Terrorism Finger Puppets

For when you require that great political gift for someone special.

Find them here at mossonline.com

My public transport journey…

AM

• Usually begins by missing the green man at the traffic lights and waiting a whole cycle before I am able to cross.
• Moves on to trying to buy a “travel ten” from the newsagency, and perhaps the daily paper. From a man who appears to be blind and doesn’t see me standing right in front of him dangling the paper and a $10.00 note. He could also try smiling once in a while so he seems more like a human being and less like a terracotta warrior.
• Continues with me standing at the bus stop, either being sprayed by a high pressure hose seeking to remove last nights vomit from the sidewalk, and/or being harassed by the possible owner of said vomit as he looms in front of me and try’s to crack on to me. Me responding to his dribble by saying, “I do not want to talk to you” Sounds cruel I know, but you have to cut him off at the pass because if you smile politely he may follow you to work.
• Then I get on the bus and stand like a sardine, pressed up against a rather unattractive male who attempts to look down my top, or read the newspaper over my shoulder. If I am lucky enough to get a seat it will be next to a high school student yelling at her girlfriend down the phone, “Oh my God, did you see what Chantal was wearing yesterday? Oh my god, we so can’t talk to her anymore.” (Please tell me that I didn’t sound like that in high school!)
• Another passenger yelling at the bus driver, for no reason other than they haven’t had their morning fix of coffee yet, and the bus driver didn’t think to read there mind and stop when they didn’t physically push the stop button.
• I then depart bus A and head for bus B, which I squeeze onto amongst throngs of uni students. Though this trip is getting easier the further into the semester they get, and realise that they don’t want to go to uni anymore, or don’t want to sit in that lecture. Yay for me!
• Get off the bus and grab a coffee before getting to the office and scrubbing the public transport germs off my hands. “Aaah, get it off, get it off, get it off, get it off!” (aka Eliot from Scrubs style)

PM
Usually much of the same, yet in reverse, but sometimes deviates slightly to involve the following:

• Bus driver not letting me and a 75 year old man on the bus because he has decided that he doesn’t want a full load, and also can’t be bothered opening the front door for us, only the back one to let people off. (this happened today)
• Large man with no elastic in his tracky dacks, singing on to his very loud portable radio (think he may have had a few screws loose if you know what I mean?) poor guy I felt sad for him, radio is probably his only friend. I stopped feeling sorry for him when he exposed his large butt to me as he alighted from the bus, and I “Vomited in my mouth a little.” (aka Dr Evil style)
• Speaking of vomit; realise I am beginning to feel a little car sick on the bus, and can’t figure out why, realise that a previous passenger has left a little vomit present at the back of the bus that has not yet been cleaned, stench is nauseating. Perhaps it was the same guy from the morning.

Luckily you do find enough nice bus drivers, passengers and non-butt exposing people on the public transport system that keep you from stopping taking the bus.

Snakes on a what now?

Occasionally my husband makes me watch action films, often bad ones. Let’s face is most action films are bad ones. There have been a few goodies, like Bad Boys 2 was ok, the most recent James Bond I found enjoyable, in fact I like most of the James Bond films, and so was Fifth Element (actually I love Fifth Element).

We made a visit to the dvd store on the weekend and after some browsing time, he wandered over to me (meekly) with a dvd in his hand, which one you ask? Well it was the mutha of all cr*p action films, Snakes on a Plane. When he showed me the title my entire body cringed, like it never had before. Not unlike the kind of cringe you may experience when you watch something really embarrassing happen to someone, like when they have a giant booger hanging out their nose and they don’t know it. I felt embarrassed for my husband, who was standing in public with it in his hand, recommending that we watch it (poor guy). I also I felt incredibly embarrassed for the people who made it, cause even though at the time it seemed like a money maker, just how many people are going to take them seriously now? Come to think of it, there are a lot of people out there who love sh*t movies like this, so the producers will probably be able to make something of a similar floor scraping calibre, and manage to make another truckload of cash. If only they were donating that truck load of cash to a third world country instead of buying themselves a new Mercedes, I might be more inclined to go and see more of their cr*p movies.

So Snakes on a Plane more than lived up to its reputation, as you have probably guessed by now. It was cringe worthy from beginning to end, and the song in credits, well that was the absolute icing on the cake. Which was possibly the most hideous thing that my ears have ever had to experience, even more horrible than Paris Hiltons contribution to the music industry.

The only highlight for me was seeing Samuel L Jackson, Which made me think of Pulp Fiction, all the great scenes that Tarantino constructed, how great the character development was, and how d*amn funny and memorable it was, (I have already begun forcing Snakes on a Plane out of my consciousness). I am still a little confused as to why Mr Samuel L. Jackson agreed to be in this film. Was it only to say that totally forgettable line, “I am sick of all these *beep *beep snakes on this *beep *beep plane!” (rude words are replaced with beeps so I don’t get kicked off blogger). Perhaps they should have cast Michael Jackson in his part, I definitely would have seen it at the cinema then, if only for the laughs alone. They could have had one of the snakes flick the end of his nose with it’s tongue and knock it off, like a chip from a porcelain tea cup.

For all the smokers out there...

For all the smokers out there, this site is worth a look. The Art of Quitting

Long ago I was a little bit of a smoker, what I mean by that is that I was in a foreign country and I smoked whilst I was there, in café’s, on the train, in super markets, in the snow, whilst drinking coffee in Amsterdam. It was all very romantic, but in the end I came home, and I decided to stop. I haven’t smoked in ages, years now and I will never smoke again, it was a romance for a while, but it wasn’t meant to last. Also how romantic is it to wake up one day and have self inflicted lung cancer.

There is something about France…

There is something about France and all that is French (well maybe not all) that I find so attractive and enjoyable. I just finishes watching a movie set in France and it made me want to listen to Edith Piaf a much loved and admired French singer, who became a sort of icon I suppose for the French. I was introduced to Edith’s music by my Mum’s partner, and I love to pop it on and listen to her and imagine that I am sipping hot chocolate in Paris. Not that hot chocolate is particularly French, but I loved sipping hot chocolate when I was there, after visiting galleries with my Mum. Other things that I love about France are the galleries, the architecture, the history and even the people (well most of them).

My favourite movie ever is set in France, though it is directed by a Polish director. Trois couleurs: Bleu by Krzysztof Kieslowski is a magic film about liberty or as we mostly refer to it; freedom. Check it out, and whilst you are there watch the other two in the series Trois couleurs: Blanc and Trois couleurs: Rouge.

Aah, I want to go back to France for another holiday. I should learn the language first though, I am sure I would like it even better then.

International Women’s Day

Yesterday was International Women’s Day, so I thought that I should write something on this poor ole blog which is continually not being updated, due to me taking advantage of the rights and privileges that I have as a modern woman. I read an article today in the Sydney Morning Herald about women’s lib and how so many women fought for equal rights and opportunities for women in the workplace, in politics, in family life, and within society. It was a great article, and one of the things that shone out for me now is that women seem to be able to do everything, and achieve great heights in everything through pure dedication, and hard slog. We work hard to get where we want, and when we get there what do we do? We keep on working towards the next goal.

I know that in my group of girlfriends there are all high achievers, who seem to be incapable of not working hard every day of their lives. They constantly seeking perfection in all they do. They are amazing and fabulous women, and I am so lucky to have them in my life. But we all seem to have one thing in common, working so hard that we rarely give ourselves a break, and creating new dreams, goals and aims to live up to replace the ones that we have achieved. Are we incapable of resting a minute to reflect on all that we have achieved, and congratulating ourselves?

Sometimes I look at my life and I think, when will all this striving and working come to an end, when will I get to that place where all my goals have been achieved? It seems that keeping my house spick and span, having a first class honours degree, running my own business, freelancing, working part time in a studio, eating healthy, looking healthy, exercising, feeling great, looking great, being happy, striving to be the perfect wife, daughter, sister, friend, cousin, designer, woman is not enough?! Instead of just being happy that I can achieve all of the aforementioned things, I create these new goals in my head like; learning foreign languages, doing an PhD in Design and Fine Art (cause one is just not a high enough achievement), affording a great house in a great suburb, making a comfortable nest egg for a future family etc etc etc. This list grows every day, as if I didn’t have enough to achieve and manage already.

Maybe I just need to slow down, and stop adding to the list for a while, enjoy what I have achieved to date, appreciate where my decisions and hard work have gotten me, be satisfied today instead of dismissing satisfaction because I still haven’t achieved all tomorrow’s goals.

So this is my challenge to all who read this; take a minute to breath at the end of your day, and reflect on all the fabulous things you have done during the day, and all of the days leading up to that day. Remember all the goals you have already achieved, remember all of the great decisions you have already made, all of the hard work you have already done. Allow yourself to enjoy the satisfaction.

It’s like winter

It’s winter today in Sydney. Blustery, windy, with a slight chill on the breeze that is sometimes soft and sometimes buffeting. This city always has a way of making you feel insignificant, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Back in Perth, you can often feel as if you know everything, you know everyone, you can expect that it will be a sunny day the next day. But this city is humbling, it keeps you guessing. There is such a huge and dense population that you often feel dwarfed by the rush of people that come at you when the train doors open, and by the totally unexpected weather that makes you regret your choice of floaty summer tops in February. Then you sit at home in the evening, in jeans and a comfy sweater, you stare out the window at the rain and remember how much you love snuggling on the couch in winter. That’s the power of this city, it keeps showing you the things you don’t expect when you don’t expect to see them.

That distinctive smell…

I love walking around in Sydney. It’s like being at the theatre. Lots of colour, sights, great outfits, cute people, young people, old people, sad people, happy people funny people, and… that smell. Eeewww, what is that smell?! It reminds me of…poo, mixed with body odour, mixed with urine, mixed with vomit, mixed with stale alcohol, mixed with… god knows what else. A very pleasant walk can so quickly turn into nostril burn, gagging, and the need for a paper bag.

Maybe it’s just the inner city suburbs, the ones that suffer the immense influx of people all the time that have (in parts) this unbelievably disturbing smell. There really is no other way to describe it, other than it being totally disturbing. I can’t even really describe it in words, there are simply no words for that smell that so often turns a glorious walk into a rush to the nearest public restroom. Though the rest rooms may be just as bad.

What is happening to the young women of Hollywood?

I tend not to pay too much attention to Hollywood Starlets and other famous people. I don’t mind the odd flick through a Woman’s Weekly at the dentist, or the doctors, most of which tend to be several months old. But this week, it has been a bit hard to avoid the images of a desperate looking Britney Spears. A normal reaction might be to dismiss the news and not give it a second thought, which is probably what I would normally do. But the images of this poor young woman have been really haunting me. I can’t help but feel sorry for this poor girl, it seems as though she is just not coping with the complexities of her life at all.

It seems like she has lived almost a full life in her young years, having a successful career at a young age, being a party animal, getting married, having kids, and getting divorced. All in such a short amount of time, perhaps even a normal person could not cope with this.

Another, Lindsey Lohan, who also seems to be heading further down the road of a breakdown, and the recent exposure of the general oddness that was Anna Nicole Smith’s life. Clown make-up, drugs whilst pregnant? If this is true, I find this extremely scary.

Nicole Ritchie, who seems to be getting skinnier and skinnier at an alarming rate. The Olsen twins, I don’t know which, but one of them seems to not be coping well with the pressures of her life.

It seems that fame and money is not in fact the perfect scenario for these girls. Although the glamour of their lives, the red carpet, the dress ups, the money may have seemed worth it, perhaps these girls are just not able to cope with it all, or maybe it is not even what they really want for their lives. Who knows? Only them I suppose. I just hope that they recover from whatever it is causing them so much pain, and that other young women take note of their mistakes and try not to follow in their footsteps.

Every time I see this young girls, I think, “Thank goodness my life is not like theirs, I am so lucky”. I am not rich, I am not famous, but I am extremely happy, and in the grand scheme of things that is all that matters.

So I have officially returned...

So I have officially returned from the dead. Well maybe not the dead, but the constancy of 16 hours a day of work, all day, almost everyday. I have started my new part time job at a studio (which I am loving) and have been busy, busy, busy putting out several other print jobs for my own clients. Hence, the lack of writing seen here in recent times.

January was a great, but exhausting month and the beginning of February has been the same. I am hoping to be able to settle a bit more now, and have time to actually wash my hair and cut my toe nails. As I am convinced that people around me are beginning to think that I am incapable of personal hygiene. It’s funny how the little things just fly out the window when you get busy, like my anal-ness about the cleanliness of the apartment, the emptying of the over flowing washing baskets, the ironing of the shirts so that my husband has something to wear to work. You are thinking, “Why doesn’t he iron his own d*mn shirts!” The reason is this, when I see him iron a shirt my skin crawls, because he is not doing it properly d*amn-it! There is a system involved in ironing a shirt to perfection and he doesn’t use the system, and I can’t teach him “the system”, because no one can implement “the system” quite like I can! Now you are thinking “That poor guy actually chooses to be married to this crazy lady?!” Yes, yes he does, because he goes to work looking glorious in perfectly ironed shirts.

Now that I have been blabbing about “the system” I can’t even remember where I was heading with this entry. That is how passionate I am about “the system”. So I will move on to the perfection that has been our Saturday morning so far. It has involved; a glorious sleep in; several glorious coffee’s, sitting on the couch watching J-TV, reading Harper’s Bazaar, Notebook, Instyle, and the newspaper; staying in pyjamas till you reach the point of feeling guilty that you are still in them, when during the working week you would be taking your lunch break about now. Aaah, glorious!

Snoop Dog

My husband's response to news of a Snoop Dog concert:

"If I want to hear someone mumble incoherently for an hour, I'll go talk to the people in the park*"

*Note: We have a few choice characters hanging out in our local park.

Sooo Stressed

Have you even tried having a part time job and tried to run a business (which is putting out a huge publication and various websites and brochures) at the same time? If you have, I feel your pain! If you haven’t, seriously, save yourself the heart palpitations and skip it all together. It’s not worth it!

I am having a lot of fun at the moment, but I have absolutely no life! See, I am a worrier, I worry about everything. I am not kidding. I worry that a total stranger might walk up to me see a speck of dirt on my top and judge me as being an incompetent human being. So, this whole ‘so many things to do at once, multiple deadlines, working days and nights and weekends’ thing, it is becoming a little too much for my head and my little heart to deal with.

I think the key is to stop thinking about it, and just DO IT!

Aaaaaah stresssss!!!!

Significantly Slack

I have been significantly neglecting the old blog in the last few weeks, or week, in fact I cannot even remember how long ago I wrote. I do have many, many, many good reasons why, beginning with a constant stream of great visitors (who have been thoroughly distracting in a good way), me starting an new part time design job whilst still managing my own business (where I am currently designing a very in depth publication). So yes, I have been extremely, extremely busy, the last week working days and nights to get on top of the workload.

On the up side, I have really felt like I have settled into Sydney now, and I feel at home in my environment, at home, at work, and in the greater areas that we visit regularly. I am really beginning to feel like we belong here and that we can make great things happen for ourselves here.

We have begun to take a deeper look at property now, as we feel confident that we may actually be able to afford something nice over here, not like the crazy market in Perth, where we were convinced that we would be renters forever. Even though property is expensive here, we feel like we will end up being in front, and better off than if we had decided to buy in Perth.

I have really enjoyed going to an office several days a week, interacting with fellow designers and advert guru’s and contributing to a team that gives you feedback for the work that you do. I am having a great time, and I am so glad that I decided to take that step into part time work, even though it inevitably means that I will be flat out most of the time with work, often during evenings and weekends.

So yeah, all is good and I am not dead, and now that I am settling back into routine I will be a little more reliable with this.

Happy Aussie Day to all, hope you have a great day with family and friends. Party on, and think of us watching the fireworks spectacular at Darling Harbour.

She cracks me up...

Now I know it is a bit slack to link to another person's blog instead of writing an entry yourself. But this girl, she rocks my blog reading world. She is a hilarious writer and never fails to dissapoint. So if you all want to add another blog to your daily reading, choose this one. (She is a designer too!)

See it here. Her last entry is a blast, the last paragraph is my fav, nothing like the love of a realistic man.

Ok, so I know this is my third post for the day but...

Ok, so I know this is my third post for the day but...cool things just keep happening. Actually, let me rephrase that, wierd things keep happening.

Earlier today I went for a walk to the post office and on the way a man passed by me, he was readjusting himself (if you know what I mean). Now I don't have a problem with a little 'readjustment' in certain circumstances, like not when men are talking to me or looking at me, but doing it in a hidden corner with a timing of around .2 of a second. But this guy, well he had his whole hand in the trousers, was heading straight towards me on a busy inner city footpath, and the 'readjustment' lasted about...however long it took him to walk 50 metres. Which is waaaayyyy longer than the previous .2 second time limit. I was horrified!

Just now, actually about ten minutes ago, a woman stood directly under my apartment window and dropped her dacks in the middle of the footpath, on a busy Friday night, in a street filled with people. Then she yelled "I am going to vomit!" All I could think was, 'Please, please, please go away, as I don't think I can take seeing your g-string clad a*se as well as your vomit'.

Now I didn't think I was really prudish, but after being exposed to 2 counts of 'readjustment' by both men and women, one involving naked a*se, I have decided that I am a total prude. Though, I am looking forward to the Madri Gras in March, thought any 'readjustments' there I expect would all be made in jest.

I know this sounds insensitive...

I know that this sounds insensitive...but...God there are some dero's in our area! I mean, seriously we live in a melting pot of dero!

Buds

Sunlight

The Funniest Photo I have ever seen!

This has to be the funniest photo I have ever seen. What a shocker! What do you think he's thinking about? I bet something along the lines of, "Man I look hot in this off the shoulder number, this oughtta bring in the ladies!".

I was searching for images for work and came across this one when I searched for 'Male' 'Portrait'. The picture is called "good guy in Siberia", let's hope the both him and the photographer are frozen before they make any more photographic evidence like this!

Happy New Year!

After only a couple of minutes home I hear my first siren, and after an hour or so my first domestic dispute since returning from our New Years trip. Aah the serenity. There’s nothing like a nice afternoon filled with sirens, screaming and smashed glass to make you feel right at home again.

Happy New Year to all, hope that you had a hoot of a time and didn’t have to bad a hangover yesterday.