Lightning-fast Friday Five:

1. As a child, who was your favorite superhero/heroine? Why?
Wonder Woman, for the simple reason that she was the only female hero I knew. Plus: Superman is damn boring, and I wasn't yet old enough to appreciate the darkness of Batman.

2. What was one thing you always wanted as a child but never got?
Cabbage Patch Kid. Good thing too. I can definitely say that was a contributing factor to the person I am today. Rah!

3. What's the furthest from home you've been?
Well, there's only so far you can get before you start coming back again. Technically, probably somewhere between London and Wyoming. That said, middle of the highway in outback Queensland isn't actually far from home, but feels like the end of the earth.

4. What's one thing you've always wanted to learn but haven't yet?
To play the harp. And flamenco dancing. At the same time. (Or not.)

5. What are your plans for the weekend?
I think the Male and I are going to poke around the city a bit, and just generally relax. Sounds like fun to me.

Oh, and we're going to find somewhere to put Jen and Bec, who're coming to visit. Whoo!

Soon like NOW! Whoooo!! I am connected.

Watch me do the happy-internet-connectedness dance.

Oh. Hello.

For the first time, I'm seriously considering plagiarising. Although, is it plagiarising if you take a novel that was complete and utter trash, and recycle the vague concepts of character and plot, changing most of it, into a new setting and genre?

On the other hand, I write fanfic. Surely I can view this as a similar sort of exercise.

(Am in internet cafe. Feel terribly plebian or something. My internet working soon. Hopefully. Or I go on a killing spree with my Bendigo Joss House chopsticks. Watch this space...)

We've spent so much money this weekend I think our bank accounts have gone into shock.

Appliances. Furniture. Kitchenware. Food. All those extra little bits you don't even think about until you move out, like rubbish bins and Glad Wrap and bath mats. Ironing board. Garlic crusher.

It's been a long, acquisitive and expensive weekend.

But. Ate our first breakfast in Our Place this morning, and that was great. Will cook and consume our first dinner there tonight, and that'll be great too.

Amazing the things that happen when you sit still: I've just inherited one of the Male's old shirts. It's a Burgmann O-week 1996 T-shirt. Old-skool, yo.

Friday Five-ing it.

1. What is one thing you don't like about your body?
Sat staring at nothing in particular yesterday and my legs got in the road and I decided that my knees were wonky. And my legs needed shaving, but I took care of that. So I guess my wonky knees.

2. What are two things you love about your body?
Hooray for vanity and narcissism. No, those are not the two things. My waist, I guess. Like the way it goes in and occasionally makes me feel Scarlett O'Hara-ish. And my Bytheway (my Grandmother's maiden name) feet. Wallaby feet, we call them. Long and narrow. I like 'em. Makes getting shoes a bitch sometimes, but I like 'em.

3. What are three things you want to change about your home?
Hah! Considering my 'home' is currently in a state of moving-in uproar and lacking half the furnishings, being limited to only three is hardly fair. But, leaving out those things that we're planning to remedy, like lack of couch and drawers to put my clothes in... I'd like windows that could be opened further than the two inches the Melbourne architects allow. That's just because I'm a Queensland girl with a need for breeze. A bath. Dammit, I would love to have a bath. Who needs two showers? I want a bath. And... erm. Nothing else springs to mind at the moment, but I'm sure something will make itself apparent once we've really moved in.

4. What are four books you want to read this year?
Only four? Bah! Definites: the tenth Jordan. The new Eddings. At least one China Mieville, precise details not yet determined. And I'd like to read another M John Harrison book. I enjoyed Viriconium. And PTerry's Night Watch. And... what do you mean, I've run out?

5. What are five promises you have kept to yourself?
I take it I'm not allowed to count the little ones like: "If you finish this chapter of your thesis tonight, you can have some chocolate." I don't know that I've actually got five. I'm a very fickle person, especially to myself. The things I really promise myself, I don't even mentally verbalise. They just are. Like: "You will never have to make a career out of something that doesn't inspire you," and hence my current course. Not so much promises as the way I live my life. So I choose not to really answer this question on the grounds that it makes my head hurt.

Though maybe that's just the heat.

I feel disgustingly Gemini. Kinda fun, though.

/cryptic

"According to our research, the origin of the name Evans is Welsh and the Coat of Arms contains A blue shield with a gold lion rampant guardant."

Good to know. Evans is Welsh? Really? Never.

Yes, I'm idly clicking on random Yahoo advertisements. No, I'm not really that bored, just curious.

Movies. The city might change, but the filmic fixation endures.

Seen: The Quiet American. A very impressive piece of cinema. Tight narrative, elegant story-telling, excellent characters given life by brilliant performances by all principals. Michael Caine was heart-breakingly human, Brendan Fraser always believable, and the female actress turned what could have been a cardboard role into something full of quiet character and mystery. An ending built up to with such undeniable impetus and style that it was just perfect.

I really quite liked it. It wasn't anything blow-away spectacular. There was just nothing wrong with it. And I don't know of many movies that can say that.

Desperately want to see: Chicago. Holy Hell! How damn cool does this movie look! I mean, sure, I have a 1920s fetish at the best of times, and seeing previews for this in front of Quiet American and Two Towers has fanned the flame into a raging conflagration. But yeow! Catherine Zeta Jones! Even Renee Zellweger. I am so looking forward to this. It promises to blow me away. (In contrast to the above; I also expect lots of things to be wrong with it. There are many levels upon which to appreciate movies.)

It's a Friday Five. Well, a Friday Two-and-three-quarters...

1. Where do you currently work?

Work? I laugh at your feeble paid employment. (Actually, I covet your paid employment. Working on it.)

2. How many other jobs have you had and where?

Very few. Pampered and lazy, me. Well, lazy at least. Babysitting (whoo!). Cleaning and bar work at college. Responsible-type jobs at college, like tutor and after-hours duty. That brief stint in the sandwich place.

3. What do you like best about your job?

What job? (OK, I'll go with the sandwich job... it was the last real one. Best was that once it got to clean-up, I didn't have to engage my brain. I could think about whatever I wanted to. Best thing about after-hours duty is that, on a reasonable day, it's bugger-all work, and occasionally amusing.)

4. What do you like least about your job?

Sandwich place: customers being difficult while the boss was looking over my shoulder, waiting for me to fuck up. Nervous! I could've lived without smelling like greasy washing up water, too. After-hours duty: on a bad day, it's really bad. People are annoying, contrary, and come at regular life-interrupting intervals.

5. What is your dream job?

Hrm... Literary agent, I think. Or rather, not literary, but an agent representing fantasy authors. I'd get to coddle the talent and work with authors and... yeah. It'd be great.

I'll get there yet. Watch this space.

I woke up this morning with the intention of making Starcraft into a movie.

I think I should get out more.

How precisely does one gird ones loins? Just, y'know, my curious question of the day.

So, I've written to a woman in a publishing firm asking about freelance editing, because apparently they're always looking for people and that sounds like FUN! Well, more fun than any job involving the line "Would you like fries with that?"

Because you know - if you know me at all - that eventually the line would become "Would you like me to insult your parentage and dress sense?" and then it'd just all be over.

I'm perplexed. No, fuck that, I'm pissed off. My Russian email, which I have everything forwarding to, seems to have decided to gaily hide all my email.

At least, I hope it's hidden. I hope it's not gaily deleting shit.

This is me glowering in the general direction of Russia.

Yesterday, I wandered off to do some shopping and ended up on the train sitting behind two mid-teenage guys mouthing off about a girl they both knew. They were mystified by her odd behaviour. What she'd done just sounded like typical teenage-ness to me.

Good to know some things never change, no matter what state you're in.

I feel a little bit adrift down here. I am a little bit adrift, I guess. Hopefully, once we actually get to move into our place, I can get my feet under me.

Not drowning, just flailing.

I'm not missing my computer yet, because I'm using the downstairs computer lab to check email and surf the internet. Yay. What I do miss is my stereo, funnily enough. Dying to listen to music. Just dying. But it'd be a travesty to funnel Siouxsie and the Banshees (my only remaining CD) through the tinny little speakers on my laptop.

Everything I own is currently in a car on the way to Melbourne. Why am I not with it? Well, I got kicked out of the car, because there wasn't enough room for me and my stuff. And the plane ticket for me turned out to be cheaper than renting a trailer (and the trailer didn't fit the car anyway).

So, yeah.

Jen's party last night rocked. A great deal. All our mad friends met most of the 'Berra Bloggers in what could have been the grandest showdown of them all, but ended up being an immense success for raucous behaviour and wine producers everywhere. Not such a success for the clean-up crew, but you can't have everything. Don't know about everyone else, but I had a great time. Any evening where a saucy redhead gropes my arse has to be good, right?

Yo, heads up, I'm coming south.

The real import of this post being to inform that my internet access is highly likely to be spottier than a leopard with chicken pox for the next little while, so y'all'll (what a great word!) just have to amuse yourselves for the nonce.

See various of you at Jen's party. The rest of you can just suffer.

Having polished off my last batch of reading (a foray into urban fantasy to satisfy my curiosity with some Charles de Lint, some old-fashioned fun with a Falco novel, and some nostalgic Pratchett), I toddled back to the library to find something else to help pass my long, internet-free days. I picked up a couple of YAFS (Yet Another Fantasy Series - thank you, gilmae) that I'd been eyeing in bookshops.

Currently reading: The Fifth Sorceress by Robert Newcombe. I was most excited about this one. I'd been speculatively picking it up for a while now. I'm very, very glad I didn't pay any money for it.

It's tripe. Complete codswallop. The author info-dumped unceremoniously all over the first few chapters, interspersing it with cliched characters contemplating their lives with all the narrative value usually found in daytime soaps. All the actual interesting bits seem to be being retold in condensed reminiscence, while dwelling on the sort of stupid extraneous prancing about I thought made for good story-telling when I was fifteen. I'm a quarter into it. The events so far have been trite, and the obvious course of the novel holds no appeal for further reading.

Did I miss anything? Oh yeah, there have been numerous blatant flaws in the editing. Such as the main character knowing perfectly well what "death enchantments" are on page 65, but being flabberghasted at the concept on page 66.

How do these festering puddles of bilge get published?

(Extinguishing the flame-thrower, now.)

I'm grumpy. I'm blah. I'm stand in the middle of the room and stamp my foot and pout. I'm good at pouting.

Not sure why. I was in the book store earlier and was just too bored to pick up any of the books. This, as I'm sure you're all aware, is Not Normal.

Just... m'eh. Life is in limbo. I don't particularly like this state.

State of life, not state of Australia. I love Queensland. Even if it is hammer-on-anvil hot out there today. I walked back from the shopping centre, and ended up sweat-slick from top to toe. Which has resulted in me lounging around wearing only underwear and boots, which I'm sure is a very chic look this season. What I need to complete the ensemble, of course, is a big fuck-off machine gun.

Anyone got one handy?