1812 Overture Adventures

I headed to the Australian National University’s Llewellyn Hall this afternoon for Strike Up The Band!, a harmony of pretty noises brought to me by the temporary convergence of the Canberra Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Military College (RMC) Band.

While orchestras and bands are not usually my piccolo - I’m more of a Bon Jovi circa 1980's type of gal - I was well impressed with their big band contraptions.

I ventured to this brassy shindig to fill the seat of my season-ticket holding mother, who was unable to make it on this occasion. There are so many rules at the symphony. There are the usual ones, like must wear clothes, no phone calls during the 1812 Overture, no getting up on stage to join the orchestra, blah, blah, blah.

But there are also big mobs of implicit rules. Non-negotiable implicit rule #1. Everyone must applaud incessantly throughout the performance, but must clap particularly gratuitously when the conductor enters stage left. And when he walks off the stage. And when he raises his hands. And when he scratches his arse. Some people need a Standing-O and a 21-gun salute just for turning up to work. Sheesh.

I do not know why this relentless applauding needs to happen, seeing as his presence and energetic hand waving seem largely symbolic. I’ll eat my trombone if the orchestra do not know their shit backwards.

Speaking of trombones, I used to play that apparatus in high school for lame music appreciation class. I guess all that appreciatin’ didn’t rub off on me, because I quite liked Atomic Kitten in their heyday. Playing the trombone is like trying to blow through the exhaust pipe of a small car while balancing it on your thigh.

But my sister told me she remembers my home practice sessions very, very well so I must have been quite marvellous at it. All I remember is being the last person to pick an instrument for the school term and spending the whole class every week trying to find new places to put all the spittle.

My favourite bit of today's performance came with the 1812 Overture, with a gigantic cannon firing blanks into the crowd. It was incredible. At least it would have been had it happened. In reality, they engaged the services of a cannon sound machine. How cool is that?  Overall, I did not fall asleep even once, and that is impressive.

#annoyingasfek

What’s up with the popularity of Instagram?  I understand that people want to flaunt pictures of their cat's poo or their tasty spaghetti bolognese dinner to the world; really I do.  I adore cat poo and I’ve eaten food on at least one occasion.  But what’s with the hashtags?  This is exactly the type of thing that's wrong with the Western world.  Not the main thing wrong with the West – that’s undoubtedly the Kardashian clan – but one more fucking thing.

Excessive, pompous, narcissism disguised as sarcasm hashtagging is fucking annoying.  In fact it's so fucking annoying it's #fuckingannoying.  I get it - people are trying to be clever.  And sometimes it is, but mostly it's not.  Why do people hashtag their cat so other users can see their picture of a #cutecat amongst millions of other #cutecats? I don't know either, friend, I just don't know.

If you want to keep a log of your lives, write a sentence about it.  A beautifully constructed sentence conveys more meaning and evokes more memories than a single word ever could.  That's what me thinks anyways.  Here's why I hate on hashtags.

I've been a prolific writer since the day I was borned.  It was a bit difficult to lift a pen in those first few hours, but where there's a will there's a Middleton, and all that.  Sentences are my friend.  We is like best buds.

And I just think if you have time to put twenty hashtags on a photo to describe what you think other people are too fucking stupid to see for themselves, then you have time to construct a bewitching, lingering sentence.  I love words as well, but generally without hashtags interrupting my flow, man.  I find that where there are sentences on Instagram, there are no spaces between the words.  This shit is messing with my head.

The hashtag craze was presumably invented by someone who didn’t learn how to construct a sentence in school and still can't figure it out.  Maybe it's just my personal preference, but I don't want to live in a dumbed down world of hashtags. 

Mobile phone drone

I had a conversation with a youth today, although I'm not very savvy with ages so Bob (not her real name) could have been anywhere between the ages of 8 to 22. The youth tend to identify themselves to me by being despairingly naive and idealistic about the fate of the world, usually self righteous, often entitled, and just overwhelmingly youthful, which is irritating.

I too cared about the fortunes of the world until I was approximately 23 years old. I have diaries and notebooks full of my political rantings and unbridled philosophising. I think I even believed in the prospect of world peace at some point. Aww, sah cute. At any rate, world peace is one of those things that sounds good in principle but is really not healthy for the economy.

Our conversation revolved around technology and how it needed to be kept up with, apparently. Bob is about to buy some new mobile telephone, called the iPhone something, and it’s going to cost Bob a fortune but Bob doesn’t care because Bob has to have it. I queried what was wrong with her current phone. Nothing was wrong with Bob’s current phone, even though she only bought it in April. But it’s not the latest version and it has to be the latest version or Bob’s head will spin on its axis and explode in humiliation and indignity.

I just don’t understand. I mean, what a fucking waste of money. Why do I even care? It’s none of my business how stupid people squander their wealth. My goodness, technology seems to be a bit of an addiction; like heroine or McDonald’s chicken nuggets.  So I referenced my hankering for the days when we didn’t have smart phones and this was met with a blank confused stare. I suppose Bob can’t even fathom a world without them. 

Sprinter from winter

I know that the weather was created by God to give boring people something to talk about, but I got more to say about that crazy little natural pheomenon. I didn’t get no break from wretched Canberra this winter, which I’m still dirty about.

All my work associates (I think ‘associates’ makes my line of work sound more interesting and meaningful) took the prime leave slots – which is anywhere from June to late July when Canberra is at its most frosty – so I had to hang around in the doom and gloom that is the national capital at that time of year.

So this week I’m booking some leave, which is of no interest to anyone but of enormous significance to me. For one month next June/July. Yes. I know I'll feel better when I have a get out of jail card. June 2014 is absolutely eons away, but I will be blimey happy that I gave myself an escape from the frostiness before all the other clowns at work book in.

I have a vague idea of where I want to go - back to the Mother Country, maybe - and an array of people to join in the fun - how hard is it to convince people to leave Canberra in winter? - but that is all inconsequential detail at this stage. What I do know is that if I have to spend another winter here I will need to be consigned to a mental health facility.

Apple Fools

Ah apples. They are so great, aren't they? I love apples.  If they and bananas and mangoes ever disappeared because of some post-apocalyptic nightmare scenario that only affects specific yellow and red and orange coloured fruit, I would be massively screwed because I just don't care for any other type of edible flowering plant except those ones.

So it's most fortuitous that I love pretty much every vegetable that's ever been born, except the ones that I loathe, most notably brussel sprouts. I mean, really.

Brussel sprouts are a member of the cabbage family, which certainly explains why they are so disgusting.  Worst family genes ever.  Anyway, back to apples.

I ate a royal gala for my post-lunch repast today.  It was really delicious and crunchy, except there were two stickers on my apple, and I don't really approve of my fruit being used as a platform for insidious promotion from fruit growers.

Individual stickers on apples are just annoying, because I just don't care where they come from and the sign above the fruit in the shop tells me what specific fruit I am purchasing.  Plus I have a brain and may be able to detect all by myself when a banana has accidently or deliberately been tossed into the royal galas.

Through the story of Adam and Eve, apples have become the symbol of knowledge, immortality, temptation and rampant advertising.  When Eve took the apple off the Forbidden Tree she probably had to peel off a fucking promotional sticker. I think I'm going to create tiny oval stickers of my face and put them all over Canberra.  Just because.

Stomp A Little

Still awake because of a head cold, and other crap that's going round and round in my head.  Shut up brain. Go to sleep.  Went to see the STOMP tonight in Canberra. Gosh they are good at what they do.

Apparently I'm one of the few people in the world who claim to never have seen it. STOMP is a blend of tap, contemporary dance, theatre, comedy performed by people who have big mobs of rhythm using pretty much any household items, including brooms, dustpans, shopping trolleys, newspapers, cigarette lighters, garbage bins, plastic bags, pipes, pots and pans, rubber tyres, coughing, clapping, finger clicking and literally the kitchen sink.

The performance was super slick but it was also gritty. Most of the performers aren't the polished tapdog-type of athlete, but more the Kingswood County-type of drinker.  It was also witty, and they made (but a few) mistakes, which just added to the attraction. If you create an environment where the audience perceives the performers as capable of self-deprication, watching them make mistakes reminds you how talented they are.

It's best not to go to these things with any tinge of a headache, because it won't end well for you.  A few things I gleaned from the performance. I now know why shopping trolleys never work; because the Stompers have had their hands on them.  Might write more when I feel better, which is not right now.

Whale Calling

Last weekend I headed down to my local awesome beach.  Sure, it's about a two-hour commute from my home, but it's worth it because there's sun and sea and sand and shells and many other things that start with the letter S.

Did the father's day thing with the father and the family and then went to a lookout to view beach things from up there.  It's always a good day for up.  It's coming into whale commuting season when the bus-sized mammals swim past the east coast of Australia to cooler waters, but I didn't expect to see any as I always seem to miss them.

But there were four of them! Four! Four adult Southern Right Whales! I was beside myself.  So exciting.  Watched them for ages as they tried to cool themselves down by lolling around and then foolishly drove back to Canberra because I have a job or whatever.  Now that it's almost whale season, I must follow through with my new obsession, which is whale stalking. Bermagui next I think. Yes.

The History of August

It's the end of August, which means SUMMER IS ON THE WAY! This is the best news I've ever heard today.  Best news in the history of ever. Do you know the history of August?  Do you? You should learn.  Let me teach you.  All of this is practically completely true.

It all started with Augustus, the first emperor of the Roman Empire.  It was a terrible moniker, but he didn't care because he was emperor, which enabled him to punish his parents severely for this aberration. 

It's hard to keep track of all the monikers of Augustus, because he changed his name more times than Facebook would ever have allowed.  But Augustus must have been his fave because the month of 'Sextilis' was renamed August in his honour in 8 BC, after he picked this particular month because it was the time of several of his great triumphs in his rise to power, including the conquest of Egypt and when he killed Lily and James Potter. 


Poor Augustus didn't get a salad
named after him. But he got the month 
of August, so he no complain.

Similar to the Obama Messiah and Lord Voldermort, Augustus held a collection of powers that were granted to him for life by the Senate, including those of tribune of the plebs and censor, and the intellectual property rights for use of the Killing Curse as a threat.

His magical powers stemmed from financial success, ability to apparate out of awkward press conferences, resources gained in conquest, the building of relationships with dodgy, decrepit nation states throughout the Empire, the loyalty of many military soldiers and veterans, and the respect of the muggles, believe it or not.



Although the most powerful individual in the Roman Empire, Augustus wished to embody the spirit of the average muggle's virtues and norms, so he tried to relate to them and pretended to connect with their pathetic little concerns.

He did this by throwing good money after bad, pretending to cut back on lavish excess and banning Twitter tweets that use the wrong version of there/their/they’re and you’re/your.  He didn't even have to pretend about the last thing - he hated it for real.    

In 28 BC, in an attempt to appear frugal and modest and ghetto, he generously decided to melt down 80 silver statues erected in his likeness that he had built because he was "born this way" and everyone needed to know it. And in 29 BC, Augustus paid 400 sesterces each to 250,000 citizens, turned bad romans into Horcruxes and raised the debt ceiling so he could keep buying spears and whores whilst looking like the savvy shopper.



The good news is that Augustus eventually died. The bad news is that his reign laid the foundations of a regime that lasted for nearly fifteen hundred years. And this is why they have three to four-year terms in democratic nations.

Liberté conditionnelle - fancy talk for parole

Liberté conditionnelle.  It's French for parole.  Everything in the world sounds more fancy when you speak it in French with a bad French accent.  Which is strange, because the French are muchos bastards in general.  I know; I've met at least 12 of them.

Speaking of parole - such a coinkydink - I’ve always thought an efficient way for the Government to generate some extra revenue for their kitty would be through the installation of grandstand seating at police stations and charge non-criminals for the privilege of watching life’s shitheads report for parole.  I’d watch the heck out of that.

And we could clap and woop woop as criminals are led down to the gallows or whatever in their chains and be forced to watch a live feed of Big Brother for three hours and eat a plate of peanut butter-encrusted brussell sprouts.  Gross.

As if that wasn’t enough excitement for you, then there’s the uniforms. Oh wait. I’m pretty sure no-one on the earth has ever shown any interest in men in police uniform, so that’s just not relevant.

In reality, no criminal activity of any sort will happen on the day you have your tickets and you will just have to watch police officers do boring paperwork and talk over-the-counter to little old ladies. Sort of like requesting to attend swimming in the Olympics lottery and getting tickets to the diving.

They could have icecream sellers and everything. But not the ones who block your view for ages during important bits just so some moron can change their mind 18 times about whether to purchase a cornetto or that other one that is exactly the same fucking thing as a cornetto but has a different name. And then we get marzipan to throw at the prisoners. Such fun.

So I’ve recently been walking home via my local police station. There is a good reason for this. I’m not actually on parole anymore, so that’s not the reason. I have recently moved to an apartment and the copshop is on my walking route. When I walk past in the afternoon there are always losers sitting waiting to sign in for parole. I know they are on parole because they have losers on parole written all over them.

My concern is that they will be so bored stiff waiting in the backlog of deadbeats that they will notice some blonde chick walking past and decide to follow her for some sinister purpose. I'm assuming none of them are murderers but you just never know; especially if you live in Victoria.

Footwear Interchanger

And today's post will be about shoes.  Ooh, should be exciting.  Brace yourself.

When one walks to work, as this one does, it requires the wearing of runners, sneakers, walking foot attire.  I also wear such footwear when I leave my building for lunch and such.  I don't understand why women wear heels when they go out onto the cobblestones in their lunchbreak.  They are either suicidal or moronic.  Little from column A... 

Cute. But probably not ideal for a rowing machine.


A very good reason to wear runners when leaving any building ever is that you are best placed to outrun a marauding lion if it escapes from the zoo, which is just up the road from my workplace.  Reliable and trustworthy statistics show that women in Africa who wear high heels do not escape from lions.

At my workplace, the women who choose to wear heels when walking around outside are ironically the ones who don't know how to walk in high heels and end up walking like the first man on the moon.  Practice makes perfect unless you're a moron in heels.

In more boring news, I like to wear heels or ballet flats during the day, the latter specifically if I feel like breaking into some spontaneous pointe work.  I have about ten pairs of shoes in a box under my desk at work.  There are good reasons for this.  This first reason is that I just like change.  Change is good.  Change is as good as a holiday to a really shitty holiday destination like Bali.  The only time change isn't good is when summer turns into that princess bitchface, winter.

Hopefully I'll find something more interesting to blog about forthwith.

The Bubble Addiction

Addictions.  No-one wants them and certainly no-one wants to admit to them - least of all on a social networking site. Well, I have an addiction.  So there.  It can easily take over my life, and I can't function adequately without playing it at least once a day.

When I start bingeing, it alters the chemical makeup in my brain, and I can't stop without some serious intervention, like starvation, dehydration or a desperate need to go to the loo.  My problem is not booze, cigarettes, pornog, drugs, Wills and Kate fanaticism, pokies, shopping or exercise.  It is a recurring compulsion to play the bubbles game. 

I don't want to encourage others into my web of shame and illicitness, but here is the link to this massive waste of time. It's a dark, murky world, where bright little round balls prey on the vulnerable.   A few things you needs to know before entering the land of bubbles.  Don't let them build up, because they just keep coming at you, like rioting Syrians.  And then they'll shoot you in the head.

I always try to pop the red ones first. I don’t have a justifiable reason for this; perhaps it is because I'm anti-communist and wish them to be eradicated from the planet.  And I always seem to let the baby blue ones slide, as if they were harmless little puffy clouds that wouldn’t dream of messing with my batting average.  The yellow ones are rather insignificant to me; much like Kim Kardashian is to the human race.

I always feel a tad guilty when I’m playing my bubbles, as if I am denying myself my true purpose in life; like plotting a new peace roadmap for the Middle East, or even more meaningful tasks, like eradicating that which is useless and pointless from my wardrobe.  I guess what is most troubling about my indulgent, depraved pastime is my belief that it's worthy of a blog post.

Need a Shrink, much?

Apart from being super cathartic, a good thing about having a blog is that you can chart your progress on a certain project.  This is my current project.  I know some people have real problems, but this is one of mine.

As the title of this post very wittily suggests, I have a psychological problem.  And I want to try and fix it.  I'm not happy with various elements of my life at the moment; it's all things I can change, I think, but stuff takes time.  One of the key shit things in my life is that I can't escape winter this year, because everyone else at work got their leave in before me. 

I imagine that sounds loopy and just a bit sooky to people who just don't prefer the cooler climes, but winter casts a really dark shadow over me that scares me a bit to be honest.  I start to dread the onset of winter from about February, a good two months before we get the cooler temperatures.  I don't think it's actually about winter at all, it's just the time my brain decides to be more depressed and anxious than it usually is. 

Having said that, I seem to connect the cold weather to how I think and feel.  I think perhaps somewhere, somehow my brain has managed to stuff up my synapses and reset everything to darkness; there is no light.  It's fucking horrible. 

I'm aware it's probably referred pain from something else going on in my little noggin, but I mostly like to live in denial of these things because it makes my life easier.  Probably time to change that, given that it comes between me and happiness.  Fortunately there are strategies you can learn to control this, and it's probably time I learnt them.

At this stage, the thought of even another two more winters in Canberra is something I can't mentally grasp.  Leaving is something that is always in the back of my mind, but how is running away a solution?  My brain is currently set to winter - gloomy, cloudy, depressing.  Someone needs to talk to a shrink.  I'm really going to try and manage the shit out of this in 2013.  Yes. 

Warning: This is about defecting tyres.

Got to my car in my work carpark the other day to find a plastic-covered notice from my local government, alerting me to the fact that my front left tyre was defecting.  I found this all very exciting because how often do your car tyres defect?  One minute you're doing donuts in morning peak hour traffic - which should have been my first red flag - the next minute you find out your tyres actually work for the KGB.

In hindsight, I should have known there was dissent in the ranks when I caught my car engaging in what I suspected was counter-counterintelligence gathering.  This is almost just like the Petrov Affair.

And then I questioned the likelihood of my little car being caught up in an dramatic international spy incident and realised they probably meant my tyre was defective.  It must be from all those left turns I make, and indeed all those anti-clockwise burnouts I do on the Tuggeranong Parkway in Canberra at 2am with my street racing pals.  Yep, that's me.  Can't sleep. You have your hot chocolate, I have my night hobbies.

Our rubber can fly. Or something.

So, fair call, they want my car to be up to scratch.  Can't argue with that logic.  So I contacted a tyre place to organise some new front-end Goodyears.  If they are good enough for blimps then they are good enough for my car.

And here's a practical tip: it's probably best to not wear a pale pink winter coat when visiting the mechanic.  They see you coming.  Oh, here comes Barbie in her little red corolla car; let's rip her off.  She's probably so daft that she'll drive up the ramp on the street out the front that's reserved specifically for cars that are not hers. Yep.

So once these folk attach my new tyres and I'm paying the bill, they advise me they don't do inspections anymore.  That would have been really useful information when I booked and asked them if they did inspections. 

So a few days later I put my car into the same dealership, except one closer to my work, for a roadworthy inspection.  My car is so sick of being judged and criticised but we passed with flying colours and they told me about some things I needed to watch for in the future, which is exactly what I expect from my car servicer.  I find it's always ideal if the people who service your car alert you to any defects before your local government sees them.

Can it be that I have found my dream mechanic? One who isn't going to make out my car has a whole bunch of fake illnesses just to drain my bank balance or accuse me of Car Munchausen syndrome by Proxy?  Kmart Tyre and Auto in Phillip, Canberra.  I rate them.

And this journey isn't over yet, because that would be entirely unbureaucratic.  Before me and the little red four-wheeled fella are roadworthy again we must cut through more red tape and turn up to the house of condemned souls - the A.C.T. Government Shopfront - with our paperwork and beg for a gigantic novelty cardboard tick of approval from our Chief Minister, Katy Gallagher.  She works there, right?  She probably should occasionally.

Calculators - fast relief from adding shit

I’ve been reading up about internet usage in North Korea. We all have our hobbies). I’m thinking of starting a Facebook page called 'Kimmy John-un’s TicToc addiction is ruining people's lives and communism doesn't help either', and I wanted to know whether my disparaging remarks regarding the little sociopathic nutjob would put my life at risk.  Turns out it very possibly could.

According to Wikipedia, which can occasionally be more trustworthy that you think, hardly any communists in North Korea have access to Google but the ones who do spend their days surfing the net are high level government officials.  Henchmen.  And I don't want to be number 8,098 on their torture machine bucket list.

Plus, randomly, do they even have calculators in North Korea? Kimmy J-u is screwed up enough to ban the kiddies from using a contraption to solve math shit.  If Johnny has 6 apples and Susie has 3 apples then they're probably going to jail for stealing from the state-owned orchard anyway.

Would anyone like to know the story of the history of calculators?  I see someone at the back has their hand up.  Here we go then.  Once upon a time, someone invented a calculator.  The End.  This is a blog; I don't got no time for the history of a device that solves basic and complex math shit, friends.

Although I imagine the person who first operated such a machine was a bit like me - hated math.  Lots. When faced with a math equation of considerable proportion, or just an easy one, his brain likely threw up a gigantic anti-algebratic wall, as if to protect itself from the horrors of the apocalyptic nightmare that is any arithmetic problem that has the alphabet in it.  Because that's what menial silver-collar calculators are for.  Calculators live for this shit. 

Soarin' Over Canberra

This time last year I was gearing up to head over to 'sunny side up with extra cheese and a sprinkling of hurricane activity' Florida, so that's a bit depressing.  This time this year I'm gearing up to spend a long cold winter in icy Canberra, the most northern point of Antarctica. 

Soarin' is like crack.

Oh look, I'm writing about weather again.  Did you know that weather is a natural phenomenom created by God to give boring people something to talk about it?  Well this post is fun.  

One of the most entertaining parts of my trip to Orlando last year was the Soarin' Over California ride at DisneyWorld.  I have no idea why I am attracted to Disney, what with its relentlessly upbeat world and endless kilometres of sticky children.  It's a big mystery, for sure.

I went on Soarin' about 14 times, because 13 times is just not enough times.  Soarin' is a simulated attraction that raises you fairly high above the ground via a mechical lift system and takes you on a hang gliding tour around California.  It is spectacular.



It's also 4D, so you smell the orange blossoms of Napa Valley, the evergreens over the mountains, the redwoods, and the sea breeze at Malibu and Monterey, and you feel the jolting vibrations of the fireworks as you end up on Main Street, Disneyland at Christmas time.

And each time you land, your thongs are waiting for you in the exact place you left them, bizarrely enough, which I found endlessly hilarious for some inexplicable reason.  

Which all makes me think - surely we could look into a Canberra version of this thrilling ride.  For example, we could start at Tuggeranong, where an icy ill wind blows off the snowy mountains and gives you a mild case of severe frostbite, then soar on up the backstreets to Chisholm, the Malibu of my hometown, where simulated beer cans are thrown at your head and you whiff the faintest aroma of crown lager and sick. 

Then we head over to Mugga Lane, where you catch the gentle aroma of roadkill and garbage, and then soar over toward Lake Burley Griffin, and suffer mildly severish allergies as pollen dust is blown in your face before the pungent stench of blue-green algae fills your nostrils.  Just like Disney. 



More crack. I just don't need to go into
Disney's candy stores, said me never.