» Of The Fish Balls
I said: Watch out! They're kinda plasmic!
She said: They're really hot.
» Of The Sitcom
I said: It's just totally pedestrian. At best.
She said: It's really bad.
I thought: I use big words.
Oct 062010
Sep 052009
Yesterday at the dayjob, sitting through a seminar on government programs to support innovation, and the presenter comes out with this:
"In this job, I've learnt that everyone in Australia has either written a novel, or invented something."
— and every head in the room swivelled my way, my dayjob colleagues laughing, the presenter following the direction of their gazes a beat later with mystification on his face. I guess his joke had never gone down quite so pointedly before.
I of course handled the attention with my normal tactic in such a situation: I blushed.
It's a little trick my ancestors obviously thought clever. Someone looking at you? Someone call your name? Someone directed even passing attention your way? BLUSH. You'll look ever so much more fetching if you're blood-red, donchaknow.1 Presumably they learnt this trick concurrently with another one that actually presented some real evolutionary advantage — or else being pathologically incapable of surviving the focus of attention untouched presents some advantage I have yet to determine.2 Either way, they bred successfully enough to pass it along to me.
And I simply can't tell you how grateful I am for that. No, really.
- I am so good at this trick, thanks either to my inheritance or to my own ability to improve upon what I inherited, that even THINKING about being the focus of attention makes me blush. [↩]
- Maybe it helps you stand out in the snow? If that's the case, not helpful here in desert country and my genetics should please to be adapting to my situation faster, kthxbai. [↩]
May 192009
Question of the Week: But don't you want to get married? have kids? settle down?1
Yes, that's right, settle down. Because it's just party central over here in Debville. I don't know what gave it away. Perhaps it was the fact that, when a work colleague asks about my weekend, my answer is inevitably, "Oh, I met up with some mates at the State Library. We have this thing, where we get together every Saturday and sit in a room where we're not allowed to talk to each other, and we don't let ourselves leave that room until we've written something. It was great!"2
Or maybe, just maybe, it's the fact that, shockingly, I am not desperate to put an end to my single status, despite having turned 30 some years ago. Clearly, internet, I am a brazen hussy and I need to just STOP IT NOW. Because the overpopulated world is depending on my uterus. I mean, we won't be able to eat the planet dry of all its resources unless I breed, and now, dagnabbit.
If you'll excuse me, there's some youth I need to go out and corrupt.
- Posed to me, not by my mother, who is far too cool for such outdated attitudes, nor by anyone born in the decades preceding the first world war, but by a lad in his twenties. [↩]
- This weekend gone we really shook up the plan by going to see a movie afterwards. Because nothing is better than sitting in a brightly-lit room where you're not allowed to talk, except perhaps following it up by sitting in a darkened room where you're not allowed to talk. That's just how we extreme partygoers roll. [↩]
Apr 132009
To properly celebrate the move south, I spent Easter…back home. One of the perks of this arrangement was spending some time with Spawn, who can't quite tell my two younger brothers apart. "This are Ben," she told me as I pointed out one younger brother (not Ben, in actual fact). I pointed out the real Ben and she hesitated, perhaps sensing a trap, but soldiered bravely on: "This are… More Ben!"
The other perk of this arrangement was the availability of internet. Ah, bandwidth, how I've missed you! Enjoying the benefits of connectivity, I was stumbling videos and came across this gem: CNNNN's Next Country To Invade.
Around about the 0:48 mark people start putting pins into the map to demonstrate where the US should invade next.
Iran Korea Australia is screwed.
Dec 282008
"Has Apple bought the bloody Greek pantheon now?" (Me)
"I'm only hanging out with you so your girlfriend thinks you're a child person. You owe me." (From an 8yo)
"Meow likes ball!" (No prizes for guessing that one was Spawn. She used to call the cats by their name, but would always get them mixed up. She now refers to the cats individually and collectively as Meow. Much simpler.)
"I did warn you that you might find an Apple frustrating."
Aug 272008
Some years ago, my brother (who does 3D imaging and computer modelling, among other things) was applying for a job, and needed some samples of his work on the web for potential employers to view, so I set up a subdomain off my website for him to use.
Yesterday, in cleaning out my hard drive, I found the subdomain and wondered if he was still using it, so flung him a quick email to check.
His answer?
i would like to expand the subdomain in a hostile takeover bid.
The subdomain has become the superdomain. Owner of all domains.
if you could just go ahead and clear all your hard drive of anything not relating to me that would be good.
i would also like the space quest series of games installed.
For those of you keeping score at home, yes, this is the same brother who wrote the ransom note from the ants.
Aug 152008
Me, reading aloud the name of the cracked.com article: The five greatest things ever accomplished while high…
Nurse: I sat in the lotus position while stoned once…
Me: you realise I have to blog that "achievement", don't you?
call me back when the war is over, call me back when your boyfriend's gone
journal, shadow queen, writing life
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Jun 252008
State of the push-ups:
Week one, day two, and I can now hold the form properly. Can't actually move far while holding the form and thus, for now and until I build up my arm strength, my push-ups are quite shallow. I suspect I shall have to repeat week one. But! progress.
Although sneezing now hurts my abs.
State of the scar:
Today a woman at the beauticians was complaining to me about the basal cell carcinoma she needed to have cut off her face. Guessing (from her constant repetitious complaining) she was feeling a touch worried about the surgery's outcome, I volunteered the information that I'd just had surgery on my face, and pointed out my scar, which she hadn't noticed.
Sadly, it turns out she hadn't noticed because she was a self-centred moron who only wanted to win at the strange game MY CANCEROUS SKIN LESION IS SCARIER THAN YOURS. I kid you not. She told me, in all seriousness, that doctors wouldn't bother to cut off freckles, there was no such thing as a Hutchinson's melanotic freckle, and all but accused me of lying about the scar. Heaven knows why she thinks I'd have a Z cut into my face. For shits and giggles, perhaps? To lift ONE cheekbone slightly higher than the other? Because I'm some kind of obsessive melanoma fangirl?
State of the copyedits:
I am just over halfway through, according to my count, although that doesn't include today's efforts yet.
What with the renumbering of chapters, conversations between my editor and I are getting tricky, and leads to emails like: I've just sent you old chapter three, which is now new chapters nine through thirteen. Also, I had to change old chapter two — I added some material from old chapter four, which is now in new chapter seven (old chapter two).
It's doing my head in.
Onward and upward!
May 172008
"What kind of books?" the receptionist asks. "You mentioned that you write novels. What kind?"
"Fantasy," I say, "and some science fiction."
Her face falls flat. "Oh. I don't read those kinds of books."
I'm used to this response — it's not an uncommon one. So I shrug, and smile, and say nothing.
"Having said that," she brightens, "I did see the Spiderwick Chronicles the other day, and I quite enjoyed that…"
This, too, is not uncommon.
"Well," I say noncommittally, "that's fantasy."
She gives a little shudder. "Yes. I definitely don't like fantasy."
Jan 212008
Spoke with my mother today and asked her why she didn't give me a hippie name.1 She said if she had given me a hippie name, it would have been Mudpuddle.
Guess I got off lightly, all things considered.
- "Why didn't you call me … ?" is a favourite game of mine. I don't know why. My mother despairs of my ever growing tired of it. [↩]