See Dots Point - Point, Dots, Point

If you're not a dot point reading person, could you at least skim the first one and reply if you can? That'd be great - thanks team.

• So - my 500th (ARGH WHERE HAS ALL MY TIME GONE ETC) post is coming up soonish. Any ideas/requests/suggestions? If you're not into dotpoints then I understand if you stop reading now.

• We celebrated our third Cuzmas weekend before last (backstory here), down at the 'family' coast house about an hour out of Batemans Bay. 9 people (the bro's, two cousins and three partners), only two doors and just one toilet/shower. Highlights included drinking and playing DS/PS3/SNES as that's about all we did due to the crappy weather. Lowlights included hearing someone hang a turd in the middle of the night in too much detail and spending a lot of time cleaning up after messy people. Extreme lowlight occured the Tuesday after we got back when I replied to an email that suggested a ban on game machines next time - I replied saying that I didn't mind them as long as people played together (The Hun and eldest bro's gf spent a fair amount of time reading by themselves) and that we should do a roster for the crappy jobs like cooking, cleaning, washing etc. I received a barage of emails from the bro's telling me I was passive aggressive, it was my own fault if I didn't have fun, if I'd asked them to do something they would have, they were looking forward to me not being there so they could have the room with a door on it and that I should cut down on the Haterade. No input from eldest bro's gf (who I thought was on the same page as me) and a really good reply from The Hun that he only sent to me and wouldn't send on. You may not realise what a delicate petal I am, but I basically shut down and spent the rest of the week avoiding talking to them. I dunno how I feel about it all, other than hurt - I was the odd one out having not been there the last time and it totally didn't help me at all. Moreso when middle bro only later replied that the roster was a good idea (if eldest bro wrote it) - why not jus say that in the first place rather than sh!t all over me? Who knows.

• Things have gotten a little better re: Max. One of dadsy's rello's took a lovely photo of him on the day we celebrated dadsy's 50th, the day before he had his fit. He looks really happy and it's a pretty good shot of him (much better than the dirty faced soft copy I posted!) and I got some copies made for the family and have a framed pic in my room. It makes a big different to reinforce that image where he is happy and healthy, as he was for most of the time.

• I made gf1 and gf2 some bracelets for their Lindeman Island holiday - each bracelet had their name on it and 'WWED' (What Would Enny Do) so that they could look at it and think of me (who's got tickets? Enny's got tickets!). Seems that gf1 took the bracelet to mean that I would be generally drunk and debaucherous, pimping them out at every chance I had, but behaved herself and played my role by WooOOOooohing at gf2 at every given opportunity. Gf2 took it to mean that I would instead dissaprove of everything and spoil the fun, but totally did NOT behave herself, giving gf1 plenty of opportunities to WooOOOoooh! I got a lovely surprise last night when I met up with them for coffee at 9pm and got given a WD(gf1)A(Gf2)D bracelet (What Did (Gf1) And (Gf2) Do). How awesome is that?! Sadly, I still don't know all the stories.

• We drove up to Sydney on Friday for Homebake and got a call from Dadsy in the middle of the day to let us know Max's ashes were ready if we could pick them up. The vet closed at 7pm, we left our house at 2:30pm (stopping for petrol and to pick up the tickets from my parents house) and checked into the Hotel at 7:40pm. UGH. The traffic into Sydney was MENTAL. How are there so many cars at the start of the M5 such that you're forced to regularly stop, only occassionally being able to peak at 60kmph?! It didn't help that we must've missed an exit out of a tunnel, were directed to turn left at a road that just was not open at the time, and were sitting at a massive intersection near Nee-Sega World at 6:58 when we decided we could just pick Max up on Saturday morning. My blood sugar was low, I was p!ssy at not being let into the lanes I needed to be in, and I was admittedly a bit emotional about not being able to pick up my dog (as well as some resistance from The Hun about holding him - we compromised and he sat tightly at The Hun's feet whenever we were in the car). I was so angry I could feel my heart beating in my throat. Then there was the hotel...

• Ugh again. The room itself was pretty good (though others in our group of 10 did not seem to think so, being stuck in a smoking room and all) at the Travelodge, HOWEVER they have NO idea about customer service. I pulled up in an alley and The Hun dashed in to ask about parking - the dude gave The Hun a carpark machine ticket and a map to show him where it was. We circled around the block three times before we made it in, then saw there was a boom gate - so we stuck our ticket in. It spat it out, let us through, we parked with no worries and then hauled our luggage around the block to check in. We then spent 20 MINUTES talking to the guy about checking in. The first issue was that middle bro had booked all the rooms (four on the first night, five on the second) under his name, causing a lot of apparent confusion. This was complicated moreso when I tried to organise trundle beds in two of the rooms - we aborted that about five minutes into the bedazzled stare. Then there was talk about parking - I told him we needed to duck out on the Saturday morning so that we could get Max, so could we please get another parking ticket so that we could get out in case our already inserted ticket didn't work. Somehow, he didn't seem to understand that we had inserted our parking ticket and managed to get it back out, even after I did a fairly accurate reenactment of the whole debacle. After 10 minutes of us seemingly agreeing but him still looking confused, we decided that I would just come down and get another 'prepaid' ticket on the Saturday morning - Just In Case. Come Saturday morning, I'm standing at the front desk reenacting the whole thing again for the girl at the desk who could not comprehend what was going on, but gave me printed instructions like I was some kind of idiot. Perhaps they should give you the instructions to take a ticket from the boomgate and put that same ticket into the pay machine FOLLOWED BY the hotel prepaid ticket when you ask about parking, rather than wordlessly handing a prepaid ticket over. This whole thing makes me angrier than necessary, but I should not have to spend 40 minutes of my life telling a story about parking (neither should you have to sit and read about it!). To top it off, I received a call from the desk manager on the Saturday night for some unknown reason, telling me that two people from our group had arrived to get into their room even though a) they'd stayed there the previous night, b) middle bro had checked in their rooms for them that morning (including moving their luggage) and c) WTF does it have to do with me?! It was like he was calling with questions, but there was no questions actually asked. Goddamnit.

• On the bright side, they were shooting a scene for a move in the carpark as we were leaving. It has a guy shooting down another guy and it was VERY loud. Also VERY terrifying for the two tourists who were walking past unawares that it was a setup until they were chased down by some of crew. Heh/Aww.
  

• Homebake was pretty good too. Highlights were obviously some of the bands, the turkish spinach things, the Hare Krishna food, the raindbow ice drinks, the funny cameramen perving on people on the mainstage and the recycling scheme where people got a $1 drink voucher (or $1 cash) for returning their bottles/cans. Lowlights were the drunken idiots, the toilets, people peeing everywhere and the sweaty people who danced into you repeatedly. Also - note for the gents - repeatedly blowing smoke onto a girl after she's moved away from you and glared at you is NOT funny.

• We saw Foreign Heights (who only played two songs due to sound problems and the death metal group on the main stage playing WAY too lound, drowing out their mexican instrumentalists AND their rapping); Kid Confucius (who I had mixed up with Kid Kenobi so was very pleasantly surpised to be listening to sexytimes lounge music rather than a DJ with a record player); Art of Fighting (whose lead singer supported Holly Throsby accoustic and was awesome, but was pretty unsuited to a festival); Operater Please (of which I would marry any of, with the excpetion of the keyboard player who jumped too much, and with more of a lean to the totally underage but totally adorable drummer - it all sounds the same but they were pretty awesome), Blue King Brown (who started late and who I just could not enjoy as it was too hot and crowded and I was getting claustrophobic AND danced into, but they were The Huns higlight), Angus & Julia Stone (who also had sound problems but were fantastic AND Angus shaved his beard), Josh Pyke (who is cute and chatty and lovely and did really well), Gotye (who was awesome but had the most annoying crowd, very few of who I think were fans), Paul Dempsey (The Something For Kate guy that The Hun was superkeen to see but who I'm just not that into, though appreciate him moreso accoustic than blaring of The Hun's stereo), 15 minutes of Missy Higgins (I got to hear Scar, Slide and that other new one so I saw my favourites AND she was fantastic, even if she restarted that new one three times because she couldn't remember the first verse), 7 minutes of Architecture in Heksinki (who started an hour late and oh my god they were so annoyingly sh!t that I couldn't stomach it), six songs of Paul Kelly (including the From Little Things, Big Things Grow one as a duet with Missy Higgins, the I've done all the dumb things one and the They got married early, never had no money one) and then a teeny bit of The Divinyls who I just could not get into and just seemed to whinge a lot and look old. Though I read when I got back that she's recently been diagnosed as having MS. And I think I overheard her say into the mic that she'd come out just like Missy Higgins had. Right.
  

• Has anyone ever had one of those Hungry Jacks hash browns? Oh my god - they are so oily they don't even hold together! Where were you when I needed you Maccas?!

• We went bowling for a branch Christmas party last week and I bowled 150 on my first game - awesome! It was downhill from there, and moreso when some uni friends booked a lane that night and asked me along - I played four games in one day and my left leg was stuffed from the lunge when I bowled! Who knew it was such good exercise?!

• I got some acrylics last week too and I heart them - I have deep purple tips instead of white and I don't care if you think they sound terrible coz they totally aren't. You'll just have to trust me on this.

• I just finished the worst book in the world - Lipstick Jungle by Candace Bushnell (quick googlage just revealed it's being made into a series - ugh). It was on the 2 for $20 table so I should have releasid, but let me summarise for you: The fashion one fails, then succeeds, then gets a rich boyfriend, then dumps him, then gets drunk and acts dumb, the loses the deal, then takes her boyfriend back; The movie one gets left by her husband, flips out, takes him back, loses him again, becomes a success, gets a boyfriend in the form of her former enemy; The other one starts an affair, ends the affair without being caught. Fin.

Feel all caught up now?!