NaNoWriMo starts at midnight. Do you know where your novel is?

It's kinda cool when I walk back from uni and then I take the stairs two at a time, and when I sit down in my chair and check my email, my legs are doing this sort of sparking, tiny twitches thing that reminds me of when you turn off the car engine and the metal goes "tink, tink, tink" as it cools down.

What's not cool is that I walked all the way over to uni to see the supervisor and the fucker wasn't there.

Point the first: Sometimes I am just such a snoop.

But only sometimes. Most of the time, I just couldn't be arsed caring less.

Point the second: The news is out. Beckery and her toy is now public domain. I've never seen anyone look quite so picked-upon as the gentleman in question did at lunch. It's only 'cause we love you, P^h. Honest.

Well, that and it's really, really fun.

(Appendix: These two points have nothing to do with each other, incidentally. And being a snoop rarely pays off. Some people are so boring.)

From the Spam Files:

"I think there may be issues with your septic tank."

Well, yes, there are. Lots of issues, and they're not going to be easy to resolve, but for the sake of the children, I'm going to try, dammit.

Most meaningful declaration I've made today: "I want to mud-wrestle Trent Reznor!"

(This statement brought to you by Rach's spanky little sex toy lap top.)

Note to self: Don't start reading your email until after you've done up all the buttons on your shirt.

That wasn't a meeting. It was a more genteel sort of lynch mob.

Fucking hell. That was a few smug individuals working the crowd up into a frenzy with strategic half-truths and clouded perceptions. That was a careful selection of data guaranteed to gain the maximum response from easily-persuaded imbeciles.

And it fucking pisses me off.

Basically, the student president of the college is attempting to organise an ambush of the principal. How the fuck she thinks this is going to advance her cause is beyond me. Her entire politics is aimed towards making a big fuck-off divide between the principal and the students. How the fuck is that helpful?

Maybe, just fucking maybe, we should be trying to promote the concept that the principal and the students can work together.

Maybe, just fucking maybe, instead of writing some fucking document telling him how to do his job better, we could negotiate with him a better concordance of his job and our situation.

This is not a zero-sum game. One side does not have to lose. But if she goes on like this, both sides are going to be burnt. And it's not going to be pretty.

She said: "They think we're basically just whingers with personal problems who don't represent the students' views."

Well, that's certainly what I think.

Bizarre text bytes you find doing a Google search:

"Toni Evans saw me making a Crisp Packet Triangle on a coach once. She wasn't impressed,
so I killed her. Toni dyes her hair a different colour once an hour and..."

Don't look at me. I just blog here.

Last night, dreaming away, I had a Special Honours Project. It was colouring-in. I was very upset, because they only gave me five colours to use, and how on earth was I supposed to manage it with that? So I talked the other wenches into going shopping (that was really difficult) but we got lost and got stuck on the wrong side of the lake.

And then things got really weird.

Hello, I'm young, intelligent, and I hate the world.

It's just been that sort of day. Week. Term. People seemed determined to be as fucking moronic as they possibly can be. And I'm out of tolerance, patience, clean socks and other nice things like that. I hate the world.

So certain elements of the House Committee should not feel special. There are lots of things I hate more than them. The Honours Convener. Herman "Thinking the Unthinkable" Kahn. HGH spammers. Everyone who uses the acronym RMA in academic writing. Britney Spears. It's just that these certain elements of the House Committee are the closest stupidest things.

Plus, they have bad grammar, unlike the convener, the academics and Kahn, but very much like the spammers and Britney. Moreover, they're within my power to thwart. And you know how I am. I see a wile, I thwart.

I'll give that one a big three points. Whimsy.

So, yeah, I guess this sort of serves as a heads-up to the House Committee. Whatever nefarious stunt you're trying to pull with this "Extra-ordinary Meeting" shit, you'd better beware, because, well...

Well frankly, I'm out to get you.

What I'm suffering from is Schroedinger's Supervisor.

It works like this. My cat supervisor has been put in a box this whole going overseas (specifically, to Romania) issue. He's been gassed seeking legal advice, and he may have to stay. Until the box is opened situation is resolved, I'm in a state of limbo. My cat supervisor may or may not be dead be fleeing the country.

Quantum Academics. I quite like this analogy, since if you squint, it involves gassing my supervisor.

The problem: My supervisor was planning on going overseas for most of November, which made problems for the whole me writing thing. He's now been pretty much told by the uni that he has to stay and supervise. Which fucks his own research entirely. So, motherfucking huge pressure on me to be ready to submit in exactly one week's time.

Not fucking happening.

The answer: Screaming loud vampy goth music, yelling my lungs out, in a huge effort not to put my foot through something large and expensive.

What I want to know - the question that is really burning in my brain - is how, with just a careless toss over my shoulder, I managed to get the screwed-up scrap of paper into my boot. Especially considering there's already a sock stuffed into the boot. But somehow I managed it. Obviously, I have hidden talents.

I'm also tired, depressed, stressed and not very eloquent these days. Sorry folks. Bear with me.

Just saw House of Mirth. Shall now go around fluttering my fan (I have one!) and looking out from under my eyelashes (or a veil if I can procure one) and speaking Significant Things in a well-modulated tone. And, in general, being thoroughly Edith Wharton.

(Why are her heroines always such tremendous idiots?)

Thanks to Puss for finding this one.


What kind of Goth would you be?
brought to you by Quizilla

You're a Velvety-Mopey-Goth! You're wardrobe isn't condusive to heat, water, or the natural range of human movement. People may think you're cheesy, but you know it's just because their infantile minds can't fully comprehend the insurmountable anguish of your existence.

(Fuck yeah. No one knows how much I suffer. Especially when people use such fucking awful grammar!)

I'd also like a T-shirt with a great big yellow happy smiley face, and then underneath: "I hate myself and want to die."

Whimsy, I tell you. Fear me.

Deep inner need to put my fist through something.

I love the using the phrase 'partaking in armed violence'. Like partaking in tea, only messier, and with fewer crumpets.

A wise man doing his Honours thesis once said:

Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaark!

I second the motion.

What Paranoid Conspiracy Theory Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Uh?

Sometimes it makes me really sad that I'm not four years old any more and I can't pull my skirt up round my ears and run around in circles screaming until I fall over.

"Dee! Look like you're 20 again!"

That shouldn't be too hard. (Hang on, they're going to make my hair long again?)

Apparently I could have been on the tutorship selection committee.

It's just blowing my mind a little. Anything that involves me being in a position of authority and responsibility tends to do that.

On a totally unrelated note, amusing four-word phrases to use for description of myself:

• Fuck this right off.
  
• Not for individual sale.
  
• Less talk, more bitch.
  
• What does this do?
  
• Give me coffee now.
  
• You are unworthy, mortal.
  
• Once more, with apathy.
  
• Pause of the Cheetah.
  
• Dee will be fine.

I've lost my purple pen, and skipping around the room shrieking: "Bitch!" doesn't seem to be helping me find it.

I tell a lie. I just found it.

I'm lost.
And these shadows keep on changing...

(Haunted - Poe)

Jokes really shouldn't be this easy.

Him: What are you talking about?
Me: Ibid.
Him: What does that mean?
Me: What I said before.
Him: I didn't hear what you said before.
Me: No, that's what it means.

It kinda freaks me out that I can walk into my room and not notice until five minutes later the wad of paper that was pushed under my door and has been sitting in the open doorway the whole time.

It's practically snowing outside, the fluff is falling so thick and fast. Good time to be inside, since nothing tastes worse than fluff on the tongue.

I have caved to the Nanowrimo pressure. I'm going to do it. Try it, at least. I figure something else to focus my time on might be a good thing. Stop me playing so many damned computer games in between the thesis writing. So, yes. I'll do it if Jen does it. Then we can suffer together.

This is going to be a spectacular disaster. I can tell.

Great. Now I have two ideas for a Nanowrimo novel, and I can't do it even more than I couldn't do it before, because I'm diseased and five days (and counting) behind whatever tentative schedule I'd set for myself.

Anyway, unless you have a good excuse like the Impending Thesis of Doom, you should be doing Nanowrimo. And if you're in the 'Berra, and doing it (come on, all the cool kids are. Except me) you should sign up for Rach's spanky mailing list. Because they're doing cool shit like swapping writing soundtrack mix CDs and a whole heap of other stuff I wish I could do.

Fuck it. Why do they always have to put this thing on in November? Why the hell couldn't I have got my thesis in on time?

However, the (only) good thing about being diseased is that I seem to be the Goddess of this cold. Seriously. I have no idea who I got it off, because I wasn't around anyone sick in the week prior, but suddenly everyone in college has it. Bwahaha! I will bring you all down! All shall love me and despair. Or sneeze, at least.

For no apparent reason, two entirely separate people have quoted the same Winston Churchill line in the past twelve hours.

What is this, Nancy Astor appreciation day? Why didn't anyone tell me?

I'm forced to conclude that ducks have some sort of communical baby-sitting network, since I can't imagine any pair of ducks actually having as many ducklings as I saw puddling about the front lawn this morning. There were at least a dozen of them, and only one couple of harrassed-looking ducks minding them.

Also in my perambulations this morning, I encountered the acme of coolth in ACT number plates: YES 51R. It's a real number plate - not a special order one or anything.

Well, it amused me for an entire block. Maybe I'm just getting simple-minded in my illness.

Of course, now it's stopped raining and the sun is shining brightly. Gotta love this town.

I just don't understand how I could sprint ten metres in the rain and get that wet.

There was hail, too.

I think I'm all vampire movie-ed out.

Blade II. Frankly, I'm just embarrassed by this movie. A few odd moments of coolth - half of them recycled - were forlorn and lost amidst the general action shite. Awful performance from Wesley Snipes, miserable support cast. With one stark exception in the delightful Skud, who then got royally shafted in the characterisation department. Frankly, woeful. I came out of it with a deep desire to watch the first one and cleanse myself.

But I didn't. Instead, I watched Queen of the Damned. Which I thought was much better, and that just tells you how crap I thought Blade II was. Much of the worth of this movie comes from: A) the music. I think I'll be purchasing the soundtrack very shortly; and B) just how fucking edible Stuart Townsend looks in leather pants and very little else.

Mmm. Yes.

Two further notes, before I pass out from exhaustion:

What I expect in a vampire movie is atmosphere. Be it the over-the-top sensuality of Anne Rice's creations, or the slightly dirty artisticness of the first Blade, it has to be there. Vampire isn't a plot concept, it's a creative premise. Blade II had none. And that's why it bit. (Uh, pardon the pun.)

The concept of Stuart Townsend as Aragorn is not entirely without merit. Of course, Viggo is Aragorn, and anyone else is just a stupid idea. But, having now seen the boy in action, yes, I see it. He's too young, too fragile, looks occasionally more like Frodo than Strider. But there's something there. In ten years time, five even, he would have done it a great deal of justice.

PS: Aaliyah was only a year older than me. Shit.

I'm getting Santa spam now. Is nothing sacred?

For future reference, for myself and others, Project Omni can be found here. (Half a dozen insane guys destroy their car with painstaking methodology and a side order of class.)

The funniest thing I've seen today.

(Pong. Not just a game any more.)

Thanks, Jem.

I'm so talented. I can have a sneezing fit in time to the music. In time to Lacrimosa, even.

Just call me C-3PO. I'm incoherent in six billion forms of communication.

Jen's brother's novel came to me on a little CD, exactly the size of a floppy disk in its little case, but looking a lot more like it's the secret plans to a nuclear installation. It's terribly cute.

I had a nap. I had a dream. I threw a guy under a bus. Well, he did try to shoot me.

Fuck. When did it get to be Thursday already?

Meanwhile, when did I become capable of discussing the intricacies of international relations theory over the breakfast table? I'm officially impressed with myself.

Quote of the day - P^h: I think I sprained my literacy.

Late night I went to see Reign of Fire. I'd like to tell you about it, but I've always heard that if you didn't have anything nice to say, you should just shut the fuck up.

So, yeah, maybe it wasn't actually that bad. The plot wasn't entirely predictably stupid (just mostly) and the actors actually did pretty well with their 2-D characters. Moments of coolth:

• The Star Wars bedtime story for the kids.
  
• Van Zan (gratuitous Vin Diesel character) and his motherfucking axe.
  
• The concents of aforementioned Van Zan's hip flask.
  
• Crawly slithery dragon, which is so much cooler than flying raptor dragon.

I think Dungeons and Dragons might even have been better. At least it had a lot more fun and Justin Whalin for eye-candy. Bare Christian Bale flesh was nice, but not nice enough.

Fucking fire alarms. Look at that time. Just look at it, already. Fuck this.

Why am I typing this? Why haven't I gone back to bed already?

Strange fits of procrastination lead us to the creation of such bizarre things.

Huh? Sherlock Holmes was a morphine and cocaine addict? Why doesn't anyone ever tell us these things?

(Completely gratuitous paternal adoration post.)

I love my Dad. He's wonderful. Funny too.

(End filial piety.)

Just for the record, even though few have any idea what I'm talking about:

I will never cede the field, but I refuse to participate in this popularity contest.

Hey, there are people coming back who I, like, actually want to interact with. It might be time to start leaving my door open again.

It's amazing how my enjoyment of some people's company is greatly reduced by the company of certain other people.

If I was Bec, I'd think about writing a mathematical equation to represent this phenomenon.

I'm not.

Oh damn, that was fun. I haven't had a proper night out in so long. I mean a night out of my preferred ilk, with a danceflor with space to move on it, and music I actually want to dance to. A lot of the regular gothers weren't there, including all the ones I actually wanted to catch up with, but there were a heap of my fellow residents, which was a pleasant surprise.

And I danced. I danced for an hour straight after I arrived, when I was sure the DJ was trying to kill me by playing fantastic song after fantastic song. I danced in the seventies punk set in the middle stages, when I declared: "Soon they'll play the Sex Pistols, and it's just all down hill from there" and two songs later, it was Anarchy in the UK. And I danced when things started to get loud and funky again at the end. I danced to Faith No More. I danced to Nine Inch Nails. I danced to The Cure.

I got to meet Jem. We danced to Aphex Twin and VAST. He is cool.

I had a great time.

There were three random pick-up attempts. Well, two and a half. One was mostly harmless.

My knees are killing me. Maybe it's time I just admitted I'm getting old and stopped prancing about the dancefloor like a squirrel on speed.

It occurred to me (yes, it just occurred to me) that if I was two days younger, I'd be, like, the Chosen Child of the Illuminati. As in, next year I'd be turning 23 on the 23rd May, 2003.

Damn.

Lynda: I'm not being unreasonable, I'm keeping my cool. All I want is simply for this person to be removed from the studio and shot dead.

Memorable quotes from Press Gang! (I love IMDB.)

The Friday Five gets shoe-obsessed.

1. What size shoe do you wear?

Circa 7-7.5 B. B because it denotes a narrow foot, like my wallaby-trotters. Family curse.

2. How many pairs of shoes do you own?

Lemme just go count... um, five in fairly regular wearing, plus three others for odd occasions.

3. What type of shoe do you prefer (boots, sneakers, pumps, etc.)?

Boots! Um, well, sort of. I really like boots. A lot. I mean, yeah, I have three pairs. But frankly, I prefer slip-on-and-go sandals. I'm that apathetic.

4. Describe your favorite pair of shoes. Why are they your favorite?

Well, that'd be Loki and Bartleby, my newest acquisitions. (And this comes as no surprise to anyone who knows me.) They're business boots: flat, solid, good quality. Come about a third of the way up my calves, lace-up, plus there's two straps and buckles on each one. They're black, with red-orange flaming at toe and heel. They be way cool.

5. What's the most you've spent on one pair of shoes?

Aforementioned Loki and Bartleby. They cost me circa $270. And were worth every last cent.

And because I think it's an important question:
5 and a half. What's the least you've spent on one pair of shoes?

Well, technically, I didn't spend anything at all on them, because they were a present from Jen's mother, but had I been buying myself, they would have only cost $4 anyway. And yes, I'm talking about the insanely high white strappy heels. (I like to call them Bambi and Thumper.)

Y'know, I think that suicide bomber franchise idea might not have been as stupid as it sounded.

"Oh, I'm supposed to be taking this seriously? I should probably remove the slinky from around my neck, then, right?"

"Yes, and putting down the fan would be good, too."

"What the hell is that on your hand?"

"Plucked eyebrow hairs."
"They look like insect legs!"

Sometimes, I have this bizarre urge to rip my own ribcage open.

Hey, I don't know, I just live in this body. You think I know what's going on?

The supervisor doesn't like my grammar. Specifically, my misuse of commas.

That may actually be the first time in my life anyone other than my mother has seriously corrected some technical aspect of my writing. Shock, thy name is Dee.

However, he pretty much did like everything else. I almost flinched when he handed the first chapter draft back, and when he said: "It's good. Maybe just a paragraph on the end linking it into the whole?" I almost melted into a relief-tinged puddle of Dee.

But he has a really nice carpet, and I didn't want to mess it up.

Dear Diana,

Your extension to 30 November is approved.

William

Oh thank god. I was starting to get a little nervous, there.

Went to the movie. The Bourne Identity. And now it's official: nothing is ever going to make me truly covet Matt Damon. Dogma couldn't do it, and if anything was going to do it, it was this movie. I mean, we all know the willingness to desire I hold for any sort of hard-assed bastardly, dangerously competent character. But the fact remains that Matt Damon retains this core innocence that he just can't shake.

Plus, what's with his nose?

But anyway, great movie. Great blockbuster-novel movie, so a lot of fun, and moderately decent storyline. Franka Potente was way cool. And there was still Clive Owen, at his stoic, smouldering best, to drool over. Does that man ever not look hot?

The things you find out when conducting random searches through the blog archives: apparently my leather pants produce money.

Good thing to know, I think.

In the immortal words of a man with his pants around his ankles: "I feel very conflicted."

I've got the evening ahead of me to do work in. I'm sure there's work I should be doing. I just can't think what it is. It's out there, somewhere. Hiding. Mocking me.

Fuck it. I think I'll go out to the movies instead.

Yeah, well, it's all very nice, but it isn't a train station.

What I'll miss about Burgmann is conversations over meals about things like some guy going down the world's steepest street in a wheelie bin, and why this probably didn't happen.

Plus, impromptu mechanics with teeth. Now that's a Man.