Monday. You suck.

How awesome is Monday, people?  If nothing else, it's one in fifty-two opportunities you are given every year to wake up and question what the hell you are doing with your life.  And that's just before breakfast; after that you get to go to work!!

What's the difference between a goat and a toaster?  How the fuck would I know.  But I do know that they probably both hate Mondays.  Apart from being a terribly bad non-joke, it is also a leading example of the effect Monday has on my great wit and intelligence.

Monday's child is not fair of face; she's totes cranky because it's Monday.  And you know the saying, "Sounds like someone's got a case of the Mondays?'  Please don't say this to me ever.  Or I will put out your fingernails. 

Mega-famous feline Garfield hates Mondays, and he's one hell of a smart cat.  Sort of.  Did you know that Monday is the most popular day of the week to commit suicide and call in sick and overeat cake? There you go.  Proof that Mondays are stupid.  I made the cake bit up, but it's probably true.

While my lowly serotonin levels ensure that I'm never really happy or excited about anything, Mondays have a special effect on my mood as an added bonus.  So, knowing this about myself, I have decided that M-day will be my go hard day at the gym, as much as I ever go hard at the gym. 

It's also a useful way of sticking it to the most ruthless day of the week, but I think it punishes me more than it punishes, er, Monday, because Monday is part of a vicious cycle that doesn't care what I do.  Round and round and round - it's mean spirited like that.

So today I realised that my M-day gym workout will have to be later in the evening because every man and his dumbells like to go to the gym straight after work, and that doesn't work for me because I can't get near the equipment and, more importantly, I don't particularly like people, especially when they group.  When did exercise become so popular anyway?

But I'm happy, because my dumbell boredom has recently been sated with a spanking newish program, devised by the same cute trainer who did my last one. *sigh*  Maybe I should get a new program every Monday.

Camping Revamping

I don't know why I've gone all rhymey with the titles of my blog posts.  I guess you'll just have to find a way to cope with it all.

There is a huge problem facing humanity that I don't believe anyone is addressing.  It is a scourge of society that is destabilising communities, destroying families, welcoming criminals with an 'open-door' policy, and, well, pissing me off to be honest.  The pressing crisis that needs tackling is the popularity of camping.      

Every man and his sleeping bag are going camping these days, and they feel the need to tell everyone else about how edgy and hip and on-trend they are.  I'm all for visiting nature, but can't it be done in a day?  People talk to me all the time about their camping shenanigans - at length - as if they have somehow seen a vague flicker of interest flash across my face when they talk of missing tent pegs, burnt marshmellow and mosquitoes attacking their eyeballs. 

There is nothing remotely fun-sounding about toasting marshmellows.  Gooey marshmellows are just gross, and they are even grosser when they are toasted. Thanks, but I don't care for marshmellows at the best of times, although if Cadbury go bankrupt and there are no other decent lollies left in the whole world, I'll just grab a bag of mini marshmellows from Woolies, and eat them while watching a DVD while sitting on a sofa in my house that has a roof and air-conditioning.  Sans campfire. 

During these momentously uninteresting camping conversations, I scan their little faces, searching for some telltale twitch or slip-up that will alert me to the fact that they are lying when they say they love camping and that they have, instead, just recently escaped from some weirdo Church of Scientology type facility that specialises in mind control and other coercive techniques to force them to accept the basic values and beliefs of spending the night in the bush.

Benjamin Franklin or someone went to a bloody great effort to discover electricity for you; most probably because he was sick to death of undertaking scientific experiments and writing Declarations of Independence by flickering oil lamps.  You should not take his work for granted.  If Bob Brown and his cohorts have their way with us with their retarded green policies we'll be living in caves in ten years anyway, so make the most of your houses, fools.

A lot of the stories I hear from camping people (italics used to denote derision) of their off-civilisation ventures sound remarkably civilised.  For example, using a car engine to heat the kettle and toaster, and sleeping in a five-bedroom McMansion tent with 25,000 tent poles.  I imagine they were up most of the night laying beige carpet and installing the rangehood near the kettle.

I completely condone fancy pants camping; it sounds much more like my cup of tea, albeit infested with dirty, swamp gnats.  Although it poses the question: why not just stay in your fucking house in the first place?

Cough Spin-off

I think I've coughed about 58 million times since August 2011, when I was sick as a sick dudette and the doctor gave me the timely and useful advice to ride it out for the following six weeks.  Good times were had in those following six weeks, which turned into 12 weeks, particularly for anyone silly enough to be in my vicinity. 

The doctor refused me antibiotics on the grounds that my cough was viral and not bacterial and, therefore, the drugs would have had no effect.  It may also have been on the grounds that I begged him for a script in a way that would have put a Kings Cross junkie to shame.  There's nothing like a medical professional ignoring your pleas for sickness-killing drugs and telling you to suck it up princess.

And now, six months down the track, The Pariah Cough seems to have reared its ugly pariah head again.  I will acknowledge that my coughing must be a little annoying for my long-suffering work colleagues and, well, the general public, but in my defence, I find many of them annoying as well.  Particularly the annoying ones who annoy the crap out of me.  They are few and far between, except when they group themselves in moronic abundance (hello Queanbeyan), but their annoyingness certainly makes up for their lack of numbers.

So I went to the same doctor again today because I am a responsible adult and wanted to make sure I am not suffering from atypical pneumonia or hip cancer.  Yes, this is what happens when you start off on little tangents on The Google; you end up with 18 diseases when you really just wanted to know why you have a mysterious cough.  In my first year of psychology at uni I thought I was suffering from half of the disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, but it turns out that I was just your average bear suffering from only a couple of chapters.

So, today the doctor decided that he has absolutely no idea why I have all the key attributes of an elephant seal, which makes sense given there are no elephant seal linkages in my family history.  I don't even know any elephant seals.  Although he thinks that The Cough is stemming from my trachea.  If only I had a smarter doctor.   

Although, the doc rocks a little bit because he gave me a showbag of fancy pants drugs including antibiotics, ventolin and a Hello Kitty super sipper and instructed me to come back if they didn't work so we can proceed with a battery of tests, presumably so a fresh batch of specialist health practitioners can make a bunch of fake diagnosises while I assist in putting their kids through private education in Switzerland.

Warning: This Post is about Glossy Hair

Let me warn you again - this post is not going to venture into interesting territory at all.  It's about hair.

So, NEWSFLASH, I went into Woden Plaza in Canberra at lunchtime today to pick up some of my fave thermal heating protection hair product thingy stuff which is so genius that you could glide within a kilometre of the sun without your hair even knowing the difference.  I would be slightly singed, or - worst case scenario - completely obliterated, but my hair would be all chill and in tiptop shape.  The product is almost practically that good.

Alas, like any superior spaceflight product that can protect the man who is going to the moon via the sun, sometimes the shop just runs out of titanium, and there is nothing you can really do about it.  And guess what, fascinated readers?  They were all out of my product today.  And then the hair care assistant forced me to engage in banal, insipid hair talk about the importance of thermal sprays. 

And then she went all parallel universe on me and made me feel like a superficial loser by asking me if I would like her to call another store to get it sent over urgently or something.  Um, no I'm good.  I told her my hair will somehow, someway have to go on without it for a few weeks.  I think she was mocking me as I was mocking her.  It was one of those terribly awkward, uncomfortable moments you have with someone who is taking the topic of conversation far more seriously than you are. 

And then I felt like I would offend her sensibilities if I just chose a cheap inferior product instead, as a bridging capability for my hair until my product is restocked, so I went out empty handed, and feeling slightly empty-headed.  Plus I think I already have a cheap, inferior backup somewhere.  Fascinating day, I know. 

Anyway, I talk of hair because I have been wondering how Miss Katie, the Duchess of Cambridge and winner of the royal bachelor lotto (left), gets her hair so wonderfully glossy like a horse's mane.  Horse wig glossy.  I don't mean to sound cold - I very much like Kate - but her hair is abnormally sheeny. 

A few years ago my hair was abnormally sheeny too, as I was using a product that contained specks of gold or unicorn dust or silkworms or something.  I don't know what was in that shit, but my hair glowed like Chernobyl.  And doesn't every girl want her hair to glow like a nuclear explosion? 

On a brighter note for us girls, Kate's hair doesn't always glisten.  Sometimes it just looks like normal hair (right). The horror. 

Stairmaster to Hell

It's been at least a week since I waxed lyrical about my exercise program on here, and I really don't know how anyone who reads my blog has coped with the gap in fascinating and informative updates from a renown fitness expert like myself.  To be honest, I really don't know how anyone can read my blog in the first place.

The topic for today was either going to be exercise or Valentine's Day, and it sure as shit ain't going to be Valentine's Day.  If you care for Valentine's Day please take your starry-eyed dirty eyes away from my innocent blog immediately.  Although, what's not to love about a day where you are deemed a total scumbag if you do not declare your affection in some socially approved, materialistic way? 

Okay, where was I? Yes, exercise.  All I really have to say about this is that the gym is now practically my friend.  We had a very rocky beginning to our relationship, if you want to call it that, and I won't be asking it to be my valentine, but we are totally tolerating each other, which I suppose is like the average marriage really, and I even missed it when I went away last weekend.

But, alas, the stupid Stair Mistress is most assuredly not my friend; one could possibly call me her bitch.  She makes me work hard and would crack a whip if she had hands and autonomic function.  But I will climb and climb the neverending stairway to hell at least once a week, because my leg muscles aren't going to look awesome all by themselves.

Cheers for the email

Thank you to the delightful person who sent me a charmingly incoherent email.  As entertaining as it was, I'd much prefer that you didn't email me again until you learn how to punctuate / spell / think logically, because I don't understand idiot. More than happy to take criticism of my blog content, in fact I encourage it, but please don't do it when you are stoned. My apologies if you weren't stoned, but are just stupid, but it was hard to tell the difference.

Doctor WTF Symphony

Apparently you haven't lived until you've been to a Doctor Who symphony.  And after you've seen it you'll want to stick a hot poker in your eye and have your long-term memory bank fumigated so you never have to think about it ever again.  A Doctor Who what you ask?  Total fucking weirdness, that's what.

Last weekend I went to this little sound and light shebang about the time travelling Time Lord in Melbourne for two reasons.  The most persuasive reason is that I was more or less tricked into attending through smoke and mirrors and the sneaky, sneaky method of catching me offguard. 

LIFE LESSON #327: Stay alert at all times in case someone asks you to a Doctor Who Symphony.  The second reason is that I'd already paid, and it went for three hours, and at $23 per hour, $23 an hour is $23 an hour.  Everyone has a price, evidently I buckle for $23 an hour.
 
And anyway, I thought to myself, 'how bad can it be?', given that the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra had put their name and big brass band instruments to it.  Well, um, the orchestra was brilliant...
 
It absolutely did not help that I have no context of the current Doctor series to make any sense of what was going on, which pretty much sums up the whole three hours.  One long WTF.  It was hosted by a British dude who starred on the show as someone who did something.  I don't know, and don't particularly care either, but he was a pretty decent MC.  The conductor was highly annoying and spent his time conducting things and being overly dramatic and flicking his hair in time with the spooky music, which all sounded eerily similar.
 
One thing became abundantly clear to me during this crazyathon.  To be a respectable fantasy fiction actor, you need to be splendid at hand acting.  To do this you need to master the art of staring intently and nervously at your hand, turning it over, back and forth, very slowly, and then stare at it in horror as it turns into a burst of green noxious gas, or an alien life form, or a sonic screwdriver (please don't ask). 

People who are naturally good at this are Doctor Who's.  People who are unnaturally good at this spend their weekends with their head jammed up a bong, or whatever appropriate terminology is used by substance abusers.  As an actor, if you can't master this simple yet valuable trick of the trade, then don't give up your night job waiting tables.  I can do it, but then I can do most things.

The daleks were there, and so were the cybermen.  No, I don't know what cybermen are either.  I do however know that all of Doctor Who's dirtiest, bitchiest enemies thoughout his weirdo history have had the crappiest peripheral vision known to man.  How they became known as formidable is anyone's guess, since it was easier for the D-Man to sneak up on them than a hearing-impaired beagle.

Don't even get me started on sonic screw drivers.  Some things need to remain blocked out.

Elizabeth II

No, this blog post isn't about me.  How pretentious do you think I am?  I thought I knew you...

Now, everyone needs to pipe down and just be resigned to the fact that I am going to do another post about HM the Queen Elizabeth II, because today is the 60th anniversary since she acceded to the top British regal gig after her beloved father, King George VI, died when she was just 25.  And she's still kicking butt with a tiara firmly ensconsed up on her head after all these years.

The poor bastards who read any of my rambling queeny posts last year would appreciate my adoration of her Maj, and I would prefer anyone else to quit judging me with your beady little Republican eyes.  Why y'all hatin' on the royals?  Monarchists have feelings too, you know.

You may get sick of hearing about my unrequited regal love, but one would prefer to pour molten lava into one's ears than listen to the blithering of Republicans and their anti-royal whinging and whining.  Try not to think about my love of all things royal too much or you may find yourself on YouTube screaming something incoherent at a town hall meeting.

And no, I don't have to explain to you why I love the royals; that's the beauty of being the doyen of your own blog.  In fact, my question to you is 'why can't you be more like the royals, and less like yourself?'  Ah, just jokes.  We're all friends here.  Apart from any serial killers who might read my posts.  I'm sorry jail-bound readers, but we are not even remotely friends, but I'm sure someone out there will be your pen(itentiary) pal. 

Did you know that there are 233 prisons in Australia?  And god knows how many there are in America.  That's a lot of bad people with access to broadband.  That's what you get when you murder people; free food, free accommodation, free gym and free internet access for life.

Sometimes I notice on my blog stats that there is a spike of people in North America who read particular posts on my blog, and after I wonder why they read such nonsense I wonder how they interpret my writing, because, no offence* American cyberbot friends, but sometimes I query your understanding of irony and sarcasm, which is generally my preferred method of communicating with the world. 

If you are ever in any doubt, you can take 50% of pretty much everything I write on here with a grain of salt.  Unfortunately you'll have to work out for yourself which 50% is which, which isn't very helpful, given that when you may think I'm being silly I'm often being quite sincere, and vice versa.  The blogosphere can be a cruel mistress, but my blog is usually a load of hokum so don't get your knickers in a knot. 

Oh darn it, I forgot to blog about HM the Queen because I was prattling on about myself.  No matter; she knows how awesome she is...

* Sorry, I momentarily became one of those people who says 'no offence' as though it magically made my ensuing comments non-offensive.  Sorry.  No offence.

Ned Kelly's Chai Latte

I'm not very big on road trips.  Ever since I can remember, I have been a lean, green queasy machine when it comes to travelling shotgun or as a backseat driver in roadgoing vehicles over long distances.  I'm a little better than I used to be, but I still prefer to be hurtled through the air via one of Qantas' metal tubes than drive to far flung destinations.

Having said that, I have just travelled in a car from Canberra to Melbourne and back again, which amounted to about 14 hours of mild nausea.  The reason for this insanity was because I was visiting people in country Victoria with some family members.  When I say country Victoria, I mean the outer suburbs of Melbourne.  

The trip from Canberra to Melbourne is horrendously boring, as it is throughout much of regional Australia.  In addition to my boredom and queasiness, this journey was made worse by my inability to sit still for more than five minutes. 

It has been years and years since I drove through Ned Kelly country in Glenrowan in Victoria.  There is a sign that advises unsuspecting tourists that Australia's favourite serial cop killer was born in the area and that there is a shrine in the place of his Last Stand, where he gave the police some lip and refused to get into the back of a paddywagon while yelling 'don't you know who I am?!'  Unfortunately for Ned, the sign shows a man flingin' his pistols like he was the missing Wiggle in the silver skivvy.

I bet it wouldn't have been his Last Stand if he had been in possession of a Navman or a Navsheila.  "You. Are. Entering. A. Trap!  Turn. Right. Now! Turn. Right. Now!" 

The Navman we were using was so old that it possibly could have been from Kelly's era.  If you don't update the maps, your SatNav is just a clueless, annoying British woman.  I wonder how Big Ned navigated his way around the place anyway?  Did the Kelly Gang have walkie talkies? Did he do what tourists do when their Navmans aren't working and just follow the big M's?  Why doesn't Wikipedia give me the answers I really want?

McDonald's should do a McNavman, given that Australians just travel from Macca's to Macca's anyway when they travel distances.  I wonder what type of coffee Ned would have fancied from McCafe?  Perhaps a skinny, half-strength chai latte.  Or maybe he would have chosen something slightly more bushrangery.  I can certainly imagine him popping in for a McHappy meal during a hard day of gruelling bushranging activities.

At least a road trip through country Victoria would have been vaguely interesting in 1870, with a high possibility of being mugged by a horse-bound criminal with a tin bucket on his head.  Rather than contradictory nanny state signs screaming at me to "Rest NOW!" and "Micronaps KILL!" on the same stretch of road, country folk back in the day probably would have had "Watch out for bushrangers for the next 20 kilometres" or some such.

Kelly has been glorified in the media over the years as a bit of a rockstar, but, in reality, he is one of those blokes who robbed a 7-Eleven, shot the sheriff and ended up on Crime Stoppers.   I'm guessing he wasn't that bright, given that he wore a tin can on his head.

I didn't go to Kelly's last shootout lookout, because I figured it had been turned into a tourist trap courtesy of a McDonald's sponsorship or a contract with the Wiggles.  Maybe I'll check it out with my supersonic binoculars the next time I'm soaring over country Victoria on a jet plane.

My mum tells me that she and her friends used to ride their bikes up these mountain ranges back in the day for something to do and they would steal oranges when they got to the top for something else to do. This is how you solve the so-called obesity epidemic.  Build more bikes and plant more mountain ranges and orange trees. Alternatively, monitor what your kids eat and kick them outside to the backyard occasionally.

What?

It's very important to me to keep abreast of current affairs.  Anyone who knows me will tell you that if I don't read something newsworthy at least once a day time loses all meaning to me and my head will spin on its axis until it explodes.  It's a huge inconvenience and often quite awkward.  You really find out who your friends are when your head spontaneously detonates itself.

So keeping in mind my incessant need for current affairs updates, you can understand my interest in David Beckham at this time, given he has just primped, posed and preened his way through a new H & M undergarments ad for the Superbowl.  Thus, it seemed prudent to overanalyse his undies commercial, debriefing myself as it were, thereby ensuring I don't miss out on any part of this important, newsworthy affair.

The other F-word

There are many fascinating things to read on the internet, and I can assure you that this post is not one of them.  I know it's really, really rare for me to bitch about something that pisses me off on my blog, but this one really chafes.  It's the other F-word that gets my goat - February.

I can't handle the stress of having to say, let alone write, this god awful word for a month, and this year we have to do it for an additional day because it's a flippin' leap year. 29 long days of mispronouncing the month of Feb-ru-ary. That's right kids, who the hell says Feb-ru-ary? If you know anyone who does, bring them to me and I will deal with them.

Now everyone be nice to the 29er leaplings, who get their birthday this month, and are thus only a quarter as old as they should be. I suppose that's one way to avoid the ageing process.