Apples..... and Seattle Oranges

Guess what I discovered? Oddly enough, not that I was adopted, or that Pink's hair isn't actually pink - for the record, I am not adopted and yes I know Pink's name is a nom de plume, or whatever the singing version is termed - but that the Australian Tax Office's much vaunted e-tax doesn't work on iMacs!! I know, what kind of wacko oversight is that? Here they are even sending me text messages urging me to get my tax in, and use e-tax to do it, and then this!! Admittedly I have left the joy of doing tax, and let's face it why holiday in the Bahamas when you can stay home and do tax right, to the very last day - I am either doing something the VERY moment you can do it, or leaving it to the last time-crushing minute (where I get to experience it with the rest of humanity - yippee!!) - and so now I am scrambling to get access to my house mate's PC. Thank goodness he hasn't seen the light and switched to an iMac, otherwise I'd be doing my tax at an internet cafe/jewelry store/pet supplies depot, and you just know the kitty litter will just get everywhere don't you? Thank goodness my house mate still worships at Bill Gate's possibly (and don't quote me on this) badly pedicured feet, instead of Steve Job's no doubt immaculate hoofers....

....I do wonder though why I pay my taxes...... well apart from the fact that if I don't I will get fined, thrown into jail, and possibly traded to another country in a carbon emissions trading scheme (and you just know it won't be a cool country like Iceland)..... when my very own tax office can't find someone somewhere who can program for iMacs! I may suggest they take one of those nifty courses at the Apple Temple in George Street, Sydney where you can learn all about using iMacs (as well as no doubt why Apple is quite likely the way to eternal salvation... no really.... that's what I have heard)...I may even use my tax return - and after all this stress there had better be one!! LOL - to purchase a gift certificate for them to attend said course..... ahhh, who am I kidding? LOL I will, as always, spend it on wine, men and singing, which as we all know, is a very sensible investment option in this financially unsettling times.... yes use denial to block out reality... it has always worked for me, and so too the Tax Office who apparently have been too busy carousing with wine, men & song to update e-tax!

POP GOZA!!! "WALL-E"

I am 42 years old. I have witnessed much.... and I have been exposed to much Hollywood-generated hype. It's effect on me is generally not what the rabid marketers intended (salivating as they are at all the expected sales they envisage will flow from their strenuous promotion) - I switch off, automatically assume the product being spruiked is a pop culture mongrel in desperate need of a decent and fast death & burial, and divert my attention elsewhere. It isn't hard to find something else to delight the senses in this pop-culture saturated world. 

But something about Wall-E kept capturing my attention. Yes I am a Pixar tragic from way back (with the odd exception of Cars) and yes, a quality movie, which this one clearly was judging by all the positive reviews it had garnered, will always draw me in, but there was something else that kept nagging at me. An intangible sense that this movie was something really special, and that's an unusual sensation in an era when quality is often swamped by mediocre quantity....

So last Tuesday night I took advantage of Tight Ass Tuesday, and went to see this movie that my inner pop culture bitch had proclaimed would be superlative, and worthy of the hype..... and it was! It was without a doubt one of the most intelligent, intellectually and emotionally, well-rounded, heartfelt movies I have seen in years, and with minimal dialogue too. Everything was handled with just the right amount of attention from the establishing of Wall-E's character at the start of the film to his romance with EVE to the return to Earth by the obese relics of the human race..... and suffused with a slapstick humour that complemented rather than detracted from the touching events that unfolded. This is a movie truly worthy of the word "classic", and I have already proclaimed it "DVD Worthy" (yes I know I should be hip and call it Download Legally Worthy but it just have the same ring!), and I dare say I shall be watching this long after the hype has subsided, and the frenzied marketers are drooling into their bedpans in a nursing home......

I Just Might Be The Lunatic You're Looking For

Dang Those Decibels of Death!

I think my ears have finally stopped ringing.... which is a good thing because Tinitis is not one of those fun things that you'll regale with fondness in your yearly Christmas newsletter to the folks back home, nor recount as an achievement worthy of accolades and a story on A Current Affair..... no, it's just very annoying, and feels much like having a miniature Hunchback of Notre Dame ringing his bells inside your head while your lie with your head under a pillow in 10m of water... so how did I come to have the Bells of St Clements peeling inside my head?

Dancing! Yes dancing! Well more specifically, spending three hours bopping away in a very small club on Oxford St, Sydney, just under a metre away from very large speakers, pumping out very loud remixes... in hindsight not the smartest thing to do, but at the time, eager to dance the early morning away, and hot men all around me, it seemed the very epitome of sense and sensibility..... I was out celebrating a friend's birthday and Palms, my favourite club on the now seedy strip, was jammin' and slammin' and.... nope, that's my dance-themed street language all tapped out!..... and Smirnoff Ice in hand, it was very easy to dirty dance and boogie and not notice the volume was deafening.....

...... until I stepped outside and oddly everyone was whispering, and the cars were gliding by silent as a mechanical lamb belching out noxious emissions (trust me such a thing exists... I am fairly certain the North Koreans have one hidden away somewhere), and my friends were speaking with this weird echoey lilt..... fairly certain that a silence bomb had not gone off, and that my friends were as Caucasian (and non-accented) as they moment we entered the club, I had to conclude that the boomin' beats had temporarily laid waste to my oh-so-tender 42 year old ears..... yes the ears that had once withstood decibels that would shred a monkey (I have never tried this but have it on good authority, such a thing is possible), now caved after a mere 3 hours in a crowded club about the size of a shoebox..... hmm, in retrospect, as I said, probably not the smartest move, but more fun that sticking the aforementioned shredded monkey back together with paper clips and super glue..... and that, my friends, makes it all worthwhile, especially now the Hunchback has stopped his blessed ringing, and my synapses have returned to their silent furiously-whirring selves.....

PARTY ON!!! Very, very quietly please....shhhhhh....

I will have my pigeon to go, please

Ah, life in Sydney.... caught the train home last night squashed like a sardine (actually I secretly envy sardines and their roomy abodes), swam 750m, ate a healthy dinner, downloaded some tunes from iTunes including Snow Patrol's brilliant new song "Take Back the City", went to bed early (OK early-ish...I am addicted to a sci-fi saga at the moment by Kevin J Anderson and I had to keep reading! ), woke up at 4.45 and walked for an hour........... and I saw pigeons feeding on vomit...... yes folks, not only was someone not able to hold their drink, but the by-product of their over-imbibing fed a family of Sydney pigeons, and oh frabjous day, I got to see it.... naturally this being Sydney, the drinker had no doubt just eaten a gourmet meal at a nearby restaurant and so at least the pigeons got to eat well.... they are gourmand rats of the sky here after all..... I can picture them on holidays in Paris eating baguette-infused protein spills (vomit to lay people) and following up with a few sips from a stagnant puddle in the gutter, which this being Paris, was probably spilled from an Evian bottle..... yes Sydney is where I am more than likely to see it all, even if I don't want to.....

"Run!" he said. "OK, well just walk quickly then"

In a clear sign that I have been consumed by a raging madness (as opposed to those calming, zen-like madnesses, I guess), I got up at 4.45 a.m. today to meet my friend, Fahmi, for an hour of full-on, footpath-pounding, other-hyphenated-words power walking.... the air was crisp and clean.... well, crisply cold at least... with all that smog, clean is highly unlikely.... and as always I actually enjoyed it. Of course, I would rather be snuggled in bed with a significant other, a few bars of chocolate, a novel and a rainy day, but given that unique confluence of events and items, I have more chance of marrying a Yeti and traveling with him to Mars on vacation, so walking is probably a more likely use of my time....

It's been weeks since I walked with Fahmi, stopping all exercise as he did for Ramadan, and after getting used to walking my butt off (disembodied body parts are a little talked-about side-effect of power walking, and more than a little unsightly) with just my iPod for company, it was great to get back to the somewhat surreal situation of walking along like a madman at 5 a.m. while having an animated conversation with a good friend..... Fahmi though did not seem to appreciate just how mad we are remarking as we passed some cyclists that "they're keen".... at this point, I pointed out to him that we were also out at the same time, which quieted him fairly quickly....

Alas this morning there was no sign of the regulars we see on our route, all of whom have a quirky nickname, which no doubt if they knew about them, they would embrace as signs of great affection on our part... no, not slight bitchiness.... affection .... there's quite a difference, thank you.... there was no sign of 'Red' (a woman who exercises at a nearby gym with bright red hair), or 'Pecs' ( a cute guy who passes us each day with a chest to die for.... although it's unlikely I would frankly) or even our old favourite, 'Zombie Gay", who is always immaculately attired but walks so ramrod straight and never blinks, that he is the harbinger of a zombie outbreak to come..... trust me, when the streets are overrun with well-dressed undead, remember where you read the prediction of their coming.....

Given that I am back into the swimming too, I am thrilled that I stand a very good chance of developing some sort of Exercise Addiction, which will cause me to exercise morning and night, forgoing all food, in the quest for the 'perfect body', my life consumed with the idea of being thinner and thinner till when I am almost almost skeletal, my friends intervene in a dramatic late night moment replete with stirring words and violin music, and save me from myself, shoving a jam donut and half a tub of Sara Lee French Vanilla ice cream in my mouth while they make me sit down in a comfy chair with my feet up...... phew! Gotta say that while it would make a great bestseller, as I describe my heroic return to sloth and fatty indolence from over-exercise and carrot-eating, it sounds like far too much hard work..... better to just get up at 4.45, walk like crazy for an hour before rushing off to work to almost my train.... hmm, the Exercise Addiction could almost be more relaxing......

When the wild blue waters swallowed me whole

Don't you just love a wildly melodramatic headline? So much better than "I swam 750m in the 25m pool in my apartment complex!".... Yep I am not exactly shaking in my boots either! But that's not really the point. Let's face it - swimming laps is not exactly the most scintillating of exercise forms...it's all up and down a water-filled trough of tile-covered concrete, your only distraction the fantastically blue line that threads down the centre of the tiles to... why the end of the lane of course! The crowd roars with excitement while over-excitable ladies, and men collapse with the heart-stopping thrill of it, only revived by the heady smell of enough chlorine to kill off a colony of seals somewhere in Bass Strait....

As predictable, and thrilling, as paint drying in the non day Summer sun, it is nonetheless one of the most soothing ways to chill out after a long day of sitting at my PC, a slave to Outlook and Bill Gates triumvirate of office horrors, Word, Excel and Powerpoint. There is an almost hypnotic element to pushing your way through the water, your wake lapping behind and around you, sharks nipping at your feet, giant barracudas...... OK getting carried away again! Truthfully, while it can be painful and boring, it is also one of the best way to wash all that corporate BS and reacquaint yourself with basic muscle-worn humanity..... making sure you have a hammer to get rid of those sharks, should they ever appear...and mark my words they will! All right they probably won't, but think of my times if they did..... I see a PB in the offing.....

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So today was not one of the worst in the Cubicle of Horrors it has to be said. My wonderful managed was having a well-deserved day off, and so instead of being manically busy, I was just rushed off my feet busy, a vast improvement, and one worthy of not one but two Chai Lattes! Yes I went overboard, and drank Chai Lattes like it was the 7th October, which amazingly it was.... so that worked out very serendipitously...... then I came home, beat off the sharks as I did my laps (c'mon when they do turn up, your ridicule will seem faintly ridiculous!) and chowed down on some Kanga Bangas (kangaroo sausages....yes I eat Skippy!).... I may even squeeze in some novel reading, shark attacks notwithstanding.......

I am an evil iPod parent and should be sold into slavery with Microsoft!

A dramatic headline it is true but I am prone to dramatic flourishes especially when emotions are running high.... and running high they are ever since I callously discarded my old iPod in the Apple Temple in George Street in Sydney City, all to get 10% discount on the brand new iPod I was buying.... the speed with which I handed over my first bought iPod was frightening and shocking especially since it had saved me from going quietly mad in many bland airport terminals - OK it is doubtful I would ever do anything quietly, including going mad, which let's face it, kind of cried out for a voluble soundtrack! - and came with me on various trips to Malaysia, Canada and to my parents' Ancestral Estate in Alstonville NSW... I loved that inanimate piece of technology with a devotion that my digital camera and PC could never quite muster.... here for the first time was a small tiny piece of metal and circuits that managed to contain all the precious music that has acted as the soundtrack to my lifestyle, and that selflessly (well I don't speak digital so I doubt I'd have understood if it had complained) kept playing year after year for 4.5 years until one day.... yes one day.....sob.... I....I...

.....traded it in for a newer model! I didn't mean to....OK well actually yes I did since my new iMac (fussy but wonderful thing that it is and far better than the PC ever was) refused to work with Ye Olde Original iPod (henceforth YOOI) and it was case of only ever listen to about 100 old tracks (all that was left after my disastrous attempt to reset YOOI to factory standard) or get a brand spanking new iPod (BSNI, which doesn't trip off the tongue like YOOI does it? Hmm let's call him Bruce then) ..... so I went to the Apple Temple, confident I could buy Bruce without YOOI suspecting a thing, but alas the evil tempters at the A.T. were offering 10% off if you surrendered in your old iPod....what a horrible dilemma.... how could I possibly give up YOOI for a measly 10% off..... apparently hideously easily it turns out as I whipped out YOOI so fast that I swear his circuits were thrown every which way inside his aging carapace and threw him onto the counter.... consumed with guilt, I dared to ask what would happen to YOOI and I was told by the devilishly cute guy behind the counter that YOOI would likely be pulled apart in some lab somewhere..... I didn't even dare ask why but I suspect there is an illicit trade in old iPods for use by Microsoft in nefarious experiments.... and just like that YOOI left my life...

Of course I told myself YOOI was just an inanimate object and I had freely surrendered up the digital camera and PC (which you will be relieved to know I never named) without any qualms, but YOOI was different....YOOI was fun, independence, music in 4200 shades of enjoyment tha I could soak up anytime anywhere....and now I had just callously given up my first bought iPod in a Faustian deal to get a cheaper deal on my new iPod....I was bizarrely upset in a way that confounded any logic to counteract it.....

That was until I got home, opened up Bruce and saw his pretty sleek lines, colourful screen, and the face that he synced up all 4200 songs on my iTunes database in 15 minutes flat..... to my increased shame all thoughts of YOOI raced from my mind.... and so while I love Bruce as my Second Bought, I can't help feeling like Mommy Dearest, dropping off my dearly treasured YOOI to be dissected like a piece of pigs bladder for whatever dark purpose Apple deems necessary.... Bruce would do well to be nervous because despite my protestations of devotion to my iPod, they can be dumped at a whim.... I am an evil iPod parent and should be hung, drawn and..... oh look Bruce's screen is lighting up...he's so pretty..... now what was I saying?

Mooses are voting Democrat this year I think!