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Blogging for Boobs

Through a blog that I read regularly, I've been alerted to the fact that October is International Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Boobies are awesome, and it's important that we all do all we can to ensure their health & survival. I'm lucky to have not known anyone who has suffered from breast cancer - but I will. It might be me, or my sister, or my mum, or my best friend, and it might take 30, 40 or 50 years, but in reality, breast cancer doesn't discriminate against age. It kills 2,600 Australian women a year, and affects almost one in ten of us.

Visit Blogs for Boobs to read some funny, heartbreaking, and passionate stories about surviving and succumbing to breast cancer. Better yet, offer support (emotional and financial) to those who need it most.

Boobies ahoy!

Happy birthday, Carla!

Today is my wonderful best friend* Carla's birthday. She's getting old, so tonight we're going to go to The Queens and the Velvet Lounge, drink too much, talk some crap, and generally have a good time.

Above is a photo of one of my most favourite photos in the entire world. Despite the fact that it's blurry, and despite the fact that I chopped the bottom half of our heads off, it's still an excessively awesome picture. It was taken just after we got home from Pendulum's Hold Your Colour album launch at Gilkison's in 2005, and this photo exudes so accurately just how excited we were - you don't need to be able to see our mouths to tell that we're grinning our heads off.

Thank you Carla for being an awesome friend, from the early days of sitting together in Political & Legal Studies at highschool, the many, MANY nights Goonbag Fridays we have shared (although not enough in recent times!), all the events we have been to, and all the crazy fucked-up chatter in between.

Happy birthday!

*In case any of my other best friends are reading this - and you know who you are - don't stress. I still ove you. You can all share me :D

A FUCKING MAAAAFWEEDWEEDWEED!!!!!DSAAAATURDAY PAAAARTY UNDER THE BRIDGE

Originally uploaded by ultimateCRUSTACEANenthuser1000

Lol.

Kids on wee d are the funniest.

About two years ago, I went down to Curtin to join Carla at the Tav for a beer one Friday afternoon, and we were disgustingly delighted that the DJ was spinning some mad DnB (mainly Pendulum - who, at the time, had just released Hold Your Colour). It was still a pretty rare thing, back then, to hear drum n bass you know... out in public, not at a DnB event.

Two years later, UWA seems to have caught on; from my office, I can hear the faint rumbling murmur of an unmistakeable drum-and-bassline.

When did this genre get so huge? It's a great time to be a DnB fan and living in Perth, without a doubt... over the 34-hour period between 4pm on 31 December 2007, and 2am on 2 January 2008, Perth will play host to more drum n bass artists than London (not actually a verified fact, but to check, we've got TC, Jakes, Noisia, Commix, Logistics, Gridlok, Calyx, Teebee, MC Rage, Zinc, Dynamite MC, Mampi Swift, IC3, Fresh, D-Bridge, State of Mind, Concord Dawn, Shimon ... and that's just what I can remember off the top of my head), as well as god knows how many locals, over the course of three events.

Currently, I'm yet to decide whether I'm mad enough to attempt all three.

When I'm Queen of the World...

I'm going to make a rule that myself, and those I love and want to hang out with, never have to work on Fridays.

And we will go to the pub and drink beer and laugh and chat and take silly photos, and if it's warm enough we'll go to the beach (before drinking - if you drink and swim, you're a bloody idiot), or to the park, but mainly we'll drink beer (actually, I'll probably drink wine as it's much more Erin-friendly), and we'll get a good table at the pub because we'll be there before everyone else even finishes work. And then we'll eat platters of assorted antipasto and Turkish bread with all sorts of dips, and then drink some more, and talk even more crap.

But in reality, when I'm Queen of the World, I'll probably have my own pub, and I'll never have to work. I wouldn't really like that, though. If people were meant to have their own pubs that only they and their friends attended, all drinking and socialising would be done in the home. It'd be like a little club where you had to know someone (i.e. the homeowner or one of their friends) to get in. And what's the point of that kind of snobbery, I ask?

Updating, maybe...

I'm trying to update my blog a bit, but I have absolutely no skill for this sort of thing, and even less time to spend on it, so it might look crappy for a while (or I might revert back to the non-difficult standard template!).

Please either bare with me, or offer to help. :D

So I've decided that I need something to look forward to, a] because I'm feeling down & useless, really not having much in life at the moment to inspire me, and b] because I'm doing a completely shit job of paying off my credit card.

I figure that having something to look forward to - for example, an international holiday that I'm actually planning and expect to be able to take - will perhaps help with boht a] and b].

But where to go? There are places I really REALLY want to visit (India, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia), and places I really want to visit but will not get to as my next trip (Japan, China, South America), and places that I love but have been to recently (London, Portugal, Croatia), and places that I didn't think I'd be going back to so soon, but perhaps I will (Europe more generally).

So far, flying to India with Thai airways (if they even fly there?) is winning, so that I get to do two places. But then there's conferences to consider (where can I go, and get a conference on my CV, too?), and Rhys' work (need to fit in our holiday plans with his employment plans).

But at least I can start dreaming and saving and planning. I've been back from Europe for what... 12 weeks now. That's almost as long as I was gone for.

God it goes quick.

I love Spam! :D

In the Inbox this morning:

wat up erinleestark
damn, is your dick only as big as your pinky finger?

Well I certainly fucking hope not.

Spew in the Valley

A bit late (it was last Sunday), but here are some of my favourite photos from Spring in the Valley. We visited Houghtons and Sandalford wineries, and Duckstein Brewery (well, some of us did, anyway).

All the rest at Flickr (via the sidebar).

You know...

I thought at my age I would be old enough to have not have to live in a house where people fight all the time.

I guess I was wrong. It's funny how when you're a kid you think things will get better. Maybe they do, but maybe they just become normal, not better, and you're expected to put up with it, you know?

I'm a little, tiny bit over the fact that everything that comes out of my mouth is misconstrued, and turns into an argument.

I'm not that much of an argumentative person, am I?

Is it right that I am listening to a set in my bedroom (i.e. about 2 metres from my head) and I can STILL hear the FUCKING SCREAMING of the kids next door???

They never fucking shut up. It's been going on like this for the past two years (and probably longer, but I didn't live hear before that). They make SO much noise, just screaming and yelling at the top of their lungs ALL DAY EVERY DAY. I have posted about this before. the noise goes from at least 7am until 8pm at night. My bedroom is opposite my neighbours backyard so I hear everything.

I've taken to just yelling over the fence, "SHUT UP!". I don't give a shit if the parents come around and say something; in fact, I hope they do, because their kids are terrorists.

I'm going to fucking murder them.

Raver beware! (Don't dance rapid?)

All I have to say is, Lolz (and - about time somebody officially noticed the danger inherent to drink-raving).

'"Shuffling" — a mix between the moves of one-hit wonder MC Hammer and the frenetic steps required by dancing machines in amusement arcades — has long been a staple of the Melbourne rave scene.'

Apparently rave dancing is getting too hardcore in Sydney. My favourite comment of the whole article:

'...Sydney clubbers swallowing booze rather than ecstasy tablets are turning the free-flowing style into a dancefloor disaster.'

This comment seems to be advocating the use of ecstasy, but it's completely true. Drunks are indeed ruining dance events. By all means, go along and have a couple of drinks, but don't get completely fucking sloshed and then attempt to dance with the same finesse are your pill-munching (or indeed, completely straight, god forbid) peers. It's certainly ruining drum n bass events. It seems that the bigger the scene gets, the drunker and messier it gets. A couple of years ago, one could quite happily dance, undisturbed. Now, you get bashed around the head, pushed over, yelled at, and no one, NO ONE, says "Excuse me". It's actually really pathetic.

Don't ban the shuffle - ban the booze.

And yes - I'm aware that a sweaty, over-fried gurner is just as bad as a drunk. But that's not my point. It seems that drunk far outweighs sweaty, over-friend gurner these days, and they're so much harder to deal with. I mean, come ON - at the last event I went to, I saw a guy throw a glass at another guy's head. That shouldn't happen anywhere, least of all dance music events!

Why??

Rumours of Kanye West (secret shame...) AND High Contrast for Good Vibrations festival.

And there I was thinking I could maybe perhaps limit my events this summer. I'm already predicting extreme brokeness. I think I just have to limit my partying.

I have many-a-photo from Spew in the Valley on Sunday. I'm just being too lazy to upload them at the moment, but hopefully I will soon (i.e. before the weekend... before Computey goes to the doctor).

The crack on my screen is getting worse :~(

My broken computey

My poor broken computer :(

In addition to this sexy cracked screen (just cracked internally - no actual damage to the screen or the case), the battery is gone, and my computer switches off whenever it is unplugged. Poor baby :( I'm going to take him to get fixed on Saturday, hopefully.

(Note the draft Thesis Intention in the background. Damn thing is shit, nowhere near finished, and stressing me out big time. Bah.)

Oh Cuzzy...

What've you done this time, mate?

Just quietly, I've seen people looking less fucked after a three-day-bender.

Lay off the booger sugar, Sugar.

Cooking with Erin and Rhys

On last night's show, Erin and Rhys displayed their burgeoning culinary skillz by creating two dishes: Gosh, Isn't Swordfish Expensive But Doesn't it Taste Good with Lemon and Garlic Butter Sauce?, and, Fruit Cut Up, with some Bits of Chocolate. Below:


Clockwise from top: Salad; swordfish steak cooked in lemon, garlic, butter, salt & pepper; beans & mushrooms, cooked in the aforementioned sauce; corn, splendidly prepared in the microwave. Rhys did not have mushrooms because, despite once declaring that he loves mushroom sauce more than Erin, he doesn't actually like mushrooms.


Clockwise from top: Pink Lady apple; strawberries; mandarin; in the centre, dried pitted dates (Erin much much much prefers non-pitted, but forgot to buy some yesterday); three regular Lindt balls cut in the half to make the magic last.

Unfortunately, the blur was inevitable: using a flash makes it look like they were eating nothing but a plate of pure white light, but the lighting in the room was pretty shitty.

Still, it goes to show that when these kids finally find a house and move in together, they may actually be able to eat quite well.

Facebook is retarded because...

... for some reason I find myself taking an almost perverted interest in the lives of people I know, many of whom I haven't seen in years, and even when I did I really didn't care about. But suddenly, through the appropriately anonymous medium of the Internet, I'm able to spy and snoop (almost) to my heart's content.

In other news, today I'm going home early, and tonight I'm going to cook baked fish and salad for Rhys & I (I know - doesn't baked fish and salad just sound like every man's dream meal? He's a lucky boy...) in an effort to be healthy (it's me that needs to be healthy, not Rhys. Nothing wrong with his body. A bit hairy, perhaps, but that's to be expected. Hair pants ahoy!).

Maybe I'll even go to the shops and find something to wear to Spring in the Valley on Sunday. I'm not entirely certain that it matters, though, because I'll probably just end up in a crumpled, drunken mess, ranting incoherently about this and that (it will be so incoherent that I won't even know what I'm ranting about) until I fall into a deep, vomitous slumber.

Or something along those lines.

Can anyone please tell me what the deal was with that mini Red Bull Air Race at UWA today? It was a mini air race, not an air race sponsored by mini Red Bulls, for the record. But on that topic, why did Red Bull cans suddenly get a lot bigger, considering how they're supposedly so bad for you? Why would Red Bull want to increase the risk of people suffering from whatever it is that they suffer from, cardiac problems, after ingesting too much caffeine? Or is it just that we're a world so hopped up on god knows what other kinds of drugs, that caffeine doesn't matter? In fact, is caffeine the new decaf? IS IT? I think it is.

Incessant Friday afternoon ramblings and disconnected tangents, part 753...

Shittest blog ever.

You'll totally have to excuse me for this being the shittest, least updated blog EVER at the moment, but the fact is that my life is completely uninteresting right now.

There's no scandal, no excitement, no news, nothing.

I wake up, go to work, come home, sometimes exercise, eat dinner, geek about, go to sleep. Rinse, repeat for 5 days.

Then it's the weekend, and I wake up (later), geek about, eat, shop, eat, sometimes exercise, drink, vomit, sleep. Rise, repeat for 2 days or until bloodstream reaches maximum toxic capacity.

This weekend I will attempt to do something slightly interesting and take some good photos so as to have something to post about here. On Friday I will have a long-awaited reuinion with Ambar, after more than five months absence, when I go to see Aquasky. Is it right to say I'm going to "see" a DJ? Would I be more going to "hear" or even "experience" Aquasky? I'm not sure. I will revise that for next time I write about going to an event.

On Sunday I'm going to do something I've never done before (shock!), and get drunk on a bus! Actually, that's a lie.. I've gotten drunk on a bus many times. I'm going to Spring in the Valley - probably WA's biggest wine festival, where a bunch of (mostly) youngens pile onto many, many buses and drive around the Swan Valley sampling wine and getting rowdy. Best part is, Sunday is forecast to be both WARM and SUNNY.

Fuck yes.

So I'll make an effort, you know?

It felt like a million years since I handed in my Honours thesis, when the Law students handed theirs in yesterday.

My Honours year was of course not Law, but rather English, but it was less than eighteen months ago, rather than a million years. My brain has well and truly switched off in that time, and honestly, without the demands of lurking deadlines, it's really hard to get my brain switched back on and into academic mode.

But of course there are deadlines; my scholarship applications are due in less than four weeks, and I only have one referee, because I never bothered to build a strong rapport with my teachers in my four and a half years at uni, and I feel like if I email someone asking for their help, they'll look at me with a "who is this person, again?" kind of apathy. I also don't actually know where I want to go. Or rather, I think I do know, but the fact that it's not UWA is scaring me, because that's the only institute I've ever known, really. And the place that I want to go isn't well known for its dedication to the Arts, but none the less, I think it's probably the most beneficial place for me to go.

I wish the kids next door would fucking shut up.

So I think I have to plough on through these applications, and do some reading, and sit down and think about my topic, and email some people (former teachers from UWA, prospective teachers from Curtin and Murdoch) and sort my shit out, because in reality, 4 weeks is a very short time and I know that people have better things to do than fill out my referee reports.