Going everywhere

the dream job

2007-07-16T20:38:00.000+10:00

Received the rejection call today. Uh huh. "You did very well, it was a hard decision, but the other candidate had more relevant experience. We really liked you and want to keep you details on file." I should be happy that I got to the final 2, beating out others who probably had more film experience than me, for a job at the most desirable company to work for in the independent film industry.

Getting this far through what was a very competitive job application process has given me a confidence boost. I can probably get a job at any boring company and get paid heaps more, but I don't want to. I'm not going to rely on looking for jobs online anymore either - it's all about making the right contacts in the right companies. I will not give up on getting my dream job, but in the meantime, I still want to leave my current job for anything else because I've had enough of babysitting incompetent people who would fail a grade 1 spelling test. Urgh, enough of complaining about my current job. The only positive thing to come out of my job is a really funny script I'm writing about the oddballs/losers/stupid people there. Time to start networking and building more relevant experience.

I'm going to explode

2007-07-13T06:59:00.000+10:00

My heart has been beating at a frantic pace for more than 12 hours. It's 7am and I haven't been to sleep all night. I need to leave for work in an hour. Now Googling "how to calm down".

Never been more nervous...

2007-07-13T04:38:00.000+10:00

I applied for a job at my dream company and was one of two selected for a second round interview. They'll let me know the outcome tomorrow or Monday. The only times I've ever been this nervous was when I was waiting for my uni placement and high school results. It's 4.49am and I've only had half an hour of sleep. I don't think I will sleep tonight. I hope to God they ring me tomorrow. I don't want to spend the weekend in anguish.

Trentham

2007-07-01T23:11:00.000+10:00

We drove into the one-street town a few minutes before sunset. The murky greyish-blue sky, bare trees and moderate rain fall were all the elements needed for the making of a ghost town vibe. My quirkiness radar piqued upon driving past two street signs on a residential street - one an old peoples crossing, and the other a ducks crossing. From that moment I knew that there was going to be something to like about Trentham.

We went to Trentham to eat at a recommended German restaurant. Since we couldn't find it, we stopped in front of a Victorian era hotel to ask for directions. The hotel was unfortunately borded up - a sign of a lack of tourism in the town. We walked to the milk bar/fish & chips store around the corner to get directions. Two spirited and large old ladies ran the store. The louder one of the two wore a sailor's hat and a porcelian white set of large dentures, which produced a very toothy smile. They told us the German restaurant closed down but told us to visit Mrs Marples Tea Room instead for beautiful foccacias. I noticed this cute cottage cafe during our five minute drive through the entire town.

We moved the car to park in front of the Trentham Hotel pub, which was next to Mrs Marples. I alighted the car first, and was greeted by a young guy smoking outside of the pub. His ears were accessorised with two large black disks, and he looked like every other dark haired muso fanboy in the city. I guessed he was into punk/pop or emo. Expecting the town to be comprised of single middle aged men and old people, I was surprised to see a young guy, especially one dressed like him. He complained about being forced to smoke outside of the pub now, given it was the first day that the non-smoking laws took effect. We walked into the brightly lit, fireplace warm cottage that was Mrs Marples Tea Room. It was a cafe and store that had on display typical old people country items like patchwork quilts, porcelian plates and tea pots, dolls, teddy bears, knit wear, yarn, soaps, and second hand books. I've also never seen this many Golliwogs in my life. The cliche word to describe this country cafe is what else but charming. A middle aged lady was working behind the front counter and making drinks. Her mother worked in the kitchen and brought the food out, always with enthusiasm about the food and care for the customers. They both were blonde and wore pink sweaters.

We settled on a table in front of the fire place and ordered Devonshire tea. The scones were cushiony soft and warm, served with a generous amount of thick double cream and strawberry jam. Quite possibly some of the best scones I've eaten. My friend had chicken soup that looked like it was made with love. The aroma of the herbs and spices was drifting through the air, and it was brimming with large chunks of vegetables - not something I often see in soups nowadays. The tea was served in an illustrated porcelian tea pot and a little tea cup with gold brim. The entire dining setting was the epitome of quaint and ladylike.

The two ladies from the milk bar walked into Mrs Marples soon after and commended us for going by their recommendation, and we whole heartedly agreed with them about this lovely cafe. I thought it was cute that they could close their milk bar when they felt like going for a coffee. Being a small town, they of course knew the owners of the cafe and they started chatting about the goings on in their life and the town.

Later on the young guy from outside the pub opened the door cafe to boldly ask the owner if he could smoke inside here. She told him to go away and everyone burst out laughing. Of all places to smoke, Mrs Marples would be the last. The old ladies and the owner gossiped about the guy and said he was the mad brother of some guy in town. The old ladies complained about his black disc earings.

To top the quirky evening off, a slightly mental STEVE BUSCEMI lookalike walked in to chat with the owner and ask what he could buy from her with the few coins he had in his pocket. At that point I knew Trentham would be a good setting for a film about quirky small town people.

I'd like to sit at Mrs Marples for a day to observe the colourful people, and especially evesdrop on their conversations. I felt like I was watching a cafe scene out of the Gilmore Girls, where different locals come and go during the day, interacting with the owner and people around them.

The Dan Count rises

2007-06-28T00:40:00.000+10:00

I came across another two Dan's in the past two weeks. Let's see how many I know now.

Dan 1 - My mum's best friend's son. Known him since we were 1 or 2 but we aren't friends.
Dan 2 - Friend who used to work with me. Works in TV.
Dan 3 - Friend's ex-housemate and also used to work with me. Graphic designer.
Dan 4 - I work with him now. Sound engineer.
Dan 5 - Trivia host at Comfy Chair.
Dan 6 - Cute guy at local bottle shop.
Dan 7 - Sings in my friend's boyfriend's band.
Dan 8 - Housemate to Dan 7. Arts student.
Dan 9 - Tanya's best friend. Muso and graphic designer.
Dan 10 - Another muso, rapper to be precise. Organized to interview his band once.
Dan 11 - A drunk guy at a bar.
Dan 12 - I sent an e-mail to a general company e-mail address and a Dan replied. This counts.

I will not give in!

2007-06-28T00:19:00.000+10:00

Fuck having to sleep early (before midnight) to get enough rest for the next work day. There are so many things to do and learn in this world, I'm not going to let an eight hour work schedule prevent me from living life at night. I wish there was a pill I could take so I could stay up for 24 hours without any side effects. I resolve sleep whenever I feel like it. Coffee was commercialised for a reason.

We ARE fun

2007-06-27T23:41:00.000+10:00

What does "I like to have fun" actually mean? I actually don't like having fun. I like to stay at home on a Saturday night to do soul enriching activities like read, write and watch movies, while everyone else is walking about in skimpy dresses in the cold. Suzie also likes to stay home on Saturdays to draw and read. So maybe we don't like having fun. There are people who like HAVING fun, and there are people who ARE fun. It's a natural state of being. We fall into the second category. You know what, we REFRAIN from going out on Saturday nights because we're sick of getting into fights with attention whores who acuse us of stealing the spotlight from them. We can't help it that we're fun without even trying. HAH. Shove that down your skanky low cut dress.

It's a good thing that Suzie likes eating (especially goods of the baked variety), because I enjoy baking. In fact, she only talks to me in the hope that I will bake something again one day. I think when looks at me she pictures my head as a cupcake, with my hair as the frosting. She smells cupcakes the moment I enter a room.

Suzie will be delighted to know that Franz Ferdinand will be releasing a new album early next year. At the gig we are going to wear t-shirts with each other's photos on it (printed on our matching skull t-shirts) so we won't lose each other. OMG, in ten years time we will look back at photos of the band and say "OMG, those red and navy striped t-shirts are SO 2006."

Junk mail 26/6/07

2007-06-26T13:22:00.001+10:00

Loulou came running down the stairs all in a panic, she ran through the living room into the kitchen and straight to the back door.
Usually little help is needed from you, but its wise to stay close to be sure that the mothers lack of experience does not cause any problems. Mating West Highland White Mating West Highland White It is important that your Westie is mated at the right time if she is to conceive. I was advised to only let Loulou eat three placentas? They may well develop swollen breasts and may even produce milk.

Junk mail 25/6/07

2007-06-25T13:32:00.000+10:00

So, he turns out to be a bargain basement bionic man.
It turns out that this vagrant is from a long lost line of samurais. My Samurai wont go before the cameras until next year.
The film revolves around a German general's plan to snuff out Adolph Hitler at the height of World War II. "The latest INDIANA JONES production news? Along with the Batmobile we are introducing a new vehicle, the Batpod, a new Batsuit and some classic characters in The Joker and Harvey Dent.
EXCLUSIVE: Gianni Nunnari on Ronin and Scorsese's Silence!
"The Wachowski brothers said to me one day that they were always disturbed that their nieces and nephews could never see their movies.
CONTEST: Win Huge Prizes from License to Wed! They will be appearing alongside Tom Cruise in the project.
An entire line of action play items will allow boys to role-play being The Dark Knight. There is no word on when the film will start shooting.
" Jaylath maintains that Standard DVD still has a bright future and that "digital delivery" is "set for large gains in the coming years.

Wish list

2007-05-30T22:16:00.000+10:00

Humunah humunah humunah. I have a secret habit of air typing my thoughts. You may find me slightly moving my fingers across my handbag when I'm sitting on the tram. I may become the most annoying person on the tram if I was to have this bag. I really want it. Someone buy it for me.

I also want season 2 of 90210. Please. I used to have that poster on my wall (the photo that's on the DVD cover)! I always loved Kelly's red dress.

I'm certainty I hate her

2007-05-17T09:55:00.000+10:00

The illiterate fuckwit who sits next to me at work said "certainty" instead of "certainly" yesterday. She tries to be sophisticated at times by speaking in a faux bogan posh accent and saying words that are more than two syllables. She is the antithesis of who I want to be - umotivated, dependent, a follower, no mind of her own, insecure, suburbanite, obese, ugly. Her ass is so fat it takes up half the corridor. She waddles like Grimace and has kankles. All her life she was brainwashed to believe her goal in life is to marry a boy from the same culture. She found a not-so-great guy to marry at a young age and have a (ugly) kid with him because he wanted one. Looking at her, thinking about her, makes me want to vomit.

Telepathy

2007-05-15T21:40:00.000+10:00

It's happened three times in the past month. I dream of a friend and the next day he/she randomly e-mails me or bumps into me. We don't routinely contact each other. For instance, I wouldn't expect an e-mail from EC at the same time every month. I'd like to think that I have a minute psychic connection with certain people. Or maybe it's just that there's a certain period of time that's considered a long time to not hear from someone, so my friend or I will initiate contact with each other. Of course, this non-contact period will differ with various friends. It depends on how much you like them and/or how involved they are in your daily life. I can't go a week without talking to a few people, and others I can go without communication for a few months. It's not a reflection on how important they are to me though. I think when you're living in a different city from someone it's hard to keep each other updated on your daily lives. This article has gone way off the original path (as most my articles do) and I think it only makes sense to me.

20 year old girl parties all night long

2007-05-14T01:06:00.000+10:00

Why does the media make such a big deal about young famous people who get pissed/take drugs/have different sex partners. Young people do that anyway. At least celebrities have the money to be as wild as they want, have the fame to sleep with whoever they want, and have the clothes to look as fabulous as they can be. Are there many young girls who actually think "oh, Lindsay Lohan takes copious amounts of drugs, maybe I should too." Drinking when you're a teenager is firmly entrenched in the Australian culture. Mischa Barton shouldn't take any credit for that! Do the Gen X/Y alcoholics and drug addicts blame Drew Barrymore for her doped up antics as a nine year old? I wonder how many nine and ten year olds in the 80s experimented with drugs and acohol because Drew did.

The celebrities way of partying is much more glamorous than the suburban equivalent of going to your local pub in your low cut jeans and clevage showing top, spending your week's supermarket wage on drugs and hooking up with Bogan Barry.

I am the green eyed monster

2007-05-14T00:32:00.000+10:00

I have a love/hate relationship with food blogs. On the one hand they give me ideas on where to eat and what to cook. On the other hand the writers make me feel jealous, not because of the food they eat but the company they have to eat with! These bloggers regularly visit new restaurants with their friends and are able to try new recipies to test out on other people. I don't have a regular group of friends whom I visit new restaurants with, and I don't have anyone to cook for. In fact, my friends, knowing how much of a foodie I am, will relay to me their experiences at various restaurants but will not even think of inviting me, normally because there's a girlfriend, boyfriend or date involved. Knowing people like this makes me cherish one of my best friends even more. She will drive at any lengths with me to eat at a particular place. Unfortunately we don't live in the same country anymore so going on adventures like that will only be a fond memory.

I've always been an insanely jealous person. In kindergarden I cried whenever my "boyfriend" of the whole year would talk to another girl. When he tried to apologize I'd just be sulky and ignore him, and one of our mums would have to intervene to make things better between us. Things haven't changed much.

I hate it when I'm left out of information, and I hate it when people don't invite me to things. I wonder why people choose to hang out with me in the first place. Maybe I'm the person who provides light entertainment on occasion but is not a good person to hang around with all the time. I'm the Urkel.

Maybe because food is a relatively new interest of mine that I don't have a foodie group yet. After years of searching for gig buddies, I've finally met a few people I can call on to attend gigs with me. Do I really want to get that deep into becoming a foodie though? I'll probably need two seats on the plane ride to Toronto if that became the case.

Should I feel sorry for them?

2007-05-13T21:34:00.000+10:00

I just watched a 60 Minutes segment about a man who fell for a Nigeran banking scam. You know, you get an e-mail in your junk mail folder that goes along the lines of "Greetings Sir. I am the son of the late President Mutakaka and I am e-mailing you to ask for your help. I need someone trustworthy to take care of US$1,000,000 for me. Please send me your bank account details so I can transfer this money to you."

It turned out that he sent the Nigeran con men money several different times, in the promise that he would receive a larger sum in return. Eventually they sent him a fake cheque for US $31,500,000. Even after receiving the fake cheque, and even after being told by the authorities that the men were con artists, HE KEPT SENDING THEM MONEY!!!! Why should we feel sorry for his stupid actions? Sure, he lost all his money, his house, and his businesses, but IT WAS HIS FAULT. The blame game is the number one sport of our country. People never assume responsibility for their own actions. No, don't blame the man's stupidity but the cunningness of the Nigerian con men.

I never watch TV but I sometimes have it on for background noise. Commercial TV nowadays loves to show real stories of the stupid, annoying, fat and whinging. I can't believe there's an audience for this material. It's like the readers of Take Five magazine too over the reigns of TV production so they can show the 'real' stories of 'real' Australians. What happened to the good ol TV viewing days of becoming addicted to the latest (American) sitcom or drama. Other than The Chaser, I can't think of any other Australian show I'd rather watch than, say, Arrested Development, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Sopranos and even Scrubs (despite the annoyingness of J.D). When I watch TV I want to escape reality. I don't want to be confronted with the annoying types of people I encounter in public and at work everyday. I couldn't give a shit about their lives (especially if they have an annoying voice).

Good for nothing

2007-05-12T20:16:00.000+10:00

Last week I finished a short film script for a competition I was eager to enter, but after working on it for the past seven days, my initial enthusiasm for my script has turned to hatred. I can't think of another short film script to write. Maybe I'm just not cut out to be a script writer. I'm not good at anything. Is it my fate to work be another boring office worker and not contribute anything creative to society? Maybe I should accept my fate and marry a sensible Chinese boy who listens to Boyz II Men and Brian Adams, buy a McMansion in the outer suburbs, have kids while I'm of child bearing age, get an admin job at an insurance company and have gossip magazine readers as friends. At least I'll be able to fine tune my only skill of baking cakes.

I can never follow through with anything. Not even suicide attempts. The three times I tried to kill myself I whimped out at the last minute because I was afraid that my attempts would result in paralyzation or brain damage rather than death, and I'd rather be dead than be paralyzed or retarded. If I wanted to commit suicide again, I'd have to do something dramatic like stand on a train track or jump off a thirty floor building. I'm worried than drinking a bottle of poison would just destroy my organs and I'd have to stay in a hospital for the rest of my life. How shit would that be. If I had the internet back in my suicidal days, I could have Googled "how to commit suicide" and got the job over and done with.

I'm at the peak of my cultural apathy tonight because I've been browsing celebrity gossip sites! I've stooped that low!!!

I still like writing though. I just finished a short story that I'm happy about. None of it is good enough to be published though. People tell me that writing is a skill people are born with and that enrolling in a writing course is useless if you already have the talent. However if I don't study writing, it will be something that will nag me for the rest of my life. I'm not confident in my skills so I mostly want to do a course to fine tune what I already know. I wish I had a writing tutor. Someone I can show my work to and ask how I can improve it. The only thing holding me back from doing a course now is my pending move to Toronto. That's it, I think I'll enrol in a writing course when I'm in Toronto.

If writing fails, maybe I should try photography as a creative outlet.

Ok, time for me to stop complaining and do something constructive.

Yum yum yum

2007-05-07T00:28:00.000+10:00

My journey into becoming a hard core foodie (or, how I'm now the fattest I've ever been) started about a year and a half ago. Sick of supermarket bread, I went on my first foodie's expidition to find the best bakery bread on my side of town. After months of carbo loading, I settled on Filou's chewy and tasty wholemeal loaves. It tasted like the homemade bread my mum used to make with her bread making machine. The smell of bread baking to the time that you wake up is a better alarm than the annoying beep of my Nokia. Every house needs a bread making machine like they need a microwave (although I prefer stove top heating rather than microwaves).

The problem with being a foodie is that now I've tried the best of everything, I can't go back to eating grilled chicken breast salad for dinner every night. I was once a very plain, healthy eater. Fruit, vegetables, tuna and grilled meat was satisfactory. On some occasions I wouldn't even feel the need to eat. I know there are ways to make healthy food interesting. Believe me, I could write my own healthy recipies book. But my brain is now telling me to eat like a glutton at every meal, and to not resist temptation. On Thursday I walk past Let Them Eat Cake and want to buy a cupcake. On Saturday I walk to Filou's to buy a chocolate cherry brioche. On Sunday I go to A1 to buy a cheese pie. I tell myself each time that it's a treat, but how often do I need to have these treats? There should be a way that I can balance my love for food with a healthy lifestyle. Well, I'm running more to compensate for my daily indulgences. Getting fit is actually quite fun because it gives me a goal other than to make the perfect hot cross buns.

I'm extremely spoilt for choice in places to eat in Brunswick. I wonder if I will be as lucky in Toronto. If I can't find anywhere good to eat there, at least I will lose weight.

Movie list

2007-05-04T22:57:00.000+10:00

These recently viewed films made made me laugh, think, cry and feel inspired.

C.R.A.Z.Y

I fell in love with Marc-Andre Grondin.

A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints

I fell in love with Robert Downey Jnr's puppy dog eyes.

Running with Scissors

I fell in love with Annette Benning's wardrobe in the first third of the film and the first house the Burroughs family lived in.

The Namesake

I fell in love with the director, Mira Nair, for the way she shot India and drawing out incredible performances from the cast.

Half Nelson

I fell in love with Ryan Gosling. He was hot as a junkie.

The Devil and Daniel Johnston

I fell in love with Daniel Johnston's mad, creative genius like that depicted of Anton Newcomb in Dig!.

Lenny

Dustin Hoffman acted in his best films in the 70s.

Ggrrr don't ask me out when he/she's there!

2007-05-04T22:01:00.000+10:00

You know I hate your girlfriend/boyfriend, don't ask me to hang out when you're with her/him. I'd rather stay at home plucking my eyebrows. If you want to see me, do it separately and add in other friends to the mix. I find your girlfriend/boyfriend extremely annoying/quiet/anti-social/serious/judgemental/unfunny/controlling/needy/sad/whimpy/rude.

I only consider two of my friends partners' as my own friends. Altough I met an ex of a friend who I got along with fantastically. If they were still going out I wouldn't mind hanging out with the both of them at all.

I hate MSN

2007-05-04T21:40:00.000+10:00

If people are really busy, they shouldn't go on MSN! They are obviously online to talk to someone. It's the most obvious form of brushing someone aside. ICQ was better than MSN because you could appear offline to everyone and select the few who you want to appear online too. On MSN, you have to either block everyone on your list except the person you want to talk to, or appear "busy" or "away" all the time so that if people send you messages you can ignore them or tell them you are too busy too chat. The word 'block' is more harsh than appearing 'invinsible'. Block infers to push someone out of your life forever, whereas invinsible means to hide out from people once in awhile.

I used to have a brain

2007-05-04T20:50:00.000+10:00

To take a line from Nina Simone's "I can't see nobody" - "I used to have a brain; I used to think of many things."

When I go for walks or I'm sitting on the tram, I'm conscious of when I'm not thinking. Nothing comes to mind to think about other than worrying about not thinking. I can't think of short film scripts because they develop as I write. I switch off from my day job the moment I exit my office doors. My thoughts usually comprise of personal worries and whoever is taking my fancy at the time. I'm oblivious to most events happening in the world. Maybe I just don't see any point in worrying about situations that I feel I have no control over. I don't like anyone at the moment, which has made me feel more content than I have ever been in the past few years. Not having a love interest has been fantastic because I'm less preoccupied about my looks, more focused on saving money to move to Candada next year and making my short film. I'm dressing like a tomboy again, wearing glasses (which I love though because they're these) and gained weight because I have no care about acquiring a boyfriend. I know, I'm a disappointing feminist and I should have more self-respect. I should want to look good for myself, not for a man! I was told that the events in your past life shape what happens to you now. I wonder if I bound my feet in a past life to increase my marriage prospects. That would also explain why I was born with feet problems.

Oi vey where is my mind...

I think I'm desperate to go back to uni, but I can't enrol at the moment because I'm saving to go overseas. This is the year of sacrificing my brain for potentially greater experiences next year.

Porridge variations

2007-05-04T19:11:00.000+10:00

Banana porridge

1. Cook porridge as per directions on packet.
2. After it's cooked mix in one mashed banana.
3. Sprinkle cinnamon, sultanas/currants and slithered almonds.

Pear oats

1. Throw in a pear into a pot of boiling water (twice the amount of water to cover the pear). Add cinnamon and ginger spice powder. Boil till pear is soft.
2. Add in rolled oats. Stir until cooked.

Apple oats

Same directions as for pear oats, except leave out the ginger spice.

How to ruin a day

2007-05-04T16:01:00.000+10:00

Wear really uncomfortable shoes to stand in the whole day. Fuck these shoes. The flat sole deceived me. Flat does not equal comfortable. Oh, make sure they don't have good grip so you have trouble walking across smooth surfaces. You may even slip a few times. Damn these shoes. Why can't people make simple, comfy ballet flats? These were the only pair I could find after looking all over Melbourne. Does everyone wear boots, heels and wedges? Surely there must be a market my age for plain black leather ballet flats.

Also forget to wear a belt when wearing loose pants. Whenever I lose weight it comes off from the hips first. My hips aren't even big to begin with! My pants and jeans always, always slip down. It makes it look to others that I'm purposely showing off my arse crack, but I'm not - I simply have no arse and hip flesh to fill out my pants! I can never run in my jeans because they'll fall to my knees, even when I buckle my belt tightly. Why can't I loose weight in my face or stomach instead? I know my back would be happy without the two boobs hanging off it. Yes, when you're fat, you have two sets of boobs - one on the chest and the other on the back. You fatties know what I'm talking about.

Dealing with people

2007-05-03T23:28:00.000+10:00

There are two or three people whom I think I can hang out with more than three times a week without getting sick of them. I can't say this with conviction, since at times I've needed a break from seeing these people too. One of these people hasn't even really reached good friend status yet, but we hang out with each other three to four times a week and I'm happy to do that because he's easygoing and we get along well. The point is, I prefer to spend time alone and when I do socalize, I'm quite picky in the people I choose. I need a break from seeing most people (even good friends) if I've hung out with them two times in a week, and I especially begin to feel suffocated when anyone from this group asks for my time more than once or twice a week. I like to balance out the time I spend with my different friends. My social network is quite fragmanted. I don't have a big group of friends who know each other. Each of my friends are from differnent areas of my life. I'm most comfortable hanging out in a group of three. When I'm just hanging out with one other person, I feel so much pressure to avoid awkward silence that I end up rambling and laughing to much. Maybe that's why internet dates never worked out for me. Here's a psychiatrist's theory - I'm scared of a conversation going silent because all the way up to the age of 15, I was very quiet and people hated me for it.

I know a guy who I think can only tolerate to hang out with me once every few months. If I ask him to hang out again a few days after we've seen each other, he most likely won't even answer my call or reply my SMS. I think he'd rather chat with me on the internet than talk to me in person, which is fair enough because the online me is wittier and smarter (only because while chatting, I can Google things he's said that I don't understand). Anyone who doesn't know me in person must be wondering how unarticulate and slow I am in real life, given that the writing in this blog isn't much to go by. It's true, I'm one of the stupidest people I know, not many people are stupider than me (except the lady in my office who spells 'neighbours' as 'naiberous' and 'great' as 'grate'). It's one thing to be able to memorize your way through a degree, it's another to not finish school but do well in life because of smart decisions and ambition.

Music ruined by circumstance

2007-04-29T03:51:00.000+10:00

Once music I liked (or tolerated), I now cringe or feel queasy when I hear it. It is:

- Anything by Martha Wainwright, Jeff Buckley, At The Drive-In, Maximo Park and End of Fashion
- Josh Pike - Middle of the Hill
- The Editors - Bullets
- Gwen Stefani - What are you waiting for
- Black Eyed Peas - Where is the love

Rivers Cuomo and Asian fetishes

2007-04-29T02:20:00.000+10:00

Last night I dreamt that I met Rivers Cuomo backstage after a Weezer gig (yes, this dream was last night, not in 1996). Two mean blonde girls were making me nervous by telling me that I had no chance with Rivers. I told them that they were being stupid for assuming that I would make a move on a celebrity. After the dream I thought, of course I would have a chance, I'm Asian. Rivers loves Asians. The only thing that would turn him off me would be my boyish Westernness and ability to speak fluent English. My Asian fetish friend says he's attracted to Asians because he thinks they're more feminine and it's cute when they speak in broken English. I have a few Asian fetish friends, but I still think most Asian fetish guys are creepy, especially this one. Is it wrong for me to think they're creepy? How are they different from gentleman who prefer blondes? How are they different from any person who is attracted to a certain type? The Asian fetishes' attraction is not much different to my weakness for dark haired, slightly geeky, creative (especially music) types...like River.

I can't believe River went on Friendster to look for a girlfriend. He even found a profile he liked, sent her several messages that she never replied to, and wrote a few songs for her. Other than to complete the degree he's deferred since 1997, Rivers returned to Harvard to look for his future wife. He eventually married a Japanese friend he made at a Weezer concert in 1997. Can someone send me a list of musicians who date their fans?

Stupid customers

2007-04-27T16:03:00.000+10:00

Customer - "Your website isn't working"
Me - "Why"
Customer - "It's different"
Me - "What website are you using?"
Customer - "www.xxxxxxxx.com"
Me - "That's the wrong one. It's www.yyyyyyy.com"
Customer - "Oh yeah, that's right, silly me. Let me login to the website. I can't get in. The login details are wrong."
Me - "What are you typing in?"
Customer - "Username - xxxxx. Password - yyyyy."
Me - "It's the other way around. The usename is yyyyy and the password is xxxxx."
Customer - "Oh, yes, silly me."

Me (thinking) - "How can you be an IT teacher if you have trouble getting into a website, dumbass!"

Colonel Sanders memorbilia

2007-04-26T23:33:00.000+10:00

This book is about the Colonel's finding of Jesus (was he behind the couch all this time?)

VISIT MALAYSIA GODDAMMIT!!!!

2007-04-21T15:59:00.000+10:00

It annoys me that so many people are ignorant about Malaysia and choose to go to Thailand or Singapore instead for a South East Asian holiday. Thai food is great, but Malaysian is just as good and has more variety. As for Singaporean food, well, it's an inferior version of Malaysian and they don't have any signature dishes (chilli crab doesn't count as it's Malaysian!). All Singapore has to offer is clean public toilets. Why people should go to Malaysia:

1. The variety of food influenced by Malay, Chinese (especially Hainanese), Indian and Portugese cultures.

2. The Malaysian Chinese food is better than what's found in China, where every dish I tried, from street stall to hotel restaurant, was either too salty, bland, or overpowered with chilli. Mao drove the good cooks away from China!

3. Kelantan (north east) - the best meal of my life so far was ayam percik (barbequed chicken marinated in coconut milk, tamarind and other spices); rice wrapped in banana leaves and shaped cone, with three different curries layered in the rice cake; and blue rice.

4. Malacca - chilli crab with thick, white slices of white bread; Nonya kueh (Malay-Chinese deserts);

5. Penang - asam laksa and kueh

6. KL - Maggi mee goreng (fried noodles), mee rubus (soft egg noodles in a potato based sauce), roti chanai, peanut pancakes with corn and coconut, tofu bakar (barbequed tofu stuffed with cucumber and dipped in satay sauce). Many food stalls are open 24 hours, which is perfect for an after drinks meal at 3am.

Phoenix/The Pixies

2007-04-05T00:54:00.000+10:00

Second best gig moment of my life - Thomas Mars from Phoenix stepping down from stage to walk in the crowd to sing 'Napoleon Says'. He walked right in my path. I seem to have really good luck with getting close to musicians at gigs. I touched his arm. He stood next to me for most of the song. He is a dreamboat. He is kinda tall and has the slim build that I'm attracted to. After the gig they signed autographs and I got each band member to sign my CD. I thanked Thomas for coming down from stage to sing in the crowd, and said that it was really cool. He said that he tried to reach out to me from the stage but he was too short. I bet he says that to all the girls! I wanted to ask how Sofia Coppola was and if she was in Melbourne but I didn't have the guts. I wish I was Sofia, for several reasons which will be left for another blog.

I was front row for The Pixies, almost 3ft away from Kim Deal. I worship her - she is my favourite bass player and one of my favourite vocalists. She had a permanent smile on her face which was weird given that she is clean, but she definitely seemed to be the most friendly band member because she was the only one who spoke to the crowd. She is one of my top queens of cool, with the other two being Kim Gordon and Karen O. I only got into The Pixies two years ago, but their songs made me feel nostalgic even though I wasn't into the scene back in the early 90s.

A top 5 gig.

Nike Fallen Heroes Collection

2007-03-04T22:44:00.000+11:00

80s and early 90s pop culture refrences on t-shirts are so 2004. Who was the genius at Nike who came up with the idea to design a sneaker collection based on celebrities who fell from cheesy grace in the early 90s - Pee Wee Herman, Vanilla Ice, MC Hammer and Milli Vanilli. I love the designer's attention to detail - the Pee Wee Herman at the cinema print on the insole, the shoelace dreadlocks on the Milli Vanilli shoe.

Pee Wee Herman

The colours of this shoe match his grey suit and red tie. Something feels wrong about NOT putting him on my list of the Worst 11 Celebrity Paedophiles.

How would you feel about standing on a picture of Pee Wee Herman jacking off in an adult theatre?

MC Hammer

The broken hammer on the outsole is so mean. Everytime I walk in these shoes I'd feel like I'm breaking a bit of the Hammer's soul. You can't touch that. The snake print on the Nike swoosh will make you feel like the original P-I-M-P that Hammer was. Wear these shoes with parachute pants and suspenders, and a long gold chain. No shirt underneath.

Vanilla Ice

This man was once the object of desire for powerful celebrities. He scored with Madonna and did a duet with Naomi Cambell.

He's a style icon for Vice kids around the world. Every second male scenester I see at gigs has hair and sunnies like him. Sorry, I'm too lazy to cut the text out of this picture I stole.

Milli Vanilli

Note that the shoelaces resemble their dreadlocks. The designer should have drawn a picture of a broken grammy on the shoe, rather than the broken hammer on the MC Hammer model.

Love list 4/3

2007-03-04T21:12:00.000+11:00

SAM ROCKWELL

Watch Lawn Dogs, Matchstick Men, and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.

BIRCHER MUESLI

To make enough for 4 breakfasts (for lazy loners like me), mix together:

- 2 cups oats
- 1 cup cloudy apply juice
- 1 cup natural yoghurt
- 1 grated Granny Smith
- almond slithers
- sultanas
- cinnamon

Serve with blueberries or strawberries (whatever is on special). But as the Special K ad says, buy blueberries BECAUSE YOU'RE WORTH IT.

Rush hour

2007-02-28T22:48:00.000+11:00

Let's follow Geoffrey Rush.

Damn, he crossed the road. Quickly, let's cross too.

Geoffrey, we're getting closer.

Oops, Joseph forgot to switch the night settings off the camera.

That's better.

"No sir. You cannot enter the train station by scanning your Oscar over the entry. You need to go buy a ticket at that machine over there," said the ticket inspector in the blue shirt.

I bet you he's looking for platform 3 because he's going to go to his his beloved Camberwell station.

I knew it!

"Now where is that bloody train. I need to ring Cate to give my condolences for missing out on the Oscar."

The Dan Count

2007-02-27T21:58:00.000+11:00

Thursday 22/2 - spoke to 4 Dans' - Dan K1, Dan K2, Dan M, Dan T
Friday 23/2 - spoke to 1 Dan - Dan M
Saturday 24/2 - spoke to 1 Dan - Dan K
Sunday 25/2 - spoke to 1 Dan - Dan M
Monday 26/2 - spoke to 3 Dans' but nearly 4 - Dan K2, Dan M, Dan T, missed a call from Dan K1

TUESDAY 27/2 - SPOKE TO 5 DANS!!! That's a record. I spoke to Dan K1, Dan K2, Dan M, Dan T, and Dan T's housemate named Dan.

Another interesting Dan connection - my first friend in the world was named Daniel. We were in play group together when we were 1 or 2.

In the past year I've met 7 Dans'. Mind you, I didn't seek them out. I don't have a 'Dan' festish. I just happen to meet a lot of guys coincidentally named Daniel. I should have a party with all the Dans' I know. I only know one Danielle, but people call her Danni. I'm going to call her Dan the next time I see her.

Contact me if your name is Daniel or Danielle and we can be friends. Help to increase my Dan count!

Alan Partridge also has a friend named Dan.

The ultimate Dan - Daniel-son.

Thoughts about Asia

2007-02-19T00:56:00.000+11:00

A few things bewilder me whenever I'm in Asia, that I want to explore:

- Why are Asians so materialistic?
- Why are R&B, hip hop and hard electo the most popular genres of music?
- Why aren't there many sub-cultures amongst the youth? Most people there just dress according to the latest Western trends. You won't find hippies, emos, goths, punks, mods, skaters, ravers, rockabillies, indie rockers or retro dressers.
- The contrast between the repression of expression and choice, and how young people behave (i.e. how repressed people act out). For example, Muslims are prohibited to drink and smoke but there are plenty of young people getting pissed and high in clubs in Malaysia. Chinese parents are especially strict on their kids, so even when their kids become adults, they continue to smoke behind their parents back. I find it really facinating that Western kids are so open to their parents about most facets of their life, so much so that when the kids become adults they become friends with their parents. When Asian kids become adults, the parent-child relationship is still there, where the parent is still this high up being who tells the child what to do, and the child obeys. My white friends drink with their parents. The only time this happens with Asians is at weddings!

An Inconvenient Truth

2007-02-19T00:06:00.000+11:00

Do you think that most of the people who watched An Inconvenient Truth had some knowledge or concern about global warming anyway? Do you think the average Joe, Maria or Mei Ling, who value quick, mind-numbing entertainment over anything informative, would have seen this documentary? It's people like this, who form the bulk of society, that need to be educated about global warming. These are the kind of people who don't give a shit about anything happening in the world. They are self-obsessed, celebrity worshiping, group mentality, mainstream entertainment watching, materialistic consumers. They are the type of people who buy a Toyota Prius because Cameron Diaz drives one, not because it's a hybrid car (I know a girl who did this). How do you get the global warming message out to the Asian teenager hanging out at the shopping centre to pass time? How do you inform the guy whose main concern in life is buying a flash car and finding a hot chick? Celebrity endorsement. I think Toyota should pay Paris Hilton, Vin Disel and Nicolas Tse to drive Prius'. I think celebrities should be on ads to inform people about the steps they can take to help the environment. What about an ad where Jay-Z and Beyonce show people the energy efficient products they have in their home. Educate people through movies. In Ben Stiller's next film, why not have a few scenes where he recycles his beer cans rather than throw them in the ordinary trash can.

Many of the existing environmental awareness ads are targeted to households. What about businesses? Think of all the paper that gets thrown away and lights left on at your office. My company doesn't even have recycling bins for glass, cans and plastic. I'm going to ask for one. Why doesn't the government sponsor more ads to inform businesses to switch off the lights in their building after work? Or at least use an energy efficient source of light. Surely there will be a positive effect on the environment if all the office building lights in Shanghai and Manhattan were off for one night. Why not have a global blackout day, where every city skyline will be dark for one night. Once you've seen one glittering skyline you've seen them all anyway. If you want a picture, buy a postcard or print one off from the internet.

Creepy plant

2007-02-15T22:55:00.000+11:00

It's called the Kangaroo Paw. I have to walk through several bushes of these plants everyday. It feels like there are hundreds of tiny hands and millions of tiny fingers trying to reach out and grab me whenever I walk past. Why can't they leave me alone!

A gallery

2007-02-15T22:50:00.000+11:00

Johnston St, Collingwood.

Muffin porn

2007-02-15T22:06:00.000+11:00

It doesn't matter if you are a top or bottom - the muffins at the Green Refrectory will please you any way you desire.

The wide, crisp top has edges that are almost as crunchy as a biscuit.

The base is filled with an abundance of fresh berries and chunks of pear or apple. Soft, moist and sweet. On weekends they may surprise you with chocolate chips too.

Forgive the dodgy photography.

Muffins were a staple food for me while I was at uni. They're cheap and filling. Whenever I visit a new cafe or bakery I always try their muffins, but time and time again I have been disappointed by their general dryness and lack of fruit. Are bakeries overcooking muffins on purpose to put people off eating them, thus helping to reduce obesity rates in Australia?

The Green Refrectory, without a doubt, makes the best muffins in Melbourne. These are the regular varieties they offer:

- Blueberry and pear
- Raspberry and apple (with chocolate chips sometimes)
- Strawberry and pear
- Blackberry/boysenberry and apple/pear
- Savoury - sun dried tomatoes, spinach, roast pumpkin, feta and pine nuts

Location: 115 Sydney Rd, Brunswick. It's next to the shoe store, opposite the tanning salon.

Opens till 8pm everyday but Sunday, when it closes at 5.

Worst 11 Paedophiles

2007-02-13T21:22:00.000+11:00

11. Mary Kay Letourneau

Mary Kay Letourneau had sex with her 13 year old student, Vili Fualaau, in 1996. She went to jail in 1997 for statutory rape but gave birth to his child while in prison. She was released on good behaviour in 1998, on the condition that she was never to see Vili again. A month later they were caught in public together and she was sent back to the slammer, where she gave birth to their second child nine months later. He was finally legal when she was released in 2004. They married in 2005 and she changed her name to Mary Kay Fualaau.

10. Elvis

Elvis had a fondness for young women. Especially virgins. He supposedly started dating Priscilla when she was 14 and he was 25. Lisa Marie is the poster child for the Electra complex because by marrying Michael Jackson, she married her father. Elvis and Michael - the Kings of Pop and lovers of people under the age of 18.

9. Patrick Swayze in Donnie Darko

I think this is the only decent movie I've seen the Swayze-man in. He played Jim Cunningham, a famous motivational speaker who had a room full of child porn in his house.

8. Mr Colby from Degrassi

Mr Colby preyed on the talented girls in class, who both happened to be black and neglected by their busy parents. First Lucy, then Suzie. There were reports that he also had his eye on Tatyana Ali and Raven Symone.

7. The driver who picked up Wheels hitchiking

One of my favourite Degrassi Junior High moments was when Wheels was hitchiking and gets picked up by a guy, who later proceeds to rubs his hands down Wheels' thigh and compliments him on his "stong legs".

6. Roman Polanski

In 1977, Roman Polanski drugged and raped a 13 year old model. He used the old paedophile excuse of "come to my house for a Vogue photo shoot/I need you to take your top off because all the models do, don't you want to be a real model?"

5. R Kelly

Firstly, he married Aaliyah when she was 15. Secondly, there are several charges against him for filming child pornography and having sex with minors. I don't think he believes he can fly anymore. I hope he looses his wings in jail.

4. John Mark Karr

John Mark Karr, the primary school teacher who claimed to be in love with Jon Bennet Ramsay. In fact, he was so in love with her that he falsely confessed to accidentally killing her that tragic night. By the way, he was teaching in Thailand at the time of confession. Isn't that where a third of the world's paedophiles go?

3. Dylan Baker in Happiness

Dylan Baker played Bill Maplewood, an average family man who had a crush on his son's best friend. Unfortunately the lust for the boy was too much to handle and he went to jail. He also offered to jerk off his son and said something else to him that is too sick for me to mention. Happiness will forever disturb me.

2. Gary Glitter

Why the fuck is he smiling? Did he just molest ten little boys? He probably made up the joke that "the best thing about twenty eight year olds is that there are twenty of them". He's listed as a sex offender in the UK, was banned from Cambodia on suspicion of committing child sex offences, and is now in jail in Vietnam for child sexual abuse. Cambodia and Vietnam are where the other third of the paedophiles in the world reside. Why can't Nike and Calvin Klein open more factories in these areas so children can be underpaid factory workers rather than sex workers.

1. Michael Jackson

A blatantly obvious choice? But hey, he did always talk about how much he really loved children.

Muse

2007-01-31T00:15:00.000+11:00

MATT BELLAMY - IS THERE SEXIER MAN ALIVE?

One of the best gig moments of MY LIFE just happened tonight. I was standing front row at the Muse concert. Matt stepped down from the stage and was a meter away from me. He knelt down in front of me and played the intro gituar solo of 'Plug in baby', which is one of my favourite gituar riffs of all time. He was biting his lip as he played it intensly. He looked into the crowd with a growling rock face. His blue eyes were very clear to me. He was wearing skinny white jeans and a white t-shirt. He was pretty much posed like this in front of me:

I loved it when Matt played on the piano and had the gituar slung around his body. I wish he could come play piano at my house. What an insanely talented musician.

I was never a major Muse fan until I blown away by their sunset performance at the Big Day Out on Sunday. There was a magical atmosphere in the audience. The crowd was singing along, but not in an annoying way, and dancing, but not roughly. People were really into it and excited. I think the vibes from the people around me is what infected me even more with the Muse bug. Muse played with such intensity, and I was drawn into Matt's voice. He closed his eyes and tilted his head as he sung in falsetto. He reminded me of Jeff Buckley.

Matt Bellamy and Muse shit all over Thom York and Radiohead. Muse are supposedly influenced by Radiohead and are often compared to them. But Thom York is an arrogant prick and Radiohead don't come close to producing the dramatic sound of Muse. I think they are quite different and shouldn't be compared anyway.

Muse continues to create an exciting variation on prog rock. Their past three albums sound completely different to another. I think 'Origin of Symmetry' is their most accessible, 'Absolution' is their heaviest, and 'Black Holes and Revelations' ventures into new territory with a more pop/funk sound. Electric beats in track 1, 'Take a Bow'. A bit of salsa on track 10, 'City of Delusion'; a bit of surf gituar Tarantino soundtrack-esque sound on track 11, 'Hoodoo'. Matt's vocals on 'Supermassive Black Hole' are rather...disco?

Lupe Fiasco

2007-01-29T00:00:00.000+11:00

I met Lupe Fiasco on Friday night. I complimented him on the positive lyrics on his album and said that it was a refreshing change from everything else that is out there in hip hop. Then I gave him a card of a comic book and manga store in the city for him to check out, because I read of his love for that. He signed a CD sleeve for me and took a photo. I am estatic that I met one of my favourite musicians from last year and proud of my ability to schmooze. =)

Fitzroy

2007-01-27T19:31:00.000+11:00

I can't help but feel nostalgic when I walk through Fitzroy sometimes. If I return to Melbourne after a few years, I'm sure I'll be overwhelmed with memories of my early 20s the moment I step foot on Brunswick St. Other than Vermont South (the suburb where I spent my childhood) no other place in Melbourne generates such strong feelings in me. I have never even lived in Fitzroy. I live in Brunswick, which I love but don't really socalize in.

Fitzroy seems like a community that has a concentration of young and creative people (although the really creative may disagree and label Fitzroy 'bohemian hip'). I would probably never get anything done or save any money if I lived in a fun sharehouse there, because I'd be eating out and drinking at the random bars every night.

I'd like to print out a map of Brunswick St and circle in red the parts that holds memories. When I pass the Night Cat I think of the debauchery and times I've mostly spent making fun of people dancing rather than dancing myself. Cross the road to Bar One Twenty and think of all the wrongness that happened there. The first night we went because it was the only venue still open at 3am. We silly danced to the cheesy 80s music playing and ignored the desperate older people around us. The second night we went to re-experience the fun 80s but instead was given the sad late 70s. The third night scared us off the place forever. It was a market packed with used by meat. We walked in, was approached for drugs, and rushed out two minutes later. My friend said that "he's never seen such a concentration of ugly people in his entire life". The fourth night we went to show a friend how bad it was. The bouncer wouldn't let us in because of my friend's torn jeans. I pointed out that the jeans cost $300 and that it was not fair that he let daggy people in who wore waist high stonewash jeans from 1991. I accused him of not letting us in because I was Asian and then walked away. I didn't really care that he refused to let us in. I just wanted to pick on him.

Next to Bar One Twenty is the home decoration store where I sat at the doorway and hassled people walking by and nearly passed out. The public debut of a glasses free me was at the Cape Lounge at my ex-housemate's funk gig. Walk past Marios and the cafe opposite The Evelyn and cringe at thinking of the two internet dates I had there. Bar Open! My favourite. From stalking Dylan Lewis, to watching obsucre arthouse movies in winter, and many times just hanging out there till closing time drinking. Walk up further to The Evelyn and think of all the bad gigs I've been to there. The Evelyn was the place where a clueless me used to go to check out whatever band was playing that night. The bands always turned out to be bad, with bad = emo or wannabe skater punk.

Across the road to Bimbos and remember all the cheap but yummy pizza's I ate there. The stongest memory was meeting my friend there after her return from the States after a year and a half. The bottle or two of red wine we drank made me violently throw up my lamb pizza later in the night. The walk from Johnston St to Bimbos reminds me of the time we saw the 1 meter tall lady with a 6ft tall boyfriend. Lucky for the man she was the size of the child, but legal.

Babka - massive corn beef sandwich anyone?

The pizza shop nearest to Johnston St - driving there at 5am after a night out in the city just to eat a souvaliki. I always get the lamb pizza. What about the alien van that was parked in front the shop one night.

Laundry - fat ho spotting, extreme karaoke, and staying up late on a weeknight being silly and making fun of my ex-housemate named Fanny who was wearing a nude coloured dress (a nude Fanny). Eating paella and churros dipped in chocolate sauce at the Spanish restaurant next door with twenty other people on the table. "Spanish guys are hot," stated my friend, who then turned around to see a Spanish waiter behind her.

The Spanish Club - seeing the Midnight Juggernauts and bumping into my friend and his girlfriend sitting outside having a smoke. I got caught up speaking to them for about half an hour.

I probably don't have as many memories of Fitzroy as more sociable people would, or people who live in the area. But nevertheless, it was my early 20s.

Homesick city girl

2007-01-23T22:23:00.000+11:00

I was in the picturesque beach town of Lorne in the past two days for a work conference. We drove through the Great Ocean Road to get to Lorne. Why is the Great Ocean Road a tourist attraction? I don't see the appeal in a long and windy road.

Lorne was not your ordinary bogan country town. The people looked clean cut and the shopping street was modern and tidy. I enjoyed walking up the steep, tree lined streets and tried to figure out the type of people who lived in the homes we passed by. The architecture varied in style from impressively futuristic to typical wooden beach home, and from family holiday home to axe murder shack. We walked through the beach several times and resolved to return to Lorne for a proper holiday.

However by sunset, I began to freak out about how eerily quiet and dark it was. We were sitting in the garden of the resort, facing the beach and trees. I felt I was sure a ghoul or rapist/murderer was going to come out from behind the trees to scare me. I had to stop looking into the pitch black space. I fell incredibily homesick for my house, my bed, my bathroom, and the city lights. I was craving the sound of car horns and drunks arguing on the street. I love hearing people having lively conversations as they walk by my house after a big night out. I feel safer walking around the city at 2am in the morning than I do in the country and suburbs at 9pm. I get incredibily creeped out in the country and suburbs at night. My imagination always runs on overdrive.

I am lying on my own bed writing this and I have never felt more comfortable in my life. I love Melbourne. I love Brunswick. I love my bed!

The boring couple

2007-01-20T00:42:00.000+11:00

She wasn't very pretty but had a nice body. Her partner was a gorgeous Eurasian boy with shaggy brown hair. They both spoke in accents that were a combination of Malaysian and Australian, with a tinge of American. It was the confused accent that people develop when they have grown up in different parts of the world - "I need to speak more American when I'm in the States, more Australian when I'm Down Under, and like a Malaysian when I'm back home so people won't think I'm a wanker."

The boy was nervously chatty and inquisitive. The girl couldn't have been less interested in what he had to say. They must have hooked up very recently, because he was telling her about all the different places he's lived in around the world. She had nothing to say, nothing to ask. He told her about a cool statue he saw in Europe and the meaning of it. She bluntly said that she didn't know what the hell he was talking about. I found him interesting. I would have asked questions. All she was in the mood for was leaning her tired head against his shoulder and holding his arm like her life depended on it. She would lift her head off his shoulder when she wanted to say something, then readily nuzzle her head back onto his shoulder after talking. As soon as she'd do that, he'd find something random to talk about - probably spurred out of nervousness.

He asked if she was worried. She said she was a bit worried. She said that she was in fact jealous. She said she didn't like that his gal pal was at his house last night. She whined that she didn't like his gal pal. Oh no, she's not one of those insanely insecure girls who doesn't allow her guy to have any gal pals. Well of course she's insecure, her body language tells it all with the way she was gripping his arm tightly. She's a self centered, insecure, uninteresting, dumb bitch. Great! How did she manage to hook up with this cutie? She must have given him an extrodinary blow job an hour after they met at a party. I give their relationship one month.

Listening to: Soma FM - Secret Agent channel: Spy and surf music.
Band of the day: Stereophonic Space Sound Unlimited

Worst Xmas Decorations

2007-01-20T00:02:00.000+11:00

Some arcade between Flinders St and Flinders Lane. Were wiggle Santas too expensive last Chistmas?

Word.

Kids are cheap

2007-01-19T23:57:00.000+11:00

On Johnston St, Fitzroy (otherwise known as the Nojo/Sojo divide).

Stupid people vs Animals

2007-01-17T23:44:00.000+11:00

Barnyard animals are more valuable to society than stupid people. Barnyard animals and their by products can be eaten. You can't eat stupid people since cannibalism is illegal everywhere except maybe in Papua. Pets are more valuable too. My cat gives me warmth on cold nights and cheers me up when I'm in a bad mood (probably because I've been around stupid people all day). Pets give their owners an abundance of joy. Stupid people don't make me smile and coo. Unless it is a stupid hot guy, but that only lasts for a night and then I get bored. And for the guys and lesbians reading this, stupid hot girls are good too. If you are a fugly loser man who can't even pick up the town slut, find a stupid hot girl to hook up with. You have to convince her that you are coming into a big inheritance from your uncle in Scotland and explain that you are living in a crap house for the moment because you are "playing the stock market". She will be so intimidated by your mere mention of the stock market that she won't question you. Where do stupid hot girls work?

The lesson is - if you are stupid and ugly, get plastic surgery.

Listening to: Beastie Boys - Hello Nasty

Housewives and househusbands

2007-01-17T23:36:00.000+11:00

Stay at home parents are great - as long as they are nurturing their kids to become PRODUCTIVE, CONTRIBUTING MEMBERS OF SOCIETY. If you aren't bothered to teach your kids how to read and add and subtract, then don't have kids. You had the kid, you have a responsibility to make sure they have a better chance in life than you did. If you aren't literate, then sit them in front of Sesame Street and Play School! Teach your kids how to set goals and achieve them so they know what drive is. Otherwise, congratulations on adding more lazy fuckwits to society.

(P.S) Teach them manners too. There is nothing worse than being a rude, lazy fuckwit. Imagine all the pushing and shoving that'll go on at KFC.

Stupid things Naiberous did today

2007-01-17T17:21:00.000+11:00

1. She did not know how to adjust the border width on the binding machine. The ruler and indicator on the machine is so self explanatory that a blind downs syndrome person could use it without instruction.

2. She asked my friend how to record messages on the phone, despite the easy to follow, step by step instructions that someone who speaks English as a fourth language could understand.

3. She printed something and said it was only printing odd numbers. Then my friend pointed out that it printed double sided. She did not know how to change the print settings. I don't understand how she could have been in an office job before.

4. She worried too much about how to use a supplier's website that is so user friendly even my grandma (who hasn't touched a keyboard in her life and can't read English) could use it . She spent half an hour asking everyone how we could improve the website (because the supplier asked us for feedback), but it wasn't worth our time to even investigate it because we hardly use their website.

5. She baby talked on the phone to her year old daughter three times today. It's enough to make me turn emo.

Listening to: Tidy Kid - Frozen Flower Pot

Surrounded by desperate housewives

2007-01-17T01:15:00.000+11:00

One of the few highlights of my boring day job was getting to sit next to one of my good friends everyday. It was a completely loud, hilarious, fun, chatter-filled, un-PC, trouble making mess sitting next to her. We were given the evil eye many times by boring people walking by who thought we were either bimbos, bitches or simply weird. Hey, if your paisley pink trouser pocket lining matches the pattern of your shirt, you are asking for it. A guy at the office called us "twisted, but in a good way".

At the beginning of this week my dear friend was replaced by the dumb lady who came back from maternity leave (I'll refer to her as 'Naiberous'). I was right to dread her return. I have not enjoyed one moment sitting next to her. Firstly, I can't believe she's only 28. She acts like she's 38. Actually, I know a 38 year old who acts younger than she does. There are many people in the office her age and older who seem younger than her. She's not a cool mum either. She comes from a very traditional, no questions asked background. Meaning, she has been brought up to live her life according to what her culture dictated...early last century. She was brainwashed by her parents to believe that all she needs to do in life is marry a man of the same cultural background (doesn't matter if he isn't very nice) and have children. Now that she has accomplished that goal, she has to bring her children up in the same way that her parents have. She has no desire to learn or discover anything about her surroundings and the world. All she wants to do is be a good wife and mother. The child is doomed to be as stupid as her parents are. Plus, her baby is ugly. If you can't be cute as a baby, then what chance in hell do you have of being slightly better looking when you are older? I feel very sorry for the baby. Should stupid people even be allowed to breed? The only benefit I see in it is that there will be more people available to fill the mindless jobs that no one else wants to do and buy products that they won't need but people like me will sell to them. In prehistoric times, stupid people probably would have been eaten by dinosaurs as they did not have the skills to survive.

Only two days have passed since she's started sitting next to me and already bits of my soul have slowly died away (that was such an emo sentence). I wither away when I'm not surrounded by exciting, intelligent, driven people who are continuously seeking to learn and improve. It bewilders me that some people are not interested in learning. How can you work in EDUCATIONAL PUBLISHING and not have a care in the world about your brain? It almost makes me cry. I would choose wits over looks any day.

She gets along very well with the other desperate housewife in the office. I don't care about your friekin kids! It doesn't interest me at all what your kid did last night. Care factor ZERO. I want to hear about parties and gigs, hookups and breakups from the last night - not what was on reality TV! I will not have debates with you on who is a more suitable husband for Jessica Simpson! I want to hear about the lives of people I actually know, not people you read about in the New Weekly! Trash is ok once in awhile for fun, but not as a serious conversation every day! Why can't I stop punctuating sentences with exclamation marks! Because I'm so annoyed!

The fat person’s mind

2007-01-16T13:04:00.000+11:00

10.03

Bread, I want to eat a chewy slice of bread. The Vogel’s multigrain toast I ate in the morning had a good chewy consistency but multigrain bread always leaves an unpleasant aftertaste in my mouth.

10.57

I want to eat coconut. Something with coconut and chocolate. Maybe a coconut and chocolate flan? What about a brownie with shredded coconut?

11.24

I’m craving the burger pattie I made last week. It had lots of chopped onions in it and parsley. I think I will make one tonight. It was one of the best burgers I’ve had in my life.

11.49

I’m sooooo hungry.

12.46

Just finished a leftover lunch of salad (cucumber, tomato, Bulgarian feta and tuna in vinaigrette) with Turkish bread spread with a yogurt and cucumber dip. I am now satisfied for the moment. Maybe I’ll eat a mango in the afternoon.

My first TV interview

2007-01-16T00:41:00.000+11:00

A few months ago I started volunteering as a production assistant on a community TV music show. The only skills I've been able to offer so far are research, admin and dealing with people.

I expressed my enthusiasm about Mountains in the Sky when I found out they were going to be on the show. I strongly suggested it would be a good idea for them to be interviewed because they were a pretty big deal in the Melbourne indie music scene. The producer suggested that I interview them and I said it would be cool, but I would have just been happy writing the interview questions for the hosts! I had one week to prepare for the interview. I listen to interviews all the time, but never really pay attention to the technique. I listened to as many interviews as I could that week to learn how a smooth interview goes and to get ideas for interview questions. Ever since I was a kid I always used to imagine myself conducting celebrity interviews and was conscious of asking unique and interesting questions. I don't know why I did it because I never had any desire to be an interviewer.

Anyway, on the day of the interview and I was so nervous that I was going to throw up my breakfast. I did as much research as I could about Mountains in the Sky and listened to their EP several times over. The last thing I wanted was to appear as a bimbo who asked stock standard questions. I'm not even pretty enough to be a credible bimbo. I'd probably be called stupid instead of a bimbo. At least the word bimbo infers that a girl has more looks than brains.

All the nerves disappeared the moment I sat on the couch with John from Mountains in the Sky. I faced the camera with confidence and introduced the band without missing a line. I asked the first question I had written down on my sheet below and from then on the interview flowed like a normal conversation, which I hoped it would. I managed to ask questions in response to his answers, rather than rigidly stick to the pre-prepared questions. I felt really good after the interview! John was nice enough to say that I asked good questions and the director also gave me positive feedback. I fumbled my words a few times and in hindsight, I think I asked a few stupid questions. I would like to watch the interview, but I think I'd squirm through it and be annoyed by things I could have done better. No matter how I feel after watching it, it was cool to have interviewed one of my favourite bands for my first interview. Next step - MTV.

Listening to: Mountains in the Sky - Accipio

Asian fetish creep

2007-01-08T10:58:00.000+11:00

This is the man who goes to my local internet café nearly every evening. Because he always sits next to the window, I can see what he’s doing on the computer whenever I walk past. He, without fail, is webcam chatting with hot, twenty something Asian girls. He will firstly browse Asian internet dating sites and then picks the ones he will chat with for the night. He will have multiple webcam chat windows open, and people walking past have a full view of the girls he’s talking to. They look like they are from Asia and not a Western country (I can tell the difference between Asians from Asia and Asians from Western countries). He will have a few typing chat windows open too. The girls do the typical Asian chat thing and use animations in their chat dialogue. I wonder what they talk about. He looks like he’s over forty. Do they talk about the fiscal policy of Taiwan or the latest Nicholas Tse album and Hello Kitty toys?

He makes me sick because he obviously has a family. Wouldn’t anyone rather use the internet at home than in public, especially to chat with young girls. He probably lives far away from this internet café, so he won’t bump into anyone he knows.

Check out this creep at the internet café on Sydney Rd in Brunswick. It’s near the corner of Edward St, in between a Chiropractor and the Tom Phat restaurant, opposite the Cornish Arms.

On the set of a Bollywood film

2007-01-03T23:05:00.000+11:00

Thanks to a friend in the crew, I had the opportunity to be an extra in Chak De! India, a Bollywood movie featuring it's biggest star, Shah Rukh Khan. His popularity in India is probably equal to that of The Beatles and Elvis in their heyday. Am I exaggerating? Maybe. Ok, bring his popularity down to perhaps an Oprah level. He's definitely a bigger star than Tom Cruise was pre- couch jumping days. The man below is Shah. You may recognize his face from Pepsi ads if you have ever visited India.

The film is about the Indian female hockey team competing in the women's world hockey championship. It was shot in Melbourne and Sydney.

The production company advertised for volunteer extras to be part of crowd scenes. Obviously Shah Rukh Khan was the main drawing card for most of the volunteers. We were told that Shah was going to be on set from 10am and that people will have the opportunity to take a photo with him once an hour. Even before this time, there were many extras already on set eager to meet Shah. Some fans brought gifts for him, including a cake. The hours went by with no sign of Shah. By 1pm people were getting agitated. A few people cried and argued with the crew, demanding to know where Shah was. He still did not turn up by the time I had to leave at 2pm. My friend later told me that he only turned up at about 6pm. He only flew into Melbourne at 7am that morning and was in his hotel room resting and learning his lines. Movie stars are never on time.

A bunch of girls and a couple of guys broke out in Bollywood dance in between shoots. Although, they came in costume, so this was obviously planned beforehand. Boo. Why don't people spontaneously dance in a group more often? It's suitable anywhere, anytime - especially at Saturday morning detention like in The Breakfast Club.

This is the "chasing after your friend to tell them that you met Shah Rukh Khan" move.

This is the "correcting a sprained neck" move.

This is the "wiping sweat off your forehead after chasing your friend" move.

This machismo in the flares and dyed flame red hair and was my favourite extra. If he wasn't discovered in the crowd that day and later cast as an Indian James Bond, then I have lost all faith in the movie business.

This was some of the hockey action being shot. I initially auditioned to be a hockey player, because they were looking for Asians to be part of the fictional Korean hockey team (you know, us Asians all look alike). However at the audition my friend (who looked like she was auditioning for Australia's Next Top Model) and I were scared off by the casting agent who said they were looking for "Olympic grade hockey players". Well, he was actually a really nice guy, it was just his words that stopped us from going through with the audition. Two months of year 8 hockey (and being in the reserves mostly) wouldn't have helped. The casting agent was an American guy named Josh who is a sports consultant on movies. He worked on a few major sports movies, including an NFL one. I can't remember if it was Jerry Macguire or The Longest Yard.

The tallest guy in the white shorts and sunnies is Josh. The short guy in the green cap standing on the left is the director. I think he might take style tips from the book "Che Guevara: How to dress like a dictator". He probably mistook the word 'dictator' for 'director'.

This was one of the fancy cameras they used.

Finally, there was a man in the crew who looked exactly like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Carribean. The girls were on the verge of throwing their undies at him.

This was my favourite photo:

Hard Candy

2006-12-26T01:02:00.000+11:00

Only read this if you've seen the movie.

Fuck, do I feel sorry for Jeff? I should hate him with a passion and want him to be castrated. Hey, only a few weeks before watching Hard Candy I said to my friend, "all peadophiles should be castrated." I don't understand why, when Hayley was about to cut his balls off, that he didn't confess to her that he was at the girl's murder. Why did he only admit it at the end of the film, long after his balls were cut off and incinerated? I was nearly going to throw up in the castration scene. I'm just glad they didn't show it.

Jeff is a good looking, stylish guy. How could he be a peadophile? Gosh I cringed in the first scene when he met Hayley at the cafe and brushed the jam off her lips. Oh and when she was changing into her new t-shirt and she flashed him, to which he then said that he was getting excited. There were so many clues throughout the movie to indicate that he was a peadophile. How can we question otherwise? What about when he asked her flirtatiously, "What use do you have in mind for me?" What about when he was tied up to a chair and said "If this is how we were going to play, I should have gone first." Despite all these indicators, I still felt sorry for him in the castration scene! I also hated Hayley in some parts of the film, even though I should have been cheering her on.

This was the mind fuck of the movie. There was no antagonist or protagonist, or you could say that these roles switched throught the movie. In some parts I wanted Jeff to be punished, but in other parts I felt sorry for him. Should Hayley have just let the police handle Jeff as opposed to torturing him herself? We all know that some people get away with evil deeds if they have a good lawyer. Is the best form of justice doing onto others as they did to others? So, should Jeff have been tortured in that way because he raped/molested (?) and murdered the girl?

After Jeff revealed his wrong doings, I concluded that he deserved everything Hayley gave to him. The line I liked the best was in the end rooftop scene, when she said "I am every little girl who was molested."

I wonder if I would have felt as sorry for Jeff if he was an unattractive loser?

Disturbing films

2006-12-26T00:47:00.000+11:00

I think all of these films are brilliant because they go where no other scriptwriter has gone before. They are challenging and I was left thinking about each one for a few days after watching them. WARNING: THESE ARE NOT DATE MOVIES (or at least clear it with your date first).

1. Hard Candy
2. Mysterious Skin
3. Happiness
4. Requiem for a Dream
5. Looking for Mr. Goodbar

I think Saw would be on this list if I had seen it. Since I watched Hard Candy last night, I think I'm ready for Saw. I was reluctant to watch Saw because I heard there was a scene where a man's leg is sawed off, and I'm a wuss when it comes to amputation. I didn't expect there to be any amputation scenes in Hard Candy so I watched it. Now that I've been traumatised by what I've seen in Hard Candy, which I think is much worse than a leg being cut off, I can now watch Saw.

Turducken

2006-12-26T00:30:00.000+11:00

A chicken stuffed in a duck stuffed in a turkey, with a layer of stuffing in between each meat. When I head about this I thought it was a joke. But I saw a turducken on an American Christmas food special today. This is what a turducken looks like:

An amusing article on how a turducken is made: http://www.blacktable.com/turducken031217.htm

When I go to America I HAVE to see one and taste a bite. I probably won't eat a whole serving though, only because I hate duck. I'd love to see Martha Stewart make one.

What about a Laef? Lamb stuffed into beef. What about Latton? Lamb stuffed into mutton. What about stuffing chicken eggs into a chicken? What about a qupiturducken? A quail stuffed into a pidgeon into a chicken into a duck into a turkey.

Another rainy Melbourne Xmas

2006-12-26T00:03:00.000+11:00

The rain and mild weather of the past few days was a welcome change from the few unbearably hot days last week. I can't think of a Christmas I've had in Melbourne where it didn't rain and the sky wasn't grey. It's a comforting feeling. I love the smell of the rain clouds building after a hot day.

I spent the day cooking then sitting on my mum's couch with my cat watching Xmas specials on TV. The station was mostly stuck on the Discovery Travel and Living Channel. I learnt all about (gaudy) American Christmas decorations and food. I'm really looking forward to experiencing my first white Christmas in Toronto or New York next year. I'm not even worried about the snow anymore. It'll give me the opportunity to dress up in cute layers, coats and gumboots.

Oh one of my neighbours is throwing up outside. Yup, it's a Melbourne Christmas.

The Chumscrubber

2006-12-24T23:01:00.000+11:00

WATCH THIS if you liked:

- Thumbsucker
- Donnie Darko
- The Safety of Objects
- Garden State

By the way, did anyone laugh at the scene when Billy was running out of the house with his bleeding eye? The music over that scene made it seem comical. I couldn't laugh because I'm queasy to bleeding eyes. It was a bit of a tradegy too because it meant Billy couldn't be a pilot, but on the other hand he deserved to be punished for being a bully.

Favourite song of the year

2006-12-24T22:37:00.000+11:00

I didn't think would've been possible for me to pick a favourite song of any year, but one that I haven't got sick of is Midnight Juggernauts "Shadows". One of the best live music moments of my life was dancing to this song at the Parklife festival. The concert was in a park, it was sunny and I was surrounded by good friends. A stranger captured a photo of my group because we looked like we were having so much fun, going crazy to this song. I wish I had that photo!

I was not all that interested in electro music up until this year. So picking this song as my favourite of the year has come as a shock to some of my friends who knew me as the rock chic.

The Station Agent

2006-12-24T00:00:00.000+11:00

A film about a dwarf, Finn, who inherits a house in a small town. He wants to be left alone but two people, Joe and Olivia, won't leave him alone even though they too want to be left alone by the town people. Joe is an extrovert and always feels the need to be talking. He comes across as the annoying neighbour or friend who always needs company and doesn't take no for an answer. Although he was always eager for the company of Finn and Olivia, it seemed like he didn't want to hang out with just anybody. For instance, in the scene when two of the town rednecks invited him to play softball with them, he seemed reluctant to want to go. Olivia was more reserved and never wanted to answer her phone, as opposed to Joe who was always yakking on the phone. Despite not wanting contact with her friends and ex, she took a shine to Finn and didn't mind being with him. She didn't even want to hang out with Joe either at the beginning of the film. But eventually, due to Joe's persistence and enthusiasm, the three of them became friends. It's a story about three lonely people connecting, then getting hurt, then wanting to be left alone again, then returning to each others company. Choosing to be alone is a safe choice because if you never get close to anyone, you will never be hurt. However, having caring people around makes for a happier life. So you can be bitter and alone, or happy with the imperfect but caring people around you.

My two favourite actors in the movie were Raven Goodwin, the inquisitive fat black girl from Lovely & Amazing, and Bobby Cannavale, who I remembered playing Will's cop boyfriend in a few episodes of Will & Grace, but was also in Six Feet Under and Oz. I had to IMDB if the actor who played Finn was the grouchy dwarf in Living in Oblivion, and he was! His name is Peter Dinklage.

In summary, the movies you must see are:
- The Station Agent
- Lovely & Amazing
- Living in Oblivion

Birdman Eating

2006-12-23T15:57:00.000+11:00

Rating: 3.5/5
Address: xxx Gertrude St, near Smith St. A few doors down from the Roti Chanai restaurant, opposite Alia bar.
Prices: $8 - 15

The unique menu was the drawing card for me. I was especially curious about the papaya and coconut toast with lemon and lime marmalade. They used dried papaya and we could smell the coconut as the plate was placed on our table. The toast was rich and despite the small slices, one slice alone was substantial. The lemon and lime marmalade was a beautiful accompaniment.

Next up was black pudding. This is something I've always read about but never tried. I always ask anyone who has ever been to England if they've tried black pudding. This was the first restaurant I've been to that had black pudding on the menu, so I did not hesitate to order it. It was cut up like sausage and fried. It was slightly crispy outside and almost mushy soft, like tinned corned beef, inside. The texture didn't sit well with me. It tasted like sausage. I'll be sticking to actual sausage next time.

Finally we ate a salad with crispy bastirma. Bastirma is cured, air dried beef that is flavoured with paprika and then slithered. The bastrima was fried and tasted like strong bacon. I loved it! The salad dressing was kind of like tzatziki and the vegetables were cucumber and lettuce.

The cafe is modern and cosy. This is often a hard balance to strike, because many modern venues come across as soulless. The waiters were friendly but they didn't bring our $5 change to our table! Did they just assume we were going to give them a tip? We sat there for awhile waiting for the change, but eventually we left as we were too chicken ask them for it. It's pretty much because of this that I'm giving Birdman Eating 3.5 instead of 4 stars.

Shane Warne's retirement

2006-12-21T15:21:00.000+11:00

Today we will mourn the tragedy that is Shane Warne’s retirement. He has made a significant contribution to the careers of journalists, paparazzi and Advanced Hair centres around Australia. There will be a different Shane Warne memorial poster everyday for the next two years. Articles will be written about what Shane Warne is doing daily in his retirement and how the public are coping with this significant loss. There will be a national outcry. A barrage of letters of grief will be sent to the media over the next year. Nice timing Shane, will it be a coincidence that there will be an increase in suicides this Christmas period? Kids will leave their cricket bats to collect dust under their beds. They may become completely un-Australian and play basketball instead. What is Australia without the cricket industry? How do we define our nation now? Shane Warne was our king. If aliens were to land on Australia today, they would think Shane Warne was our ruler. It’s anarchy out there now. I’m afraid to leave the building.

December

2006-12-21T11:38:00.000+11:00

December sucks for several reasons:

- The weather is the most moody out of any other month in the year. It can be 37 degrees one day and 16 the next. It can't decide if it's winter or summer. I leave the house in the t-shirt but need a winter coat at the end of the night. This erratic behaviour is not good for my health! I have a cold now.

- People always give away chocolates as gifts. I'm not a big chocolate fan, I don't know what to do with all the chocolate I've received from various people. Why can't people give away nice tea instead?

- Gluttony. In addition to all the chocolate, there are lots of breakfasts, lunches and dinners to attend. I love food but I have a problem with self-control. My OCD makes me want to sample everything at a buffett. I haven't been able to get this sickly feeling out of my body since the first week of December.

- Because certain people in the office give cards to EVERYONE, I feel obliged to return the favour. Buying Christmas cards in December is the biggest hassle in the world. I don't want to give out generic cards either. I try to personalize every gift and card I give away. I've even resorted to designing my own cards on Photoshop and printing them on cardboard at work. I run around the city like a mad woman looking for the perfect gift to give each person. I know that most people won't even put as much thought into what they give me and won't go through the same hassle. I'd rather not give someone a gift if I can't find the right one that lets them know that I've been thoughtful of them.

- Money drains away with all the presents I have to buy and functions I have to attend.

- My birthday. I've never had a memorable birthday. The birthday drinks I had this year was nice, but I've had much more fun with the same people on other nights of the year. It was the first time I brought together my friends from different areas of my life. It's taken me so long to do that because I hate doing it! It's not a way I like to socialize. I spent the whole night worrying that I was neglecting certain people at the drinks. I'd rather spend quality time with a few individuals than have a big group of people together. There is so much pressure to have fun on my birthday!

- New Years Eve. Another day when people are pressured into having fun. I've never had a memorable New Years Eve either. This is in fact the loneliest day of the year for me. I've never been invited to a NYE celebration (except for this year, because I've finally made friends in Melbourne). The past five NYEs were spent at home watching TV! Although last year I was out until 6am on the 30th, and neither of us could be fucked doing anything on NYE.

- The 24th-26th can also be the loneliest days of the year for people who aren't close to anyone. This will probably be me in the future.

Although December is good when:

- I receive great presents, such as a Tiffany's silver necklace from my mum and a $250 Myer gift voucher from work. I can replace my broken MP3 player now!

- My mum cooks a nice Christmas lunch. If she does one this year, I hope the pudding is glistening and chewy and the pork crackling is crisp.

- I get a few official time out days from the world.

- I receive thoughtful birthday cards from friends and random "Happy Birthday" text messages from people who actually remembered.

- The TV shows cheesy 80s Christmas movies (especially made for TV ones) and cartoons.

Favourite gigs of 2006

2006-12-21T00:23:00.000+11:00

I've seen over seventy bands perform live this year. I've attended two festivals (Big Day Out and Parklife) and been to thirty-one concerts. When I remove the support acts and festival bands that I didn't like, I've enjoyed about fourty-three bands.

My top five were:

1. Cornelius
2. The Strokes
3. Sonic Youth
4. Yeah Yeah Yeahs
5. Gomez

Other highlights were:

Big Day Out @ Princes Park (Kings of Leon, White Stripes, Franz Fernidad rocked)
Sleater-Kinney @ The Corner
Iota @ The Retreat
Jens Lekman @ Northcote Social Club
Ian Ball (Gomez) @ Northcote Social Club
Martha Wainwright @ The Forum
The Grates @ The Corner
You Am I @ East Brunswick Club
The Bellrays @ Hi-Fi Bar
Vasco Era @ Hi-Fi Bar
Parklife festival @ Birrung Marr park - Midnight Juggernauts, Who Made Who, Mixmaster Mike (Beastie Boys), Mattafix
Joan as Police Woman @ Northcote Social Club
Kylie (I'M SERIOUS!)

When I move to Canada next year I think I'll go broke seeing all the great gigs they have over there. I would probably also make trips to NY to see special shows. Live music is a major reason why I want to move to Toronto. Sure, Melbourne is the live music capital of Australia, but certain international musicians don't do frequent tours here (e.g. BECK!!!) or come here at all. I hope to finally get a chance to see Beck and Arcade Fire in Toronto.

My favourite albums/EPs 2006

2006-12-21T00:09:00.000+11:00

Oh no! I resorted to doing an end of year list!!! I'm shite at music reviewing. What the hell are guitar layers and pop hooks anyway? I'm basing this list on the albums I could not stop listening to for more than a week.

- Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones
- The Grates - Gravity won't get you high
- Lily Allen - Alright, Still
- Lady Sovereign - Public Warning
- Jose Gonzalez - Veneer
- The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers
- Kings of Leon - Aha Shake Heartbreak (Ok, technically this was released last year, but I only discovered it this year!)
- Lupe Fiasco - Food & Liquor
- Midnight Juggernauts - Secrets of the Universe

I work in educational publishing but...

2006-12-19T11:22:00.000+11:00

I found this letter on my computer at work, left behind by it's previous user who was an admin lady:

RE: Complaint made on our dog/s creating excessive noise by barking.

Dear Mr Butler,

I am writing in regards to the letter received on Tuesday 14th December 2004 Reference No. 151543 (CRS 242329). A complete was put through from someone by our naiberous that our dog/s are creating excessive noise by barking and aren’t securely confined onto the property.
I would like to bring forward in regards that my dog/s on the excessive noise by barking
Further more in regards to t locked up at the back on our property at all times of the day. If by any chance my parents or myself takes the dog/s for a walk it is put on a leash.

She was born and educated in Australia. Her family is European but they don't speak English at home. Apparently she finished high school. Her letter makes me laugh but feel angry at the same time. How could they have let her get through the school system?

She spelt "great" as "grate" in EVERY e-mail she sent out, as her sign off was "have a grate day". Not one person, including the managers whom she communicated with, bothered to correct her. She also spelt "brief" as "brife" and "their" as "thier".

Using proper spelling and grammar in an EDUCATIONAL PUBLISHING company, no matter what your role is, should be as mandatory as pilots having 20/20 vision. We publish books on spelling and grammar goddamit!!!

By the way, I was told she only had one dog/s.

High pitched voice

2006-12-17T14:15:00.000+11:00

Why do some women feel the need to speak in an extra high pitched voice when talking to children and retards? At the moment in the park across the road from my house, a bunch of special people and their helpers are having a Christmas picnic. I can hear the shrill voice of one of the helpers calling out the names of each attendee to collect their Christmas present. All of the picnickers are all fully grown adults! Do mentally disabled adults need to be spoken to in that concending tone? I hated it when people spoke in that squeaky tone to me when I was a kid. I thought, "Hey, dude, I have ears and I understand English, there is no need to speak to me like I'm a deaf baby."

Kylie

2006-12-14T13:21:00.000+11:00

Yes, Minogue. I got a free ticket to see Kylie Minogue at her Show Girl concert. It was a four year old Lee-Ann’s dream come true. I had to mentally remove my grungy Cons at the entrance and strut in pink diamante stilletos instead. I would have never thought of going to see Kylie in a million years, and I’m still in a state of disbelief about it. But how could I pass up a ticket to see an Australian icon? I went with the intention of hearing her 80s songs - the ones I loved and sung along to as a toddler, such as “I should be so lucky” and “Locomotion”. I had a slight bit of hope that she would sing “Where the Wild Roses Grow” and that Nick Cave would make a surprise appearance, but I highly doubted it, given the Show Girl theme of the concert and a large audience of young girls and gay men who preferred “pop Kylie” over the mid-90s “alternative Kylie”.

Her singing was not great but I was highly entertained throughout the show. Seeing Kylie was a dream for any camp gay man and little girl. She even managed to throw in a line from “Where the wild roses grow”, which was mixed in with another song. This was sung during the segment of the show that was devoted to her darker, lesser known songs. During this segment most of the audience sat down, but eagerly stood up again and danced fabulously once “pop Kylie” re-emerged.

The most magical part of the show was when sitting on a glittering, silver quarter moon suspended from the ceiling. She wore a glittery red sequined dress and sung "Somewhere over the rainbow". My friend said that all the gay men in the audience would be creaming their pants now. The midnight blue visuals in the background of the stage were speckled with golden stars. This is a picture from another concert. Same moon, different dress.

In another part of the show the stage was set up like a 80s disco. She asked the audience “Who went to the disco in the 80s?” and a few older women around me stood up and started dancing. She sung her 80s hits, including, to my excitement, “I should be so lucky” and “Locomotion”. In the final encore she brought out “Especially for you” and asked the audience to sing along with her, since Jason or Kermit weren’t there!

Mr Natural Gourmet Vegetarian Pizza

2006-12-13T23:01:00.000+11:00

Rating: 4/5
Address: 469 Brunswick St, Fitzroy
Phone: 9481 7775
Leaflet blurb: We use only low fat rennet free cheese, fresh vegetables and 100% wholemeal flour.
Prices: Small - $7.50 - 8.50; Medium - $11.00 - $12.50; Large - $13.00 - 14.50

My they really pile the toppings on here. I was a bit sceptical about eating rennet free cheese, but it had the same bite as regular cheddar cheese. I loved it because the cheese was melted to a golden brown colour, which gave it even more umph. The base was thin but strong enough to support the ample toppings.

They could do with offering pizzas with less toppings, such as a simple potato, rosemary and onion combination. The toppings were rightly balanced, so there was no overpowering taste of garlic, herbs or the base sauce. I could actually taste the brocolli and spinach. This is a rare find in vegetarian meals.

Jamie T

2006-12-13T12:16:00.000+11:00

Is it just me, but doesn't Jamie T sound exactly like the Artic Monkeys? Why are all the music reviewers and radio DJs (*ahem* Richard Kingsmill *ahem*) going nuts over this guy? I never understood the big fuss over the Artic Monkeys either. Give me The Streets over any of these two bands any day.

Shanghai - love you long time girls

2006-12-10T19:10:00.002+11:00

There aren’t as many fugly, old white guy and sexy, young local girl couplings as there are in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. Most of the interracial couples I saw looked genuine. My mum said that SPGs (Sarong Party Girls) weren’t as common in China because not many girls speak English. The funniest thing I saw was a card advertising pretty, scantily clad “masseurs”. Men were handing them out in front of my hotel. I wanted the whole collection of these scandalous cards written in broken English.

This was my favourite card. It says on the bottom - "Our aim is to think of what you think, anxious of what your worry". So I'm quite worried about global warming and the reemergence of Pauline Hanson in politics. Wouldn't it be great if this massage girl could carry this anxiety for me?

The girl in the lingere does not look happy. It looks like she is being forced to pose to prevent her family from being killed by the pimp's hitmen. This is sad but true. Put a smile on your face darl, you are going to have an illustrious career of massaging overweight white men.

Shanghai - Lost in Translation

2006-12-10T19:10:00.001+11:00

I felt like Scarlett Johanssen in Lost in Translation while I was walking aimlessly around the city and hanging out in my nice hotel. I thought the film was overrated when I first saw it in July last year, but I have a new found respect and love for it now since I watched it again on the plane ride home.

Because I am Chinese, the locals in Shanghai of course spoke Chinese to me. My white friend had to be my translator. The English speaking levels in Shanghai are very poor. No matter where I go in Asia, people will probably speak their local language to me. Well, I guess that makes sense. In Australia we don’t change our language when we come across someone who speaks a different language.

Shanghai - nightlife

2006-12-10T19:09:00.002+11:00

Sitting at a bar or restaurant along the Bund is a pastime of rich locals and expatriates. All the bars are pretentious and expensive, except for one that I read about in the local bar guide – the Captain bar. The Captain bar is above the Captain Backpackers hostel. The bar is dark, relaxed and cosy. The balcony of the bar is modelled as a ship deck. Sit here to enjoy the view of Pudong and watch advertising projected onto buildings and on billboard sized TV screens floating across the river on boats. The Captain Bar is probably one of the cheapest bars along the Bund, but the prices are the same or even slightly higher than any bar on Brunswick Street. This is the view that can be seen from the Captain Bar:

Cheaper drinks can be found in other areas of town. Trent told me of a bad nightclub called Windows, where we could find really cheap drinks, sleazy twenty year old American frat boys and slutty local girls.

I was curious to find out how bad it was, so we headed to Windows. It was full of trendy young locals and a few expatriates looking for a local girl with a white fetish. Yes, the drinks were cheap, but it was one of the worst nightclubs I’ve been to. Ok, so urban (i.e. hip-hop and R & B) nightclubs are not my scene at all, so if you enjoy being slutty and trendy while grinding to “The Best of Hip-Hop: 1990-2006”, Windows is probably for you. Hip hop, R & B and hard electronica are the most popular music genres amongst Gen X and Y in Asia. The nightclubs in KL played the exact same set list as Windows, and Trent said they played the same set in Tokyo too. The set always features “Hip Hop Hooray” by Naughty by Nature, Destiny’s Child, “Birthday” by 50 (“fidy”) Cent and “Gold Digger by Kanye West. I have a few theories as to why urban music is the most popular amongst Asians. Firstly, they aren’t exposed to a wide range of genres. The local radio and MTV play Chinese music or top 40 from the U.S. which comprises mostly of urban music. Secondly, Asian Americans and Asian Australians relate to the African Americans in being a marginalized society. Thirdly, mainstream urban music is all about the bling and logos. Watch the videos, listen to the label name dropping in the lyrics. Asians are extremely materialistic. They can relate to or aspire to be like the polished upper-class urban artists more than dishevelled white rockers. The young Chinese don’t want to look grungy, otherwise they’ll be perceived as poor.

Shanghai - sightseeing

2006-12-10T19:09:00.001+11:00

The Yu Yuan Gardens is nothing but a block of replicated buildings from the Ming Dynasty. It looks like a Disneyland version of China. The best dumplings in Shanghai can supposedly be found here. We would have waited for over an hour to get our serving, so we gave it a miss. How much better can a dumpling taste anyway? The queue for the dumplings comprised of Chinese and Western tourists. I read on a website that this is where locals buy dumplings too, but this statement was written by an American who probably assumed that the Chinese people lining up were from Shanghai. I knew they were all tourists by the cameras hanging around their necks and the Chinese tour buses. At the Yu Yuan Gardens you can also buy traditional Chinese foods such as a Big Mac, Kentucky Fried Chicken and an Iced Mocha Frappachino. There were plenty of souvenirs for sale too. The Yu Yuan Gardens was pretty much a shopping centre set in a traditional Chinese building, with a food court too!

I experienced old school China a few blocks away from the Yu Yuan Gardens. We walked down a narrow street that comprised of a row of tiny 4-seater restaurants and fruit shops. The wooden window shutters of the apartments above the shops were blackened by the dirt accumulated over the past centuries. Now this was the China I wanted to see.

Another few blocks away was the French Concession. The French Concession is a maze of tree lined streets and European architecture. Many expatriates live here. There are many cute boutiques that are less of a headache to browse through than the Xi Pu market, but of course, sell the same clothes at a higher price.

You don’t need a taxi to get around Shanghai. I walked from Nanjing Road West to East to get to the Bund at the end of the road, and from Nanjing Road East to the Yu Yuan Gardens and then the French Concession, that connects back to Nanjing Road West. It is a fair distance to walk, but it is a better way of exploring the city than travelling in a cab.

The Bund features a mix of old European and American architecture. They were impressive buildings, but they didn’t take my breath away like the upper end of Collins Street does. The Bund is along a river and on the other side is the town of Pudong, which is primarily an area full of business buildings and one of Shanghai’s two Hooters. Pudong is attempting to rival the glittering skyline of Hong Kong, with new building being erected every few months. Pudong is also in competition to build the tallest building in the world.

Here are some pictures of the Bund:

This is a man cleaning a bridge along the Bund. Work safety regulations in China are non-existent.

I desperately wanted to see some evidence of the opium hey days of Shanghai in the 1920s. Unfortunately I did not find an opium den, but I found a plaque on a hotel with the word "opium" on it.

Shanghai - hotels

2006-12-10T19:08:00.000+11:00

During the first four nights I stayed at the 5 star JC Mandarin on the posh Nanjing Rd West. It was nice but not the best 5 star hotel I’ve stayed in. The lobby had a beautiful building high Chinese mural that bordered the elevator entrance. Housekeeping was very quick to respond to calls. They did not vacuum the carpet or mop the bathroom floor with each daily housekeeping duty, and they did not replace our used towels with new ones. The shower over the bath was low pressure and there was a weird shower mat that left a black stain on the bath. It was the first hotel I’ve stayed in that used shower mats. I thought it was odd and unhygienic. The sink took quite awhile to drain and the air conditioning was not working well. The hotel breakfast was decent but not great. The Bircher muesli, fresh fruit, pastries and bread was good. However, the American breakfast was greasy and bland. I’d give the JC Mandarin 4 stars rather than 5.

I then stayed at the “4 star” Dong Hu Hotel in the French Concession. I was supposed to stay for two nights but only tolerated one. Despite the clean sheets and bathroom, the mahogany carpet was dirty and air conditioning noisy. The lobby had a weird smell. I don’t normally trust hotels with an unpleasant lobby smell. The staff’s English was not up to par, but they were still courteous and helpful. I’d give this give this hotel 2.5 stars out of 5.

Finally I checked into the beautiful heritage listed Art Deco Jin Jiang Hotel. It was 1000 yen cheaper than the other 5 star hotels, so I checked the room before reserving a place to make sure it was ok. The room was gorgeous and very, very clean. I immediately booked it. I became intrigued with the hotel after having dinner at the Yin restaurant there the night before. I’m obsessed with Art Deco. All the staff I dealt with, even the bellboy, spoke very good English and they were all very courteous. I returned to my room in the evening to find a “Goodnight” card on my pillow with next day’s weather forecast. My bathroom had a separate bath and shower. The Jin Jiang is definitely worth 5 stars.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I have a 5 star hotel habit. The first time I switched to a 5 star hotel was when I was 10. I hated the red and white tiled motel that my parents chose on our holiday on the Gold Coast. It looked like something out of the set of Problem Child 2. I insisted that I could not stay there even for one night (the toilet seat was red!), so we checked into a 5 star hotel instead. I was happy. Since then, I’ve done this on nearly ever holiday I’ve been on. Sure, I will book a 3 or 4 star hotel first to save money. But they always look cleaner on the internet than in person. I really don’t care about the amenities. I can do without a pool, gym and business centre. I just want to stay in a comfortable room that is spotlessly clean. People with OCD can’t go backpacking. Maybe I should start a backpackers hostel chain for people with OCD.

Shanghai - food

2006-12-10T19:07:00.002+11:00

I was most looking forward to eating steamed dumplings. The Shanghai Dumpling House restaurant in Melbourne gave me the impression that Shanghai was renowned for dumplings. The dumplings, otherwise known as xiao long bao, were nice but no better than the dumplings I’ve eaten in Melbourne. I became sick of eating dumplings after two consecutive days of eating them. Although the food was cheap (I bought a bowl of homemade soup noodles for $0.50), it was mostly too salty, oily or sweet.

Shanghai does not have as much street food variety as Malaysia. The most common finds were chicken wings and Muslim Chinese lamb kebabs. Steamed bun stalls were quite uncommon unfortunately. I found a few spring onion pancake stalls. They crack an egg on the pancake and smother it with chilli. Fried buns were everywhere too. Imagine what would happen if you deep friend something that wasn't meant to be deep fried - that's how I felt about the deep fried buns. It was a thick dough with a hard, not crispy base. I wasn't used to eating food of this texture.

I observed that not many Shanghainese ate rice to accompany the salty stir fries. I did not understand how they could do without rice to balance out the saltiness of the dishes. All servings were massive and a lot of food would often go to waste.

There were many bakeries that sold buns and pastries that made me worry about developing diabetes. I took advantage of the cheap bananas by eating one a day. The tastiest meal I ate was at a Chinese restaurant named Yin. I was apprehensive about going to this restaurant because it was located in a hotel, which meant the food would be less authentic. I liked the place the moment I stepped into it. It was furnished in rich, dark wood and jazz was playing in the background. It had a Manhattan basement jazz bar from the 1920s feel. The menu claimed that they did not use MSG in their cooking and they did not use as much oil and salt as other local restaurants. This suited me, as it was difficult to find a healthy meal in Shanghai. My Chinese friend said that the food at Yin, even though nice, was catered to foreign tastes. And here I was thinking that my taste palette was Asian so I was an authority to tell people where to eat in Melbourne’s Chinatown. Yin had a few of these mahjong lamps, which I loved:

Shanghai - shopping

2006-12-10T19:07:00.001+11:00

The only two things that excited me were the Marc Jacobs store and the cheap leather bags. Shanghai is a paradise for fake designer bags, but to get the good quality leather versions you need to venture a bit out of town to Xi Pu market. It consists of two five-storey buildings that have rows and rows of tiny clothing and accessories shops within them. I had never seen that many clothes in my entire life. I didn’t buy any clothes because it was all winter stuff and I felt overwhelmed with all the choice. The clothes on display was mostly tacky, colourful, bad quality embellished sweaters and jeans. The Chinese really love embellished jeans with ugly washes and creases.

Outside the shopping centre we were approached by a man who showed us a folder of photos of fake designer bags, watches and t-shirts. I refused to go, because I am opposed to fake designer products, but my mum wanted to go so I had to follow. It would have been impossible for us to find each other in the maze of the shopping centre. The man led us through the maze and into one of the tiny stores. The shop keeper pushed the back wall to reveal a small room of fake designer bags. My mum bought about four bags from this shop. The man then carried my mum’s shopping bag for her and took us to another secret room of fake bags. I actually found three uniquely designed leather bags that were not the typical Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Chloe, Hermes, and Fendi rip offs. In typical style, I managed to pick out the two most expensive bags in the store. They were one of a kind designs and were not covered in logos. I hadn’t seen those two bags sold anywhere else. I couldn’t even find them on eBay when I got home. We bargained my bags down to $125 each, which is a bargain for a unique leather bag. My three year search for the perfect leather bag was finally over. My mum bought another six bags from this store. Now we had three massive shopping bags to carry throughout the shopping centre, but the shopping guides carried them for us. They didn’t even ask for money at the end of our shopping journey. We offered to buy them lunch, but they were reluctant to accept it. We bought it anyway so they were forced to eat. I think they are paid commission by the shops.

On Nanjing Road East, the main shopping strip in town, we were also approached by hawkers selling fake bags and watches. My mum followed two of them (she can’t say no to fake bags), and they each led us through dark alleyways and into blackened apartment blocks that were hundreds of years old. They took us to small rooms that hid the fake goods. One shop had a video camera set up in the alley so they could monitor if the police were coming.

Nanjing Road West is where all the international designer shops were. In addition to my favourite Marc Jacobs store, there was Gucci, Hermes; massive Louis Vuiton, Prada and Christian Dior stores; Lagerfeld Gallery, Marni, Missoni, and many other American, European and Japanese couture designers. It was disappointed that the Anna Sui store was not open yet.

In terms of mid-range brands, there was Zara but no Top Shop! H&M was going to open next month. I guess it was good there was no Top Shop, otherwise I would have blown my budget!

The French Concession had rows of cute, slightly upmarket boutiques that featured a range of local and international styles of clothes. Many of the shops stocked clothes that were sourced from Xi Pu market, but sold at four times the price. I found a few boutiques that had international designer factory samples, sold at bargain prices. Of course, most clothes are made in China, so it would be easy to get samples from a range of international designers. I found a Viktor & Rolf jacket for only $90! I doubt it was a fake – Viktor & Rolf are not that well known of a label to justify making fakes. I was really delighted and surprised to find the Alice McCall for Target dress that I liked. Unfortunately the only two for sale were both in size 10.

A few people were selling Groucho Marx style face masks that had a whistle attached to the nose.

People still balance these things on their shoulders to sell fruit:

I come all the way to China only to find a Jeans West.

Shanghai - beggars

2006-12-10T19:06:00.000+11:00

On my first night I walked past one of the most pitiful people I had ever seen. This man suffered from third degree burns. His skin melted into his eyes, so it looked like he had no eyes. His hair was singed off. He hands were burnt off too. He was a real-life vision of what I have nightmares about. In Malaysia I had seen a whole assortment of disfigured beggars, but none as horrific as this poor man. We gave him money. I only give money to severely disabled beggars. Many of the other beggars, especially though with a cute kid in tow, choose to beg and some make more money than white-collar workers. Although, in Malaysia, some of the disabled beggars are forced to beg by gangs. The gangsters drop the disabled beggars off in various locations each morning, then collect the money from the beggars at night. I wouldn’t be surprised if this happened in Shanghai too.

Some of the cute kid beggars were kidnapped from villages. The kids are usually four to six years old and do not understand what they are doing. They think it’s a game. We found a man passed out in several pools of vomit in front of a Japanese restaurant (there was an all you can eat and drink deal). When the coins fell out of his pocket as Trent lifted him off the street, a little girl beggar rushed to pick up the coins, and the old lady with her tried to pickpocket him before an old man beggar stopped her. Just as I was beginning to think that there were genuine beggars in Shanghai, the old man asked Trent for money for helping him to get the drunk guy off the street.

Shanghai - customs

2006-12-10T19:04:00.000+11:00

It’s too crowded to say sorry

The streets are packed with rushing people. If the citizens of Shanghai had the custom of apologizing to everybody they bumped into, their mouths wouldn’t get rest. The flow of conversation may be lost if you had to say sorry to every person you bumped into, which is bound to occur at least once every five minutes.

Cover your mouth when you use a toothpick, says the Shanghai Lonely Planet…

…but you can spit on the ground, even if it’s indoors, and even if it’s carpet. At the Super Brand Mall, a modern eight story shopping centre where you can find one of Shanghai’s two Hooters, a lady at least had the decency to spit in the rubbish bin instead of the polished floor. There is progress for you. A “hhrrrruuuuugggghhhhhh” sound still preceded her spit though.

Photos alone will not do justice in capturing the essence of Shanghai. You need to record the sounds of people spitting and the constant beeping of horns. It’s not as smelly as Malaysia, but it smells like an Asian grocery street or Chinatown in any Western city.

Red means go

Cars, buses and trucks will NOT stop for pedestrians. This is when your dodgeball skills come in handy. Supposedly, if vehicles had to stop for everyone crossing at a green pedestrian light or zebra crossing, they would be waiting forever because there are so many people crossing the street (duh, China has the largest population in the world). Green pedestrian lights run for longer than they do in Melbourne - at least three times longer than Flinders and Swanston Street crossing, one of the busiest intersections in Melbourne. There is even a timer at each pedestrian crossing. It did feel like pedestrians were given more time to cross the street than the cars though, so maybe that’s why the drivers were so impatient. The locals are desensitised to horns because they are tooted so frequently. So if you are crossing the street and a bus is inching towards you and beeping, just ignore it. I wouldn’t be surprised if crossing the street was one of the most common killers in Shanghai. I couldn’t relax on my trip because I was walking around trying not to get run over or spat on. Walking on foothpaths was not safe either, as motorbikes would often speed onto them to overtake the cars on the street.

The proper way of driving in Shanghai is to go as fast as you can while continuously overtaking cars and changing lanes, so you can get to your destination in the quickest time possible. In one taxi ride, the driver attempted to squeeze through two buses that were in ADJACENT LANES. He saw a gap between the buses and took it.

I’ve never been so scared of buses in my life. They speed and take sharp turns. I had the cheaper option of riding in a bus to the airport, but I chose a cab instead. I had too many pretty leather bags to show off back home to risk crashing in a bus in Shanghai on the way to the airport.

New blog coming soon...

2006-12-06T20:53:00.000+11:00

To the handful of old readers (i.e. Khadeeja and Ezther), I deleted all the posts from my blog and changed the format. There was too much baggage in the old blog and I needed a change. But thank you very much for reading my old blog. Your comments made my day, and it has really been the best way for us to keep in touch. =)

My new blog will have more pics and will be more humourous and lighthearted. If I ever feel the need to write dark, personal stuff again, I'll save it for an anonymous blog!

(P.S) I saved all my old posts in Word. Two years worth of blog posts took up 225 pages and 3.2mb!