Random raves

I've posted this for the masses on FB, but here it is for everyone else's edification - a fab compilation of Gaga mashups at the Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2010/may/07/viral-video-lady-gaga

I have to say those are the most unusual Baptists I've ever seen, the trashy Italians get granny in there and a cast of zillions - in fact, all the mashups have a cast of zillions - we have traditional (and hilarious) drag queens, Chatroulette guy is fucking awesome.

Yay for social media and easy publication of this kind of fun stuff.

(The last three items aren't Gaga-related, although the Chrome ad is amusing. Still won't use it until they have a decent ad block)

Dear chick next door:

If the reason you've coughed every single night for the last 6 months is due to your smoking, it's time to stop.

(NB. It's a couple of coughs every 5 minutes, not like she's coughing up a lung).

Well, it's kind of an arbitrary thing, New Year's Day and the associated expectations/hopes for the new year, but it's actually more meaningful than Xmas for me.

I hope like hell that 2010 is a fuckload better for me, and I also extend the same wish to everyone else who found 2009 almost (or completely) unbearable at times (or even if it were merely difficult more often than not).

And however you're celebrating this evening, painting the town red or having a quiet one tucked up at home, I hope it's a good one. :-)


PS. I don't do resolutions (see above re arbitrariness of the calendar); I'm more of a continual effort kind of person. Or non-effort, if that's how I'm feeling. Making resolutions seems to be a way of setting yourself up for failure if circumstances mitigate how you may or may not be able to tackle them. Goals, however are something else.

Don't fuck with me, meat brain. No, I'm afraid it wasn't obvious that your skanky gym bag sitting next to the equipment meant that it was exclusively reserved for your "supersets". You were using another piece of equipment metres away, and, since I didn't see you using the equipment I wanted, I got to it and was able to do 2x10 reps and part of another set before you decided it was time to physically snatch the rope out of my hands so that you could do your routine. Actually, the time it took for you to do that, and for us to have a "discussion" about your behaviour, would have been sufficient time for me to finish my last set. I suppose it might have been challenging for you to calculate the time it might have taken me without having to correct for 5 minutes of serious mirror-posing per set.

Anyway, you fucked with the wrong person, you in your dicky little Warriors shorts and your stupid sunglasses on your head while working out.  I totally did report you to the gym staff, and I hope you enjoyed your telling off after I left.

FOAD, dickwad.

No love,

Trix

P.S. It might be juvenile, but I was seriously amused that you, Mr Meathead McBully, were using exactly the same weight that I was do to those tricep pulldowns. So strong and manly you are!

Dear dude practising singing the same crappy hymn over and over and over, with the keyboards of cheesiness, kindly shut the fuck up.

Yes, I can haz hormones, can you tell?

Mind you, I can't think of one hymn with a melody I actually like - there may well be some out there, but my knowledge of these things is lacking. Certainly not any contemporary ones.

Also, amount of study done this weekend = nil. First exam on Wednesday, yippee. Being doped up to the eyeballs on Neurofen isn't exactly aiding my motivation, but at least my period wasn't days late (because doing an exam like this would be vile).

Oh god, now keyboard dude has moved onto You Are Everything (and everything is yooouuoou).

Ok, one positive thing in the last few months is that the weather has been really nice. Not at all hot - I like having cool evenings I can sleep through - and what others have been telling me is the kind of spring rain Canberra used to get more than a decade ago. The plants certainly seem happy.

Dear fuckwits letting off crackers in the carpark out back - if any of those things fucking touch my car, I will keeeel you.

Also, the fireworks were being let off  close to my windows, and had very bright flashing light that reminded me of an exhibit at the Imperial War Museum, complete with very loud bangs, flashes of light and so on. I can certainly emphasise with the poor bastards who became shell-shocked after the constant onslaught in real wars. It's funny, I love thunderstorms - perhaps it was these morons yelling at each other at the same time that made me jump. Twice. (Although I am jumpy in general - I can have known someone for years, and have even been intimate with them, and still flinch if they touch me unexpectedly. Oh well.)

I dreamed last night, at great length, about buying veges at the street market in Lewisham (about 2k away from where I lived in Brockley, in London). God knows what that was about, other than the fact I've been eating relatively crappily for months. And that I've actually been having dreams I remember this past week, which, again, I haven't for months. I could have at least dreamed about the Borough Market, which I actually frequented more regularly (15 mins on the train), and which has better veges and everything else. I still don't forget that fucker at the Deptford Market (1½ km the other way) who sold me rotten potatoes. You don't select your own at those market stalls - you ask for 2 pounds of potatoes, and they get them for you. This particular vege trader in Deptford gave me two good spuds, and the rest were horrible. Honestly, why would you kill off future business that way? Anyway, the Borough Market was much better than the two local markets near where I lived - I still miss it.

The majority of my friends now who are around the same age as me were keen on Duran Duran in their teenage years. I wasn't one of them, really. I liked Wild Boys (um, at least partly because of the camp video with Simon Le Bon Bon being tied up and dunked into the Pool of Suspect Liquid - it still makes me smile. No, really); the key it's sung in is groovy, but that was about it. Of that era, I didn't like Spandau Ballet either. Nor Tears for Fears.  Human League I liked until Electric Dreams. Blech. I didn't like a Flock of Seagulls, but I actually like them more now, in my old age. But I did like Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Berlin (until that fucking Power of Love Take My Breath Away shite) and Simple Minds. And luurved ABC, cheesiness and all. Go figure.

[Also, can I say that the Wikipedia category for New Wave artists seems rather broad? Gary Numan, The Clash and Jane Siberry? Mind you, "New Wave" and "Post-Punk" can be hard to differentiate sometimes. Not so much women-oriented folk music, IMO.]

But I have no idea why those particular bands have come to mind this evening; perhaps I walked past a shop sometime today that was playing some Duranie track or another.

I got a new knife-sharpener last week, since I'd been hanging out to get a decent one for ages. While this might sound trivial, anyone who's known me for more than 10 minutes knows I have a wee fetish for extremely sharp knives (of course, it's not practical to keep your knives extremely sharp all the time, since you end up ruining the edge, but it's nice to have them sharp enough). I've been doing ok with my standard butchers'-style sharpener, but I got a really fabulous Istor-style sharpener (with one metal and one ceramic side), and now all my knives are super-sharp (yes, yes, they won't stay that way for long, but it was fun doing it).

Betsy Gilhooley in my Soc of Tech course is still driving me nuts. She also appears to be a fan of really bad WordArt in her PowerPoints. GAH. Also, we need to do an ethnological survey as part of the course. This means interviews (it could mean other things, but bugger that for a joke). Luckily none of my team members were keen on the idea of mutual workplace visits, which was old Betsy's initial suggestion. If anyone fancies being interviewed re their experiences with records/document management systems in organisations, please do give me a shout-out (I'm going to oppress some of the people at work, but a bit of diversity won't hurt).

I roasted a nice organic chicken yesterday, and today I turned some of the remainder into a vaguely-Mediterranean chicken/lentil/tomato stew, which I invented on the spot. Nom. Carving the chicken was fun.

It turns out that it does take upper-body strength to drive my no-power-steering 1290kg car. I went to the gym today for the first time in ages, and since it was the uni gym, I drove there (I've never driven to a gym before). Driving back home was fun of another kind. Ow ow ow.

I spoke to my ex D last night, and I've gotten over my irritation with her, since she was much more relaxed with our conversation last night. She and her bloke bought an engagement ring while they were on holiday on the West Coast of NZ, which is pounamu set in silver, "and it reminds me of the chunky amethyst ring that you had made for me when we were together". Awww. I'll be seeing them next month when they visit Canberra, which should be nice. I do think I want a holiday back home first. Maybe, that is, in between the new staff members starting and all the other assorted connuptions at work.

One thing that disgusts me, though, is that apparently a lot of the greenstone sold in places like Hokitika is cheap shit imported from China, and you have to specifically make sure what you're buying is from the South Island. Nice way to fuck up your tourism industry, guys. Perhaps they should make pounamu/greenstone "reserved" words, and if you're selling crappy Chinese jade (I know there's nice Chinese jade, but I can guarantee they don't flog much off to NZ), you can only call it jade.

PS. Cloudy Bay Pelorus NV is not worth $35, to my taste. I'd rather drink Lindauer for 2/3rds of the price (even the cheap Lindauer is more tasty to me). I think the Pelorus is more "European style", which is great if it's Veuve Cliquot or Moet & Chandon at twice the price. Or more. But I don't like the cheaper French fizz either. Obviously this makes me a philistine.

Christ, I don't know what was going on in my brain last night, but my dreams were totally full of sex last night. Not one, but two ex-lovers, and the cute chickie at work. One of the ex-lovers dreams was particularly irritating, because it was the relationship that broke up because I'm poly and she ostensibly isn't. In the dream, both she and her current partner were totally fine with the poly thing, and it was all rainbows and unicorn farts and happy (queer) families. As for the dream about the cute chickie at work, let's just say she was unusually skilled and assertive (in terms of asking for what she wanted) for someone who hasn't had lesbian sex (I assume). Wish fulfilment or what?

I also have no idea what brought that on, which is the irritating part. I haven't been thinking about sex particularly, nor relationships nor any of the people concerned in any different way to what I do in general. Heh, also, I don't know why I have such a fetish about figuring out why I might have weird dreams. It's like I expect my brain's inner workings or triggers to be logical or something. :-)