Me: I think if I had a heated pool in my building, I'd swim in it at least twice a week, which would be an improvement upon my current exercise regime. *g*
AmyQ: *L* taking the stairs would be an improvement on mine..
Me: Mine too. I'm hoping if we move to the second floor then I'll just dispense with the lift most times. It just takes far too long to climb/descend the stairs from the fifth floor.
Me: Unless the lift is making really fucking scary noises like it was today. Then, thanks, I'll just walk.
AmyQ: *L* yes.. when your life becomes endangered some exercise is tolerable
Me: Yep. I'm not fanatical about this or anything. It's not, like, give me apathy or give me death. I'm sensible.

It was so nice when I woke up, and now it's raining again. Bloody Melbourne.

Although today I get to stay inside - in fact, in bed - all day. So it can rain as much as it likes. Go on, piss down. I dare you.

(Oh. It is. Wow. I am all powerful!)

When it rains, the necessary personal footpath space suddenly doubles, enforced with the spiky tips of umbrella spines.

Hurrying through five o'clock foot traffic suddenly resembles trying to run a pin-striped gauntlet carrying a tray of drinks.

Trying to join yet another grossly swollen internet application, I encountered the usual scrabble for the username not already taken. This time was different, however. This time, as well as adding the usual idiotic numbers to the end, it offered adjectival username options (CatatonicDee? It knows me already) and also randomly generated options.

One of those randomly generated options was "OptimalCantaloupe".

So tempting.

I'm sick, my throat's sore, my head hurts, and the only thing I can stand to listen to is the Piano soundtrack. It's that bad.

Everyone has their own pet cure for a cold, have you noticed? Drink water, drink juice, take vitamins until you rattle. Feed it, starve it, go to bed, go for a long run.

None of them actually work, of course. No, you just have to try and do them all, and swelter under the devillish cloud of the dastardly virus until it's well and truly done with you.

A flyer in the letterbox wants me to know that Jesus is the answer.

Surely that depends on the question.

But also, wouldn't it be more fun if Jesus was the question. Sorta like: "How do you take your tea? Sugar? Milk? Jesus?"

The guy sitting next to me has a T-shirt that says: "Poor, ugly, happy."

I want one that says: "Rich, pretty, pissed off."

Well, one-third isn't too bad.

Jaffa Cookies - a recipe for three people

• Make basic biscuit mixture. Helpful, aren't I? But honestly, your own preferred recipe will probably work. For the record, here's the one in my school cookery book, which is what we used:
  125g butter
  1/2 cup caster sugar (I'm lazy and use normal sugar)
  1&3/4 cups self-raising flour
  1 egg
  vanilla
  1. Beat butter and sugar to a cream. (NB: get Dee - or reasonable facsimile thereof to spank it if it gets cranky)
  2. Add the egg and beat well. Add vanilla.
  3. Gradually add sifted flour. (NB: we found there was too much flour, but that might just be the weird kitchen demons and/or the measuring cup.)
  4. Mix into a stiff paste.
  5. Take small pieces of mixture and roll into balls. (NB: Jen prefers the "more is more" approach to this step.)
  6. Place balls on greased trays. Press out lightly with a floured fork.
  7. Bake in a moderate oven until golden brown. (NB: about ten minutes or so, unless Dee sits in front of the oven to watch, in which case, contrary to scientific possibility, they will bake infinitely.)
  
  
• Where was I? Oh yeah.
  
• Meanwhile, Operation Jaffa Destruction gets underway. Get your manically insane sidekick to crush the Jaffas. Viscerate recommends for the purpose a plastic bag for holding the flying Jaffa fragments, a chopping board for the hard place, a rolling pin for the rock, and sunglasses for safety and random cool.
  
• At about step three and a half of the above recipe, add the pulverised Jaffas. Level of squishedness is really up to your tastes and the enthusiasm of Operation Jaffa Destruction team.
  
• Viscerate recommends baking the cookies in two batches, thus spreading the joy of cookies over as long a period as possible. This recommendation is possibly brought to you by the fact that there's only one tray in this household.
  
• At the end of baking, get Dee to get the tray out of the oven, because it's really hard.
  
• Eat cookies. Enjoy. (This isn't that hard.)

Jen is the Cookie Angel. She made two batches, with technical assistance from the inept kitchen monkey (who nevertheless is good at butter-and-sugar creaming, and a past-master at getting the tray out of the oven without getting burnt, though she learnt the hard way).

The Male wielded the Jaffa-crushing machine (aka the rolling pin and chopping board) with manic glee and Hunter S Thompson-ish safety glasses.

Conclusion: Jaffa cookies are The Shit (tm). And all gone with 24 hours, the last heading Sydney-wards with a guest whose stay was far too short.

Wavan came to visit! It was cool. As per usual for recent visitations, we just seemed to richochet gently between shopping and meals, with lots of lolling in between.

However: shotglass chess. Can you picture our joy?

And, Jen's coming to visit! It's so cool. Melbourne folks, we'll both be at the meetup tomorrow.

Randomly, resolutions:
- Blog more.
- Attend as few stupid, pointless desktop publishing computer classes as possible.
- 800x600.

Question of the day: Why is someone I played an online computer game with eight months ago suddenly unburdening himself about his lovelife over IM?

Dear uncaring cosmos,

My boss underestimates me, leaving me plenty of time to arse about and still leave an hour early. This would be better if they weren't paying me by the hour.

WB store remains in stony silence. Plan B: anarchy against the Bugs Bunny establishment.

Within my caffiene-addled brain, I remain deeply uncertain as to whether I should already be back at school or not. While I dither, the world turns, the lingerie model continues her on-again/off-again relationship with the anti-capitalist feminazis and Pirates of the Caribbean continues to aggravatingly not be released on this continent.

I tried to tell you this yesterday, but my computer told me blogger didn't exist. It was telling me the same thing about google, though, so I think it was just in A Mood.

Like girl, like computer.

I'm not dead. At least, I don't think so. Always so hard to tell, really.

I need to go back to school. I'm losing track of important things, like energy and days of the week. I'm suspended in apathy. Even more so than usual.

I have baked. I have not read the fifth Harry Potter. I have rubber-necked at a poster advertising Metallica in concert for late January.

I once said I'd sell vital organs for the chance to see them in concert. I wonder if they'd accept Mastercard instead.

This new Blogger interface is very pretty. I'd be happier if it published.

Life's like that, isn't it?

Internet connection went down on Friday night. Not back up again until Monday morning. Do you people have any idea the sort of pain I was in this weekend?

Alleviated somewhat by amusement. End-of-month drinks at the Male's firm; though I don't work there, I was invited, and not by him. One of the girls he works with has decided I'm just wonderful. Apparently it's my ability to ask for free wine and subtly make fun of guys who try to pick her up (and honestly, he wouldn't have known I was standing there until I started talking). She's lovely, and lots of fun, and so are the other girls, so that was all good.

Also: play called Scaramouche Jones, starring Pete Postelthwaite. I avoid one-man plays, because you're so much at the mercy of the single performer, but I figured Pete could pull it off. And he certainly good. Highly entertaining.

Further: house-hunting. Much more amusing to me than the Male, probably because he's done more of it than I have, and the novelty's worn off. We saw a few utterly wrong places, one halfway decent, and one lovely one that he's quite in love with. I'm uncertain. What on earth does one do with four-metre ceilings? (He suggests ropes and ladders and a ferret playground. I'm in favour of dancing girls in cages.)

To cap it all off, last night the flat above us flooded their bathroom. Or rather, they flooded our bathroom. Now there are big fan blowers all over the place, and a man crawling around inside the ceiling.

The fun never stops, I tell you.