So once again it’s birthday time, though fortunately not mine again yet! Today was my Mum’s “39th” *cough*bullshit*cough* birthday, and like it usually is for the birthday of anyone over the age of about 10 (or a 24 year old who still acts 10, hehe), it was a quiet affair - we just met up at Conrad’s (the casino and hotel where Mum’s staying tonight and last night) and had lunch and I gave her a few little pressies. I made her a collage photo frame thingie, ’cause I’m just so sentimental (and cheap) like that, plus I also got her a half kilo box of Darrell Lea chocolates (which she didn’t even open while I was there - talk about mean! *sniffle*), a reserved place in heaven (those things are awesome, I got one for my brother for Xmas too - though I’m sending him to hell, not heaven!), some wine charms and this awesome alphabet book for adults called “B is for Botox” (see right), which is hilarious and just too good to pass up, lol. Anyway, we went to the VIP room first and got (free!) champagne and some little pastries, then on to lunch for more fattening food that although was very yummy, ended up making me feel a little sick towards the end! I’m such a glutton though, and I can never say no to dessert! Hahaha.

To be honest I was actually slightly apprehensive about meeting up with Mum today. We tend to have a very intense and rocky relationship, and although we’re pretty close (at least as far as I’m concerned), we also fight an awful lot and no occasion is really safe from our little spats. Shamed as I am to admit it, we’ve fought before on Christmas, each other’s birthdays, even Mother’s Day, which makes me feel so unbearably guilty, but the good thing is that even though it’s awful at the time, we’re both pretty quick to forgive (and forget too in my case - though I can’t really say one way or the other for Mum!). But today went very smoothly; it really was just a nice, relaxed day out, and I’m really quite thankful that (for the most part) we’re getting along well now. I think we’re both starting to realize at long last that neither of us is going to change much and that we just need to stop bickering and make the most of it, lol. Despite all our differences, I am (usually!) grateful for her and I’m happy to be stuck with her. (We have an inside joke about that song because it started playing over the loud speakers while we were out once, just a minute after I said teasingly that she was stuck with me forever, hehe. Now it’s also her ringtone. )

Moving on, I just want to quickly mention that I’ve been getting such a kick out of all the blog comments I’ve been getting lately - they really do cheer me up! My days always start off better when I get up in the morning and check my email and find new comment notifications. So thanks guys, you’re all awesome!

And after reading some of the comments about McDonalds’ attempts to be healthy (particularly Angelica’s, hehe), or at least convince you they are, I decided to try to steer them back on the path of fast food industry righteousness (involving, of course, promoting only the fattiest, most calorie-filled slabs of grease commercially available) with a proposal for a new burger: The McArtery Block. Come and get them while they’re still lukewarm from their tri-hourly refrying!

I have to stop this, lol. You all must think I have absolutely nothing better to do with my time than make lame jokes and write silly blogs, though of course there are plenty of other things I should be doing - I just don’t do them.

It’s also the end of another week in the life of Project 365, so I have posted the weekly update in the appropriate section. You can also click on the preview below if that will make you more inclined to look at it because it’s one fewer click.

I’m actually thinking of setting up a separate photo blog for my Project 365 and any other (mostly non-serious) photos (I was inspired by Georgina’s, though mine will undoubtedly be much less awesome *sniffle*). I already have a name for it that I’ve really just been dying to use for anything since last night - if you follow me on Twitter you’ll see what movie I watched last night and make some possible deductions about what silly (yes, that’s a clue!) name I’ve chosen. And just for the record, if anyone wants to follow me on Twitter, feel free to, though if it’s not going to be likely I’ll immediately recognize you, it would be brill if you could send me a message to let me know who you are. Anyway, I would be hosting the photo blog as a subdomain of Geek-Tragedy.net of course, since I still haven’t figured out what I’m going to use that domain for. At the moment it’s heading towards a collective…if I ever get a move-on and create another site besides this one! A collective of just one site would look mighty lame…lol.

Oh, and for those of you who were confused by my little code at the end of last entry (the “Iodine Americium” etc etc), if you write down each of those words as their chemical symbols from the periodic table, it spells “I Am Aly. I Am Nerdy.” (Iodine=I, Americium=Am, Aluminium=Al, Yttrium=Y, Nitrogen=N, Erbium=Er, Dysprosium=Dy). Hehehe. If you didn’t think I was a crazy dweeb before, I’m sure there’s no doubt in your minds now.

Anyhoo, I think I’m through, lucky for you, since I’m going cuckoo, though that’s nothing new, I’ve got things to do, um…time for a brew? (Damn it, “cup of coffee” didn’t rhyme! I’m bad at this…). Seriously, adios amigos. Be excellent to each other.

My lovely commentors: Erika, Deanna, Angelica, Julie (thanks for the back-comments too!), Simply Precious, Georgina, Tiff K, Swetlana, Catherine, Caity, Nekkis, Vicky & Alyssa. <3

Well I got the results of my blood tests and x-rays back on Thursday and it’s official: I am dying. Very slowly, mind you, but nonetheless I am dying. It’s so distressing, I may only have 60-odd years left to live! I’ll never have time now to accomplish all the things I wanted to, like winning a Nobel prize, taking over Microsoft and receiving a telegram from the Queen. It’s all so tragic, ain’t it?

Seriously though, I did get my test results back, but it turned out not to be anything terribly serious. The back pain is just a bit of minor degeneration in my L4 and L5 vertebrae (two lower ones in the lumbar region - just above the pelvis) and I have been urged to take up aqua aerobics (nooooo! Not icky pool water! Not physical movement!) to ease the pain a bit. Not an exciting prospect, but I guess it has to be done. My anaemia has also improved slightly, though not nearly as much as the doctor had been hoping it would. Though I think I have moved on from the “eat a steak or you’ll die” stage - now I’m probably at the “two cows per day should be enough” stage. And just for the record, I don’t actually like steak at all. Bleh!

Since I’m dying though and all that jazz, I decided it was time to start thinking seriously about what I would like to see happen after I die (aside from general devastation and despair from everyone who knew me, hehehe). I’ve mentioned before that I would like to have a part of my ashes blasted into space by Houston Space Services (or whoever does it these days), but I’m also thinking that a memorial park in a prominent inner-city location and a national public holiday would be a nice gesture. I’m just kidding of course (well, sort of…) - I think just to be remembered and not have dogs pee on my grave would be enough.

But to be on the safe side, I made a will (of sorts):

Moving on though (since I am getting very silly now!), I was rifling through all the junk in my handbag this afternoon and I came across a leaflet I’d picked up last time I was at McDonalds that boasts about all their menu items that have been approved by the heart foundation. Huh? I’d never heard anything about that before! Though admittedly McDonalds isn’t usually my fast food restaurant of preference so I don’t make a habit of reading their pamphlets…basically we only ever go to McDonalds if the closest place to get to when it’s my turn to buy Wednesday dinner (Wednesday nights we usually grab take-out or some other quick meal because we have to visit my grandmother that night). We have a bit of a trend really when it comes to Wednesday dinners, depending on who’s shout it is (and thus how much we’re willing to spend, lol).

Dad’s shout: “Do you guys just want to go to Easts?” (referring to the bistro at our local football club)
Aly’s shout: “So, who’s up for McDonalds?”
Sean’s shout: “Uh, you guys had lunch, didn’t you?”

Yeah, my brother’s really generous when it comes to buying us dinner, lol. But back to the McDonalds thing…I was expecting only to see those new healthy choice wraps on the list, but a couple of their “regular” burgers have also been given the heart foundation’s red tick of approval - the basic hamburger, McChicken and Fillet O’ Fish to be precise. It’s probably not all that interesting or even particularly surprising to anyone else, but I just thought it was a little intriguing - the new “healthy” sweet chilli chicken wrap actually contains more calories than the old Fillet O’ Fish (370 compared to 340). Though I think the chicken wrap must surely taste better at least, considering those fish burgers should really be sold to hospital emergency rooms as an alternative to the charcoal they give people to make them vomit after an overdose - they’re that gross!

Anyway, my thoughts are a little scrambled again tonight (gee, what a surprise!), so before I go I just want to plug some new additions to the content section (in garishly enormous text for maximum effect!): Not the Book of Shadows, a collection of silly (but hopefully somewhat amusing) spells I made up, and the Social Translation Dictionaries (aka STDs), some tongue-in-cheek mini phrase books for dating, work, college and more. Go check them out and let me know what you think…you must know by now I thrive on feedback (well, that and copious amounts of chocolate, hehe).

Oh, and just to reinforce how completely insane I am, I have a quick “code” for you to decipher! I posted it as my Facebook status last night but I think everyone there just assumes (though rightly so, lol) that I am completely mad, hehe. What am I trying to say?

Iodine Americium Aluminium Yttrium.
Iodine Americium Nitrogen Erbium Dysprosium!

So fare thee well peeps, I’m off to watch TV or some other equally pathetic mindless activity that I’m expected to indulge in since I’m home alone (yet again) on a Saturday night. Adios amigos. Be excellent to each other!

My lovely commentors: Vanessa, Georgina, Simply Precious, Shiri, V, Alyssa & April. <3

I would dance and be merry, life would be a ding-a-derry, if I only had a brain!

Poor old Scarecrow, I know how he feels…I have no doubt my life would be much better too if I only had a brain. For those of you who know me, I can be pretty stupid, agreed? After all, in the past year alone I have set my kitchen on fire, tried to split atoms in my sleep with ice bricks, been electrocuted by a light switch, accidentally worn slippers to the supermarket (never got a chance to blog about that because it was during one of my absences, but obviously very embarrassing!) and on several occasions switched the toaster on while I was using it to hold the mail (hey, is it my fault the toaster slots are just the right size to put a letter and the first place I see to dump them?!). I’ve noticed though that I am very quickly getting more dotty and absent-minded as I get older. My dad says I inherited my nuttiness from Mum’s side of the family, but I think it’s more likely to be an explosive fusion of both sides of the family, since all my paternal relatives are crackers too!

Wait, where was I going with this? Gah! See, I actually don’t remember now because my brain (or perhaps lack thereof) is just not working! I just know I’ve been really out of it lately and doing lots of silly things and making lots of mix-ups…maybe I’m getting Alzheimers? Actually I shouldn’t joke about that because I think I remember reading once that young people can get Alzheimer’s too (or something very similar). Though I daresay it’s nothing like that though and just my own Aly-style absent-mindedness. Today for example (and bear in mind it’s not even 3:30pm yet), I have already programmed 3 reminders into my iPhone calendar for the wrong year, locked my dog in the bathroom (accidentally of course!), tried to log in to Twitter with the wrong username and tried to charge my NDS with my camera battery charger. I tried to reheat my cold coffee in the microwave for 45 minutes instead of 45 seconds (though luckily I realized after a minute and a half!), and then I went off to uni without my folders and only one earring in. Dude! I’m having a bad day, lol.

When I finally did make it to uni, I was early on account of having to catch the bus (which always gets me there early), so I went to my favourite campus hang-out, the Co-op Bookshop. I love that place, hehehe. Today I picked up two new books: the “new” edition of a Jane Austen classic, Pride, Prejudice and Zombies (I’ve only just started reading it, but it’s fantastic! hehehe) and also a copy of the Tao Te Ching (in English of course), which I’ve been wanting to read in full for many years since reading snippets online when I was doing an assignment on Taoism in high school. I really enjoyed it actually, it’s got a sort of abstract sense to it, but it’s thought-provoking, and I like that. For the most part the writing style is very ambiguous and the concepts rather confusing, but one particular segment really struck a chord in me…

I alone am inactive and reveal no signs,
Like a baby that has not yet learned to smile,
Listless as though with no home to go back to.
The multitude all have more than enough.
I alone seem to be in want.
My mind is that of a fool - how blank!
Vulgar people are clear.
I alone am drowsy.
Vulgar people are alert.
I alone am muddled.
Calm like the sea;
Like a high wind that never ceases.
The multitude all have a purpose.
I alone am foolish and uncouth.
I alone am different from others.
– Tao Te Ching, Book 1 XX.

I know I don’t talk much about serious, emotional stuff, but a great deal of that verse holds very true for me. I suppose it would for a lot of people, really. Anyway, it’s something that’s stuck in my head now…I daresay I’ll be pondering it for a while.

Of course, no trip to the Co-op Bookshop is complete without gawking over amusing “academic”-themed gifts. I found a few more Freud things (to your left, click to expand!), including a kiddy version of the Freudian slippers I got last year - how cute! It claims to “protect them from your neurotic parenting”, hehehe. I could have used a pair when I was a child, that’s for sure!

I also came across a bunch of finger puppets of historical figures, including the one of Napoleon that you can see to your right…but what the hell is his hand doing down there?! Have a look…seems a bit dodgy to me, hahaha.

In other news, I have joined a couple of new networking sites, including Tumblr, Flixster and 43 Things, but I haven’t really used any of them much yet. They look like fun though…maybe when I have more time? I’ve also made a few adjustments to the sidebar here in case you didn’t notice - the playlist section now displays what I’m listening to in real-time using a Last.fm widget (I’ve started using that site again too) and the links to my other web haunts is now powered by a Dandy ID applet. I’m simplifying things, yay.

Anyway, that’s enough for now, since I have a doctor’s appointment in less than an hour and I’ve already spent more time online this afternoon than I should have. =/ Adios amigos. Be excellent to each other!

My lovely commentors: Zoe (x2), Lissy, Simply Precious, Beara, Steff, V, Christine, Sandalwood, Samantha, Daniella, Paul & Catherine. <3

They call the Melbourne Cup “the race that stops a nation”, but to be honest I think that’s very misleading. Really the only part of the nation that’s allowed to actually allowed to stop for the race is central Melbourne (who gets a public holiday) - everyone else still has to go to work and class. Luckily though I’m not in class (obviously!) so I was able to watch the race at home on TV, cheering my horse to victory. Yes, that’s right, cheering my horse to victory because to my utmost surprise I actually backed the winner (Shocking - the name of the horse as well as a description of the outcome!). I’ve only ever done that 3 times in my life (Media Puzzle back in 2002, then that champ(ette) Makybe Diva’s 2nd and 3rd wins in 2004 and 2005) even though I’ve been having little bets on the cup since I was in about grade 3, lol. What can I say? I come from a family of racing enthusiasts…my brother’s been betting on the Melbourne Cup since he was in pre-school (and unbelievably picked the 3rd place-getter that year too). In my family no age is too young to start following “the sport of Kings” (and Queens, I should add…damn chauvinist males!).

But as the only person in said fanatical family who isn’t a complete racing nut, I’m not the most clued-in when it comes to picking winners. In my early teens when I actually went to the races every Saturday with my dad and his friends (those were the days… *sigh*) I took it pretty seriously and tried to pick horses based on their form, but when I dropped out of the racing scene a few years back I got lazy and started picking them by name like I did when I was a kid. This year though I thought I’d go back to the form though, and I devised a formula to help me pick the winner…

D represents past races at the same distance, T is races on the same track location, W is races with the same weather conditions, C is races classed at Group 1 (most prestigious races) and Bv is barrier value (I assigned a numerical value to the barriers, 1.0 being for the best 6 barriers, then 0.75, 0.5 down to 0.25 for the 6 worst - there are 24 barriers total). The small p and s symbols indicate placings and total starts, so you can see that I just averaged out successes over each of the first four variables, added on the barrier value, then averaged it all out again (dividing by 5, because there were 5 variables). Each horse then ended up with a rating between 0.6 (most likely to win) to 0.1 (least likely to win). I didn’t really think it would work, to be honest - it was just an experiment to see if such a system might have real validity, but what do you know? Shocking’s rating of 0.6 was the highest, so I ended up putting $5 each way on it with my Dad’s bookmaker for a nice little return of $52. Sweet, eh? I wish now I’d put more on it of course, since $5 each way is a pretty small bet, but I didn’t actually have any cash upfront (hence betting with my dad’s bookie instead of the TAB), so I didn’t want to risk too much. Oh well, $52 is definitely better than nothing, eh? I don’t know if the system will ever work again of course -I suspect a lot of today’s outcome was just luck, as it always tends to be in these sorts of things- but you never know! I can hope.

However, the Melbourne Cup isn’t just about horses and winning money…it’s also about the hats. *nods seriously* For some reason the Melbourne Cup (and to a certain extent the entire Spring Racing Carnival) is synonymous with women’s dress hats, and it’s very important to female race-goers to have a nice hat that matches their dress and is suitably fancy, blah blah blah… Personally I don’t get the whole hat thing, but maybe it’s just a tradition by now? Either way though, I’ve learned that there are particular types of hats that are acceptable for the Melbourne Cup…and many that aren’t. For example:

Hats are all from The Village Hat Shop - check them out!

If you’re wondering what the hell the hat in the bottom right corner is, that’s the rather cringe-worthy condom cap. I don’t know what sort of situation would warrant such an atrocity, but I’m actually kind-of tempted to buy it for my brother…after all, he’s a bit of a dickhead. Hehehe.

In other news, I had to do a sleep study last night that involved spending a full 8 hours in bed (attempting to sleep) with a bunch of electrodes stuck to my head and neck, a breathing monitor and 2 respiratory bands strapped to my chest and waist, an oxygen tube up my nose and one of those clippy things stuck to my finger (I forgot what they’re called…they often clamp them on to you in hospital). Wow, what fun! *rolls eyes* It was quite awful really…very uncomfortable and when I pulled off all the tape and wires this morning, I ended up with a thin layer of skin torn off the back of my hand and red marks on my face and neck where the electrodes were (the same sort you get from those pore sucker things *shudder*). It also looked awful, as you can imagine…I looked like a test subject for some top secret government experiment, which did nothing to pacify my inner paranoid lunatic. Luckily Dilmom came over last night to help me set it up and told me soothingly that no one would want to steal my thoughts (hey!), so I was pretty much ok…well, except for the discomfort and the restlessness and the CIA agents creeping into my bedroom… (just kidding!).

Anyway, it’s now been just over a week since I started Project 365, so I’ve decided to start uploading my photos to my site here as well as my Flickr account. You can click the preview thingie below to go to my Project 365 section (it’s also under “Life of Aly” in the me section).

Anyway, this is turning out to be a pretty long entry, so I’m going to finish up now and go taunt Sean about having picked the Melbourne Cup winner! Hehehe. Adios amigos. Be excellent to each other!

My lovely commentors: Anne, Catherine, Angie, V, Simply Precious, Kelsey, Fatima, Mary, Charley & April. <3

PS. I realized just before that I forgot to change the default theme when I added the new layout last entry…oops! It should be ok now.

Breaking news: I have a new theme here at S-S.net. If this is your first time here you’re probably seeing it already (it’s the one featuring science beakers in love, hehehe). If you’re a regular stalker visitor, you’ll probably need to change it from the sidebar (assuming you actually want to!). As you can see, it’s geeky and very corny - in other words, just my style. But as Huey Lewis (and now my new layout) says, it’s hip to be square!

And while I’m still on the topic of geeky web stuff, on a whim last night I registered a new domain: Geek-Tragedy.net (inspired by the title of a recent blog entry here, lol). I’ve currently got it linked to the hosting account I use for my Sims 2 website (the one that never eventuated and is now being used as a repository for random files) and as of yet there is nothing there, but eventually I’ll move all my image files and so forth over there, and if I ever decide to start another web project of some sort, I can make it as a subdomain of G-T.net. Really though I just liked the domain name and wanted to register it before someone else did.

As for the last couple of days, I have been rather busy with appointments and running around all over the place - I had an appointment with the doctor on the other side of town yesterday morning (as you might have heard me complain about before, it takes 2+ hours to get there by bus - not fun!) then miscellaneous pay day errands, “shrinkage” this morning, followed by a trip to the pathologist (oh yay, blood tests *rolls eyes*) and the ever-thrilling grocery shopping. At least yesterday’s cross-town trip to see Dr Wrong* (*name changed/inverted to protect the presumably innocent ) gave me an excuse to go shopping at Chermside, which has a huge mall that I used to frequent when I lived there a few years back. I was quite delighted to see they’ve opened a Mombasa there recently (Mombasa being a gift shop selling cool giftware, such as the mouse USB hub and funky calculator in my picture below) and that the Kmart there had X-box 360 media remotes reduced to $20 (I’ve been trying to get one of those for months but nowhere at my local mall was selling them besides in $50 packs with a headset and some other accessory I already have). I also picked up an awesome pen (#3) from Wild (another gift shop) when I went in there to buy my Mum a birthday present, a decorative hedgehog with “prickles” made from scraps of cotton thread (#4), a necklace and earrings set that looks like the mushroom from Super Mario games (#5) and a funny coffee mug I picked up for $2 at one of those tacky variety stores (#6).

I love shopping. <3 I don't think my wallet does though. It gives it a terrible empty feeling inside.

Moving on, Project 365 is still coming along adequately (I say adequately instead of “well”, because although I have taken a picture every day so far, my pictures are kinda crap! haha). I’m going to be uploading them whenever I remember to my Flickr account, plus after each full week I will be putting them up on this site too, so stay tuned!

And it’s time for a new poll now, so I’ve tallied up the results of the last one (”what excuse would you use to dump a boyfriend/girlfriend”) and “I need to be alone for a while” is the clear winner with 56% of the total votes. “It’s not you, it’s me” and “I think I’m gay” tied for second place with 17% each, “I just think I can do a lot better” and “I’m taking a vow of celibacy” each got 6% of votes, and no one would use the “I think I’m in love with your brother/sister” excuse. You can also see the results in the 3.141592653 etc chart below.

The new poll, in the spirit of Halloween, asks what you’re frightened of most (from the list at least). Go vote now! (It’s on the sidebar).

Anyway, it’s time to start thinking about what meal I’m going to ruin for dinner tonight, so I have to go now and make my courtesy warning call to the local fire department. Adios amigos. Be excellent to each other!

My lovely commentors: Amy, Simply Precious, Vanessa, Atticus, Steff, Catherine, Tiff K (x2), Georgina, Kerry, Angelica, Swetlana, Christine & V. <3 I really appreciate all the comments I’ve been getting lately, thanks everyone! They really brighten my days.

Sounds a little weird (at least to me), but apparently patheticalness is actually a word and the correct noun version of pathetic. I didn’t realize this. But then again, my vocabulary is pretty pathetic - I guess that’s what happens when you spend 5 years of high school English classes reading science magazines and mentally interpreting Twin Peaks instead of learning how to read and write. Getting back on track though, the reason I say this is because I was looking up some odds and ends on Wikipedia recently and came across this article on Pathetic Fallacy (also known as anthropomorphic fallacy), which is when a person treats inanimate objects like they were actual people with feelings and so forth. This is something I’ve been doing for as long as I can remember, even as a little kid with neglected toys and broken objects - it’s strangely comforting to know that this is obviously something other people do too and not just another of my insane quirks! Often my “pathetic fallacies” took the form of imagining that the item was upset or distressed about being broken/neglected/whatever and I felt sorry for it, and even now I still experience the same sort of feelings, though not in quite the same literal sense that I did when I was a kid. It actually made me quite distressed on many occasions, particularly if my parents wanted to throw away the broken item, or if I was playing with other kids at kindy/school and they declared another toy was stupid and tossed it aside. I remember when I was about 7 or 8 my mum gave me a plush Daffy Duck toy that I could stick to my bedroom window with little suction cups, but when I went to use it we discovered that the suction cups were somehow faulty and it wouldn’t stick. Mum insisted on getting another one that would stick like it was supposed to, but I got terribly upset at that idea, crying that he shouldn’t be thrown away just because he wasn’t perfect and that I’d be happy to just have him as a toy without sticking him to the window. Then the next day I discovered my Daffy Duck stuck to the window and when I asked Mum how she got him to stick, she gave me some BS about God making him better because he could see how much I loved him. Being a little kid I totally bought it, but I found out later that she’d gone out and replaced him without me knowing. Even now a small part of me feels annoyed by that memory - not because of the specific incident itself, but because of the whole mentality; that something (or someone) that was considered to be in some way inferior wasn’t afforded the opportunity to be loved and appreciated like it could have been. Yeah, like it’s not totally obvious what I’m trying to say here…lol. But I guess that’s part of the mentality of something like pathetic fallacy - you identify with the object in some way and project your own feelings on to it. Maybe it’s a way of distancing your own emotions…I don’t know. I’m not a psychologist and all I’ve read is one Wiki article, so I’m kinda pulling this out of thin air now. A lot like most of my uni assignments, really.

Moving on though, since that was starting to get a) very rambly and b) far too serious (and you know how I dislike too much seriousness in my blog!), I have finally taken up the Project 365 challenge, even though there’s barely more than two months of the year left - after all, it’s just 365 days, it doesn’t matter when it starts, right? So I started today, and since you’re supposed to take at least one of yourself per month, I figured I’d get that out of the way first, hence the somewhat frightening picture below…

I’m holding up one finger to signify that it’s the first of my 365 photos. Genius, huh? *rolls eyes*

I don’t know how I’m going to find something to take a photo of every single day since I don’t even leave the house sometimes for days at a time, but I guess that’s part of the challenge, huh? Though if I’d started this a tiny bit earlier I could have used a picture of my home-made Mr Potato Head (see right!) as my first photo, hehe. He’s made out of a real potato, with peppermints for eyes (I drew the pupils on with marker pen though, lol), a raspberry candy nose, lolly teeth, jellybean ears, arms made from Fad sticks (previously known as Fags and packaged with a red tip to look like cigarettes, until the confectionary company went PC, hehe) and a hat made out of half a hollowed out green apple. I had to cheat with the feet though because I didn’t have anything I could use for them.

No wonder everyone thinks I’m mad, eh?

Anyway, I’m really not sure where I’m going with any of this tonight. I’m a bit all over the place right now! I’ve had a long day actually, what with running around to various places, including QScan to get an X-ray of my “broken” (well in my ridiculously hypochondriacal opinion!) back, which took forever and wasn’t exactly fun considering they decided they’d take the x-rays from about 8 different angles (”just to be on the safe side”), during which time I was freezing cold and trying to hold the stupid positions I had to stand in without twitching or sneezing or breathing or anything. So yeah, not fun, but not exactly the end of the world either, so I suppose I’ll live.

And I guess that’s it for tonight. There’s still a bit of a storm going on outside and my laptop battery is running low now (since I unplugged it when the storm started), so I’d better post this quickly before it dies completely. Adios amigos! Be excellent to each other.

My lovely commentors: Vicky, Georgina, Simply Precious, Vanessa, Kerry, Angelica, Deanna, Atticus, Kelsey, Gel, Swetlana, Paul, Shiri, Steff, Meredith & Afef. <3 Comments will be returned tomorrow, afraid my brain’s a little pooped right now!

I am officially 24 now - two dozen years old. Actually, I was officially 24 at the end of my last entry too, but since then I’d only scraped in by 11 minutes, I’m not counting it. I actually had a really good birthday weekend, even though I only spent it with my family. On Sunday afternoon my mother and I went to high tea at the Stamford Plaza, which was awesome but very bad for my willpower because everything there looked (and for the most part also tasted) so yummy! I’m sure I ate a lot more than I should have, but hey, if you can’t splurge a little on your birthday, when can you? (Well, any time you like according to my personal philosophy, but I digress!). I took a couple of photos while I was there but it was hard to a) stop eating long enough to take the pics, and b) take photos with waiters and other patrons buzzing around, thinking I was a complete nong, hehe. Anyway…

Plate #1

Plate #47*

*Just kidding, it was really plate #2, hehe.

Me and my mummy!

Crappy photo of me, unfortunately, but it’s the only one where we’re both looking at the camera and have our eyes open. XP)

So with the realization that I am now another year older comes another bout of “WTF am I doing with my life?”-style philosophizing. I really don’t know what the future holds for me at this point (but I dare anyone else to convince me they know exactly what theirs holds either!), however I have made some preliminary predictions based on my current goals and the predicted degree of crappiness my future might hold…

Anticipated timeline of my life - age 24 onwards

March 2010: Start new university degree. Panic ensues.

July 2010: Complete first semester, collapse in heap of mental exhaustion.

September 2011: Fall into state of despair, question possibility of finding work as street mime.

April 2012: Meet my dream guy.

May 2012: Meet my dream guy’s steady boyfriend.

June 2012: Meet my dream guy and his boyfriend’s adopted daughter from Cambodia.

March 2013: Minor mental breakdown/prolonged psychotic break #1.

August 2013: Become desperate and start dating nerdy male lab partner.

October 2013: Nerdy lab partner/boyfriend dies in freak lab accident.

November 2013: Fall into state of despair again, question possibility of joining convent.

October 2014: Continue to age badly, skin starts to resemble orange peel, body fat levels hit all-time high.

April 2015: Start planning postgraduate studies, preliminary panic ensues.

November 2015: By some fluke make it to graduation, get depressed when I realize I’m now expected to get a job.

February 2016: Enrol in postgrad degree with casual hours as a first year tutor to prolong necessity of getting a real job.

June 2016: Seduce desperate middle-aged thesis supervisor.

September 2016: Harassed by desperate middle-aged thesis supervisor’s wife.

October 2016: Change thesis supervisors, also change thesis topic after realizing I cannot prove my hypothesis even with manipulated data.

March 2017: Finish thesis three months past initial deadline, panic again at the thought of having to get real job.

April 2017: Enrol in PhD against better judgment, spend next six months trying to think of topic.

October 2017: Start writing PhD.

January 2018: Finish writing page numbers and chapter titles for PhD.

May 2018: Continue writing PhD, minor mental breakdown/prolonged psychotic break #2.

July 2018: Sean arrested for various white collar crimes, no one is surprised.

Keep reading (expand)…

February 2019: Meet Mr “You’ll do, I guess” online through Bob Dylan lyrics analysis forum.

August 2019: Move in with Mr “You’ll do, I guess”, parents rejoice.

January 2020: Unable to avoid real job any longer, reluctantly accept job as underpaid associate lecturer while still struggling to write PhD.

February 2020: Mr “You’ll do, I guess” proposes, I panic and say no.

March 2020: Realise how old I am, decide to accept marriage proposal after all.

November 2020: It’s a nice day for a white wedding, resist temptation of leave fiancée at altar even though the best man is totally hot.

December 2020: Take out oppressive mortgage to finance new house that needs about half a million dollars worth of renovations.

March 2021: Struggle to finish PhD, hard to concentrate over sound of biological clock ticking.

August 2021: Hubby suggests starting a family, end up adopting a beige Chihuahua named Taco.

October 2021: Finally finish PhD, spend next 3 years emphasising the “Dr” before my name until the novelty finally wears off/people get sick of me being a pretentious prat.

November 2021: First wedding anniversary, sex life dwindles.

January 2022: Sean released from prison, we graciously allow him to rent out our backyard storage shed.

February 2022: Taco starts (obedience) school, start savings for canine college fund.

November 2022: Second wedding anniversary, sex life grinds to complete halt.

June 2023: Government funding cut from important research project I’d been working on for years.

July 2023: Minor mental breakdown/prolonged psychotic break #3.

September 2023: Interest rates doubled since buying house, hubby takes second job at McDonalds to help pay bills.

November 2023: Third wedding anniversary, neither of us remember what sex is anymore.

May 2024: Start to worry about Taco’s stunted academic progress, apparent depression and lack of interest in girl dogs.

June 2024: Realize Taco will probably never go to college, donate money from college fund to Sean’s recently discovered illegitimate teenage son, forgetting we can’t even pay our bills.

December 2024: Hubby starts to resent having to take third job as panhandler to help make ends meet.

April 2025: University bought out by Japanese software company, faculty raises funds to continue my research by marketing anime cartoon based on the bacterial cultures growing in the labs and staff kitchenette.

October 2025: 40th birthday, major mid-life crisis, book self in for full body cosmetic surgery.

March 2026: Hubby starts going through mid-life crisis, take out second mortgage to finance Porsche and swanky golf club memberships.

August 2026: Catch hubby getting it on with one of my 18 year old students, can’t even show distress because of excessive botox.

January 2027: Divorce papers filed, I’m awarded custody of Taco after making false allegations of animal cruelty against ex-hubby.

April 2027: Yet another state of despair, consider moving to Bordeaux to fulfil dream of owning a vineyard.

May 2027: $312 not enough to buy French vineyard, depression ensues.

October 2027: At age 42 death now seems imminent, decide to write autobiography.

January 2027: Finish writing page numbers and chapter titles for autobiography.

March 2027: Killed in lab accident after spilling coffee on an existing spill of explosive chemicals, wrong Monty Python song played at funeral, requested “Always look on the bright side of life”, not “Every sperm is sacred”.

April 2027: Cremated ashes blasted into space as per request, gets stuck in air vents of NASA spacecraft, causing death of several astronauts.

July 2028: Family sends unpublished autobiography to book editors, memoirs misinterpreted and accidentally marketed as humorous fiction and filed on bookshelves next to Darwin Award publications.

Hehehe, I have to say that’s hardly ideal, but probably closer to my actual future than the version where I cured cancer, won a Nobel prize and married a rockstar. Bummer, eh?

In other news, I have made a few (very) slight adjustments to the site here. I’ve changed my sidebar mini bio thing to reflect my new age and maturity (*cough*), updated the rotating quote thing (because I don’t even remember the last time I changed those…) and made a slight alteration to my various stylesheets so that the fonts would revert to the generic sans-serif (or serif) style on Macs and any other systems with non-Windows standard fonts installed (big whoop, I know!). I’ve also updated my pluggage sections on the sidebar to reflect URL changes and removed sites that have shut down (and also changed the little link images - don’t ask what Pacman has to do with anything! lol), plus changed the extra links to a simple list rather than rotation. Nothing major, just a few little things that had been bugging me for a while and needed to be updated.

Anyway, I have a lot to do today (bleh) and I have to go back to the GP this evening as well to have my iron levels re-checked, so I’d better quit muck-arsing around (gotta love that expression…thanks Mum. ) and get on with it. Adios amigos. Be excellent to each other!

My lovely commentors: Amy, Simply Precious, Vanessa, Julie & Catherine. <3

My birthday weekend celebrations are well underway. In under an hour I’ll be 24 (*groan*) and just one year away from my designated quarter-life crisis. In fact, by the time I finish this entry it may well be after midnight, allowing me to claim that I started writing this entry when I was 23 and didn’t finish it until I was 24 (because I’m soooo slow, hehehe). Yeah, I’m in one of those happy silly moods again. Sorry!

Last night my dad (and brother, though very grudgingly) took me to the Brisbane Irish Club for dinner and a few drinks (this is where the aforementioned Baileys comes in!). Even though I was just with my dad and brother (the same two boofheads whose company I’m always complaining about having to tolerate!), I really did have a good time. The music especially was fantastic as always, and at around 9pm the Brisbane Irish Club Pipe and Drums Band (I think I got the name right, lol!) came marching in with their bagpipes and drums for their nightly performance (I used it to call it their nightly ‘bang and blow’, but realized one day just how dirty that sounded even though I didn’t mean it to be! hahaha). That was fantastic, I must say - I really don’t know why so many people seem to think bagpipe music is such a horribly irritating sound! I actually love bagpipe music, and even managed to record part of their performance on my iPhone (using the iTalk application) for your enjoyment… If you like bagpipes, have a listen to the first one (the short version), or if you really like bagpipes, try the second one! (It’s much longer and potentially far more irritating, hehehe). Hopefully I’ve got this Wordpress audio player plugin to work properly…

Did you enjoy that? Hehehe. I dare you to find another blog on your blogroll that’s streaming bagpipe music today!

Anyway, my strange fascination with bagpipe music aside, I did have a good time last night. I also ended up getting my birthday present from my dad last night so that I could go out and spend it (gee, guess what he got me?), which I promptly did this afternoon. Yay, shopping! I guess my oniomania I mentioned last entry hasn’t cleared up yet, hehe. I think I’ve actually gotten all my gifts already - my mum and granddad gave me a bunch of pressies this afternoon when I saw them, including a 24 carat gold Buddha pendant from my Mum, plus a watch, an emerald pinky ring, enough chocolate to last a normal person a month (though about 3 days for me!), a coffee mug featuring the periodic table (hehe) and a couple of other small things. I also now have an “all-in-one life planner” to last until I turn 100 years old called Lose Weight! Get Laid! Find God!, which is the most hilarious instruction manual-style book I’ve ever come across, telling you (very humourously) what you’re expected to do at each age from 0-100. (For example, at age 4 you must attempt to murder your younger siblings, age 16 you’re expected to start a band, get abducted by aliens at 49, turn into your parents at 58, and eventually have yourself cryogenically frozen at 100). Seriously, pick up a copy if you ever happen to see it when you’re browsing the book store. It’s hilarious!

Anyway, besides enjoying my birthday a bit early, I’ve been writing “poetry” again (*ignores groans*) and have uploaded some new ones to the 2008-2009 page. Stop signs, Forced hands held, Fishnet veils, Summer trip and Folly a deux are the noobs this week - go make them feel welcome! (Or dunk their heads in a toilet, whichever you think is more fitting. )

And you didn’t think you’d escape without a teaser now, did you? Don’t worry, just one today…I’m feeling merciful.

Summer trip

smiling at the clouds
as you lay on green carpet in the country
dandelions poking through the floorboards
windows must be open
because the summer breeze was all around you

such elation
and you don’t remember why
the heavens spoke and you understood
fingering strings of apple seeds
you were giving peace a chance

but then your candy floss turned sour
and the eyes in the forest could see you start to fall
and the man in the moon
was too high in the sky
to catch you before you hit the ground

thrown into the void
of calculated beeps
and inaudible mumblings
all your colours have turned to white
the holograms are now a haze
and your mind is so broken
you don’t even realize

Oh, and just in case anyone feels the overwhelming urge to correct my wording, the one titled Folly a deux is not a spelling mistake or grammatical error.

Anyway, I’m going to go to bed now (or maybe watch the latest episode of The Big Bang Theory, then go to bed). Adios amigos. Be excellent to each other.

My lovely commentors: Charley, Meredith, Simply Precious & Georgina. <3

P.S. I’m now 24 years and 11 minutes old. Happy birthday to me!

Mood: ever-so-slightly crazy

What sort of horrible, debilitating disease is oniomania, you ask? Well according to a bunch of psychologists at the University of Queensland here in Australia, oniomania is the medical term for compulsive shopping! Strange but apparently true. At least now I have a legitimate medical excuse for my reckless spending, hehehe. I’m not greedy and self-indulgent, I’m just sick!

Of course, yesterday being my pay day, my oniomania suddenly flared up and I was compelled to go on a day-long shopping trip across three different malls even though I didn’t have any more money than I usually do after I’ve paid my rent and various bills (which isn’t much!). I started off with the Queen Street Mall in the city, on the way to which I suddenly remembered why I’m always so loathe to catch the council buses at peak hour - I had to stand up the whole 20 minute trip, and I swear, trying to stay standing on a Brisbane bus is like trying to surf in the middle of a tsunami! By the time I got into town my nerves were shot, my knuckles were white, and the palm of my left hand was covered in deep reddish-purple marks from holding on to one of those hanging hand thingies with such a death grip. Didn’t make for a particularly good start, but fortunately that ended up being the most disastrous thing that happened all day, and my shopping trip was otherwise very successful. I bought a few clothes (a purple maxi dress, pink blouse and a black knit shrug), a t-shirt for my dog (actually designed for a human child, hehe), a pair of el cheapo sneakers (since my dad had been bugging me about getting another pair to go walking in this summer - bleh!), and a whole bunch of small (mostly gimmicky) things that I would probably be yelled at for buying if either of my parents saw them all, lol. Among such items were a few boxes of incense sticks from Loot (a somewhat new-agey homewares store here) that seriously have the weirdest names I’ve ever seen on incense boxes. Below you can see that I picked up some black opium, cannabis, “Butt naked” and “Lick me”. I’m dying for someone to ask me what the smell in my room is just so I can answer “lick me”, or “that’s just cannabis”. Hehehe.

I also found some rather amusing new lip glosses in Equip (retailer of cheap quirky jewellery and accessories), which you can see in the next pic. I’ve seen some cosmetics companies make pretty outrageous claims about the amazing benefits of using their products, but I think lip gloss that can attract millionaires or find your “Mr Right” would have to trump them all… I’m thinking of giving the Mr Right one to Marissa (offline best bud) but there’s no way I’m going to risk parting with the one that might find me a rich sugar daddy, hehehe.

Anyway, after having a nice day out yesterday, today I had to trudge along to my usual weekly head shrinking appointment at the uni psych clinic, and have somehow wound up being assigned to research the most difficult to comprehend part of Einstein’s theories of relativity (the part about time relative to frame of reference), learn it and then explain it back to my therapist next week. Sounds very strange, but it’s sort of a behaviour modification activity I think, teaching me to persevere and not stress out just because I don’t fully understand something, which I guess is something I need to work on. I don’t want to do it of course, but I’ve learned that it’s often the most unorthodox approaches that have the biggest impact on me and make the most difference - I daresay if my therapy sessions just involved lying on a couch and talking about my childhood I wouldn’t have lasted 3 sessions, since that sort of traditional approach has never sat well with me. I don’t really like just talking and I’ve always had trouble taking these sort of things seriously, even when I was in my emo “I hate the world” teen phase. Take for example, my first meeting with a new counsellor when I was in high school…

Counsellor: Do you ever hear voices?
Me: Yes, all the time. I just heard one a moment ago.
Counsellor: (concerned) What did it say?
Me: It said ‘do you ever hear voices?’.

I thought I was being funny. The counsellor didn’t seem very amused.

Anyway, another reason (albeit not a good one) that I’m so uncharacteristically willing to go along to these appointments every week is the lure of a chance to leisurely browse through the campus book store during the “non-busy” times, though admittedly not for books. I mentioned once before that the uni book shop here sometimes sells quirky academic-themed gifts (like Shakespearean finger puppets and my Freudian slippers) - today I found an adorable plush Buddha and decided to buy it for myself as an early birthday present. I know, odd to be calling this an early b-day pressie to myself when I often buy myself much more expensive gifts for absolutely no reason, but since it’s my birthday this weekend (Sunday to be precise) it’s actually a legitimate excuse now, hehe. Anyway, I love my toy Buddha, he’s so cute! (Well I think so, my Mum says he’s hideous, but pfft…what would she know?).

Speaking of cute things though, I watched Space Buddies tonight on one of the pay-per-view movie channels, and I swear it’s the most adorable thing I’ve seen in ages! I think I must have said “awww” or “oh my god, that is so cute!” about every two minutes for the entire duration of the film, lol. Okay, so it didn’t have a particularly deep and meaningful plot and yes, the upper limit of the target audience is probably less than half my age, but I loved it! I wish it was more socially acceptable for adults to actually enjoy movies like that though, lol…makes me think I’d like to hire out a kid for a day or something so that I can see movies like that at the cinemas without being so embarrassed. Does anyone know a 5 year old that’s looking for a job?! Hehehe.

Anyway I should really end this now before I get any sillier than I already am (you might not think that’s even possible by this stage, but believe me it is, and you don’t want to go there!). I had virtually no sleep last night because I stayed up half the night to keep an eye on my drunken ass of a brother. Long story short, he came home last night completely wasted (virtually paralytic) and he was such a mess that I was worried he would asphyxiate on his own vomit during the night or end up with some sort of alcohol poisoning-related brain damage (not that I’d be able to tell the difference anyway! hahaha), so I tried to keep a watch over him. Damn fool of a boy. *shakes head* I warned him he’s going to get mugged or worse if he keeps getting this pissed out on the town, especially with the way he dresses (ridiculously expensive designer threads for the most part) and I’m sure he’d be such an easy target! Like I said, he’s a fool, but there’s no way he’ll listen to anything I say anyway. So yeah, minor rant over now, lol. Adios amigos. Be excellent to each other!

My lovely commentors: Vanessa, Simply Precious & Georgina. <3

It doesn’t quite have the same ring to it as Roy Orbison’s lyrics, but this is what I was apparently doing in my sleep last night! Yes, it seems the strange recurring dream I’ve been having seems to have gone and made way for something even more absurb, in this case a weird “dream” (and I do use that term loosely now) in which I got up in the middle of the night, took two ice bricks (you know, those things you put in cooler bags to keep your lunch cold?) our of the freezer and then sat on my bed and clapped them together, saying I was trying to split the atom. Right… *shakes head* I’m not sure how I thought smashing ice bricks together was going to cause a nuclear fission event, but then again, I was most likely asleep! Except…when I woke up this morning (assuming I’d dreamed the whole thing) I found two melted ice bricks on my desk chair. What the…? Maybe I was sleepwalking or something…who knows. Oh well, at least I have something interesting to tell my therapist on Thursday. Hehehe.

In less baffling news, I have made some small updates to the “All about Aly” section of this site. The In a nutshell page has been completely revamped, as has the my family page and the quiz results page (after discovering that all the image links from Blogthings were broken :(). I’ve also updated the my pets page, adding info about my new racehorse and pet brother (hehe) and taking note that Rufus and Saffy are both dead, plus I have updated the handwriting page with an extra scan of my “not-so-neat” writing, since the first scan, which is actually legible in some parts, could be construed as misleading. I was also going to update the CD collection page and add a similar page for my DVD collection, but after making all those updates last night I got tired/bored, so that will have to wait for another time, along with the entire visitor content section, which also needs revamping. Oh, and last (but definitely not least), I have new custom smilies, courtesy of Georgina @ Heartdrops, using the plugin she and Angelica suggested in my comments last entry. I went with the pineapple top ones because they remind me of a song called “Pineapple Head” by Crowded House, lol. Aren’t they adorable?

And to update you all on the “boys are stupid” situation, the boys are definitely still stupid (duh), but at least we know now that my dad’s foot isn’t actually broken - it was infected from whatever he fell on (he still doesn’t remember - I’m guessing a sheet of jagged rusty metal or a used syringe? hehe). The doc gave him some antibiotics and he’s already mostly healed. *cough*dumbass*cough* Sean has also been a bit more bearable since the weekend when he was acting like a laxative, though probably only because he’s been at work and not annoying me. Though that doesn’t usually mean much because he annoys me even when he’s not around too. Particularly by stealing my food. *glare* It doesn’t matter how many times I tell him not to touch [insert food here], he takes no notice and then when I go mad at him for eating it, he just laughs and thinks it’s so funny that I’m even annoyed about it. Grrr. I’ve now taken to labelling everything of mine in my fridge and freezer to warn potential ice-cream thieves not to mess with me. Seriously, is this what it’s coming to?!

Of course that claim would probably have been more convincing if I’d actually opened the box, but whatever. I’m sure it won’t make any difference anyway.

However, if you think I’m a nong because of my stupid fridge labels, that’s nothing compared to the latest fashion craze in Japan that I heard about via an e-mail forward. The Japanese have long been known for their edgy, quirky fashions, but I really cannot get my head around this one…

Believe it or not, these are not see-through skirts!. It’s actually a pattern painted on to the skirt to make it look like the underwear is visible. *mind boggles* Why anyone would purposely create an effect that the rest of the world tries desperately to avoid most of the time is beyond me, but hey, whatever floats your boat, eh? I just hope this trend doesn’t catch on here in Australia, lol.

Anyway, that’s it for today. I’ve coverered all the bases with this entry, I think - real-life drama/insanity, site updates, a rant, an international human interest story…not a bad effort, I must say. Oh, and I’m glad no one seems to have been deterred by my crazy “spam protection”, hahaha. Just out of curiosity, did anyone take the time to solve it? Hehehe. I assure you it’s nowhere near as complicated as it looks, lol (seriously, if I can write/solve it, how hard can it be?! I suck at math). So adios amigos. Be excellent to each other!

My lovely commentors: Catherine, Charley, Simply Precious, Angelica, Georgina & Christine. <3