scott's smutting is moving along quite nicely. 'Twouldn't be gentlemanly to say more.

In other news, I'm growing far too enamored of wearing lipstick on a daily basis. Sure, it's fun, and I like how it looks, but I think this is a horrible symptom of some sort of developing girliness. Soon I'll be giggling, wearing glitter and getting my navel pierced. Fuck that.

Situation, frame 1: Have sudden urgent need to write Scott smut.

Situation, frame 2: Have no idea how to go about writing smut, as have never really done it before. All fic ideas are currently huge and/or stalled.

Situation, frame 3: Begging for help from anyone who happens to be reading. IM me, email me, fly a paper aeroplane through my window (although that would be a little scary).

Z just made a princess. Without really trying, she turned out to be a concubine. Which, really, I think is a step up from a chef, which is what she was going to be halfway through the game. I wanted her to marry the prince, but she kept running away from home.

Yes, I'm bored. I have very little to do.

I also read an article in B's New Scientist about quantum thingummy, and Schroedinger's cat and all, and how some chap wants to do away with it, because it's all uncertain and icky. Scientists are no fun, I tell you. What's wrong with a bit of quantum? They just need to do more hardcore drugs. Then they'd understand how something could be in two places or states at once.

J^e, about whom you have previously heard me wax lyrical, has started a blog. It's called Name, rank and serial number and it's full of sarcastic, witty J^e goodness. Well, maybe not full. She's only just started, after all. But there's quite a healthy dollop of aforementioned goodness, at least.

I have "Bored now" written on the back of my hand as a direct result of my seminar this afternoon. Twenty is far too big a group to seriously discuss anything, let alone politics. The best you can hope for in a group of twenty is for a few loud and opinionated people to hold forth extensively using big words like 'modernity' and 'multilateralism' to make themselves look important and remind all of us that seminar participation is worth ten percent of the class.

The problem is that towards the end I actually managed to get a word in edgewise, and in the process of making hand gestures to emphasise my point, had to also make sure to hide the graffiti on the back.

Next time I think I'll wear black lipstick so I can sneer with full force. Or at least dark fuck-off burgundy.

Boy Scout Snoopy is attacking my phone with his little red paddle. This isn't nearly as scary as his hideous purple hat. Any more hats like that and he'll have to become Gay Icon Snoopy instead.

Come to think of it, why don't they have one of those in the first place?

Hello all. I am back from Melbourne, to which rapturous city I absconded on Friday. Hence the silence. You didn't even notice, did you? Witness my distress.

The purpose of my flying Melbourne visit was so that my parents and the Male's parents could meet. Enough said, really.

I also went into the city, shopping with the fellow, so that he could get some new work clothes. He's working as a lawyer. Doing his articles. He's been there a whole week, and is already talking yuppie-lawyer-speak. I tickle him every chance I get. During this shopping trip, I felt vaguely like I was accompanying some standard female acquaintance, as he hmmed and ahhed between this shade of purple and that brand's shade of purple, each for horrid sums of money, and checked which went better with what tie.

I told him he should get more shirts, because everyone will have seen them already, darling.

I also told him he should get a red shirt, but he declined, saying that it was too red.

I said: "That's the point, stupid."

Him: "Do you know Del's number?"
Me: "No."
Him: "Do you know who might know his number?"
Me: "No."
Him: "If you were looking for his number because you thought he was the most gorgeous guy in the world and you wanted to have sex with him, who would you call first?"
Me: "A psychiatrist."

"This is disconcerting," he said, and lifted my sunglasses off my nose. "Hi."
"Hi," I replied, and whimpered. "It's bright out there."

Yes, I am a vampire. No, I will not turn you into one too.

I had the worst night's sleep in the history of anything, ever. I seriously considered just getting up and doing something useful, like alphabetising my underwear. I've been sleeping fairly badly for a little while now. And I'm not eating terribly well either. I'm just off food. If I didn't know me better, I'd say I was pining.

As it is, I do know me better, and I have absolutely no idea what's going on.

Making the lives of McDonald drive-through workers more random counts double, because they need it more than most mortals.

Ipso facto I am a goldfish. I can't remember what came before that that proved it, but just about anything fits in. It makes everything more interesting. Like suffixing any sentence with "I tell you".

I'm going to bed with Strider, I tell you.

I just received a one-line email with a twenty-line sig. Gotta love people who work for legal firms.

Hey y'all, check us in the news! Yes, the shenanigans of yesterday did not go unnoticed, and there's a spiffy photo of the Burgmann College sign surrounded by coppers in today's Canberra Times. (Website now working, but our little story didn't make it in, so I can't show the world my fame. Maybe it's a conspiracy.) Page 4. Right in the middle.

The 'story', however, is barely three lines of caption. There was an assault charge. Police came. Then they left. The Principal said nothing.

Hell, we knew that already.

The serious shit is happening right here. There are cops crawling all over the place, forensics people in our laundry and the press are descending like the proverbial vultures. Anyone in Canberra who has access to news, please let me know what's going on, if you hear any mention of the ANU or Burgmann, because I have no idea what's happening. No one's telling us anything. Apparently having us all scared out of our minds with uncertainty and wild speculation is better than letting us know what the fuck is happening in our own place of residence.

"Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for a late pizza."

All the best advice is found on doors in college.

Today I like, in no particular order:
- long skirts
- boys wearing eye make-up
- coffee
- not standing in queues to speak to someone who can't help me anyway.

At this point, there is nothing worse than getting huge, monstrous, European-peace-threatening, Fat-Bob-worshipping hair, and then discovering there is apparently no hairspray in the entirety of college.

Say no to purple lace bodices and two-layered skirts. Say no to funky rings and sinful neckwear. Say no to the works of Lenin (volumes 1, 2 and 3). Say no to an exquisite green leather armchair in which I could be the British politican of my choice. Say no to two separate incidents of black slips with decadent splits and transparency.

But I did buy a long, gorgeous brown skirt and an Ultimate X-men comic, so I suppose I'm not a complete disaster.

I was going to say something really interesting here, but now I've forgotten. This is happening to me a lot recently. I'd be worried about this, but that's too much trouble.

Yesterday I bought a tie. It was pretty blue and only cost two bucks and I don't have a tie, so I thought I might as well get one. I even have plans to wear it. Once the weather gets cold enough to warrant long-sleeved shirts.

Yesterday I also went to get a new student card. I could just revalidate the old one, except that I did some ten hours work for the uni a couple of years back, with the result that they have changed my student number. Anyway, wandering past I notice the queue, previously stretching halfway to Civic, is down to about two dozen people. I hop on the end with glee, only to be told by a vague, blonde bureaucrat that if I don't have a time voucher, I'll have to take one now and come back when it says so. It said Tuesday.

I looked at the voucher, looked at the blonde, looked at the queue... and walked away.

Three cheers for Apathy. Hip, hip... ah, stuff it.

Is there any way to verbally reconstruct the burn with which the soul is ignited by the presence of creative, inspirational genius?

(Prompted by Aragorn, music, Johnny Depp in chronological order. And that's just today. Life is beautiful. Art is more so.)

I'm at it again. Rampant political sarcasm warning.

Look out Saddam, the US of A is on the way? Oh dear. I suspected this might be coming, and really, really hoped it wouldn't. I still hope it doesn't eventuate. I tell you, a cynic is just a frustrated optimist.

Let's take it from the top of this article, which I actually do agree with in general tone. Mostly.

The US aim in rampaging into Iraq, in addition to getting rid of that git with the moustache, of course, would be to demolish "once and for all Iraq’s capacity to produce nuclear, biological and chemical weapons." Because in this day and age of rampant global capitalism, where you can buy just about anything on the black market, it's the ability to produce them, not the will to use them, that's the really important factor. And, say, an aeroplane isn't at all a dangerous weapon.

The US isn't sure whether it can feel safe "as long as regimes such as Saddam’s are left intact." Whereas I would say the US isn't going to be able to feel safe until it stops pissing people off by sticking its big nose in where a huge number of people think it has no right to go. Anti-US-intervention terrorists strike, and what does the US do? Intervene. Can anyone else see the problem here?

Coming out from this article (and the one on the previous page of the newspaper about the US gaily waltzing into Georgia as the Russians sputter in disbelief), I get a vivid image of the US as a man who has been stung by a wasp in his house. Now he's pissed off, and staggering around the place, waving a rolled-up newspaper and trying to hit the elusive culprit. It's all well and good, but sooner or later he's going to break a really expensive vase, and then the shit's going to hit the fan.