In case anyone important hasn't been told through the trickle-down effect yet:

I'm going to be in Canberra from Saturday 17th May, until approximately Wednesday night.

Planned for this period:

• Coffee!!! with my Wench Girls.
• Drinking!! with my Wench Girls.
• Drinking!! with everyone else too.
• Socialising over at the New Boobs (which will probably include Drinking!!)
• Casting my Evil Miasma(tm) over college for yet another year.
• Catching up with everyone I need to catch up with. Bloggers, this includes you. Comin' ta getcha.

In other news: Where are all the cheap fucking Easter Eggs? Ripped off, man.

Why do people look at me like I'm nuts when I start quoting from "Baby Got Back"?

("Even white boys got to shout...")

And apparently walking down Swanston Street whistling the Rondo alla Turka isn't much better.

Today, crossing Lonsdale, I almost got run over by a Mars truck.

(Almost got skittled? Or is that mixing my metaphors? Does anyone other than my mother even use the word "skittled"?)

Death by chocolate indeed.

Oh yeah, we went to see Audioslave.

Going was pretty much an afterthought as well. We decided about 10am on the Saturday morning that we wanted to go, and got tickets. There were still people sitting behind us, though.

The band itself rocked about as much as you'd expect of such an outfit. What was amusing was observing that two thirds of the crowd was really here to see someone else. It was usually easy to pick which half of the band they were old-skool fans of, even without the "Soundgarden" and "Rage Against The Machine" t-shirts around the place. And then there were the metal teenies with their Audioslave t-shirts. At the very least, the Male noted, this might make them go back and listen to some quality music.

Anyway, Chris Cornell was fuzzy and he wailed. Totally.

The support band, though, were what really made my night. They were an Aussie band cast from the big-hair-metal mold, and basically, they just solo-ed until they fell over. They jumped off the stage, they moshed themselves silly, they arched over backwards, they strummed their crotches hard and made metal signs at the audience.

We made them right back. But we're weird like that.

I'm having no luck at all finding out what their name was, because the official Audioslave site refuses to even mention the Australian tour, so I refuse to even link it. Slight my country will you, you bastards. Ah, here we go: band called "Warped", which is who the Male thought it was. All I can say is: It's good to see three young men enjoying their work so much.

Winner of the 2003 biggest standpoint turnaround: Chris Cornell says: "It's great to be here, thanks to y'all for being here, and we're going to be here for a long time together making music as Audioslave." (This from the bunch who weren't even going to release their recordings before they got leaked to the internet. I think the only thing that's going to beat this is if, say, the student Socialists start supporting military action in the Middle East.)

Aieee! There's a little paperclip waggling its eyebrows and leering at me and make it stop, make it stop, make it stop!

Whew. I killed it.

In other news: I need to find the proper lyrics to Tori Amos' "Raspberry Swirl" before I drive myself insane.

When a tram turns the corner outside, it sounds just like the tinkling at the start of U2's Elevation.

I am, in no particular order:

• tired
• confused about what to do and what order to do it in
• apathetic - like that one surprised anyone
• way behind in my correspondance
• rarely having thoughts interesting enough to blog about
• still in love with my work
• disgusted that I taught myself the basics of QuarkXPress in two hours yesterday and I'm sure my Desktop Publishing course is going to take at least eight weeks to try and teach me the same
• considering dropping said Desktop Publishing course, for obvious reasons
• desperate to go gothing this weekend
• damn well going to go gothing, dammit
• really trying to think of something interesting to blog about

Akjhslku lkjwh asoi ;lkj asdlk elrk na;sdf.

And that's my studied opinion on the matter.

Rumours of my demise aren't true.

Apologies to the meet-up - work called at the last minute and I need the money. I'm broker than a broke thing.

But, more of that copy-editing scans thing, which is just fantastic. Of course, not all manuscripts can be interesting or well-written. Some feel the need to be utterly woeful, and contain sentences that I hover over, pen poised, before admitting defeat, because there's just no way that anything short of incineration is going to help it.

I'm having the time of my life, I love my job, my boss seems to like me too, and I'm just on top of the world.

In other news, I somehow managed to get myself put down for novel class workshopping after the holidays. This means I'd better write more than just the first chapter (which has already been workshopped) I guess.

This could be a challenge with Jojo and Mish coming to visit this weekend. Let the madness commence. This promises to be highly amusing.

Today, I was almost an editor. I spent a few hours sifting through a manuscript looking for scanning errors and other small mistakes. d = cl. Full-stops where they shouldn't be. World War 11 and I wondered when the other 9 had happened and why I hadn't learned about them in school.

I got paid for it.

Almost an editor. It made me gleeful, at least.

It has been brought, volubly, to my attention that inquiring minds want to know why it is that officers carry swords and other archaic weapons.

I considered ignoring their pleas. Because, y'know, I'm a bitch like that. But not that much of a bitch, apparently. Unfortunately, I no longer have the book from whence the information springs, so you'll just have to hear it in my words.

It comes from the shift from small armed groups to larger ones. In the former, 'officers' or group leaders were expected to "lead from the front". They were in the thick of it. When armed forces get larger, troop movement and grander planning become the role of the officers, and they're no longer involved in battle. However, they are battle-leaders still, and hence they must have the capacity to do violence upon the enemy, at least in theory. It's more a symbol than anything, which is why the weapons tended to be symbolic. Swords (in an age of gunpowder). Batons. Single pistols, perhaps.

There are some more deep psychological reasons at play as well, but if you really want to know, find a copy of Martin van Creveld's Transformation of War.

Happy now, childer?

It's official. My spammers are stalking me. This landed in my inbox just now:

We'd like to treat you and a friend to lunch at Burger King® on us.

Enjoy a Whopper®, Fries and a soda... or maybe you'd rather have a Grilled Chicken Sandwich with a side of onion rings and a thick chocolate milkshake.

No matter what you choose - it's on us.

To get your Burger Bucks visit our site now!

I am so jealous. One of my friends down here is doing her History Honours, and she's picking through interesting topics and books, such as "fashioning sapphism: the origins or modern english lesbian culture" and "Rum, sodomy, and the lash: piracy, sexuality, and masculine identity". Not to mention a sideline into internet culture, fandom and the history of fanfiction.

Why didn't anyone tell me, when I was a lowly and impressionable undergrad, that history included the ability to study things like that, but in Pol Sci I'd be stuck with uber-abstract dialectic discourses of post-modernity and other dry, boring crap.

Sigh.

At least I got to show off my knowledge today in class, revealing the reason why officers in armies have highly ritualistic weapons as part of their dress uniform. (No, it's not actually a phallic thing, though that's a good guess.)

I still feel grumpy and inadequate.

I have a confession to make: I really quite like fast food. The conglomeration of bland flavours, the mass-produced taste, the nastiness of post-mix coke. Frankly, it's all good.

Pop quiz (hotshot): Did Dee's dream last night involve:

A) Paul McDermott in a leather kilt;
B) Global thermonuclear war;
C) Genealogy of the British aristocracy;
D) All of the above.

As a foreigner from the north, there's something I just have to ask any native Victorians who might be reading this:

What is with the football songs?

I mean... am I supposed to laugh that hard? No one else was. Some people were singing along. With the 1940s masculine gusto and excellent diction and cheesy lyrics. And then they played the Essendon one about four times on Saturday because the team won, and I watched people gesturing along as they sang: "See the bombers fly up - up! - to win the premiership flag."

I'm sorry. I can't take this seriously. I'd like to go back to a code of football where the only acceptable team song is: "You're going home in a fucking ambulance!" Or maybe the elegant heights of: "Here we go". With the optional second verse: "There we went."

It doesn't help that the Male insists on trotting around the house smirking and singing: "It's a grand old ham, it's a high-flying ham..."

We're learning how to write editorial reports on manuscripts in Editing 1A. Basically, this involves saying whether the book's any good, and whether it should be published, but doing it tactfully. Very important.

Exercise time, and we're given a couple of pages of prose, and a covering letter. Publishing house is interested in alternative literature, with an international eco-feminist slant.

"I'm gonna walk the rainbow bridge and fall into the water and turn into a dolphin so I can protect all the protest ships at sea so we can stay a clean, green land," states Maata.

I swear I don't make this shit up.

So I sat there and tried to figure out a tactful way of saying: "Frankly, I think this is preaching, clumsily-written bollocks, but it's got 'celebration of culture!' stamped all over it, and the annoying idiots who like that sort of thing can't get enough of it. Publish it."

So... I did stuff since Wednesday. Really, I did. I just didn't blog about it because, you know, there's life beyond blogs.

Actually, I just couldn't be arsed. I hate to be predictable, but there it is.

The big news is that my aunt and uncle came down from Brisbane to visit Melbourne, and me on the way. It's lovely to see them, even though I'm reminded that my mother's family are all quite mad and manic (so that explains where I get it from). We had coffee. Lots of it. Real coffee too, not bilgewater, because with three people I can definitely use the stovetop. We went out to dinner.

Aaaand, we went to the footy! Rah! Essendon vs. Melbourne at the 'G on Saturday. The Male cheers for Essendon. His father cheers for Melbourne. Me and the rellies, sitting in the middle, didn't cheer for anyone (except maybe Brisbane, if we're allowed, which we usually aren't because apparently just being from Queensland isn't a good enough reason) but just sat there and laughed our heads off at the game, but especially at the crowd.

Two rows behind me was a guy with a voice they can hear in Nebraska. "You're useless, Nietz!" he screamed. "Can't kick, can't run, can't bloody pick the ball up!"

"Who do you think he barracks for?" we wondered. Eventually we decided he was a Melbourne fan, riddled with frustration. (For the record, Nietz had a terrible game because the Essendon defender was all over him. He barely got a hand to the ball.)

"Put 'em out of their misery!" he screamed. "Take it off 'em. They don't bloody want it!"

"Oh, they do," the Male's father whimpered, watching his team fall over.

In the second half, the screamer was gone. "Probably gone to lie in wait for Nietz," the droll fellow behind us commented.

"He'll be perfectly mild-mannered in church tomorrow," his mate declared.

Subverting the system... Mail Merges in computing skills:

Diana Evans
Annoyance Manager
Petty Whinging Inc.
29 Market St
Melbourne 3000

Miss Discordia
Goddess
23 Fnord Lane
Melbourne 3000

Dear Kallista,

We will be in Melbourne on the 12th April 2003 to discuss your ordering for the next six months. It is important that you have confirmed your requirements for apples by that time.

Yours sincerely,

Diana Evans

Forgive me, for I have sinned.

I have installed Diablo II. And the expansion set. And made a character and gleefully cackled and hurled imprecations at the screen as Mary-Sue the Amazon smote her enemies. ("I fucking slayed! I didn't even slew! I was that fucking cool. Hey you, ugly! Fuck off!")

How far we mighty have fallen.

It's weird. Queensland seems to have some sort of mythical, magical literature charm. Coming from Queensland apparently gives me a huge depth of golden memories and experiences and a more brightly-coloured mindset and probably better karma too.

I've never felt like a sunburst Queensland child. But maybe there's something to it.

Because, for me, climbing a mango tree was par for the course. Falling out, also quite common.

Wearing all black today and bright yellow yesterday doesn't seem that weird. Everyone else assures me it was.

The sun is a beautiful, beautiful thing. More of the respectful, mutual love and less of the hatehatehate, people.

Call that a beach? Pah!

Maybe there is something to it. Maybe there is a certain inbuilt hedonism underlying Queensland. Maybe we are all slightly odder.

Maybe I'm just making this shit up.