Hottest 100

Yeah yeah, I know it's a bit late.... but did you guys vote?

We managed to catch numbers 60-40 from Hyde Park in Sydney which was pretty awesome - I'd definately like to make a full day of it next time - get there early with grog and food and snag some shade...

Anyways, here's the top 100 (the ones I voted for are in purple)!

1 Augie March - One Crowded Hour
2 Eskimo Joe - Black Fingernails, Red Wine
2 Hilltop Hoods - The Hard Road
4 The Killers - When You Were Young
5 Scissor Sisters - I Don't Feel Like Dancing
6 Gnarls Barkley - Crazy
7 Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars
8 Gotye - Hearts A Mess
9 Muse - Starlight
10 The Grates - 19-20-20
11 Little Birdy - Come On Come On
12 John Butler Trio - Funky Tonight
13 My Chemical Romance - Welcome To The Black Parade
14 OK GO - Here It Goes Again
15 Lily Allen - Smile
16 Peter Bjorn & John - Young Folks
17 The Grates - Science Is Golden
18 Muse - Supermassive Black Hole
19 Lupe Fiasco - Kick Push
20 Regina Spektor - Fidelity
21 Youth Group - Forever Young
22 Tool - Vicarious
23 Hilltop Hoods - Clown Prince
24 Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Gold Lion
25 Placebo - Meds
26 Camille - Ta Douleur
27 The Strokes - You Only Live Once
28 Saboteurs - Steady As She Goes
29 Tool - The Pot
30 Arctic Monkeys - When The Sun Goes Down
31 The Killers - Bones
32 The Butterfly Effect - Gone
33 Cops - Call Me Anytime
34 Red Hot Chili Peppers - Dani California
35 Lily Allen - LDN
36 Bob Evans - Nowhere Without You
37 Bob Evans - Don't You Think It's Time
38 Josh Pyke - Memories & Dust
39 The Butterfly Effect - A Slow Descent
40 Basement Jaxx - Take Me Back To Your House
41 Hilltop Hoods - What A Great Night!
42 The Grates - Inside Outside
43 Angus & Julia Stone - Paper Aeroplane
44 Lady Sovereign - Love Me Or Hate Me
45 Karnivool - Roquefort
46 AFI - Miss Murder
47 Pony Up! - The Truth About Cats & Dogs (Is That They Die)
48 Regina Spektor - On The Radio
49 Arctic Monkeys - Fake Tales Of San Francisco
49 The Strokes - Heart In A Cage
51 Something For Kate - Cigarettes And Suitcases
52 The Herd - Unpredictable
53 The Living End - Wake Up
54 Eagles Of Death Metal - I Want You So Hard (Boy's Bad News)
55 Wolfmother - Woman (MSTRKRFT Remix)
56 Hilltop Hoods - Stopping All Stations
57 Josh Pyke - Private Education
58 Sarah Blasko - Always On This Line
59 Placebo - Song To Say Goodbye
60 Hot Chip - Over And Over
61 Foo Fighters - Everlong (Acoustic Live)
62 Justice Vs Simian - We Are Your Friends
63 TV On The Radio - Wolf Like Me
64 Something With Numbers - Apple Of The Eye
65 Bloc Party - The Prayer
66 Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Phenomena
67 AFI - Love Like Winter
68 Darren Hanlon - Happiness Is A Chemical
69 Beck - Nausea
70 Ben Folds - Such Great Heights (Like A Version)
71 The Grates - Lies Are Much More Fun
72 Jet - Put Your Money Where Mouth Is
73 Matisyahu - King Without A Crown
74 Snow Patrol - Hands Open
75 Ben Kweller - Sundress
76 Jet - Rip It Up
77 Hilltop Hoods - Recapturing The Vibe
78 Placebo - Infra-Red
79 Sarah Blasko - Explain
80 Wolfmother - Love Train
81 Gnarls Barkley - Gone Daddy Gone
82 Freestylers/Pendulum - Painkiller
83 Butterfingers - Get Up Outta The Dirt
84 Thom Yorke - Black Swan
85 Infadels - Love Like Semtex
86 Kanye West - Touch The Sky
87 Ben Harper - Better Way
88 Pendulum - Tarantula
89 Arctic Monkeys - Mardy Bum
90 Jurassic 5 - Work It Out (Feat. Dave Matthews Band)
91 Panic! At The Disco - The Only Difference Between Martyrdom & Suicide
92 Lily Allen - Alfie
93 Lily Allen - Everything's Just Wonderful
94 Gotye - Learnalilgivnanlovin
95 Eskimo Joe - New York
96 Red Riders - Slide In Next To Me
97 Pearl Jam - Worldwide Suicide
98 Gossip - Standing In The Way Of Control
99 Audioslave - Original Fire
100 Blue King Brown - Come And Check Your Head

I'm really glad Augie March made it to number one - I love that song and I listened to it a LOT on repeat...

I also voted for Basement Jaxx - Hey U, Holly Throsby - Making A Fire, Jose Gonzalez - Hand On Your Heart, Lily Allen - Friday Night (which I think is not the one I actually meant to vote for) and Robyn - Konichiwa Bitches.

Did you vote? How'd you go?!

BDO Wrapup

Am back!

BDO was fantastic - my first and mebbe not my last? I will admit I was a little put off by the sheer number of lolly pop heads in shorty shorts, but there was also a fair share of the opposite, so it kinda evened out. That said, almost ALL the guys that were there were drunken d!ckheads, with the exception of a few old men who must've been going for years and just won't give it up.

We got in there at about 10ish and went straight through to get the grog wristband 'just in case'. A quick glance at my ID got me straight through (The Hun's ID didn't even get looked at!) and the lines were the quickest thing I'd ever seen.

We worked out where we were on the map and made our way to catch three songs of Richard In Your Mind. They were alright and cute - a bit geeky with all four were wearing glasses and shouting out "Who likes physics?!... huh huh, huh...."! They also had song about gravity and a memorable line "If the skeleton wants to dance, then I'm a dancer too" or something of the sort... pretty good for a new act, nontheless.

We then headed over to sit on the grass for Devoted Few who were also pretty good - we were sitting on a rain poncho (the whole day was overcast and the grass was wet) so couldn't really see through the crowd but the lady on the keyboard had a funky red fringe. The Hun has picked them to become more popular in the upcoming years, so keep an ear out.

We good some food and listened to a little of Dan Kelly and the Alpha Males but only heard a few songs - I didn't recognise any of it and was anxious to get a good seat for the next act... and a frozen red fire engine! They both won out and we headed in to see...

Angus and Julia Stone and they were my pick of the day! The place was totally packed out - we secured a seat and then managed to spot Middle Bro, Eldest Bro and Eldest Bro's friend on the stairs - just as Middle Bro was messging me to see where we were. We managed to save two seats but they dissapeared... only to find Middle Bro at the end of the show TANKED. Yup - I thought the lines and the prices and the grotty toilets would be a deterrant but there were a LOT of drinkers out there! Anyways, the music was fantastic and lovely folky, Angus is soooooo cute and Julia was telling us how she had her wisdom teeth taken out a few days ago and she was spitting out stitches through her trumpet. It was also during this show that I heard some young things pointing to an afro in the crowd and saying 'See! That's her! From Sneaky Sound system!'.... The Hun pointed out that they were talking about:

...her...

but actually seeing

...her...!

I think that's about when we went to look for where those turkish flat pide things with spinach in the middle were being sold but we couldn't track them down so stopped for a 'gourmet roll' - and the losers put mayo on my veggie wrap! I ate around it and then sourced some (more) hot chips and headed towards the Boiler Room - on the way there The Hun stopped for the bathroom and these two guys beckoned out 'Hey you! Come here! Can you put in my contact for me? Our hands are too shaky...' to which they got 'Ew! No! I hate eyes!' and a turned back. Until The Hun came out and I told him what happened and he coerced me to go back and offer to help... I tell you what, there is NOTHING as DISGUSTING as poking two fingers into some randoms eyes to get a dancefloor contact to sit - especially when you gotta do it a few times after it flicks back under his eyelid... ew! But, I got it in for him and went to do the other guys, but he just couldn't open his eyelids wide enough to fit the contact and he kept blinking when I got close which made me jump... and I DREAD to think of all the germs they were putting in their eyes!

Anyways, we made it into the boiler room to see Lily Allen - hooray! She was my third fav act of the day - mainly detracted by the pushy little b!tches who shove their way past without even offering a 'sorry' or 'excuse me'! I couldn't believe it!! There was one REALLY rude lil twat who was literally shoving her way through people - a guy pushed her back and she turned around and delivered one of those angsty emo middle fingers that only stuckup tweenies can deliver - hilarious! Anways, she was really good - the place was packed out - she took a pic to put on her MySpace as she said it was her biggest crowd yet, but it's not up yet! She also paid out Chris, the drummer from Jet who she said threw a lit cigarette at her face which she paid back with a glass to his face, and then dedicated 'Not Big' to him. We also stood behind Fuzzy the whole time! She's very small and thin and had a few girls wave to her and guy come up to ask her what time she was playing today - she must get that a lot! Getting out of The Boiler Room was CHAOS - it was like a cattler herd for like a few hundred metres - absolutely insane.

We managed to hear a few songs at the end of My Chemical Romance who weren't as good as I hoped - but then we didn't hear them all. With much prompting The Hun conned me into the D but we walked straight out as soon as we were in - it was too packed!

So we moved across to listen to Eskimo Joe who were pretty good too - I'm not that big a fan of the latest stuff, but The Chifley House had the album before in pretty much permanent playback the whole time I lived there, so it was good to be able to sing along to a few of the songs. There was also a bunch of wankers with a rug thing who were prompting people to lay on it while 12 others would fling them up into the air like a trampoline - it was always courting disaster. Some twiggy little thing decided to hold on to the edge of the cloth and got flung up and around - I was sure she landed on her head but she looked dazed and a lil shook up. The wankers kept moving forward and asking more pople to come hold the edges - as if! Luckily they stopped after not too long, but not before the mat went left as the guy went right - some poor guy stood up and was bleeding from his tooth. Wankers - they really needed their mothers there to tell them it was OBVIOUSLY not a good idea.

We moved back accross to see John Butler Trio but by this time I was getting just a liiiiiiittle tired - I was a bit pouty, my feet were sore and I was anxious about the crowds coming up. I also didn't know as many songs of theirs as I thought I did - I shoulda made MORE of an effort to get to know the songs!

We headed out for a trip to the bathroom where I got to hear my first lady spew of the day (disgusting!) and managed to find the vegetarian stand (yummy samosas and not as yummy spring rolls) and went to listen to Dappled Cities Fly who were WAY TOO LOUD - we couldn't sit in there! So we sat outside and were a bit dissapointed - their MySpace made them sound like they'd be really good and croozy, but they just weren't.

We then headed off to find The Streets but found the spinachy pide things - I HAD to have one after talking them up to The Hun but couldn't even eat half! I was such a piglet this weekend - back on the CalorieKing wagon this tomorrow! We headed in but he was hard to understand, though we did catch the song that I like - 'When you wasn't famous' which I love.

We headed back down to the main stage for Muse - they were absolutely fantastic!!! My second favourite of the whole day, awesome stage presence, great use of the stage and screen and I just can't help but love a group who rocks out so hard AND uses the piano!!! Very highly recommended - you missed out!

And then - one of The Hun's favourite bands - Tool. I though I knew a fair amount of their stuff, but there was only four of five that I could actually 'sing' along too. But they were also fantastic - my fourth fav of the day. It's fantastic that they're still playing and releasing, and hugging at the end of each set - they were really great and I'm glad I got the opportunity to see them.

When it was time to move along, The Hun managed to pick the rest of the boys we were with - The D was so insane that Eldest Bro's friend lost his shoes and he just had to get out of there. Youngest Bro also told us that his shoe fell off and he leant to down to fix it and got knocked down - he put his hand up and luckilly someone helped him up - that's INSANELY DANGEROUS! Not to mention the number of stories about the number of guys peeing in bottles... So we all headed off to see Crystal Method where we got split up again - I'd just bought my two glowsticks and started to get into it when we all got the message that everyone else was going home. The trains were packed and I got accosted by some guy on drugs asking if I was writing something about karate - I though he might have been talking about my tattoo but it wasn't on show... so I just backed away slooooooooowly.

That was pretty much that! Now if only Basement Jaxx would play in 2008...

Enny's Big Day Out

Tra-la, peeps! Off to Sydney v early tmr (with 12 others as organised by middle bro) for three nights in Sydney for my first Big Day Out!

My plan (in order of course!):

• Richard In Your Mind
• Devoted Few
• (start of) Dan Kelly and the Alpha Males
  
• Angus and Julia Stone
• (end of) Butterfly Effect
• Evermore
• Lily Allen
• (end of) My Chemical Romance
• Eskimo Joe
• John Butler Trio
• Dappled Cities Fly
• The Streets
• Must
• Tool
• Shapeshifter
  

AWESOME!

Lily Allen, Muse and Angus & Julia Stone are the ones I'm looking forward to the most - I can't wait!

Shall be back on Sat arvo, no doubt with a wrap up!

Say 'hullo!' to the overwhelmed looking girl with the Paul Frank cap!

New Fame

Now, I wasn't planning to post today - I whipped up a dodgy cartoon for Adam last night and thought I'd be right until Tuesday night... but as The Hun is sick in bed I'm playing Queen Domestic and doing the washing up and some laundry - there was a lull in the middle while waiting for the machine to finish so I jumped back on and checked out my statcounter (jus keeping an eye on those keeping an eye on me) and found a few links from one page I didn't recognise.

Remember this post where I pasted THIS smh article?

It's resulted in this and this and this (that I've found).

So if you've come here due to these discussion things, can I please say:

• I didn't write the article, Samantha Brett of Sydney Morning Herald did; and
  
• The article was pasted (and referenced!) for people to discuss their views, not as something I've taken at face value.

I hope this clears up any confusions and my next 'reference' post can be less fraught with incidents*.

*Though I do kinda like being portrayed as the victim** in all this.
** A sincere one, at that!

Reason not to wear a convertable bra to work

Yes I'm home early

I flexxed off the afternoon to try on the final size for my Bridesmaids dress. Bad News? I'm getting bigger size over the smaller size. Good News? I'm not more than 50% depressed about it - preferring to think it's due to my bust rather than my back fat, and I can always get it taken in. And it's more comfortable.

Anyways!

The Hun sent me a link to this article this morning (he knows I'm into these sortsa things) and as much as I can't stand the SMH blogs, this is the second interesting one he's sent me in as many weeks:

Is living together a good idea?

Thinking of moving in together before you get hitched? Well why not?

If you do, you'd find out ahead of time what it's like to sleep in the same bed night after night; share a laptop and unclog their toilet. Plus it would be cheaper, you could halve the washing load and there'd be someone else to clean the dishes. What's not to love?

"It's absolutely necessary to live with someone before marriage," many of my friends in their late 20s and early 30s holler when I pose the question. "How can you not? It's like buying a car without a test drive, or a pair of shoes without trying them on."

True, German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche believed we should all "live dangerously" if we want to reap the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from life.

But moving in with someone is a whole different ball game from going the dangers of going bungy jumping, entering Australian Idol or taking a peak at a picture of Britney Spears, sans the undies...

Sure, if we are asked to move into our new partner's luxurious abode with park views, two bathrooms and a trained Chihuahua, our brains would light up as brightly as a kid's in a candy store. But the initial rush doesn't last. Nor does it translate into better relationships.

Now before you complain that it's 2007, and those ancient "living-in-sin" rules no longer apply, let me just say I've been frantically attempting to pool together some info that puts a positive spin on shacking up without the ring, but sadly folks, apparently it's just not the case.

In fact, while 60 per cent of Australians are living together before they get married, a BBC report on the subject concluded that partners who live together are nine times more likely to split up than those who get married.

Introducing the modern perils of serial monogamy. We live with one person for a few months, even years. Then, when things don't go our way, instead of working at them, like say, a married couple might, we simply pack up our things and move in with the next person.

Ouch. And you thought shacking up before the big commitment would improve your chances? Think again.

A Columbia University study found there's actually less chance of marrying a person when you live with them, with only 26 per cent of women and a scant 19 cent of the men surveyed marrying the person they cohabited with.

Psychologist and radio personality Dr Laura Schlessinger backs up the stats. She cites "shacking up with your honey" as one of the "Ten stupid things women do to mess up their lives" in her book of the same name.

And if that's not enough already for your don't-live-together-before-marriage arsenal, let's hop over to the bedroom for just a moment.

The findings are that those who live together before marriage do not have the best sex. (I'm not sure I believe it, but those living alone can still hope it ain't true.)

The blogger who calls herself The Truth is still undecided. She notes that, while Australian culture is big on moving in together before marriage, other cultures don't share the same reasoning.

"So which way is better?" she wants to know. "And if you do move in with a guy before marriage, how many relationships actually end up in marriage? Girls, how long did it take till he popped the question? And for those that married before moving in - do they regret not moving in together before?"

It's an interesting conundrum. Of course many believe something along the lines of, "Why would anyone buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?"

But as Nietzsche says, life's all about living dangerously ...

Would you live together before marriage? What are the pros and cons on each side? What do you think makes a more successful future?

Don't get me wrong - any old monkey can trot out this sorta thing - it's the comments that make it interesting.

There seems to be two schools of though on the argument - they yes' and the no's.

Personally, I'm (obviously) not against the idea of living together before being married. I don't see it as a test drive, and I don't see it as a decision to be taken lightly or based on convenience or 'why not'.

We'd been talking about moving out whilst living in the Monash house (after our hasty retreat from the Chifley house). The Huns best friend was talking about how he and his wife were buying, leaving their house available to rent - we'd been there for dinner and it was lovely and new in a quiet area. When they mentioned that the rent would stay at the same price as they were just transferring the contract, the seal was made. And there was a lot of discussion taking place about the importance of the decision to me - that this was a 'next step' in something that we knew was lifelong, before the usual engagement, marriage, children etc - and my priorities are still the same. Marriage is important, but not more important than spending a lifetime with the one you love.

We've been living together for almost two years now - we moved in after 11 months together. And I do think it was the right thing for us to do - I think it's important to really get to know the person you plan to commit to for the rest of your life, to see them with the frazzled hair, no makeup, tired and grumpy, flatulent, cramped, hormonal, food poisened and morning breathed. Some of the commenters in the article also made reference to overseas travel being a good test for couples - spending 24 hours a day with your partner in one of the most stressful ongoing situations to see their worst, while still combining it with the high of travel.

But there does some seem to be a whole lot of people speaking a whole lot of 'people who live together first don't stay together' and it's quite depressing to hear, being one of the people who's sure if was the right thing to do. Luckily I read some valid points in the comments - People who don't live together first are often on the more conservative side and more likely to stay married than go through divorce. The more people that you've lived with before, the morely you are to up and leave. Sometimes people may try to 'save' a relationship by moving in together or getting married (which isn't going to work!).

So I guess it's not all bad news.

Besides, one of the commenters actually read the article Sam was quoting and found that it actually said:

"Partners who live together are up to nine times more likely to split up as those who get married, according to national statistics. But people who marry without living together first are just as likely to separate as those who cohabit then marry."

What are your thoughts?

Come out, come out...

(Copied from Deb)

I'm Interfamous!

Remember Point 19 from this?

I sent it into Totally Not Vegan (see the comics here) and they emailed me for more info so they could do the comic for it... and they did!

Here I am in all my net glory!!!

The wonderful mystery box

Anyways, I do apologise for the LG15 talk below - you may have been able to see through my plot to keep the links somewhere other than in my Mozilla tabs to keep things tidy. Also, I can't promise that you'll find this any more rivotting.

When it comes to ladies bathrooms, everyone has their favourite. At work, I'm a third from the end kinda gal - my old boss favours the one on the end even after I told her how the toilet furthest from the door is always germiest as it's the most used toilet (in all ladies toilets apparantly, though at our work it also seems to be the favoured one for stanking it up) but she has issues with using the cubicle closest to the door as it's the one favoured by our special staff (special as in it's the one where the murmering, singing and slurping comes from, where the toilet roll holder has been snapped off the wall, and where ladies have been found doing their business with the door not only unlocked but sitting wide open. This does not a lovely welcome make as it's the first cubicle you see by default in the mirror reflection and no amount of them singing 'so-rry' while doing there business is ever going to make it ok). My third from the end status also means that I don't mind (as much) going into the bathroom at the same time as her as I always know where she's going to be and I can relax in the fact there won't be any awkward there's-someone-too-close-and-I-can't-totally-relax type nonsense.

For a few months now (not an exageration, though I wish I'd marked the start date in my organiser) my cubicle has had (another!) special guest - the mystery pube. The mystery pube is curly like a signature and attached the wall, starting about ten centimetres from the gap. I often fall deep in though while gazing at mystery pube - How long have you been here? Who do you belong to? How did you get there? Did they put you there on purpose? Who works here that lets their pubes get so long? How many other people have noticed you? Who can I tell about you without coming off as seven kinds of freaky? Why hasn't the cleaner wiped you off? HOW MANY GERMS AM I IN THIS CONFINED SPACE WITH?

Today there was another new guest - a daddy longlegs (who's your daddy? he isn't!). At first I was startled and moved to make the switch to another cubicle, but decided I'd already shared it with person DNA, I guess a spider is no different. I was worried at first that someone would see him and squish him, then realised I was in the ladies room and they were more likely to squeal and switch then make an attack. Then I thought maybe I should move him outside, but figured the grief I get from security for bringing my futurama freezer bag full of lunch every day doesn't need to be amped up once they see me squealing outside holding an upside down cup over an envelope (I'm all for saving them, doesn't mean I like being the one doing it!). Then I thought maybe I should tell the cleaner so that he knows not to kill him - but seriously, what type of cleaner would move a spider that's had ample opportunity to remove a more offensive item from the same stall!

The race is on - who will outwit, outplay and outlast the other? So far it's a bit of tie (I've had more than half a dozen opportunities to keep track of how they're going due to the detox thing - I've already drunk more than 2.5 litres of water at work today!) as both are still there.

Hrm, it's starting to get kinda crowded...

Do you tube?

I was a bit late getting on the YouTube bandwagon - even now I'm not all THAT good at is, preferring to stick to a few of the well known ones that aren't cool any more.

So I'm going to give you the links and you can tell me if you get into it or not (ie, I feel bad I haven't posted but since Sat and I think my posts are getting more space in between and I don't like that byt I'm still trying to timetable all my stuff please forgive me don't hate me).

I found out about LonelyGirl15 after it came out in the news as being a shock-horror fake - only then did I realise that it was something that people liked and were upset about, so thought it was worth a look.

Bree is the main character - I thought she was pretty cool at first but now I kinda find her annoying.

DanielBeast is her 'friend' but you know there's a lil sum'n sum'n going on in his head, and she refuses to admit it. I quite like him because he's geeky but The Hun says it's obviously fake because they put the nerdy guy in with the hot girl to make the loner subscribers feel good.

Gemma is a twat. She's really an aussie and she annoys me with her puffy mouth and fake accent, tho I will admit I do think she is pretty too. She knows Bree from when they were younger and was the third 'player'. There's also been some recent changes in her site - it seems someone has taken over and is posting their own videos...

Jonas is yum. I'm not quite sure how he got in other than he helps Bree and Daniel out a bit earlier in the piece. He boxes and he's funny and I have an image of him shirtless in my mind but can't remember if it was in a video or if I made it up.

I had managed to keep on top of it all and watched them pretty much in order as I got in before Gemma and Jonas came into it - so if you can do it that way it might make some more sense.

This afternoon as I was sitting down to surf blogs before hopefully posting something new, I found out there are another two players in the game - and I don't get to catch up until on the weekend!

It's hard to tell who/what 10033 is - a sister, a brother or an ex?! I don't look at the forums or any other sites, so if the video's don't make sense I'm gonna hafta get my detective cap on. Tachyon too - I have no idea!

OpAphid is a new player - though from the previews it seems that they're responsible for the dissapearance of Cassandra - a friend that Bree and Gemma have mentioned in their video's from when they were younger...

Anyways - if it were to be turned into a movie I don't think that I'd be into it. Maybe on video? But I have the feeling I'm a bit above the target age group. Plus Bree's play on cutesy pisses me off - I know longer find myself subconciously twitching my mouth.

Lemme know if you're into it/Have any info to share/Have any thoughts on it!

Sad Panda

I consider myself to be a funny type of people person. I get anxious around new people, becoming either dead quiet or totally overcompensating, The Hun says I'm different with my friends than I am with him, and I seem to spend a fair amount of time feeling that any problems that people are going through are also a burden I shoud carry and something I should fix.

The Hun is camping with friends at the moment (back tmr!) so I've spend a lil time pottering about by myself. I was at xhmM's house last night (he is camping so was watching movies with his gf and another friend) and had tried to book myself to spend today doing something too, so sent around an email to see if anyone was going to the 'nats this weekend - I've never been. Although I knew of five different people going, not one of them contacted me today to organise something (with the exception of youngest bro who messaged at an ungodly hour to say he wasn't going so I shouldn't wait for him - though I didn't hear it, I finally think I've managed to block out my message tone while sleeping!)

(You can also tell I'm home alone as I'm rambling)

So after getting out of bed mid-to-late morning and realising nobody loved me, I hopped on the scales as I have been doing all week. My weight has gone up 800g since Monday. In fact, it has been going up all week (with the exception of a few 100g loss on Day 2). So I moped about this a bit and decided to eat half a bag of rice crackers and mope. This didn't help. Then I decided to try on my two cocktail dresses - neither of them do up. This also didn't help. So I decided to run some washing. Needless to say that was NO help.

So I decided to take up Jey's advice and head out the Belconnen markets.

And the store was lovely.

And this is what I bought:

(Mozzarella!)

Cheese!! Thanks Jey!! I tell you, this stuff is so good grilled on toast that I may or may not have almost finished it all already... the expiry is the 12th, so I figure it's gotta go soon anyways... This would also be a good place to tell you how I was preheating the griller and then found out 10 minutes later I had been heating the oven, not the grill... but it's not really that much of a story and proddly not really worth a mention.

(Miso).

Do you know how many different types of this stuff there are?! It was all very stressful - a recipe I have saved up requires 1tsp of Miso, but that's all it says! Hopefully it works out okay...

(Deodorant)

Because vegan deoderant is hard to find. Well, effective and nice smelling vegan deoderant has thus far been hard to find - this will be my fourth attempt in just over 7 months, what with the tea tree one (too strong smelling), the Lush bar (it hurts to rub on) and the salt water (ineffective and drips).

(Soy Ice 'cream')

How could I not! I was a mopey girl home alone for the weekend and there's something quite cathartic about eating icecream out of a tub for dinner. And while I feel quite full, I don't regret it. Yet.

(Cellulite Cream. Ugh)

Let's not skirt around this, hey? It's hardly 'Life is beautiful' in my pants. And it needs to be fixed. And no, you don't need to tell me that cheese and ice cream aren't going to help because I know that, which is why I bought the next product:

Detox! Although technically, the product I bought next was actually this:

And I didn't realise I'd bought the wrong one until I was home and I was going to traipse all the way back across Canberra to return it, so I stopped past three seperate smaller shops before I went to Tuggeranong to buy the one I actually wanted - middle bro said he'd buy it off me - Hooray!

So yeah, tmr I kick off a bit of a detox - having been inspired by Deb, methinks! I'm ready to go to the gym tmr and I'm feeling motivated - I have to strike the balance between healthy and quantity (mebbe TOO many beans this week?!) and I'll taking DOWN the chart I have on the wall and chart myself by how I fit into the cocktail dresses until the bridesmaids dress comes in.

I've stopped concentrating now coz Clueless is on - Enny out!

Settling into '07

Well, I can honestly say the year has only gotten better so far. Albeit I've been to the doctor to have a mole looked at AND had another one of those eyeflash migraine things (no migraine yet this time). I seriously think I'm a hypochondriac... but I hadn't noticed the red weepy lump behind my knee before and I couldn't remember if I normally had a mole there or not and The Hun said Iit looked like a moll mole, so I figured better safe than sorry. I gotta stop throwing away my money in $60 ($60!!!!! (minus the rebate of $30 something, but still)) bundles like that...

Anyways, I finally removed the link to my Enny-Point blog because I'm not really WeightWatching at the moment - I'm just trying to eat 'better' and get 'fitter'. Like coooking up a steaming pile of a recipe from one of my Christmas Cookbooks - I can't really give the recipe, but it's basically rice, kidney beans, tofu, carrots, mushroom, tomato, tomato juice, garlic, onion, olives and some herbs and spices. You see? Not necessarilly low in points (with the rice, beans and tofu) but good for me... and doing pump and weights at the gym - won't make me lighter as such, but will tone me and get me fitter...

Monday was spent eating boiled rice and water, with a lil gatoride (playin' it safe..!) and a walk with Max, middle bro and dadsy.

Tuesday I had mueslie and light soy milk, a lil baggie of air popped popcorn, a redeye from 10 - 11:30 to dull the pain in my head, a bowl of lunch mash, some sultanas, a walk with Max, middle bro, dadsy, mumsy and youngest bro, a Pump Class and dinner was a pasta, eggplant, tofutti cream cheese, tomato combination.

Today was mueslie and light soy milk, a lil baggie of air popped popcorn, a redeye at 1 (I'm spreading them out you see!), a bowl of lunch mash, some sultanas and two pieces of vegemite toast to absorb the dispirin direct. Dinner will be leftovers from last night and some lunch mash (oooh yeah, go the mash!) and I'll head out to the shed and punch the bag if this mini headache goes back to where it came from and I get sick of watching Zelda.

I'll try not to carry on a lot about what I'm eating (spesh as I can't really give out the recipe's!) but lemme know if I do and I'll try to tone it down a bit.

(Also, has anyone else watched Weeds? I love Mary-Louise Parker and I think the show's hilarious (we've 'acquired' season one and are up to the last episode!), but there's still that try-hard-wannabe in me that is making me think it's promoting pot... you don't see any of the bad side of it on the show now, do you?)

Has everyone else setteled into their new year thang?

Happy New Year!

(If you are the delicate type, you may wish to skip through this post!)

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before that one of my cousisns (the one we visited in Melbourne) and I used to get variations on the same gift for Christmas from relatives - the same thing but in different colours or patterns. One year we both got given a letter writing set that included talcum powder (I think to make the letters smell nice?!) and we used these kits to write letters to each other - nothing that interesting as we used to see each other fairly often anyways.

Somewhere along the line it came out that at some stage when she was younger, my cousin was so ill that she was sitting on the toilet AND throwing up at the same time - I then started to address her letters to Miss Poo and Spew. I can't be entirely sure who she addressed her letters too, but I'm pretty sure that it was related to the time I picked up my dog and patted him on the back like a baby and he threw up on me.

I should have realised that she would have to be in a pretty sad state of affairs to be pooing AND spewing, but I guess I never really realised how bad she would feel.

Until last night.

I. THOUGHT. I. WAS. DYING.

I didn't have too much of a big night - we were about to walk down to xhmM's place when it started BUCKETING DOWN rain and hail... here's the view when we were about to leave, out the front:

and out the back:

(The pics do it no where NEAR justice - it was hailing and the rain was pouring down at 135 degree angle!!)

So we waited a while and then caved, driving the Swift down the road, then waited 5 minutes in the car before xhmM's gf realised we were still not inside, and let us in through the garage.

I had four cruisers and three frozen daiquiri's, and felt fine the entire night (with the exception of seeing the embarassing footage of me at the reception from the wedding we attended in November!) and we headed off just after 1am as we were only sitting on the couch watching video hits (it wasn't ALL that boring - the wedding ppl brought extended family who were responsible for dropping glass, unlocking the toilet and pushing the grooms head through the toilet window AND spilling a glass of red wine all over the carpet!).

I was settling to sleep at about 2am and mentioned to The Hun that my tummy was feeling a bit crook - my head felt fine and I wasn't drunk, but I felt queasy... at 4am - DISASTER struck. I woke up and figured it was just my body getting ready to release some of the water I was drinking before bed (just in case) so hopped up but almost fell over - I was quite dizzy. And once I made it to the bathroom? Well, I'll skip over the finer details, but there was sweating, almost retching, some blind moving from the seat to the floor and back again, ringing ears, shoulder pain, dizziness and the toilet mat ended up in the bin.

I'm feeling better today (I felt a lot better when I returned to bed almost an hour after I last left it though there was some shivering), but have stuck to boiled rice, water and a Gatorade thing - there is NO WAY I want to risk feeling that crook again.

Though I'm not sure what did it - I only ate 2 pieces of toast with nuttelex, a bag of salty chips, two nut burgers and two rolls, but it wasn't the lack of food that did - something must've been dodgy... I'm THIS close to emailing my cousin to apologise (again) for all that 'tween' nastiness.

Anyways, hope you all had a fun(ner!) NYE and I promise to have a non-toilet post up soon!