As all the cool kids are blogging their goals for the coming year, I thought I would too.

1. Get into my course (the Grad. Dip. of Media Studies) and finish it with great marks and a sense of confidence in my new skills.
2. Launch my blog and work to make it a success.
3. Be more social, including being a better correspondent to my fabulous friends overseas and making more time for local friends.
4. Read more widely- new authors, new topics and finally read all those things that have been on my list since high school, like William Burroughs' The Naked Lunch, John Osbourne's Look Back In Anger and Alex Trocchi's Cain's Book.
5. Track down copies of all those European movies from the 60s and 70s that I want to see.
6. Constantly be on the lookout for new things to inspire me, either through friends, Flickr or the library.
7. Learn more about zines and publish and distribute at least one.
8. Work harder at eating well and being more active.
9. Decide a course for my future and work towards it.

Thoughts?

Having just inherited a pretty sizeable David Bowie collection from my mother (about 32 albums!), I need to tidy up my vinyl collection and decided to see if anyone wanted any of the following. They're mostly dodgy Op Shop-style classical albums collected by my Dutch grandparents, but some would make a great gag gift.

( Read more... )

In other news, Andrew and I just finished his folio, so I'm now officially on holidays, not that it feels like it. In the near future, I will be trying to wind down from my degree and gearing up for Christmas. I feel- and probably sound- very flat.

Having potentially been driven mad by the delicious cooking smells coming from my next door neighbour's house, here's a revelation.

Daniel a.k.a Sir Frederick Chook of Frilly Shirt (this is him below)


looks like

Rick Davies of Supertramp (that's him in the middle with the white pants)


(btw, how much does it look like their faces were Photoshopped on? There's some crazy, light-bending shit going on there).

Here's some more material for comparison:




(Rick's second from left...next to the saxophone).

Finally, because the clothing is about right (minus, you know, the trampery),


(it's the banner from a Supertramp website. I know, I have no shame. Rick's the first on the left).

Sumaya was considering this not long ago and I told her that I always got teased in high school for suposedly looking like the girl from Spy Kids:


(Not the redhead)


(I'm the non-sheep).

Sumaya was extremely kind and said I look like Camilla Bell (Brazillian supermodel):



which I agree with- I often tell people she's what I'd look like if I weren't retarded.

Thoughts, similar comparisons?

Dear friends, I bring you the first of what I hope will be many installments of a new game I shall call Rate It or Hate It, currently lacking the creativity or effort to find a better, less cliched name.

Here's how this will work:

1. I will post a video that has made me wince for whatever reason.
2. The kind of video will be determined by the genre which I will designate for each round (not sure as to how many parts per round- I will probably let you guys decide when to end the round).
2. You have to watch it and then reply to tell whether you rate it or hate it, but you must be able to give a good reason.
3. The video will be added to either a Rated or Hated list according to whichever response gets the highest percentage.
4. I will assess who has contributed the most to each round and then I shall send them a prize, which at this point, will probably be some of my weirder CDs (Gregorian chants, bad dance remixes of 70s ballads etc).

Our first video shall be:



Don't Leave Me This Way by The Communards

I shall be most miffed if you all don't take the required six minutes to play.

Edit after posting: the first genre is 80's pop!

Today, I have been doing washing and being a Flickr whore. During the course of pegging numerous pairs of socks on the line, I noticed that Spring really was in the air, so during the course of my Flickr-whoring, I made a Spring mosaic to subject you guys to.



1. tulips, 2. single rose, 3. Barbara Cartland, 4. Pink Fairy Cottage, 5. Untitled, 6. pastel cuppies, 7. Trees, 8. nest here with me, please., 9. Ruffles and Gowns, 10. Ruffles and Gowns

Also, if you're feeling Spring-tastic too, here's a Flickr set starring the cutest little white ferret, Kit.

Here's a rant on vegetarians and vegans, but don't get huffy until you read it.

I'm at university, so of course there are people with alternative lifestyle choices in my classes and populating common areas- after all, university, for some, is the first true taste of adulthood; where you can be who/what you want (mostly without threat of persecution) and start to guide your life down the path you want it to go down. I have no problem with people living differently to me but do not, for God's sake, expect me to congratulate you for the fact that you don't eat meat or dairy.

I'm a meat eater. It may sound heartless to vegetarians and vegans, but I can cope with the fact that I've eaten something that once had a face. I also love cow's milk and its by-products and while I don't expect you to condone my choice, I do expect you to respect it. Just like I respect your decision to stick to the fruits, vegies and nuts etc that a few of you seem to feel meat-eaters are too stupid to eat much of.

In my English tutorial on Monday, a vegetarian was work-shopping a piece of her writing that centred around her reason for not eating meat (which was that her grandfather once killed a cow in front of her as part of lecture on why humans need to eat meat). I had no particular feelings about the piece or the story (except that her grandfather should have thought the whole thing through before he did it) until the writer declared "And I haven't eaten meat in 27 years" smugly, as if she should be congratulated. And she was (of sorts)- another vegetarian chimed in: "Me too. I haven't eaten meat in 13 years".

I'm not ever going to congratulate someone for living a certain way. I do, however, congratulate them on having made a choice that they're happy to have made and that they feel makes their life better. I congratulated Estella- the writer- on her choice to forgo meat and whatever else in the same way I congratulate a smoker for dealing with the shit smokers inevitably get and toughing it out in the rain/wind/heat to get their hit of nicotine. Vegetarians cop plenty of shit too, but if they're happy and loving their new lifestyle, more power to them. But the fact that they've made their choice and they see it as beneficial does not mean that they can lecture me on the flaws in my lifestyle, which leads to my next story.

I did my school's Open Day on Sunday and worked with a girl who I knew because, like me, she has helped out in previous years. In a lull in conversation, I made the mistake on saying that her Vegan name plate necklace was cute (it was in an awesome retro font) and had to suffer through platitudes on the vegan lifestyle for the rest of the day. This particular vegan was refreshingly pro-active- rather than complaining about a lack of public eating options as the other vegans and some vegetarians I've spoken to do, Tara accepted the fact that she had to be better prepared and always carried certain food items with her. She wasn't bitter about this, but she did go on and on about how she would have died unless she 'converted' and how other vegans and vegetarians were just lazy and ignorant if they didn't know their options (my words, not hers). At lunch, she also made a show of loudly going through the ingredients in the juice that came with our catered lunches and declaring that she didn't know if one preservative in particular was 'animal' or not. I told her that it was great she was happy with her lifestyle and felt better for it, but I still wanted to run in the opposite direction when she said she was a bit of a martyr about being vegan and seemed proud of it.

Fortunately, I've only come across a few of those smack-worthy vegetarians who say "I'm a vegetarian, meat is soooo fattening!" or "Eating meat is animal genocide and one day, karma's going to kick you up the ass for being part of it!", but it's still enough to make me wary of discussing my lunch with a stranger. I'm all well and good with people not eating meat because of beliefs like that- it's their choice and their opinion, after all- but why do the rest of us have to hear about it 3 times a day or more? Surely eating only potato cakes, chips with tomato and vegetarian pizza with Diet Coke for lunch every day as some 'lipstick vegetarians' at La Trobe do is less healthy than a lamb souvlaki and a milkshake, but hey, I'm happy to keep thoughts like these to myself if you manage to keep a straight face and shut mouth when I eat my usual chicken, Swiss cheese, avcado and salad on multi-grain and chase it down with a Lady Grey tea with full cream cow's milk.

Edit: it'd be awesome if I could spell properly in my titles!

I just wanted to let everyone know that Issue 2 of Cerulean Rain- my beloved's debut as our resident design bitch- is now available and I expect you all to at least download it and ooh and aah at the cover and friend the CR Facebook page (find it through mine). Extra points for anyone who actually reads some and prizes to anyone who submits!

In other news, I have been busy with school. I have about a month and a half left of my degree and have been stressing out excitedly. Yesterday was my university's Open Day and it was my third year helping out- I felt truly old dealing with those little highschool kids and very mature fielding questions about how important highschool is in the scheme of things.

In other, other news, I have a new Flickr favourites mosaic that I'm going to subject you all to- this time, it's retro and retro-inspired interiors.



1. Retro Kitchen 1960's, 2. Retro Modern Kitchen, 3. First Lady, 4. Agnetha's Office, 5. Agnetha's Office, 6. Batik Explosion, 7. 70's loft, 8. 70's loft, 9. 1960s Advertising - Magazine Ad - Cannon Royal Family (USA), 10. furniture, 11. floor, 12. Hotel room my last night

Trine is 21 today and to celebrate, here's Naked Mohawk Baby Carrot Jockeys!!!!



Just what you wanted right, Trine?

No need to thank me *lowers head modestly*

In any case, my best wishes for you today, including hopes that you manage to stave off further injury and poor health and that hopefully Naked Mohawk Baby Carrot Jockeys are a native Danish thing and someone buys you one!

To close: Happy Birthday, my friend. If possible, go ride a carrot and be free!

Here's a mosaic based on Flickr favourites:



1. vintage nude, 2. vintage nude, 3. clara bow, 4. Clara Bow, 5. Brigitte Bardot, 6. Brigitte Bardot (Une Parisienne, 1957), 7. Elizabeth Taylor, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, 8. Elizabeth Taylor with son, Michael Wilding, Jr

(Aren't these picture titles fascinatingly exciting and imaginative?)

I constantly marvel at how tasteful black and white makes things look- I think all porn and/or Lindsey Lohan movies should be done in a old-school format. That said, please do not direct me to celebrity sex tapes rendered in B&W.

Proceed to my Flickr photostream for a better look and my Flickr favourites for the originals.

Does anyone remember this song? Or, more particularly, this video? 90's kids FTW! Anyway, it's based on the traditional American ballad On Top of Old Smokey which, strangely enough, was covered by ABBA in a medley (that appears on the re-issue of 'ABBA' the album) which included Midnight Special and 'Pick A Bale O' Cotton', which my preferred lyrics receptacle and Wikipedia like to tell me does not exist.

All of this lovely stumbling down memory lane and musical trivia aside, I wanted to discuss random songs that we remember well into adulthood that show a shocking lack of cool.

My song- This Is My Idea from The Swan Princess. Lame, I know.

Thoughts?