Lazy sunday afternoon

There's something about sunny afternoons in Dunedin. It doesn't matter what the actual temperature is, but if there is there merest hint of sun everyone will be out pretending to sunbathe in their backyards or on their rooves, listening to music. Our neighbours had a real smorgasboard. One was rocking the Linkin Park, another blaring Queen, and so on. Down town I noticed a flat full of students drinking beer on the roof and proudly playing The Gambler. They presumably thought this was cool and ironic - I guess you have to let people figure out for themselves how hackneyed it is. Sometimes the stuff they are playing ironically is goo too - you hear things you might not have thought of in years. Its just terribly aging to think that they are listening to it and laughing in the way you would listen to your parents music and think 'DAGGY'.
How I have longed to use that term.
So it is a nice day out there and the good folks are out there washing their cars. I am inside procrastinating about my assignment instead. I've done my dash outside, I just about overheated walking home in the hat and coat I was wearing. Sun burn you understand. Maybe one day I will really freak people out and wear clothes that show snippets of my pasty white skin. Or maybe not, I have my pride.

Lets do the time warp again

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Imagine this is me walking down the magical hallway of time distortion. In mummy wrappings.

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Its taken grit and determination, but I have actually done some work on my assignment this evening. I was pretty damn pissed off to find that I can make it up on the computer and just e-mail it, nooo, I have to make a physical scrapbook. Which really makes all my scanning redundant unless I can get a colour printer somewhere. Perfect end to a rather bad day really. It was destined to be crap though; I knew that as soon as I left for work five minutes earlier than yesterday...but arrived at the same late time as the day before. You better believe I was pissed off. From then on in it was stuff up after stuff up. Its enough to make one want to throw it all in, but then again I see equivalent incompetancy on a daily basis & those people don't kill themselves, so maybe its all relative.
Anyway I just had to point out to everyone that something strange was going on with the time around my house, over and above the missing fifteen minutes in my room. And the 5 hours we've gained by the oven clock.
...hang on, the airforce is trying to get me to join, but the jokes on them, especially if they set me to signalling down jets. I'd get the perspective wrong with my bung eye kicking back, maxing relaxing or just chilling. Kicking it like Tae Bo even. Keeping people wondering. I don't know what part of the armed forces I would join if I were forced to, but I do know that my bar brawling signiture move would be creeping up on people and smashing glass bottles over their head.

Scanning for gold

I have been trying to work on my assignment, so I have scanned a lot of examples of book design and typography. Well not that many, it takes a while to scan & there is always the pesky shadow caused by the spine.
Anyway, I am fielding suggestions, yet again, if anyone has any amazing examples of good or bad book layout.

i could never get into scrapbooking as a hobby, as soon as I set my hand to a picture the inverse midas touch hits.

Like I said, I'd rather stick my head in the sand

I have been thinking of romance novel ideas, but this image dried them up in short order. Image with thanks to Kura, fellow afficionado of the overblown romance cover.

RN to post! to post!

I'd rather stick my head in the sand

Anyone read this book?






Anne Enright has been named the winner of 2007 Man Booker Prize for her novel The Gathering a bleak story of a dysfunctional Irish family.

Very good book I'm sure, but the same thing that prevents me from watching drama stops me from reading it. I just don't want to know about any more misery, thanks. All my pity is lavished on myself.

Besides, I can't take the book seriously now that I have seen Master Goblin created an important, nay, seminal list featuring it.

I do wonder why the hell people insist on putting their reviews and lists up on Amazon. More often than not they are less use than a cats flux, and an excuse to grandstand. Get a blog why don't you? And if they are good reviews the reviewer should be paid. Don't get me started on those monkeys who make advertisements for corporations as an "in" to a design career, or the spaniels who provide free entertainment on youtube (so companies don't even have to provide the material to the viewers, how cheap is that)?


Yes yes yes, I am sure I am oversimplifying the matter, but I simply must vent after a day of keeping my less pleasant opinions to myself.

Discharge/discourse

I have been vascillating between the lounge downstairs and my room. Misleading statement that, it makes it sound like we have a downstairs lounge, from which the rumpus room is annexed, and the upstairs lounge etc etc. Anyway, I left the tv going because I was confident I would not become entangled with the internet. I just ducked down there again to hear a conversation on Good Morning about discharges. They always tackle the glamour phisiological problems don't they?
Anyway, I was actually going to remark on something I noticed a few weeks ago. I don't know if the phenomena is seasonal or related to the world cup. As I was traipsing through Robin Hood park, I noticed that the rugby goal posts have been taken down. Was this a sign of the utter despair felt around the country? Or part of a conspiricy to further weaken our game play from a grass roots level? I like to imagine the groundskeeper heading out after the match with France, tears streaming down his face, ramming the posts with the ride on lawnmower until they were broken, all the while screaming something about betrayal.

A new order of kitchen responsibilities

What a month of whinging and moaning I have had. All I can say, people - it's tough to be passive aggressive. I try so hard to state what I want, why and all this in a reasonable manner, but it winds up me backpeddling and initial demands backtrack to whimpering miniscule request with all the compromise on my part. Kitchen politics for instance. I start out with the self righteous, "I should not have to clean other people's nutricious snack and lunch dishes when I don't make multi pot efforts during the day saving explosive cooking for dinners". Then I think, well, I have left a bit of a mess in the lounge because all my stuff is exploding out of my too small room. Then I revert to "But when I bake or make non-communal things I clean my own mess up" which flips to wondering if I have maybe left something inadvertantly, a bad transgression if I am making something with dairy products (I have vegan flatmates).
Anyway, yesterday I had done a load of dishes in the ten minutes before work. I find out today that this was noted, but that it is expected that people do ALL the dishes when they do some. I have never noticed this occurring, unless the dishes all get done and then more appear immediately afterwards. Usually not rinsed or stacked neatly. And lets not begin to talk about the hair clippings on the bench.
Come to think of it, I never do all the dishes. I have my things I refuse to do - cups with teabags in them, pots with burnt stuff on them (unless I did the flambe)... and increasingly pots and pans from baroque creations throughout the day. I need a rule of thumb - one pot, non viscous material, will clean. 2 pots with creamy substance - definitely not. Its rather like my feeling about sick days though; I feel disadvantaged by not having taken sick days when other people have many paid days off. In the case of the dishes - here we have this marvellous policy whereby flatmates do dishes even if they were lunch dishes, or private cook ups - and I am not taking full advantage of it.
I bet my lunch dishes would not get done.
So whats a passive agressive person to do? Suck it up and then post about it, obviously.

Once, twice three times a...

Once again I am in a foul mood, as I have been inconvenienced for the third time the past week or so. I do not like being asked to turn up places when the person who requests my attendance does not have the courtesty to show up on time, or at all. Do they think I enjoy rushing places after work? Or that I don't have other things that I could be doing? What really pisses me off is that I cancelled other activities on all the occasions only to be stood up. It really shows a lack of respect - especially when the culprits can bestir themselves to meet other, 'important' people on time. Sor-reee doesn't cut it.

How very degrading it is too.

Hooray and up she rises

Its a scary thought, but as of next week I will have to be up and functioning before 8.30 am. I am not happy at the propspect, which just goes to show I probably need the harsh discipline and cold water of a sailor's life to whip me into shape.

Heart and Soul pt IV

Remember kids, the higher the hair, the closer to god.

I could keep posting these indefinitely, but I will not be reduced to live or anime versions. So that wraps up todays session. Perhaps tomorrow Heart of Soul songs?

Heart and Soul pt III

The 80's revival starts here!
I have to remark, hair styling technology was at its zenith in 1987. The singers hair (and earrings) is amazing.

Heart and Soul pt II

I bet you thought it was going to be T'pau. Don't worry, thats coming up. I really enjoy the intensity of the keyboard mini-solo in this one. Bom bom bom bom! A special shout out to the drummer in the On the Mat costume. Love it.

Heart and Soul

Some nice hair, nice dancing, nice bum chin...its the first in my new series of cliched song titles! If I were that bepermed lady, I would not be looking so happy.

Sucked back into the internet ghetto

It used to be ILE back in the day, but I broke the cycle. Only, now I wonder if the cycle will begin again - this blog, a fresh new identity on Kiwiblogblog and an empty piece of blog real estate there. When will it all end?

My wordpress name is pretty cool, I wish I had signed up for trade me using it.

This is my last day at lending services. Very quiet, where is everybody? Oh well, now I can think about the NIN song that I just got stuck in my head.

THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS...OUTRAGEOUSLY HILARIOUS

The Tutts

are playing at Arc tonight, along with Motorcade. I am conspiciously, or unconspiciously absent. Who would I see out - the same people, or maybe new people being feted by the new crowds there. Presumably everyone has this sense of dissociation; some might call it teen angst. How pathetic to have never gotten past the Megadeth t-shirt clutching "Its just me and my cheesy poof & no-one understands my tortured soul" phase. Clearly I need to move onto some more positive music, like the exuberance and joie de vivre of Def Leppard at their most overproduced.

Anyway I have been doing schoolwork. I also went out for dinner, a bewdiful celebration of my time in Lending Services. I will miss the people I have been working with, and eventually the I will miss the interaction with the public I guess. Just like I almost miss the weirdos that came into the video store. Good stories you see. I will probably have to get creative now, make stuff up. Steal other people's party pieces. Don't be suprised if you hear me spieling your favourite narrative - with a couple of names shifted & maybe a location transposition to Oamaru.

Or perhaps on the other side, in the palm groves, I will be inspired by the bedouin tribes and pull an E.M.Hull. The dizzying heights of the 5th floor may give me scandal such as I have never dreamed of, that has not already been thoroughly raked over by the resident staff mongers. If management had any concern for staff morale they would employ single men to keep the workers happy in their speculation, or their dalliance. None of us are really like librarians, of course, not all staid & some are really really hip, y'know? Fun fun fun all the time! Just like everyone I know who is in a fairly sedate job. I guess no-one wants to admit to the world that they are actually pretty boring, and no-one has to while there are conversations about men to be had. MMmmm MMMmmmmm can't wait to get me some of that sweet essentialist dialogue, generalisations here I come. The only thing more vomit inducing are the people who experience something and become the voice of authority on that subject immediately. Usually on the matter of drug use, vice, and the workings of the male mind & then we are all subjected to stories ad nauseum casting the teller in the light of expert and link to the underworld/ reincarnation of Kinsey. By implication the rest of us are novices, acolytes at the knee of brilliance. I hate being told things I already know.

But then I get to wondering - do men have these silly conversations too? I suddenly understand the impulse that brought us the crossdressing school comedies in the 80, where (insert gender ambiguous name here) would accently be enrolled as a boy/girl, become best friends with person of opposite gender who is unware of the switcheroo, and eventually reveal their true identity in a stenchdraft of hormones. So so very bad, but would't you just love to be a fly on the wall. I'd rather be a freemason though.

Hell, I'm having a tantrum. I hate everything. I even hate being complimented, it makes me suspicious. What a nasty piece of work I must be.

Ever get the feeling you've been used?

Lately I have had a few interactions which have made me wonder about the motives of the people I am talking with. The conversations can be simultaneously "pleasant" and ostensibly good natured, but I get the impression that the other person is getting their jollies at my expence. I am possibly being paranoid, and maybe they expect me to be as amused as they evidently are, but its all very disconcerting. No, I don't particularly like some of the people you are so keen for me to catch up with, no I do not enjoy the sarcasm, and yes I'm thrilled for you that you are in such demand. Can we talk about some Hollywood trivia now? I'm uncomfortable being the foil for your socially ept & vivacious persona.
I suppose dealing with it on a regular basis might provide the impetus I need to get out of Dunedin

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

Stinky the cat was howling outside my room again this morning. Not a nice way to wake up, her screaming.

Jihad...of terror!

Outside the cat is screaming blue murder and throwing her dense, furry body at my bedroom door. I don't know what she wants, or why she is pestering me. Some kind of abandonment complex I suppose.
I am celebrating her stupidity in impact font, reminiscent of the tedious dull thud of her against the door. Impact, so often used to make photos into instant posters, is also appropriate as the (un)official caturday font.
I am mixing up the font colours for the hell of it, because I thought that my blog was looking a bit tasteful.
My mastery would be complete if I knew how to specify the leading of a body of text
So, in the name of Dunedin Pooh Bum brown please send your solutions to me, so I can make more noxious posts like this one. It will distract me from looking up more pictures from Dune.

Me and the cat, we're waiting

I have the horrible feeling that this is going to look horrendous.

No assignments today

I have other plans. Plans that involve David McCallum and Joanna Lumley. Maybe some popcorn. A cup of tea perhaps. A rush of nostalgia and molecular bonding with the couch. Envy me O public, for I shall soon be watching a classic. Can you guess it?

All irregularities will be handled by the forces controlling each dimension. Transuranic, heavy elements may not be used where there is life. Medium atomic weights are available: Gold, Lead, Copper, Jet, Diamond, Radium, Sapphire, Silver and Steel.

Sapphire and Steel have been assigned.

If I could embed sound I would have something suitably mystical in the background of this post. You"ll just have to use your imaginations, probably honed by 70's and 80's science fiction like mine.

Eyes burning!

Its been too long since I really shocked the public with a nice juicy image & lo somethingawful.com provided. Thank them, not me, for resurrecting the companion photo to Kyle Maclachlan. David Lynch, you are a sick sick man.

How do you say obsessive in Klingon?

Playstation

So today I was supposed to be doing assignments - hey, there is still an hour and a half of monday left, something might get done - but it has been spent at the twin altars of housekeeping and playstation. I am currently playing a game called Champions of Norrath or something equally testosterone, sci fi and manly sounding. You just know it is loosely based on Dungeons and Dragons. I've run into a few difficulties at the moment as the playstation or the disc has stopped working. There are compatibility issues and all round refusals to load. Who knows, maybe the television is staging an intervention. I'm glad I got to have the pleasure of killing the giant ant AND the giant spider though. I don't feel so bad about missing the rest of the game. I don't even mind the characters constant whinging "not enough mana" because he sounds like an exasperated Richard E. Grant, and is called Schultz.
I find it a little disturbing that I just talked about mana. Simultaneously geeky, and honouring Paul Holmes.

The neighbours child is crying

And all I can think is, stop snivelling or I'll give you something to snivel about. Harsh.

Just what I like to do on my day off

Dishes.
I now regret that we did not make the investment in some luxe dishwash like Palmolive, I could have been soaking in it, and smelt all feminine and purty. Isn't palmolive a funny brand name, the motive must have been to put as many natural words together as possible. Try to have them vaguely biblical, and with connotations of sunshine and pina coladas. Or ouzo. Doing the dishes in a bikini and some pink rubber gloves while a bunch of Adoni? Adonises? look on, peeling the grapes in anticipation of your joining them poolside on the banana loungers.
Sunlight, on the other hand, if they tried to capture tropical feel, failed. Its more of a domestic kind of branding, watery light through panes of semidetached villas, or appartments. Chintzy curtains are called for, and some scrubby looking flowers in window boxes.

Raabing one out

Meh

I have been silent for an uncharacterstically long period of time. What can I say? I got troubles. Computer troubles, life troubles, wardrobe troubles, work troubles, school troubles. Because I know you Fleetwood Mac fans are waiting for this... I think I'm in trouble. doo doo de doo doo doo doo wah wah wah wah. I also have difficulties actually typing anything without lapsing into lyrics.
Anyway, computer troubles - my trusty old pack pony computer has officially died. It no longer recognises that it has a hard drive at all, instead of just not recognising that it has an "o" key. This is a pity, because it was the computer I used to download delicious quantities of the music I was ashamed to purchase, lend or borrow from the library. Lucky I regularly leeched everything from it, but a shame nonetheless. Now I will have to rethink my music aquisition strategy.
Life troubles. Life is boring and monotonous and then you die alone. Ian Wishart exists and is published. I am in Dunedin, surrounded by people who think that they are shit hot & swan through life. You know, the individuals who can confidently expect jobs, romance and excitement because everyone thinks they are attractive. The kind of cunts who will say things like "but people think you're (funny, interesting, nice, similar mundane adjective)" when confronted with their privileged position in society. They completely sidestep the issue - ordinary people are not even entitled to have expectations, let alone have them rebuffed. There's a kind of casual cruelty in their passing mentions of successes and acclaim; here's a whole world of positive reinforcement, thrills and happiness - and you can't have it you fat ugly drab.
What pisses me off the most is when they account themselves among the rest of society - oh, but I'm so unattractive, and I had working class parents. I tell ya, I can't wait until old age ravages 'em all. Age, the great leveller. Everyone looks the same when they are old, men and women.
Work troubles. I have to get up in the morning. But really, at least they pay me, even if I am not being taught anything new and exciting & am terminally bored.
School troubles. It is there, I do the work and I don't see the point. I don't think I am stupid, but it is like I am constitutionally incapable of getting a mark that reflects my deistic nature. Of course I won't draw any conclusions from that. Still, I am hoping for a god from the machine for my typesetting assignment. Even the subject will be making you all quiver with excitement. Believe me, the page spreads are even better than you could dream of.
At this point I suppose there should be some kind of blessing counting. I've got one - that man who was wearing three stripers at the Crown last night. He was totally peachy. Danced like Salome too.

Shooting fish

So Britney has lost custody of the kids. To K.Fed. Disturbing. Too easy to make jokes. So I will just fervently hope he does not start them on music careers as a way of bonding.



Apropos of misguided career choices, Michael Murphy's dad should have taken him on more accountant work experience days. We don't want him squandering any more celluloid & if he had a viable career option other than entertainment, he might stop.

Mmm mmm mmm thas jus' crayzee

BBC is a good source of entertainment when I am trying to ignore filthy episodes of TV from that excrement peddler, that siphilitic lesion, that panderer to the LCD Joss Whedon. Here's a tip Joss, circumlocution and twee humour get really tired to anyone who is not part of your target market of subnormals.
Actually, I guess I know some normal people who like the shows, but I still don't get it. Anyway. Bad religion, cougar hunting, and creepy stone heads all featured in my news fix. Thanks Beeb.

Queering the pitch, up the khyber, Jack Palancing

When looking up the phrase My cup runneth over I wound up at a dictionary of idiom. Naturally I started browsing, because otherwise I would have to do something useful. Eventually I wound up at:

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush

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It isn't until the 19th century that we find the phrase in its currently used form. The earliest I've located is in a US newspaper The Huron Reflector, from January 1833:

But few persons, so prone are we to grasp at the shadow at the expense of the substance, bear in mind the good old adage, 'A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.'

This refers to the phrase as old. How long the current version predates 1833 isn't clear, but variations of the phrase have been known for centuries. The earliest English version of the proverb is from the Bible and was translated into English in Wycliffe's version in 1382, although Latin texts have it from the 13th century:

Ecclesiastes IX - A living dog is better than a dead lion.

Alternatives that explicitly mention birds in hand come later. The earliest of those is in Hugh Rhodes' The boke of nurture or schoole of good maners, circa 1530:

A byrd in hand - is worth ten flye at large.

John Heywood, the 16th century collector of proverbs, recorded another version in his ambitiously titled A dialogue conteinyng the nomber in effect of all the prouerbes in the Englishe tongue, 1546:

Better one byrde in hande than ten in the wood.

The Bird in Hand was adopted as a pub name in the UK in the Middle Ages and there are still many pubs of that name there. This refers back to mediaeval falconry where a bird in the hand (the falcon) was certainly worth more than two in the bush (the prey).

The term bird in hand must have been known in the USA by 1734, as that is the date when a small town in Pennsylvania was founded with that name.

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Aside from concerns about inflation - how come a bird in the hand is worth only one in the bush now? It also reminded me of a wag's remark - One in the hand is worth two in Kate Bush. Shame on them.

Did you feel that too?

Last night we experienced an earthquake, which I promptly forgot about until it was mentioned to me this afternoon. There was a small tsunami as well, evidently, but it obviously did not hit us. Its good to know that the warning networks are in place and we will all be given ample notice in the event of an international superdisaster. I'm horrified to think I may be left behind in the looting that would ensue.
The other thing I noticed today was a distressing misuse of runneth. As in the stupid blackboard outside Etrusco. Feeling the pinch? Let your cup runneth over which makes no sense to me, because I always regarded runneth and -eth as an oldfashioned substitution for the suffix s, used only for third person singular conjugations of verbs. And only on special ye olde occasions at that. Does let your cup runneth over qualify for that? Sure, the cup does the runneth, but you let it. Or are they saying let in the "I'm putting this out to the universe sense"? These are some tough questions but I am still unhappy about the phrase.
Besides, runneth is not something you just let happen and definitely not at a restaurant. Basically the only phrase in which the word sounds natural is that old saw "my cup runneth over". Restaurants re not known for overfilling vessels and it would be pretty stupid to just keep pouring. Overabundance is messy, and frequently sticky and unpleasant.
I looked it up in a dicionary and I was pleased to see the definition. It had a real mechanical sound to it, and I heard a mechanical voicebox reading it in my mind. I have more than enough for my needs. Oh fine I'll admit it. I heard Stephen Hawking saying it.
Then I got frustrated, because I heard a pop song the other day with a ridiculous misuse of the word thee and now I can't remember what it was. It was on C4, so I've got a limited playlist to choose from. Reader submissions required so I can get medieval on the bad grammar perps.