Say Goodbye to Sexy Times

Well this guy won't be getting any for quite some time methinks...some British wag has 'put his wife up for sale' after she nagged him once too often...brilliant move mate! That will endear you to the missus!

"Nagging Wife. No Tax, No MOT. Very high maintenance - some rust," wrote Gary Bates, 38, in a small ad in Trade-It, more usually used to buy and sell cars or household goods.

Oh you cheeky thing Gary!! The story has the whiff of bullshit about it however, as evidenced by the final line of the story...any fan of the politically incorrect Brit comic Viz will recognise this as one of their catch phrases on the bogus 'Letters to the Editor' page:

"But he said: "She's seen the funny side of it now, though!"

I'd be suprised if this whole story wasn't pulled straight from Viz actually. Must be a slow news day...

Half Assed

I've got several half-written pieces waiting to be finished and posted, but my keyboard is having one of its regular spack attacks and i'm lucky to get a few sentences out of the bastard thing without having to resort to a carefully choreographed routine of shaking it violently, wrenching out the USB stick and shoving it back in, shouting at it a bit, rolling the batteries back and forth "to wake them up", waving my hands over it in a faux-voodoo curse sort of way (it's pretty dumb so i'm sure it won't know the difference) shouting at it again for good measure, and then attempting to type again. AND STILL I am faced with line after line of gibberish looking something like "ssop ffr tttttth,wrtee o ooncce direxc.? WLKLaaa" That's a whole paragraph according to my keyboard by the way. Fucking wireless piece of crap.

So until I can manage to successfully point the bone at my keyboard and make it comply with my requests, I offer up this priceless example of sensitivity from the King of Crazy himself, Robert Mugabe. His delivering part of the eulogy at Susan Tsvangirai's funeral not only smacked of breathtaking insensitivity (a concept that admittedly hasn't bothered him too much in the past), but to then declare the crash that caused her death/murder as "the hand of God" at work really is just all kinds of fucked up.

I wonder did the hand of God then saunter over and extend itself to one of her six children, comforting them over their terrible loss??? Not that it would have bothered him but I guess it's a bonus that he could say this with a straight face AND convincingly pass a lie detector test afterward, as clearly this messianic nutbag has believed himself to be God for quite some time.

Where is an assassin's bullet when you need one?

Music To My Ears

Being an old lady, I don't get as much exposure to new music as I once did, which is why i'm totally in love with I LISTEN TO EVERYTHING, a fabulous new blog by Diana Miller, who works as a music booker for a late night talk show in the US. As someone who gets a little intimidated by the choice on offer whenever I attempt to buy CDs, so much so that I often leave with nothing (pathetic, I know) this site is a fantastic way to trawl through the incredible amount of great music out there, and hone in on anything that particularly takes your fancy.

The site doesn't just focus on the new stuff either - it's peppered with interesting resurrections of the oldies, from ubiquitous classics through to totally obscure artists and songs just waiting to be re-discovered. Her playlists are really varied and i'm having fun just going through them song by song, never having heard most of them before anyway, new or old. I must admit, even though i'd classify myself as a music lover in a general sense, my personal back catalogue leaves a lot to be desired, so this is my fabulous new passport to hipdom, kids. CHECK IT!

There are links provided so you can purchase the songs on iTunes, but i've discovered alot of them are not yet available in Australia...can't say i'm really bothered by this as i've never purchased a song or album on iTunes anyway! For me, this site is just a fantastic way to become familiar with music i've never heard before, and artists that would never have been on my radar otherwise, so I actually know what i'm looking for next time I go shopping for music.

And let's face it...now i'm getting on in years, I can use all the help I can get.

Tool Time

I've always thought Justin Hemmes was a major tosser so I found this article a most enjoyable read. Rumours have been circulating that business is way down on expectations at the wank-fest known as 'The Ivy', a massive playground for the spoiled and cashed-up in Sydney's CBD. Given the enormous cost of the development, which by all accounts stretched the family empire to its very limit, this would be creating a bit of a headache for pub and nightclub scion Hemmes...my heart bleeds!

In the current economic climate, it can't be doing too much for the old Merivale ticker to find some young and brazen upstart nipping at their heels, providing a rival 'pool club' environment against the far more weekend-friendly backdrop of Bondi Beach. Well, good luck to them both I say, and may the least pretentious win...a big ask in Sydney, but I can dream, can't I.

Break A Leg

I am loving this story about a guy who tired to smuggle drugs in a novel way - in a leg cast made of cocaine! Good times! You'd think the cocaine cast would have been enough for the guy, but he was also carrying several beer cans and a couple of hollowed-out stools filled with coke - c'mon man, that's just greedy! The most fucked up part was that his leg was actually broken, and police suspect the break may have been deliberate, in order to make the ruse look more convincing...

I hope he got to have some of the coke before they broke his leg.

Sweet Relief

How nice is this story? Bush fire relief has never been so sweet, thanks to a practical and community-minded initiative by a Hobart mother called 'Jam Aid'. I'll confess it bought a little tear to my eye this morning (may not be just the story, i'm feeling a bit over-emotional lately for various personal reasons, but as a rule i'm a bit of a sop when it comes to stuff like this) and I think i'm going to make the effort to get down to Prahran Market today to buy a jar.

Mmmmm...jam and croissants for breakfast tomorrow I think! Anyone care to join me?

My Confession

I wrote this film review on 'Confessions of A Shopaholic'.

Brisbane or Bust

I just read a very entertaining article by Augusten Burroughs from the most recent 'Weekend Australian' magazine. It was a rare ode to our oft-derrided northern capital, Brisbane, and even more notable coming as it did from a New Yorker. Imagine that if you will - a New Yorker expounding the virtues of this shiny ingenue of a city, described by many southerners as scarcely more than a jumped-up country town! Perhaps us southerners need to head north for a bit of a fresh look, and pull our heads out of our arses on the way...

My very favourite quote occurs at the end of the piece, and had me laughing out loud as I sat here at work trying to look otherwise gainfully occupied:

"Brisbane is Cindy Crawford sitting on the porch reading a book, while plump older sister Sydney tap-dances on the sidewalk in a leotard that's too tight, hoping a talent agent drives by. Melbourne is the moody, black-haired sister lurking behind the tree with her volume of Sylvia Plath poems, making smartarse notes in her notebook and unable to decide which is worse: beauty or ambition."

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...and it's funny because it's true! I sent this onto a couple of my work colleagues, one of whom responded with "Melbourne's an EMO?!?" The only truthful response I could make as one who has now spent significant amounts of time living in all three cities was that yes, Melbourne is DEFINITELY an Emo.

Sorry about that Melbourne!!